Look at this gorgeous monstrosity. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
This dude would not appear in the main Marvel Universe until about a decade after he was introduced here. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
FORESHADOWING! (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Mystique’s worst kid, by a fairly wide margin. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Remember her; she’ll be a big deal later. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Stryfe: The Worst Kid in Your Fandom. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
SPOILER: This cover is profoundly misleading. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
WARREN KENNETH WORTHINGTON III, YOU DID WHAT?! (Uncanny X-Men #297)
A rare moment of candor from Professor X. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
The only part of this issue that I REALLY have trouble believing is that Jubilee was carying around a second pair of ‘blades just for funsies. Those things are cumbersome as heck. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
DAMNIT, JUBILEE. THIS IS WHY NOBODY TRUSTS YOU. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
Aw. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
And Aw, again. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
Yet a third Aw. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll explode your face. (X-Force #19)
Bobby has had a pretty rough year. (X-Force #19)
Slow clap. (X-Force #19)
Vanessa is not having a great time post-X-Force. (X-Force #19)
PHOENIX II DECOLLETAGE! (X-Force #19)
Those are actually… really snazzy team uniforms. Dang. (X-Force #19)
And that was the end of THAT particular metaphor. (X-Force #19)
If you want to get involved in the transcripts–or just hang out with rad folks–come join us on Discord! (Transcription organization happens in the Greymalkin channel.)
In which “wolves” proves a remarkably broad category in the 616; we at least nominally wrap up X-Cutioner’s Song; Stryfe could really use a style guide; we issue our first-ever music challenge; Jubilee is an agent of chaos; Gambit’s powers are a metaphor; Charles Xavier has a complicated relationship to disability; the quality of Jay’s penmanship is a matter of official record; Boom Boom is a remarkably good costume designer; Cannonball comes into his own as a leader; and every “WHAT?!” you hear on this show is fresh and original.
X-PLAINED:
Wolves, to a very limited extent
Jay & Miles (kinda) at NYCC
Transcripts
X-Cutioner’s Song
Stryfe’s Strike File
Uncanny X-Men #297
X-Force #19
A gentle bird caught in a swirling tornado of lust and desperation
Shades of me
Shades of you
Shades of them
Our first-ever music challenge
Some foreshadowing
Nostalgia
A very nice hug
The one good side effect of Stryfe’s technoorganic virus
Charles Xavier vs. disability politics
Several practical jokes in very poor taste
Teacher-student bonding
An excellent epithet
Some lettering choices
An extended Hail Caesar riff
The Clooney Scale
An enduring mystery
Clone powers
Exclamatory logistics
NEXT EPISODE: Hey, remember Excalibur?
MUSIC CHALLENGE: Write and record a song based on or using text from Stryfe’s Strike File (or any of his rants from X-Cutioner’s Song)! Send your masterpieces (or links to ’em) to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject STRYFE SONG!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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.)
“We don’t need no conservation of mass!” (New Mutants Annual #7)
Harness and Piecemeal. It only gets creepier from here. (New Mutants Annual #7)
This is definitely the last thing you see before you die. (New Mutants Annual #7)
Spoiler: Nope. (New Mutants Annual #7)
99% sure these dudes do not actually know how to play chess. (New Mutants Annual #7)
How great would it have been if Cable had made a Gulliver’s Travels joke? So great. (New Mutants Annual #7)
“Attack them with all your sound effects!” (New Mutants Annual #7)
Spoiler: They do, and it’s not. (New Mutants Annual #7)
OH, THANK GOD. (New Warriors Annual #1)
Piecemeal’s shirt is a little on-the-nose. (New Warriors Annual #1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJg6Duzzf4 (New Warriors Annual #1)
Namorita is great. (New Warriors Annual #1)
Oh, dear me. (New Warriors Annual #1)
I really like all the character-intro pages in this crossover. (Uncanny X-Men Annual #15)
Mother of the year, y’all. (Uncanny X-Men Annual #15)
You’re never too evil or too sexy for some good, old-fashioned filicide! (Uncanny X-Men Annual #15)
You sure are, James. You sure are. (Uncanny X-Men Annual #15)
Inappropriate, Bobby. (X-Factor Annual #6)
None of my math textbooks were ever this psychedelic. (X-Factor Annual #6)
I briefly considered making this visual companion nothing but character-intro pages. (X-Factor Annual #6)
“Kings of Pain? Oh, yeah, isn’t that the crossover where Cyclops encourages a disturbed youth to commit suicide?” (X-Factor Annual #6)
(Nah, actually, he’s comparatively ethical about it; especially considering that the kid is technically already dead and has been for years.) (X-Factor Annual #6)
Okay, then. (X-Factor Annual #6)
NEXT EPISODE: Summers family bullshit on the moon!
In which we finally announce our NYCC panel lineup; Boom Boom is the Gina Linetti of X-Force; we don’t actually know very much about the New Warriors; Cable grows as a person; Cyclops makes an ethically dubious call; Warren Kenneth Worthington III is a jerk; Jay gets very angry at a fictional character; no one gets a happy ending and the skeleton was inside you all along.
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.)
