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!

500 – People Who Stick Together

In which we sure did that.

X-PLAINED:

  • Miracles of magnetism
  • Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: Maximum Security!

Special thanks to:

  • Producer, fellow musketeer, and all-around mensch Matt Hunter
  • Episode 500 guests David Maybury and Josephine Riesman
  • Illustrator David Wynne
  • Producers Emeritus Bobby Roberts, Kyle Yount, and Kurt Lloyd
  • Parental-leave pinch hitters Al Kennedy and Dylan Higgins
  • Everyone who’s made the X-comics what they are
  • Our families, friends, and enablers
  • Our kickass patrons, who make this podcast possible
  • All of our listeners, who make this podcast worthwhile

Please consider this to be the visual companion to episode 500.

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!

As Mentioned in Episode 491 – Live from the Library

Listen to the podcast here.



LINKS & FURTHER READING

491 – Live from the Library

In which we record live from the Library of Congress; time travel complicates everything; X-Men is a fundamentally queer narrative; we attempt to summarize a lot of history very fast; and when identities are politicized, claiming them becomes a political act.

X-PLAINED:

  • LC-GLOBE
  • The first openly queer X-Man
  • Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • Why we do what we do
  • Why the X-Men are worth studying
  • Returning nuance to critical discussion of media
  • A brief(ish) history of X-Men and queerness in X-Men
  • Iceman Watch
  • Retroactive foreshadowing
  • The mutant metaphor
  • Found family
  • Subtext
  • Text
  • Facets of mutant activism
  • Coming-out stories
  • Various vectors of diversity
  • Some comics Jay wrote
  • Comics in libraries
  • Where to start with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • X-Men for horror fans
  • Our favorite X-Men lineups
  • Identity politics
  • The T-O virus vs. the Legacy Virus

NEXT EPISODE: Brain Sharks!


This episode doesn’t exactly have a traditional visual companion, but you can click through the entire slide deck from the live show–and find links to the essays we mentioned–on our blog.

Jay has some additional thoughts on identity politics, which you can read here.

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

308 – No Story Is the Whole Story

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

In which writing X-books requires a somewhat different approach to continuity than writing about them; time is weird; Jay overthinks fictional publications; Scott Summers is (at least sometimes) Autistic; Sinister is not subtle; and no story is the whole story.

X-PLAINED:

  • Marvels
  • Marvels Snapshots
  • X-Men: Marvels Snapshots #1
  • Why Cyclops is worth caring about
  • Collaboration
  • Fictional publications
  • Intent vs. ownership of characters
  • Research
  • The difference between writing X-books and writing about X-books
  • The irreconcilable continuity tangle of Scott Summers’s childhood
  • Limitations of plaid pants
  • What ended up on the cutting room floor
  • Parallels
  • Other pitches
  • Cyclops’s best outfit

NEXT EPISODE: Dream Nails



No visual companion this week; see above for links!

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!

303 – No Simple Answers, feat. Laura Hudson

In which writer and editor Laura Hudson joins us as we take a break from X-Men comics to discuss the complicated ethics of consuming and covering comics by creators we’re not comfortable promoting.


LINKS:


No visual companion to this one, for obvious reasons; see the links listed above.

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 301 – Can’t Beat the Real Thing

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER HOMECOMINGS: