Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Massachusetts Academy

As Mentioned in Episode 42 – A Firestar Is Born

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Listen to the episode here!

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)
Next Week: Secret Wars Why we drink.

42 – A Firestar Is Born

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
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!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Support us on Patreon!

Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 15 – The Ballad of Harvey and Janet

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Listen to the podcast here!

Angelica of the D’Urbervilles.
Starting July 31, new episodes of Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men will be available every Thursday at Comics Alliance! We’ll also continue to release them every Sunday–along with the visual companion–at our site, as well as iTunes, and Stitcher, ; but if you want to be the first kid on the block to hear ’em, head to ComicsAlliance.com on Thursdays!
Meanwhile, want to help support the podcast–and get additional content and cool swag? Please take a minute to check out our Patreon campaign! We’ve got some very cool rewards, but the best part–we think–are the Milestone goals, which are sort of like the X-Men team-up moves of Patreon: giant-size annuals, written posts, original art, a print zine, and more!
“What wardrobe?” “My point exactly.” (X-Men #148)
Lee Forrester: The Best Ever. (X-Men #148)
Good luck with that, buddy. (X-Men #148)
“No, but you’ll be a sorcerer with your own Hell dimension! Won’t that be nice?” (X-Men #148)
Hi, Siryn! (X-Men #148)
Caliban and the Morlocks: Introducing the concept of passing privilege to the mutant metaphor. (X-Men #148)
last-page-of-the-issue Magneto reveals are the gift that keeps on giving. (X-Men #148)
Professor Xavier, doing our job for us. (X-Men #149)
KITTY PRYDE, YOU ARE DELIGHTFUL. (X-Men #149)
Prydeslaught, by Logan Bonner: Professor X’s unchecked rage, plus the id of a 13-year-old Kitty Pryde. We dearly wish this were canon.
Let us never speak of this again. (X-Men #149)
Still kinda bummed we didn’t make more Ann Veal jokes about this guy. “Who?” (X-Men #149)
Even his villain speech is kinda forgettable, but we will take literally any excuse to post more pictures of Kitty’s amazing outfit, so. (X-Men #149)
Phaseball Special! (X-Men #149)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA(X-Men #149)
We appreciate how obviously Lee is trying not to laugh in this panel. (X-Men #149)
There’s… a lot going on on that cover. (X-Men #150)
Magneto’s dastardly plan is basically peaceful nuclear disarmament. (X-Men #150)
Dr. Peter Corbeau: That one NPC your DM clearly rolled up as a PC in another campaign but never got to play so instead rolled into his campaign as an overcompetent badass. (X-Men #150)
The Voyage of the Mimi was an educational show, featuring a very young Ben Affleck and an ungodly earworm of a theme song. We both watched a lot of it in middle school science classes.
Wolverine with wet hair. You’re welcome. (X-Men #150)
“Also, man, he’s got killer abs.” (X-Men #150)
If there were an X-Men drinking game, “Dark City-style brain-ray psychic duel” would definitely be on the list. (X-Men #150)
Magneto: Now available with nuance and additional backstory! (Asteroid base sold separately.) (X-Men #150)
Having taken over Storm’s body, Emma Frost celebrates by, um, quoting King Lear. (X-Men #151)
HARVEY AND JANET, WE LOVE YOU. (X-Men #151)
This week in Scenes Only Chris Claremont Could Have Written: A giant robot busting through a ceiling and telling the shocked people inside, “Fear not! All will be revealed in due course!” (X-Men #151)
HARVEY AND JANET FOREVER! (X-Men #151)
Note the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends ad at the top! (X-Men #152)
Wolverine has a progressive attitude about transhumanism. (X-Men #152)
Well done, Wolverine. (X-Men #152)
How X-Men #137 could net you $2500. (Thanks to Carl Horn for finding this for us!)

15 – The Ballad of Harvey and Janet

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In which we announce exciting new developments, the ASPCA should probably have a word with Emma Frost, Kitty Pryde gets a new costume, Lee Forrester is still the best, Cyclops has an octopus on his chest, Magneto has a change of heart, and Wolverine embraces transhumanism.

X-Plained:

  • The Thomas Hardy novel of superhero comics
  • Friendship
  • X-Men #148-152
  • Unstable Denim
  • Disco Dinner Clubs
  • Caliban (a little)
  • Kitty Pryde’s amazing fashion sense
  • Garokk the Unremarkable
  • Atlantean couture
  • Why Magneto is Interesting
  • The Massachusetts Academy
  • The Persona Exchange Gun
  • Harvey and Janet
  • How to win $2500 in 1980
  • Editorial Outsourcing

You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Support us on Patreon!