professor x – Page 21 – Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

So, That Happened

June 25, 2014 Jay 3 comments

Introducing Pufferfish Xavier, by David Wynne. ICYMI, if you’ve fallen in love with any of David’s X-Plain the X-Men originals, you can now purchase ’em here!

Meanwhile, we’re getting ready to dive into the Dark Phoenix Saga! As always, if you’ve got burning X-questions, stick ‘em in the comments below or our Tumblr askbox, or tweet ‘em to @RaeBeta with the hashtag #xplainthexmen!

As Mentioned In Episode 10 – Not All Mandroids

June 15, 2014 Jay 9 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

Multiple Man’s powers essentiall make him a retcon elemental.

Punching pterosaurs is the gift that keeps on giving. (X-Men #114)

Best Worst Reveal (X-Men #114)

“Robes” (X-Men #114)

We really can’t fault Cyclops for giving up on trying to explain Sauron. (X-Men #115)

The final fight of X-Men #116 Dark City.

Remember when we didn’t know everything about Wolverine? (X-Men #118)

Sadly, this story is really low on Sunfire Sass. Misty Knight, however, is AWESOME. (X-Men #118)

Mandroids. (X-Men #118)

Moses Magnum, P.I. (X-Men #118)

Heist stories are the best stories. (X-Men #119)

That’s Mariko Yoshida. She’s going to be really important later. (X-Men #120)

And that’s why you always leave a note. (X-Men #118)

Spoiler: Nope. (X-Men #109)

Alpha Flight. (X-Men #120)

Vindicator is a thoughtful antagonist. (X-Men #120)

Not actually episode-relevant. We just think these panels are hilarious. (X-Men #120)

Wolverine, we are pretty sure the APA would not approve of your approach to therapy. (X-Men #122)

Don’t fuck with Storm. (X-Men #122)

Ugh, THIS guy. (X-Men #122)

Based on the graffiti, this apartment was previously occupied by the 1970s Marvel bullpen. (X-Men #122)

Cyclops comes to terms with dynamic storytelling. (X-Men #125)

This is an awesome reunion, and notable as one of the only times Cyclops has ever successfully completed a hug. (X-Men #125)

Well, that’s portentous. (X-Men #104)

Angus McWhirter has REALLY STRONG FEELINGS about hovercraft. (X-Men #119)

Moira MacTaggert does science in a superhero uniform, because, comic books. (X-Men #125)

Proteus’s secondary mutation is superhuman levels of creepiness. (X-Men #127)

Well, damn. (X-Men #128)

10 – Not All Mandroids

June 15, 2014 Jay 14 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS

In which Phoenix has nothing on Jamie Madrox when it comes to retcons, Pterosaurs have super punchable faces, Colossus gets laid, we are uninterested in the Savage Land, Wolverine and Storm are both pretty interesting, smiling costs extra if you’re Doctor Doom, Banshee saves the day, Alpha Flight tries, Angry Hovercraft Guy comes back, and Proteus is fairly upsetting.

X-Plained:

X-Men #109, 114-16, 118-122, and 125-128
Multiple Man
Metacontinuity
The Savage Land
Pterosaurs
Shi’ar mustache technology
Karl Lykos
Misty Knight
Colleen Wing
Wolverine in Japan
Mandroids
Moses Magnum
A Heist
Angus McWhirter, disgruntled hovercraft rental guy
Alpha Flight
Team Dynamics
Why you always leave a note
Proteus

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Secret origins, shipper wars, the Siege Perilous, and which of us would win in a fight.

As Mentioned in Episode 9 – Leprechaun Surprise Party

June 8, 2014 Jay 4 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

Cassandra Nova: The worst evil disembodied parasitic sister ever.

