Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

All Good Things

Something we’ve talked about a lot on the show is how much we like stories and series with deliberate endings. Endings are important: They provide closure and meaning. They give narratives shape. And it’s with that in mind that we want to let you know that Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men will be ending later this year.

We never meant for this to be a forever podcast. That it has lasted for going on twelve years is amazing–a gift we never could have imagined when we started out–and it’s important to us to finish it right, to go out deliberately instead of fading off or hitting an abrupt wall.

Don’t worry–we’re not going away next week, or even next month. We’re going to hit a few bucket-list episodes, and then go into one last series: Grant Morrison’s seminal run on New X-Men.

There are a few reasons we’ve decided to wrap with the Morrison run. It’s an incredible high note, one of the most groundbreaking single runs in the history of the franchise. Moreover, it’s a beginning. Morrison’s run on New X-Men signals a sea change in the X-books and their readers’ relationships to them, and feels like the right time to pass the torch to our listeners.

We hope that over the last nearly-twelve years–more than twelve by the time we end–we’ve not only taught you about X-Men continuity and the perils of time travel, but helped you build the tools that’ll let you engage critically with the stories you love and find joy even in the ones you don’t.

You’ve got this.

We believe in you.

(We’ll also be around for the next five-or-so months, so, there’s that.)

Love,
Jay & Miles

As Mentioned in Episode 513 – Eve of Destruction

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

513 – Eve of Destruction

In which Jay and Miles make an announcement; the X-Men are down to bare bones; Cyclops and Corsair are stunningly bad at feelings; Trish Tilby is stunningly bad at journalism; Magneto says goodbye to nuance; and Jean Grey assembles a team.

X-PLAINED:

  • X-Corps vs. X-Corp
  • A thing that will be happening in a few months
  • The story so far
  • Uncanny X-Men #391-392
  • X-Men #111
  • The state of the X-Men
  • A short-lived Cyclops costume
  • A reunion
  • A sorry excuse
  • Resolution, somewhat
  • Genosha (more) (again)
  • Conflict of interest
  • Several excellent villain speeches
  • Joanna Cargill (Frenzy) (again)
  • Jean-Paul Beaubier (Northstar) (again)
  • Hector Rendoza
  • Yet another angry mob
  • Paulie Provenzano (Omerta)
  • Leyu Yoshida (Sunpyre)
  • Ice skating in Rockefeller Center
  • Our picks for a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

NEXT EPISODE: Eve of Destruction concludes!


Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

Buy rad swag at our Dashery shop!

What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking About Stuff

Hello!

We’ve mentioned before that we love our commenters here, and we do–you are some of the most consistently interesting and civil folks on the web. However, we want to take a moment to establish a few ground rules in context of some trends we’ve been seeing:

  1. This is not your personal blog. Keep comments germane to the post and the discussion.
  2. No linkspamming. If you post a link, it needs to have context–included in the comment–related to the conversation or the post. See above re: this not being your personal blog.
  3. No AI. No links to AI “art.” Seriously.

We’ll be enforcing these pretty rigorously, so if your comments aren’t getting through or are disappearing, consider how they may be interacting with the above guidelines.

Stay awesome!

Much love,
J&M

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Due to sentinels clones doppelgängers from the future a technoorganic virus Gambit’s accent an electrical fire in Matt’s studio, Episode 189 is going to be up late. It’s looking like everything should be back on schedule later this week; but if not, we’ll be sure to let you know ASAP.

Thanks for your patience!

-J&M

Not Exactly 179…

Hi, Listeners! Due to travel-related connectivity issues, we’re taking an involuntary holiday break. We’ll be back with the actual episode 179 next week!

See you in 2018…

As Mentioned in Episode 157 – Melted to Slag

Listen to the episode here.


157 – Melted to Slag

Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original!

In which the X-Tinction Agenda reaches its Return of the Jedi; Wolverine is a weaponized nuisance; HR would like a word with Gambit; Havok gets framed; Cameron Hodge is the great unifier; Genosha is revolting; you don’t get to make a threatening speech about someone else’s powers; Jean Grey is tired of your bullshit; and Jay and Miles may or may not dive into the Siege Perilous!

X-PLAINED:

  • The Law of Conservation of Plot Elements
  • Uncanny X-Men #272
  • New Mutants #97
  • X-Factor #62
  • The Story So Far
  • Glasses fashions in comics
  • The difference between Batman and the Punisher
  • How to tell that something has gone terribly wrong
  • Acceptable pants
  • Some really sketchy judicial process
  • A ruse
  • Several retcons concerning Wolverine
  • Consequence-free impaling
  • Chekhov’s genetic engineering
  • Louise Simonson’s final issue of New Mutants
  • The relative durability of mutants
  • A number of prescient threats
  • This one time Jay and Miles got paid to throw a bunch of printers down a flight of stairs
  • Summers Brothers team-ups
  • A very cathartic fight
  • Thoughts on books as physical artifacts and collecting comics
  • Places to jump into long X-series on Marvel Unlimited
  • Our plans for the hiatus

THE PODCAST WILL BE ON HIATUS DURING MAY, JUNE, AND JULY, 2017! SEE YOU IN AUGUST!


You can find the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

IT LIVES!

We woke up this morning to this amazingness in our Twitter stream:

cosplay

This is not a photo of us. This is a photo of listeners @StudentofWhim and @Biscainer, who decided to celebrate the new title and URL by cosplaying as the versions of us from our cover art, which is unquestionably the most awesomely Borgesian thing that has ever happened to us in nearly two years of X-Plaining the X-Men.

Speaking of the new stuff, if you’re reading this, it means that we are now at our fancy new URL, xplainthexmen.com! (We almost went with JayandMiles.com, but someone pointed out that we’d have to change it again in a dozen or so years when the Littlest X-Perts come of age and take over, so that just redirects here.) In theory, all of the old links will keep working, but here’s a quick-reference list of where to find what:

iTunes should be showing the correct title now or within the next few days; and your feeds should update automatically.

We’re still working on getting Patreon and Redbubble updated; we’ll let you know as soon as those are moved over (for now, they’re right where they’ve always been).

Obviously, this is a big shift, and it’s involved a lot of coordination, so please pardon any hiccoughs in the days ahead; and let us know if anything’s running wrong, or if you notice the wrong name anywhere!

A Brief Heads-Up

Art by Russell Dauterman.
(Dauterman / Sotomayor)

Jay here!

A quick heads up: for the next few weeks I’ll be out of town, getting and then recovering from top surgery (Yay!).

Here’s what to expect:

PODCASTS: Business as usual! We’ve recorded ahead a few weeks out, and the splendid Elisabeth Allie is going to be filling in so that I can take a few consecutive weeks off. Miles will be handling the copy and visual companions for an episode or two; please be nice to him as he gets his sea legs.

VIDEO REVIEWS: Miles is flying solo while I’m in Florida! Depending on the concentration of books, video reviews will go up either weekly or every other week. Also, I stole the external mic so we could record episode 93, so, that might be a thing. SORRY, MILES!

EVERYTHING ELSE: Blog and social media will probably be pretty quiet for at least the first week; and you should expect significant delays on e-mail correspondence. If you need to get in touch with us about something time-sensitive between now and January 23, please e-mail xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com with “ATTN: MILES” in the subject line.

XO,

J