In which Excalibur is beset by shady organizations; Nightcrawler gets a new look; nobody hates Pete Wisdom as much as Lockheed hates Pete Wisdom; Brian Braddock should not be allowed to dress himself; Excalibur invades Black Air; and Onslaught continues to lurk.
X-PLAINED:
Some countries Magneto has invaded
Excalibur #96-99
Black Air (more) (again)
The London branch of the Hellfire Club
Nightcrawler’s new look
Meggan’s new look
The return of Alistaire Stuart
How not to dress for the Hellfire Club
The Shadow Cabinet (a little)
Hacking
Agent Scratch
Avengers vs. Avengers
Addiction recovery
Accreditation of the Xavier School
Developing a library X-collection
NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk!
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor’s increasingly low recruitment standards!
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In which Miles speculates about superheroes’ sex lives; Doctor Doom is an incorrigible scamp; the Lady of the Lake visits California; Captain Britain lacks basic superheroic social skills; Jay has strong feelings about doggerel; the warwolves know how to commit to a bit; and Excalibur and the X-Men continue to have terrible communication skills.
X-PLAINED:
One aspects of doombot functionality
Excalibur #37-41
The Soul Sword’s origins and current status
Promethium
Semantic disambiguation with regards to Limbo
The West Coast Avengers
The Lady of the Swimming Pool
Doctor Doom’s personal demons
Several team-ups
The heart of Limbo
Phoenix science
Darkoth the Demon (Desmond Pitt)
The Trial of Lockheed
A long-awaited reunion that isn’t actually a long-awaited reunion
A theoretical Frost-Summers wedding
What happened to Jen Askani post- “Endgame”
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor Forever
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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which “Cross-Time Caper” is something of a misnomer; Excalibur is an awful lot of fun to summarize; none of us will ever live up to Oscar Wilde’s expectations; Captain Britain secretly derives his powers from genre; sometimes things turn out to be simple; Kitty Pryde is better at everything than you; manipulation and murder are the new flowers and candy; context may or may not ruin everything; Meggan gets a new outfit; Technet takes Brighton; and some universes are just too silly to survive.
X-PLAINED:
Rick Jones, Sidekick Supreme
The Cross-Time Caper
Excalibur #12-15
Three love triangles
Jay’s mom’s late iguana
Captain Marshall, Lord Champion of the Realm
Prince William
Butch the ogre
Princess Kate
Fisticuffs
Instant air conditioning, Excalibur-style
Bagpipe Vader
An anticlimactic solution to a protracted problem
Sorcery 101
Several profoundly unethical ways to initiate a relationship
Arrested Excalibur
The Campsite Rule of relationships
The logistics and social history of tarring and feathering
A protracted parody
A very large number and several names for it
A theoretical team-up
Ultimate Hunger
An unidentified comic that is not Ultimate Hunger
Some less-than-ideal creative choices
A multiversal montage
Jamie Braddock (more) (again)
A duck
The unenviable fate of Doctor Crocodile
Pairing mutants with metal genres
Inconsistent flight safety measures
NEXT EPISODE: Killing the X-Men, with Charles Soule
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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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which everything is worse with Nazis; Excalibur gets its groove back; Meggan has an identity crisis; Kitty gets a crush; a dragon gets interdimensional sanctuary; and the Cross-Time Caper starts not with a bang, but a foomp.
X-PLAINED:
The death of Lilandra Neramani
Excalibur #8-11
The best name in Hollywood
Still more of Inferno’s aftermath
A basketball game
Blackbird disambiguation
Several long-delayed reunions and one subsequent resolution
Alastaire Stuart (and his banana)
Tourists who are also lizards
Lightning Force
A number of unfortunate encounters
The difference between Errol Flynn characters and Errol Flynn
The fall of Nigel Frobisher
The switch that turns the engine invisible
What may be the world’s least subtle euphemistic use of the term “roommate”
How the discourse around comics has changed since the ’80s
Jubilee vs. power creep
NEXT EPISODE: Deadpool v Gambit, with Ben Acker!