Cassidy Keep (X-Men #101)

Nightcrawler is just ridiculously charming. (X-Men #101)

I keep trying to think of a Monster in a Box joke to make about X-Men and vacations, but no matter where it goes, it’s not going to be in good taste. (X-Men #101)

Page 3 of Storm’s origin flashback. Can we talk about Dave Cockrum splash pages and how they are AWESOME? (X-Men #102)

After the “Cyclops Has a Good Day” sketchbook is full, Rachel’s going to move on to “Cyclops tells Professor X to go fuck himself.” (X-Men #102)

And then, Leprechauns. (X-Men #103)

Here, Nightcrawler. Have a new mutation. And also I guess some more Leprechauns, because, why not? (X-Men #103)

Even fake Charles Xavier is kind of a douche. (X-Men #103)

“We also know what you think about when you masturbate.” (X-Men #103)

The rad bromance of Cain Marko and Tom Cassidy. (X-Men #103)

“Whaddayamean, ‘roll diplomacy’? I put all my points into claw weapons!” (X-Men #104)

Secondary mutation: awesome villain speeches. (X-Men #104)

So, that happened. (X-Men #104)

Cockrum is REALLY into this layout. (X-Men #105)

Fun fact: Misty Knight is the only one of these characters alive in the modern Marvel universe. (X-Men #105)

Phoenix wants you heralds of Galactus off her damn lawn. (X-Men #105)

Shi’ar Trek. (X-Men #105)

AND THEN THINGS GOT AWESOME. (X-Men #107)

“While you guys were fighting the functionally omnipotent Superboy clone, I beat a guy up and stole his clothes.” Wolverine: Chaos gamer. (X-Men #107)

I’m not sure what he expects Captain America to do about this. (X-Men #107)

The Phoenix Force. (X-Men #108)

More majestic Phoenix action. (X-Men #108)

“I realized that I’d left some scenery unchewed, and that would NEVER do.” (X-Men #111)

Magneto is COMMITTED to the supervillain schtick. (X-Men #112)

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE (X-Men #112)

Okay, then. (X-Men #113)

Next week on Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men!

9 – Leprechaun Surprise Party

June 8, 2014 Jay 15 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS

In which Rachel refuses to back down from a challenge, we reject a point of canon, Leprechauns know Wolverine’s secrets, Erik the Red is (still) awful, Professor X is (still) a dick, the X-Men are your D&D party, the Shi’ar do a Star Trek riff, Phoenix is kind of a big deal, the circus comes to town, and Magneto gets creepy.

X-Plained:

Cassandra Nova
More early Claremont
Sound effects
Cassidy Keep
Seneschals
Shillelaghs
Image inducers
Black Tom Cassidy
Supervillain bromance
Bronze-age pacing
Leprechauns
Hovercraft rental
Muir Island
The Shi’ar Imperial Guard
The M’Kraan Cyrstal
Phoenix 101
Secret volcano lairs
Magneto’s mercifully short-lived age-play fixation
The (dis)continuity of mutant powers

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Wolverine punches a pterosaur, Cyclops grows a mustache, and everyone gets possessed!

As Mentioned in Episode 8 – What We Talk About When We Talk About Claremont

June 1, 2014 Jay 8 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

In a moment of clarity, Cyclops recognizes that the X-Men’s greatest enemy is, in fact, the guy writing the book. (X-Men #96)

Never change, Sunfire. (X-Men #94)

Check out that sweet Dave Cockrum training montage. (X-Men #94)

Welcome to the X-Men, Thunderbird! Hope you survive the… oh. (X-Men #95)

This panel isn’t all that plot-relevant. We just think Havok’s powers look super cool. (X-Men #97)

“There can’t be TWO bondage vikings running around the Marvel universe!” (X-Men #97)

Professor Xavier’s nightmares are AWESOME. (X-Men #97)

Steven Lang: Stable and upstanding member of society. (X-Men #96)

In the Silver Age, superhero romance was limited to soulful gazes and ongoing sexual harassment. (X-Men #98)

I don’t know why they all look so surprised. (X-Men #98)

Cyclops obliterating a Sentinel: never gets old. (X-Men #98)

As far as we can tell, he swam here. From the middle of the ocean. Dr. Peter Corbeau: Ph.D. Badassitude. (X-Men #98)

Those are actually Sentinels designed to look and act like the original X-Men, because, Steven Lang. Just run with it. (X-Men #99)

Oh, hey, it’s the first Fastball Special! (X-Men #100)

You know how we say Jean Grey is underrated? Jean Grey is freakin’ underrated. (X-Men #100)

Aw. man. This whole scene. (X-Men #100)

The (first) death of Jean Grey. (X-Men #100)

And then… (X-Men #101)

This page still gives us chills. (X-Men #101)

Next week: Leprechauns. We’re not even joking.