In which Stryfe is the Jan Brady of the Summers family; Miles’s dreams are trampled beneath tiny, delicate feet; Rictor goes on an unnecessary rescue mission; Cable is Washington to Cannonball’s Hamilton; the New Mutants may or may not time travel; Boom Boom scarfs up some chow for the bohunk; you should definitely not mess with Feral’s pigeons; Liefeld fights are pure rule-of-cool; Jay is absolutely not qualified to give legal advice; and we bid a bittersweet goodbye to New Mutants.
X-PLAINED:
Zero
Production transitions
The end of New Mutants
New Mutants #98-100
Plotting vs. scripting
The most valuable issue of New Mutants
Gideon
Liefeld butts (more) (again)
The very dramatic death of Emmanuel da Costa
Tolliver
Some Spider-Man looking jerk
Domino (Neena Thurman)
A specific and likely inaccurate timeline
Feral (Maria Callasantos)
The signature Liefeld Kick™
The Tavern on the Green
Five or six kinds of mutants
A sad goodbye
Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven)
Cadre Alliance
Nesting habits of the urban bohunk
Some rad moves
A prologue that is also an epilogue
The Stryfe that might have been
How Logan fits into the X-Men movie timeline
X-Men mostly likely to watch Yuri!!! On Ice
Jay at FlameCon!!
NEXT EPISODE: Beast has a sexistential crisis!
You can find the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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.)
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (but not in that order).
Context is irrelevant. (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends)
“John, dude, can we talk about the fact that you just turned into a fucking bear? No? Okay.” Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
“It means you’ll be hated and feared! Isn’t that wonderful?” (Firestar #1)
“Professor, is it true what they say about exposition in X-books?” (Firestar #1)
Wait ’til they find out she hasn’t even read Carlyle! (Firestar #1)
Oh. Angelica. Honey. No. (Firestar #1)
I’m pretty sure there’s a Talking Heads music video that starts exactly like this. (Firestar #1)
DON’T TRUST HER, ANGELICA! SHE’LL BLOW UP YOUR HORSE! (Firestar #1)
This horse’s name is Butter Rum. Don’t get too attached. (Firestar #2)
The Emma Frost who actually cares about her students did not make her first appearance until some years later. This Emma Frost is just an unapologetic monster. (Firestar #2)
Emma Frost is the best evil narrator. (Firestar #2)
“What could POSSIBLY go wrong?” (Firestar #2)
Miles ‘ships it SO hard. (Firestar #2)
That horror-movie WHINNEY! in the last panel, though. (Firestar #2)
Remember that time Emma Frost convinced a vulnerable teenage girl that she had killed her beloved horse by becoming sexually aroused? BECAUSE THAT DEFINITELY HAPPENED. (Firestar #2)
“What? This? Oh, no, I build killer robots of ALL my friends.” (Firestar #3)
AHAHAHA OH RANDALL YOU’RE SO DOOMED (Firestar #3)
Firestar X-Plains X-Men #193. (Firestar #3)
Seriously, I’m pretty sure Angelica’s dad being kind of a dick to her is the only thing that saves him from CERTAIN DOOM. (Firestar #3)
(He feels bad about it, though, so he still gets beaten up in the airport.) (Firestar #3)
Why does she throw her drink? We may never know. (Firestar #3)
And then she just straight-up breaks into “Stars” from Les Mis. (Firestar #4)
So sinister! (Firestar #4)
And that’s the end of Randall. (Firestar #4)
Fight scene, or breakin’ it down on the dance floor? YOU BE THE JUDGE! (Firestar #4)
For full effect, you have to imagine Firestar’s dialogue read by Alison Brie as Annie Edison. (Firestar #4)
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which Miles has a brush with nostalgia; Angelica Jones is secretly a Thomas Hardy protagonist; it doesn’t need to make sense if it’s awesome; and Emma Frost really needs a mustache to twirl.
X-Plained:
Trevor Fitzroy
Firestar (Angelica Jones)
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
Nostalgia
X-Men, if sometimes the main characters were bears
Inexplicably Australian Wolverine
Ms. Lion
Marvel Divas
Sudsy fun
Superhero sitcoms
Firestar #1-4
Basic palmistry
Generic mean girls
Coen Brothers YA
The reinvention of Emma Frost
Some epic gaslighting
Butter Rum
Mutivac
Miles’s favorite star-crossed ‘ship
Why Thunderbird I has stayed dead
Contextual definitions of “organic”
NEXT WEEK: Secret Wars
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which Nimrod is probably an honorary Summers by this point; Claremont hits a centennial; it’s probably pretty hard to get an unconscious person into tight leather pants; the X-Men finally encounter a world that actually hates and fears them; and the Power Pack fits somewhat uneasily with the grown-up Marvel Universe.
X-PLAINED:
Nimrod
Uncanny X-Men #193-195
Thunderbird II (James Proudstar)
Situation-inappropriate attire
The worst Hellions
Firestar (Angelica Jones)
Why you call ahead before breaking into NORAD
Leadership
Public opinion
Juggernaut fights
How the X-Men wake up
Nazgûl
Tyranny of the Masses: The Robot
The Voltron Special
The Power Pack
Navigating crossovers
NEXT WEEK: Firestar!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!