In which X-Men don’t get to take vacations; Jay makes a somewhat belated announcement; sometimes Gambit is legitimately pretty cool; the assassins get a day-glo-up; The Crow holds up surprisingly well; Gambit gets exiled again; and Artie and Leech damn well better get to live happily ever after.
X-PLAINED:
Rogue and Gambit’s honeymoon
A thing that Jay is working on
Brood Trouble in the Big Easy
Bella Donna Boudreaux
Gambit #1-4
The New Orleans trilogy
“X-Ternally Yours”
The tithe collector
Things about which your mama may or may not have warned you
Dramatic captions
Candra
The Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds
The pact
Julian Boudreaux (again)
Henri LeBeau and his mustache
Critical nudity
Terminal nudity
Marius Boudreaux
Accent inconsistencies
Draping
Jean Luc LeBeau
Treachery most foul
(Select elements of) Gamit’s origin story
How thieves get kids
Gambit as a romantic hero
Ungrateful children of the Marvel Universe
Petite Chou
Clubbing with Gambit
Subtlety (for some value of the term)
Lifestyles of the rich and immortal
The Church of Lost Thieves
The Elixir of Life
An undersold side effect
A very lucky break
Artie and Leech’s probable adult lives
Villains we’d like to see on the X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Rogue!
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JUBILEE, NO. God, she’s not even wearing any safety gear. (Wolverine #48)
That, Jubilee, is a Lotus 7. Your mentor’s car. Not as clumsy or overwrought as a DeLorean. An elegant media reference… for a more civilized age. (Wolverine #48)
THAT IS A TERRIBLE WAY TO SHOW SOMEONE THE GUN YOU FOUND. (Wolverine #48)
Actually, Jubilee, Wolverine is 100% in the right here. (Wolverine #48)
No one should ever make this show under any circumstances. (Wolverine #48)
Spoiler: No funky butts are in fact dispensated. (Wolverine #48)
Toldja! It’s Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby! (Wolverine #49)
WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST WRITE HER NAME FIRST? IT WOULD HAVE FIT! (Wolverine #49)
The calendar is a little silly, but it’s also an incredibly eerie, cool detail. (Wolverine #49)
“I am not a number! I am a free man!” (Wolverine #49)
Sure, it’s a gimmick; but it’s a cool gimmick! (Wolverine #50)
LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL, RIDICULOUS BASTARD AND HIS BEAUTIFUL, RIDICULOUS MOTORCYCLE. (Wolverine #50)
In Hines’s defense, Canada-616 is absolutely terrible. (Wolverine #50)
…and you, in turn, watch the Hydra operatives; as the NSA watches you; and… (Wolverine #50)
I take this to mean that somewhere there’s a splinter universe where Wolverine had an idyllic but ultimately tragic dalliance with a giant artichoke. (Wolverine #50)
HOW MANY YEARS HAS THAT PIECE OF CAKE BEEN SITTING THERE? (Wolverine #50)
I like the idea that the BIG SECRET isn’t that they faked his memories but that they had to reuse sets because of budget constraints. (Wolverine #50)
Sure you are, buddy. (Wolverine #50)
TWIST! (Wolverine #50)
I appreciate the implication that the ultimate horror is a high school prom. (Wolverine #50)
Aw, Logan. Never change. (Wolverine #50)
NEXT EPISODE: Centaur fight at the State Fair (and other educational adventures)!
In which we were on public radio; it’s probably best just to ignore Romulus; Miles still hasn’t seen the Prisoner and should be very ashamed of himself; toy licensing is the stuff of nightmares; you can upgrade your bloodbath for an additional $1.25; Jay may or may not have family ties to Weapon X; we are suckers for die-cut covers; Wolverine knows how to commit to a gag; and you have some pretty remarkable dreams.
X-PLAINED:
Wolverine’s CIA contacts
Murder-related birthday traditions
Wolverine #48-50
The ship Righteous Indignation and the ‘ship Righteous Indignation
Wolverine size creep
Injudicious footwear
Serial sidekicks
Miles’s continual failure to watch The Prisoner
The Summers Crash model of flashbacks
Panties and/or grenades
Several varyingly reliable flashbacks
How memory works
Mastodon
Andre
How memory doesn’t really work
Kids’ toy licensing
Quasimodo’s hangout
Women in Refrigerators
Secret agent skills
The Dalton school of argument
A legitimately cool cover gimmick
Wolverine vs. the Helicarrier
Adamantium handicrafts
Shiva (but not that one)
Silver Fox (again) (kind of)
A cataclysmic memory backlash
Antarctic X-Hijinks
Jay & Miles’s adventures in YOUR DREAMS
NEXT EPISODE: Centaurs of Texas
CORRECTION: Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was the source of the Women In Refrigerator’s trope–not Hal Jordan’s, as Jay stated in this episode.
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.)
In which almost everyone is better than Romulus; Barry Windsor-Smith continues to draw the best naked X-Men; Jay has strong feelings about Wolverine’s origins; Miles still hasn’t seen The Prisoner; when in doubt, it’s probably Kang the Conqueror and/or Mystique; we remain unqualified to give bear-fighting advice; you should not hide out in a nuclear reactor; and the Coffee-a-Go-Go has probably been turned into a new-wave sushi bar or something.
X-PLAINED:
The Professor (Truett Hudson)
Romulus
Jay & Miles at Rose City Comic Con
Marvel Comics Presents #72-84
“Weapon X”
Backstory attrition
A really good opening montage
Some very effective use of color
Healing hair
The original villain behind Weapon X
A retconned origin of Wolverine’s claws
Dr. Abraham Cornelius
Carol Hines
Terry Gilliam’s Weapon X
Audio vs. text-based mind control
An action figure in dubious taste
The Milgram Experiment
An adaptation we’d like to see
A bad place to hide
Subsequent “Weapon X” retcons
How Cyclops’s powers have (and haven’t) developed
Jay’s general failure at X-tourism
NEXT WEEK: More MCP, featuring “The Retribution Affair” and “God’s Country”!
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. Contact David to purchase the original!
In which Miles gets an etymology lesson; Nightcrawler is the most dateable guy in the X-Universe; Meggan is basically all the cryptids; Michael Higgins must be stopped; Alistair Stuart is terrible at adulting; we really hope Brian wasn’t too attached to that airplane; and in retrospect, there probably should have been a Spalding Gray joke in there somewhere.
X-PLAINED:
The Montesi Formula
Excalibur #28-31
The Gilded Lady
The quintessential post-college experience
The word “cooter”
Relative gullibility
A generally unacceptable issue
Loungewear
Vampires, kind of
Some uncomfortably colonial imagery
Krakoa, Jr.
The Vega Men
The aftermath of Axis
Colossus’s probable politics
NEXT EPISODE: Talking Iceman with Sina Grace!
You can find a 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 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!
You can find a 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!