Links and further reading:

FanBros

Chris Claremont’s X-Men

Episode 05 – The Retcon That Walks Like a Man (Covering Giant-Size X-Men #1)

8 – What We Talk About When We Talk About Claremont

June 1, 2014 Jay 14 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS

In which Chris Claremont defines the X-Universe; Sunfire quits the team (again); Nightcrawler is the best; the narrator is nobody’s friend; Colossus is a good kid; Cyclops has a long series of bad days; everyone is a bondage Viking; Rachel is a space pedant, we meet the Phoenix, and Wolverine is the Batman of Marvel.

X-Plained:

Polaris’s kinda-powers
Our first crossover event
How much we love you
Chris Claremont, and why he’s the definitive X-writer
Comics In Focus: Chris Claremont’s X-Men
Why Nightcrawler is the best point-of-view character
The long game
Tom Orzechowski’s dimension-folding lettering skills
Claremontisms
The malicious narrator
Count Nefaria
Sliding-scale ransom
The life, death, and occasional reanimation of Thunderbird
Friendship
The care and feeding of cairns
Erik the Red
Quiet moments
Sentinels and X-Sentinels
Steven Lang
The (first) death and return of Jean Grey
Accents

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Leprechauns!

6 – Days of Future Whatever

May 18, 2014 Jay 9 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | RSS

In which we more or less prepare you for the upcoming feature film; Rachel Summers is a black hole of continuity; Kitty Pryde breaks the Danger Room; Earth 200500 is clearly the best earth; even the X-Men have no idea what’s going on; First Class Emma Frost is so boring that we forget she exists; wolverines are definitely not wolves; and you can have Rachel’s Community references when you pry them from her cold, dead hands.

X-Plained:

Rachel Summers
“Days of Future Past”
Gravestone engraving standards of 2013
The Mostly-New, Mostly-Different Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
Another unfortunate hat
Causality in the Marvel Multiverse
Earths 811, 1191, 295, 311, and 200500
Hall monitors with laser rifles
How to fix a broken timeline
The X-Men cinematic universe, and points of divergence from the comics
The one thing X-Men: The Last Stand does right
The Xavier Index of Cinematic Continuity
The difference between Canis lupus and Gulo gulo
A Days of Future Past cinematic cram course
Fix-it fic
Blink, Bishop, and dark-future mash-ups
The enduring appeal of Earth-811
The significantly less enduring appeal of Earth-242
The Nazi Excalibur of Earth-597

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Greg Rucka, Cyclops, and Starjammers!

Summers School: Gabriel 101

May 12, 2014 Jay 5 comments

On Episode 5 – The Retcon that Walks Like a Man, we met Gabriel Summers, and did a very quick drive-by introduction to the Summers family and their really depressing space adventures. Because this shit is complicated, Rachel,* the resident Summers Family Continuity expert, has put together a brief visual guide to Gabriel’s backstory. Click through for the origin of the third and worst Summers Brother:

Meet Scott and Alex Summers! They’re brothers. Their parents have just pushed them out of a burning airplane. Scott and Alex are going to crash in a minute and then have awful childhoods, but all you really need to know for now is that they’re going to become X-Men when they grow up.

Meet Mister Sinister! He’s a creepy, creepy man who knows even more about the Summers family than Rachel does (and that’s a lot). In 1993, Mister Sinister let slip that Scott and Alex might have a third brother, and for over a decade, pretty much every orphan in the Marvel Universe had “probably a Summers brother” stuck on to the end of their official bio.

But in 2005, X-Men: Deadly Genesis came around. Deadly Genesis was a straight-up retcon of 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1. It also—finally—resolved the question of the third Summers brother.

