illyana rasputin – Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 396 – Giant-Size Special #11

January 1, 2023 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

Illyana Rasputin knows what you did. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Bernard Chang channels Bob McLeod. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Bernard Chang channels Paul Smith. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

“Well, you would have, but you left him at the altar and Rogue and Gambit took your spot…” (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

I’ve missed these kids. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Well, Monet is actually two kids, and… (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Wolfsbane x-plains smooching. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

And that jerk seagull doesn’t even care. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Basically, you’re all going to end up either awesome, dead, or ignored by most writers. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

“Did you bring me a present, Uncle Mikhail?” (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

How to make a long conversation visually compelling, part one. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Bernard Chang channels Bill Sienkiewicz. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

It’s easy to forget how much more control of her powers Rahne gained over a decade of comics. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Karma: even scarier than Magik. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Aww kid (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Look at all that science! (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

If this was Mystique instead of Karma, she’d turn into an eagle right after saying that. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Now that is a title page. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

When Best Teenagers become Best Young Adults. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

How to make a long conversation visually compelling, part two. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

It’s cool, Doug, you’ll come back to life and marry a large wife. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Aww hell yeah (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Poor counterpart-less Magma and Karma look so bored. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Pure, uncut nostalgia. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

NEXT EPISODE: Sabretooth betrays an X-team! Again!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

Behold the glory that is the Hardee’s kids meal comic X-Men: Time Gliders
Subscribe to Al Ewing’s email newsletter!

396 – Giant-Size Special #11

January 1, 2023 Miles 14 comments

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we spend too long trying to place a time-travel miniseries in continuity, Al Kennedy does us a solid, Bernard Chang draws some excellent New Mutants young and old, Al Ewing x-plains X-Men: Red, Forearm and Random play Nintendo, and we reveal the winners of The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence!

X-PLAINED:

Jay’s spatial and temporal whereabouts
Cannonball, Mirage, Magik, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Karma, Magma, Cypher, Warlock, and Douglock
New Mutants: Truth or Death
Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin, gal pals
Triple-dog dares
Nova Roma, or not
Mikhail F**king Rasputin
The arrogance of reality warpers
How to write Magma
The Technarchy and the Phalanx
Hardee’s X-Men: Time Gliders
Farmboy chic
Bernard Chang’s 21 Panels
Branching vs. overwriting timelines
The effects of de-aging and history rewriting on immunology
Found family
She Who Swam With The Acanti
Sleep-Eeze Mattresses Starring The Hulk
Arrako
Continuity synchronicity
S.W.O.R.D. as a workplace drama
The moral downfall of Abigail Brand
The leadership styles of Storm, Magneto, and Sunspot
Himbo disambiguation
The fates of Armor, Risque, and Peeper
Mysterium Clicker
Santa Claus
The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence

(Note: Our interview with Al Ewing contains spoilers for X-Men: Red!)

NEXT EPISODE: Sabretooth betrays an X-team! Again!

Check out 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!

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316 – Return to Megalopolis: At the Movies with the New Mutants

December 6, 2020 Jay 16 comments

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In which we review the New Mutants’ film debut.

NEXT EPISODE: Rogue, Gambit, and feelings!

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As Mentioned in Episode 300 – Götterdämmerung

July 5, 2020 Jay 2 comments

Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

Trust us–it looks better on foil. (X-Men: Omega)

Those skulls can’t be stable. (X-Men: Omega)

The gang’s mostly here! (X-Men: Omega)

[Cries in Dark Phoenix Saga] (X-Men: Omega)

Truly, he has been preparing for this moment for his entire life.

It’s cute how Nate assumes that it’s possible to talk Magneto out of fighting anybody, ever. (X-Men: Omega)

I’d like to imagine that the M’Kraan crystal made the conscious choice not to show her Onslaught. (X-Men: Omega)

YES! (X-Men: Omega)

Just, um, imagine that he’s holding a gun and also using his powers out of… enthusiasm? For the gun? I guess? (X-Men: Omega)

“Wait, are you the angry Claremontean narrator?!” (X-Men: Omega)

It’s okay. He’ll be back in about 14 years. (X-Men: Omega)

Nobody expects an ongoing series! (X-Men: Omega)

And that, as they say, is that. (X-Men: Omega)

NEXT EPISODE: Back in the 616!

LINKS & FURTHER EPICS:

Janet K. Lee makes really, really gorgeous comics and other art.
A lot of the episodes we mentioned are in the roundup from our 5th anniversary episode.
You can hear more about Jay’s chickens-in-law in Hawk Talk: Florida Mans

300 – Götterdämmerung

July 5, 2020 Jay 11 comments

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In which the Age of Apocalypse comes to an end; Angel briefly lives up to his potential; Bishop was sometimes right; It’s not a climactic ending without an X-Men #137 reference; Colossus breaks our hearts; X-Men: Marvels Snapshot will be out in September; and somehow we have made 300 of these things.

X-PLAINED:

Beast vs. Dark Beast
X-Men: Omega
The entirety of the (first) Age of Apocalypse
Potpourri vs. incense
Dramatic hair
Many, many errors
Unforeseen consequences
A long-anticipated team-up
Many deaths
Art as artifact
Narration that has haunted Jay for 20 years
One of the more persistent deaths of David Haller
Blast Attack
The end of a world
Refugees from the Age of Apocalypse
Our favorite X-milestone issues
Theoretical teams
Orphans
When X-Men: Marvels Snapshot is actually coming out
Our favorite show bits
How Jay’s chickens-in-law are doing

NEXT EPISODE: X-Men Prime

Check out 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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 293 – The Monster Under the World

May 10, 2020 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the podcast here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

Almost as cool as the way the backgrounds of the Marvel Universe Series 3 trading cards can be laid out as two giant space-pictures.

Husk, you’ve changed! And Chamber, you… have a face! (Generation Next #1)

Red and yellow outfit, banded metal skin, muscles on muscles, utterly broken by the world… I guess Earth-295 isn’t that different. (Generation Next #1)

We’ve seen Kitty bully younger mutants before… just usually not with as much stabbing. (Generation Next #1)

“I mean, we don’t want them to be inexperienced at dying, do we?” (Generation Next #1)

Know-It-All is pretty sure the depiction of technology in Hackers is way too bland and boring. (Generation Next #1)

Drums. Drums in the deep. (Generation Next #2)

Do minibuses look like that? No. But should they? (Generation Next #2)

This was one of the weirder anti-smoking PSAs of the 90s. (Generation Next #2)

Quietus is troubling. (Generation Next #2)

Paige has a zero-tolerance policy for Monty Python references. (Generation Next #2)

Only Chris Bachalo could make relatively normal people and monsters like that look at home in the same panel. (Generation Next #3)

“Like, the spiritual concept, not like Xi’an from New Muta… You know what, never mind.” (Generation Next #3)

Weirdly, I’ve had this exact same dream. (Generation Next #3)

Meanwhile, everything is terrible. (Generation Next #3)

YIP! (Generation Next #3)

Enclosed V Exposed: Dawn of Panel Layouts (Generation Next #4)

And then Sugar Man ate through his own mangled corpse and burrowed into the next scene. As one does. (Generation Next #4)

noooooo (Generation Next #4)

NOOOOOOOO (Generation Next #4)

Not to downplay the effectiveness of SPLOT SPLANG BONK THOPP, but it’s those irregular, sharp panel borders that really sell the impact. (Generation Next #4)

It all happens so quickly. (Generation Next #4)

And I’ll remember those panels for the rest of my life. (Generation Next #4)

Ever. (Generation Next #4)

NEXT EPISODE: Happy Mother’s Day!

293 – The Monster Under the World

May 3, 2020 Jay 11 comments

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In which not all Mondos are created equal; the kids are only rarely all right; the Age of Apocalypse is not Magneto’s fault; Sugar Man is the stuff of universal nightmares; “cartoonish” is not necessarily a plus; and the Age of Apocalypse is not particularly sustainable.

X-PLAINED:

Generation Next #1-4
The tradition of YA horror in X-books
Bachalo unchained
Whose fault the Age of Apocalypse is
Adaptive technology vs. Apocalypse
Chamber of Earth-295
Husk of Earth-295
Skin of Earth-295
Mondo of Earth-295
Vincente Cimetta
Know-It-All (Claudia)
An abysmal training exercise
Colossus of Earth-295
Shadowcat of Earth-295
Gardner Monroe (Flashback)
Quietus
Sugar Man
The Portland and/or Seattle Core
Illyana Rasputin
Ace
Human collaborators
A gratuitous Monty Python reference
The difference between mass and volume
Number Six
The fall of Generation Next
Growing up in the Age of Apocalypse
Illyana 2.0
Subtext vs. queerbaiting

NEXT EPISODE: X-Calibre!

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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 276 – Wizard Problems

December 8, 2019 Jay Leave a comment

Listen to the podcast here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

I’m still kind of angry that this isn’t the interior art style. (Excalibur #83)

But are there roller skates? (Excalibur #83)

Still creepy; still cool. (Excalibur #83)

‘Kay. (Excalibur #83)

There’s something very Philip Bond about this pair of panels; and I, for one, am here for it. (Excalibur #83)

Ew. (Excalibur #83)

Evil Kitty’s hair is SO GREAT. (Excalibur #84)

Seriously. So. Excellent. (Excalibur #84)

Is it, though? (Excalibur #84)

Purple on purple. (Excalibur #84)

“Magic, subtext, whatever.” (Excalibur #84)

Choices, choices. (Excalibur #84)

It’s like when a character has been written out of a show but the actor’s contract isn’t up so they have to keep doing flashbacks. (Excalibur #85)

Starring Eliot Spencer as Wolverine. (Excalibur #85)

That’s just… not true. Like, at all. (Excalibur #85)

AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (Excalibur #85)

Next Episode: Jorts Unlimited!

LINKS & FURTHER DIVERSIONS:

You can hear all about the time Margali made Kurt his own personal hell in Episode 134 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.
The Raven probably isn’t a good film; but it is a delightful one.
Here’s Max’s significantly funnier take on Tarot’s potential.
Jay co-wrote a Thor novel! You can pre-order it here, if you are so inclined.

276 – Wizard Problems

December 8, 2019 Jay 11 comments

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In which Excalibur gets a regular writer again; we judge a book against against its covers; nothing good ever comes from being sexy on Muir Isle; and the soul sword’s real power is cutting through continuity.

X-PLAINED:

Stegron
Dinosaur powers
Excalibur #83-85 (The Soul Sword Trilogy)
Warren Ellis on Excalibur
Excalibur (more) (again)
Bends Sinister and Bend Sinister
Outsider days
Mail
Boundaries
Darkoth
Gravemoss
The Winding Way
Shrill
A problematic prosthesis
Roger Corman’s The Raven
A large number of continuity errors
Gratuitous dickery
An untold tale
The semantics of skin removal
Possession vs. retrograde amnesia
The circle of nostalgia

NEXT EPISODE: Jorts Unlimited!

Check out 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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!