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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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/31/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
We encourage you to judge this book by its cover. (Nightcrawler #1)
WELL DONE. (Nightcrawler #1)
No idea whether “Boggie” is actually a Bored of the Rings reference, but we’d like to think so. (Nightcrawler #1)
Yowza! (Nightcrawler #1)
We want a vacation home in Dave Cockrum’s brain. (Nightcrawler #1)
AND THEN A SHARK WIZARD HAPPENED. (Nightcrawler #1)
Things about this series that are absolutely delightful: all of them. (Nightcrawler #2)
Boggies X-Plain the plot. (Nightcrawler #2)
OH HELL YES (Nightcrawler #2)
Whoops. (Nightcrawler #2)
Don’t get comfortable! You’ve still got two issues to go! (Nightcrawler #2)
Bamfs are basically terrible sex smurfs. (Nightcrawler #3)
Meen. It’s spelled M-E-E-N. (Nightcrawler #3)
Suuuuuure, we’ve heard that one before. (Nightcrawler #3)
Wellp. (Nightcrawler #3)
X-cellent use of sound effects. (Nightcrawler #3)
Lady Bamfs are ALSO terrible sex Smurfs. (Nightcrawler #4)
CRETACEOUS SAM, WE LOVE YOU. (Nightcrawler #4)
That Illyana Rasputin owns a prodigious collection of pornography is the least surprising revelation of this series. (Nightcrawler #4)
In his defense, she does have extra fancy hair. (Iceman #1)
“You don’t steal another man’s elemental puns!” (Iceman #1)
If we had a dollar for every time this happened… (Iceman #1)
Aw, Bobby. (Iceman #1)
This could definitely not be read as an allegory for anything else ever, right? (Iceman #1)
This is basically how all of our family reunions go, too.
Sneaking in the window, in his underwear (costume, but STILL), carrying an interdimensional projector: kind of the perfect Bobby Drake moment, no? (Iceman #2)
Kiiiinda wishing they’d gone with Freaky Friday instead of Back to the Future, but whatever. (Iceman #2)
I bet at times like this, Bobby seriously questions his choice of superhero costume. (Iceman #2)
Well, that got grim fast. (Iceman #2)
“Man, Marty McFly never had to deal with this shit!” (Iceman #2)
And now, a surreal existential hellscape! (Iceman #3)
Not gonna lie: I love the hell out of this version of the X-Men. (Iceman #3)
NO SERIOUSLY IT’S EVIL PALETTE-SWAPPED ORKO (Iceman #3)
Oblivion X-Plains the story so far. (Iceman #3)
Teenagers, man. (Iceman #3)
Parents: the same in any dimension. (Iceman #4)
Iceman getting universe-defying moments of heroism is rare and pretty much universally awesome. (Iceman #4)
THIS FUCKING MINISERIES, MAN. (Iceman #4)
If we had to sum up Iceman in one image, it’d be this one. (Iceman #4)
The implications for multiversal continuity are kind of staggering. (Iceman #4)
Spoiler: This does not actually change anything. (Iceman #4)
Next Week: X-Men ’92, with Chris Sims and Chad Bowers!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/31/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which Nightcrawler does Weird Tales; Iceman does Back to the Future; we want a vacation home in Dave Cockrum’s brain; Bamfs are terrible; the 1983 Iceman miniseries is straight-up bananas; parents just don’t understand; and Rachel will take literally any excuse to talk smack about John Ruskin.
X-PLAINED:
Vanisher
Nightcrawler #1-4
Bizarre Adventures #27
Iceman #1-4
The Well at the Center of Time
The downside to hanging out with pirates
A shark wizard in a tiny loincloth
Better living through sound-effect awareness
Boggies
The key to a classic Nightcrawler story
Earth-5311
Bamfs
The full extent of Rachel’s Smurfs knowledge
Cretaceous Sam
Sehv
Illyana Rasputin’s porn collection
The Drake family
An exceptionally unlikely girl next door
The definitive Miles’s Mom anecdote
Marge Smith / Mirage
White Light
Idiot
Kali (but not that one)
Two generations of Officers Ratchit
Pornography no one wants to see
Death by time travel
Oblivion
Night Man (kinda)
Our ideal cross-media adaptations
NEXT WEEK: X-Men ’92, with Chris Sims and Chad Bowers!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Rachel 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!