Meet Christopher and Katherine Summers! They’re Scott and Alex’s parents. They’ve just thrown Scott and Alex out of a burning airplane, then gotten abducted by aliens. This part of the story has been X-canon since the ’70s—but what Deadly Genesis reveals is that Katherine is pregnant. Christopher gets sent off to the slave pens, and Katherine ends up a Comics Code-compliant-analogue-to-concubine of the evil space emperor. Christopher breaks out and tries to free her, but he’s caught, and Katherine—and apparently her now-nearly-to-term fetus—are killed. (Christopher later becomes a space pirate named Corsair, which is awesome but irrelevant to this particular story.)

Meet Fetus Summers, who turns out to be viable after all! He gets rapid-aged by means of Fancy Space Science, named Gabriel, and sent to be a slave of the Shi’ar’s representative on Earth. Later, his powers manifest and he kills the only person who was ever nice to him, then escapes into the sewers with nothing but his favorite book of Roman myths and a case of dramatically expedient amnesia.

Gabriel gets picked up by Dr. Moira MacTaggert—Professor X’s ex—and becomes one of her group of teen mutants in training, under the code name Kid Vulcan. X consults—and, in the process, pieces together Gabriel’s history but doesn’t tell anyone, in keeping with a long tradition of lying to Scott about the existence of his living relatives. Professor X is a dick.

To confirm his theory, X brings Scott out to train with Gabriel for a day—but still doesn’t tell either of them that they might be brothers. (Gabriel’s powers, incidentally, have to do with energy manipulation and redirection, which his how he can do that with Scott’s eye beams.)

When the X-Men are all captured on Krakoa (the Island That Walks Like a Man!), X convinces Moira’s kids to go rescue them. Immediately before they leave, he tells Gabriel that Scott and Alex are his brothers. The new kids rescue Scott, and Gabriel tells him that they’re brothers. Scott’s super beat up and his powers are broken, so the new kids leave him and go to rescue the rest of the captive X-Men—but instead, they all get killed.

Scott returns to the X-mansion, understandably distraught. X decides the most expedient course of action is to totally wipe Gabriel out of Scott’s memory. Did I mention that Professor X is a dick? Professor X is a dick. When the new X-Men return to Krakoa to rescue the original team, he continues to mess with their perceptions to support this version of events.

What X doesn’t know is that Gabriel and his teammate Darwin are actually still alive, so when the X-Men launch Krakoa into orbit, Gabriel and Darwin go with it. They get stuck in stasis for years, in space. OOPS.

Later, Gabriel wakes up pissed, comes back to earth, kills Banshee, kidnaps Scott and Scott’s alternate-timeline-future-daughter (I know, I know. Just run with it.), and forces Professor X to show them what actually happened. Darwin—still in stasis inside Gabriel—is extracted and revived, Gabriel flies off to fight an evil space empire, and absolutely no one lives happily ever after. X-Men!

*Edidin, not Summers or Grey.

As Mentioned on Episode 5 – The Retcon That Walks Like a Man

May 11, 2014 Jay 12 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

Giant-Size X-Men #1. Prepare for forty years of riffs on this cover.

The best-dressed mob in Germany.

And THAT’S how you punch a tractor.

“Oh, y’know. Fight crime, see the world, get your memory rewritten every few weeks, maybe go on a really fucked up date with Dracula…”

When Xavier finds him, Thunderbird is literally wrestling a buffalo to death.

Sunfire’s first appearance, in X-Men #64.

Most of the New & Different X-Men get a full page or two to join the team. Banshee? Two panels. He’s just that chill.

“Think you can just walk away, Wolverine? We’ll come after you with our deadliest weapon yet: Alpha Flight crossovers!”

Wow. You… certainly made some choices there, Professor.

Sunfire is absolutely delightful.

At this point, I’m pretty sure he’s just messing with them for fun.

This is the second of three times Sunfire calls Nightcrawler “Misfit” on one page–which is actually a pretty welcome break from the X-Men referring to each other exclusively by ethnic epithets. Len Wein, DON’T DO THAT.

This jerk.

This is pretty much the platonic ideal of an X-Men fight scene: teamwork, cool powers, and narration busting Kool-Aid-Man-style through the fourth wall.