Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

463 – The Fart Ghost That Walks Like a Manhattan

In which Gambit is fundamentally goofy; t’ieves love research; Magneto was ripped; Professor Xavier remains a jerk; Miles attempts to convey something very fundamentally visual in an audio format; Marrow is adorable; the X-Men pretty much disband (again); and a miniseries is the opposite of a vacation.

X-PLAINED:

  • Where Wolverine went
  • Gambit Annual 1999
  • Uncanny X-Men #372
  • X-Men #92
  • A lot of backstory
  • A very cute plastic goose
  • What Gambit does in his free time
  • Those weird fluid-filled tubes they put people in all the time for some reason
  • Gambit’s abs
  • The fart ghost (Mary Purcell)
  • Manhattan, Indiana
  • A very minor continuity error
  • Fart ghost metaphysics
  • A very bad idea
  • A muppetworthy death
  • Dream’s various ends
  • X-pajamas
  • Professional dinosaurs
  • Thinkers
  • Theoretical Cyclops-Daredevil team-ups
  • X-characters recognizable as civilians

NEXT EPISODE: The return of the Damocles Foundation!


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 TeePublic shop!

454 – X-Men ’97, Part 2

SPOILER WARNING: ALL OF THEM, NONSTOP

In which Barry Windsor-Smith is too sexy for television; we know what happens when unstable molecules get struck by lightning; X-Men gets political and does it spectacularly; this Captain America would not sew the cape; Magneto continues to throw things into space; and they kissed and we missed it.

X-PLAINED:

  • Fabian Cortez’s name
  • X-Men ’97 episodes 6-10
  • Lifedeath I & II: a surprising adaptation
  • Varying levels of going in blind
  • A somewhat different and possibly better Forge
  • The Adversary vs. the Owl Queen
  • Stormiest and least-Stormy costumes
  • Professor Charles Xavier, Official Space Boyfriend
  • Colonialism vs. Identity
  • Delayed catharsis
  • The narrative power of altered opening credits
  • What makes allyship effective (and not)
  • Justified mutant anger
  • The worst version of Nina DaCosta
  • What makes Prime Sentinels scary
  • Summers family feels
  • The best damned fight scenes out there
  • Bastion, robo-avatar of conservative white patriarchy
  • Simultaneous crossovers
  • A psychic gay bar
  • A last boss arena
  • Acolyte equivalencies
  • Phoenix Ex Machina
  • Crying
  • Whether Magneto was right
  • Apoca-futures and Apoca-pasts
  • A bulletin board and our hopes for its contents
  • Soft Serve
  • Kitty Pryde’s coffee shop AU
  • X-Men ’97 as the perfect gateway

NEXT EPISODE: Skrulls!


LINKS AND FURTHER READING:


No visual companion this week!

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 TeePublic shop!

453 – X-Men ’97, Part 1

SPOILER WARNING: ALL OF THEM, NONSTOP

In which we put the comics on hold to take a look at X-Men ’97; it is still always Inferno in here; Wolverine is best used sparingly; a Marvel show finally embraces politics; Wolverine is best in small doses; Madeylne Pryor still always deserves better; Jubilee grows up; and we are all in on this series.

X-PLAINED:

  • “Beyond Good and Evil”
  • X-Men: The Animated Series and our respective feelings about it
  • X-Men ’97, episodes 1-5
  • Watching X-Men ’97 with and without context
  • Making animated Cyclops work
  • The Magneto’s-hair-length morality index
  • Politics
  • Voices
  • Adaptation pacing
  • Agency
  • Abcissa
  • Foreshadowing
  • Time compression
  • Horniest Rogue
  • Death in cartoons
  • A metaphor
  • Nonbinary identity in 1997
  • Character evolution

NEXT EPISODE: Episodes 6-10


No visual companion this week!

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 TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 449 – Dressing the X-Men, with Russell Dauterman

Listen to the episode here!



LINKS AND FURTHER READING

449 – Dressing the X-Men, with Russell Dauterman

In which artist Russell Dauterman joins us to discuss super-powered costume design!

X-PLAINED:

  • Why it’s important to get a professional to design your superhero costume
  • Why Miles doesn’t trust the government
  • Russell’s history at Marvel
  • Designing for the Hellfire Gala
  • Mutant fashion
  • The word “fashionize”
  • Iconic looks
  • Modernizing superhero costumes
  • Powers vs. personality
  • Punk goddess Storm
  • Designing for drawability
  • Magic hair
  • Russell’s influences
  • Definitive Rogue costumes
  • X-Men ‘97
  • Best X-team costumes
  • Jay’s holy grail cosplay
  • Magic hair, cosplayed
  • Costume retrospectives
  • Where to find Russell online
  • Evil twin trends of the 1990s
  • Fuck You Pink

NEXT EPISODE: Jay & Miles Live at the Clinton Street Theater!


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 TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 442 – MimeQuest 64

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

442 – MimeQuest 64

In which Marrow remains a connoisseur of dead rats; Jay has opinions about the NYC Subway system; U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. are snazzy dressers; Doctor Doom gets excited about Onslaught; Magneto can have a rocket pack if he wants; villainous game recognizes villainous game; weird retcons are the best retcons; and you should totally come to our birthday party.

X-PLAINED:

  • A peculiar side effect of Wolverine’s healing factor
  • Jay & Miles on Bluesky (and other social media)
  • Our upcoming 10th birthday party and live show (and related announcements)
  • X-Men Unlimited #22
  • X-Men/Doctor Doom Annual 1998
  • An unpleasant way to wake up
  • That’s so Kraven
  • Avengers and transit cops
  • U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M.
  • Flag Smasher
  • Some miscellaneous New York Subway trivia
  • Audience stand-ins (and how the reading experience changes when the audience stand-in isn’t human-passing)
  • Additional New York Subway trivia
  • Premonitions of Onslaught
  • An X-Men highlight reel
  • A delightful little retcon
  • One way to ruin X-Men #137
  • Healing factor preferences

NEXT EPISODE: Miles and Katie Pryde X-Plain Comics Retail!


Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

RSVP to our birthday shenanigans!

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 TeePublic shop!

 

As Mentioned in Episode 430 – The Bad Feelings Box

Listen to the episode here.


430 – The Bad Feelings Box

 

In which birds have no business in sex dreams; feelings are complicated and allegories are imperfect; Mystique made some valid points; Psycho-Man is good at UI; Callisto was right; and the label “Omega-level mutant” actually kind of makes sense.

X-PLAINED:

  • Psycho-Man
  • Malice (but not that one)
  • Hate Monger (but not that one)
  • Finding good comics from the ‘90s
  • Uncanny X-Men #359
  • X-Men / Fantastic Four Annual 1998
  • ­X-Men #79
  • The dead man’s hand
  • Dr. Aubrey Agee
  • Psi-War fallout
  • Dr. Bradley Beynon
  • Hadley the robot
  • Poker twinks
  • La Bludgeon
  • Psycho-Man’s Bad Feelings Box
  • An invisible bear trap
  • Marvel’s floating poker game
  • Officers Aguinal and Cleveland
  • Antagonists vs. villains
  • Omega-level mutants

NEXT EPISODE: The Generation X Underground Special, feat. Al Kennedy!


Check out visual companion to this episode on our blog!

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 425 – Shooting the Moose

Listen to the episode here.