Rahne Sinclair – Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 371 – Beware of Psychodrama

May 8, 2022 Miles Leave a comment

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Before settling on paint and canvas, Piotr Rasputin’s first medium was the thought balloon. (Excalibur #104)

Douglock tries. (Excalibur #104)

Moira, I know a lot of us have been working from home for a while now, but you may have overdone the whole home-office thing just a tad. (Excalibur #104)

Douglock is so much less mean than Mystique usually is when angrily shapeshifting! (Excalibur #104)

LOOK SHE’S IN THE SHADOWS SHE COULD BE ANYONE OKAY (Excalibur #104)

Also, Dani never did that back in the day. (Excalibur #104)

Oh, Kitty. (Excalibur #104)

Pretty sure this cover was printed on black velvet. (Excalibur #105)

Bryan Hitch may be the first artist to make Wildside look genuinely intimidating. (Excalibur #105)

Kitty, those aren’t image inducers, they’re jackets, and you’re wearing one too. (Excalibur #105)

Sound effect as narrative tool. (Excalibur #105)

Kitty gave an emotional and heartfelt speech without using the N-word! (Excalibur #105)

Piotr Rasputin is the firestarter. Twisted firestarter. (Excalibur #106)

But seriously, this is one of the most visually engaging pages of backstory I’ve ever read. (Excalibur #106)

Meggan Puceanu, Actual Elf. (Excalibur #106)

Hey, it’s Frenzy! We love Frenzy! (Excalibur #106)

Jay is not okay with your thought-bubble-versus-computer-display redundancy, Moira. (Excalibur #106)

Excalibur, the comic where everyone is sexy all the time. (Excalibur #106)

Piotr, I think you put your pants on the wrong… you know what, you go, Russian cowboy. Now where did I put those singles… (Excalibur #106)

Metaphor by way of landmine. (Excalibur #106)

“And we’re going to ride bikes with Magneto and he’s going to take us to France!” (Excalibur #106)

NEXT TIME: No one rides bikes.

LINKS & FURTHER MISADVENTURES

We allude frequently to Warlock piloting around Doug’s corpse, which story we covered in Episode 91 – The Saddest Story Ever Told.

371 – Beware of Psychodrama

May 8, 2022 Jay 15 comments

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

In which Douglock is Douglock; Kitty Pryde gets lost in nostalgia; it continues to suck to be Colossus; Professor Xavier is a jerk; the MLF makes one and only one valid point; Ben Raab’s Excalibur run begins; the Acolytes try to get the band back together; and the land mines are a metaphor that are also real land mines.

X-PLAINED:

Exodus
Excalibur #104-106
The current state of Excalibur
Douglock
B.P.R.D.
New Mutants #64 callbacks
Wolfsbane’s default form
Nostalgia
The Xavier Protocols (again)
The MLF (again)
The Mysterious Moonstar
Selby
The Prodigy
Character shifts between writers
Age of Jay and Miles
How not to write a letter in a comic book
Assless chaps
Land mines
Unuscione
Scanner
Mutant lawyers
Cyclops’s color vision

NEXT EPISODE: Magneto, now with his own miniseries!

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As Mentioned in Episode 359 – Meanwhile in Britain

January 16, 2022 Jay 4 comments

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

Wraparound cover! (Excalibur #100)

Her eyes really did look cooler before. (Excalibur #100)

Do not try this at home. (Excalibur #100)

I’d read an odd-couple comic about these two. (Excalibur #100)

The media X-Plains Onslaught. (Excalibur #101)

He bullshits so well! (Excalibur #101)

Aw, Cap. (Excalibur #102)

Well, that’s foreboding. (Excalibur #102)

You almost–almost–feel sorry for the bad guys. (Excalibur #102)

That’s a lot of Nightcrawlers! (Excalibur #103)

Also some Shadowcats and Colossuses! (Excalibur #103)

Meanwhile in Limbo… (Excalibur #103)

NEXT EPISODE: This nonsense.

LINKS & FURTHER BACKSTORY

We covered the preceding events in Excalibur in Episode 337 – Wild Genes and Old Magic!

359 – Meanwhile in Britain

January 16, 2022 Jay 16 comments

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In which Excalibur has a lot going on; Margali Szardos is never up to any good; Nightcrawler grows into leadership; we delve into the politics of superheroism; Pete Wisdom earns his keep; Miles catches a Prisoner reference; and we reach the end of Warren Ellis’ Excalibur.

X-PLAINED:

John the Skrull
Excalibur #100-103
The current state of Excalibur
Black Air (again)
The Hellfire Club (London Branch)
Australia
Margali Szardos (more)
Demonic ethernet
Captain Britain’s new-old suit
Emma Steed
Dune
Several fights
Combat IT
Boolean definitions of madness
The Department
Laserdisks
Patriotism
Many doppelgangers
Nightcreeper
Another reference to Dante’s Inferno

NEXT EPISODE: Some absolute nonsense

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As Mentioned in Episode 329 – Scheming and Argument

April 11, 2021 Jay Leave a comment

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

Same cover, different week. (Excalibur #94)

Rahne “Aleph from Global Frequency” Sinclair. (Excalibur #94)

Sorry. I just can’t accept this as Tangerine. (Excalibur #94)

He could totally have rocked the swim cap, though. (Excalibur #94)

Ew, they’re all goopy. (Excalibur #94)

Well, damn. (Excalibur #94)

We call that a “Muir Hello.” (X-Man #12)

It also goes PING! (X-Man #12)

Okay: That is legitimately cool. (X-Man #12)

The actual tagline of Squeezits(TM) was “Squeeze the fun out of it.” I swear to g-d I’m not making this up. (X-Man #12)

Look at those mid ’90s computer graphics! (Excalibur #95)

Moira doesn’t give a fuck if she’s not your real mom; she’s grounding you anyway. (Excalibur #95)

Oh, Rory. Buddy. (Excalibur #95)

This is also roughly how it feels to read like 20 years of X-Men in a sitting. (Excalibur #95)

What Excalibur’s thinking about. (Excalibur #95)

NEXT EPISODE: The herald of Onslaught; but also this fashion situation.

329 – Scheming and Argument

April 11, 2021 Jay 17 comments

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In which Nate Grey has the soul of a man in a mesh shirt; Black Air is somehow even worse than you thought it was; Hulk does not want to be x-treme teen from alternate dimension; we are excited as hell for the upcoming Frasier/Ewing Gamma Flight; and Moira MacTaggert is (sometimes) the adult we need.

X-PLAINED:

Nate Grey’s (possible) demon zombie baby
What Excalibur’s been up to lately
Excalibur #94-95
X-Man #12
Yet another take on roughly the same dark future
Dark-future disambiguation
Bangs
The Black Wall
Leather vs. vinyl
Sentinels pooping sentinels
Nate Grey (more) (again)
Gamma Flight
Excessively silly diagnostic technology
Squeezits(TM)
A minor intervention
X-characters most likely to lead a successful book club
Warlock on Krakoa

NEXT EPISODE: The Herald of Onslaught (for real, this time, we promise)!

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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 320 – The Accountability Wagon

January 17, 2021 Jay One comment

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

I know the cover blurb isn’t actually foreshadowing, but the cover blurb is kiiiinda foreshadowing. (Excalibur #91)

There’s writing a phonetic accent… and then there’s writing someone making fun of someone else’s accent, phonetically. (Excalibur #91)

Aw. (Excalibur #91)

For your Twitter fight needs. (Excalibur #91)

This is roughly how I react to having to share personal information with colleagues, too. (Excalibur #91)

They’re good friends. (Excalibur #91)

THE SUBTITLES THO (Excalibur #91)

Creeeeeepy. (Excalibur #91)

I know his teeth are also supposed to be steel, but they look just off enough from the rest of his face that I can’t shake the idea that they’re normal teeth, which idea is profoundly and inexplicably unsettling. (Excalibur #92)

Huh. (Excalibur #92)

You sure did. (Excalibur #93)

[Music rises] (Excalibur #93)

Ah, Rahne. You’re such a good kid. (Excalibur #93)

FUCK YEAH RAHNE SINCLAIR! (Excalibur #93)

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day.

320 – The Accountability Wagon

January 17, 2021 Jay 21 comments

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In which Pete Wisdom is the guy you love to glare at; Nightcrawler is right (and a delightfully complex individual); Colossus has a lot of issues; and Wolfsbane gets the confrontation we’ve been waiting for since the New Mutants graphic novel.

X-PLAINED:

Wolfsbane’s powers
Excalibur #91-93
The somewhat nebulous age of Kitty Pryde
Betrayal
What’s been up on Muir Isle
Organized sports, Excalibur-style
Pubs and what happens in them
Drinking with Excalibur
Shovel talks
Phonetic accents, redeemed
A fairly one-sided fight
Colossus’s issues (more) (again)
Anatomy and physiology of organic steel
Accountability, trauma, and their intersections
An exceptionally cathartic confrontation
A hoodie Jay desperately wants
Where cold opens come from
Whether and how Gambit passes for human

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day

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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!

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316 – Return to Megalopolis: At the Movies with the New Mutants

December 6, 2020 Jay 16 comments

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In which we review the New Mutants’ film debut.

NEXT EPISODE: Rogue, Gambit, and feelings!

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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!

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