Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley

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

In which an engagement begins; Jean Grey’s Walden Puddle counterpart is definitely Nicole; Cyclops is the telepathic equivalent of a pit trap with spikes at the bottom; Charles Xavier’s subconscious is very dialogue-heavy; nobody ever has appropriate professional boundaries; Cable dabbles in passive aggression; and the best is yet to come.

X-PLAINED:

  • Some of Blaquesmith’s recent activities
  • Uncanny X-Men #308-310
  • A very sweet retcon
  • Thanksgiving “traditions”
  • How to scare crows
  • Emplates
  • Feelings and telepathy
  • A proposal
  • A misprint
  • Thanksgiving at the Xavier School
  • A somewhat alarming manifestation of a conscience
  • The lies Charles Xavier tells himself
  • Xavier’s depression beard
  • The evolution of Amelia Voght
  • Angry Claremontean Narrator: The Movie
  • The anticlimactic return of Carl “X-Cutioner” Denti
  • An unexpected resolution
  • Foreshadowing
  • Trans voices in the larger comics conversation

NEXT EPISODE: The wedding!


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

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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!

HAPPY PRIDE! This month, we’re donating all of the proceeds from our TeePublic shopto Trans Lifeline!

As Mentioned in Episode 245 – Natural Causes

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER ADVENTURES:

245 – Natural Causes

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

In which Rogue flouts air traffic regulations; Jay is very sorry for how badly he butchers Gambit’s accent; stealth is directly proportionate to how loudly you dress; Rogue and Gambit win the gold in Pairs Punchin’; Candra is a big jerk; you should ABSOLUTELY NOT remove an impaled object; Rogue busts through some tropes; and we have complicated feelings about the Ultimate universe.

X-PLAINED:

  • Rogue’s biological parents
  • Marvel New Orleans
  • Brood Trouble in the Big Easy
  • Rogue/rogue disambiguation
  • Rogue #1-4
  • Bella Donna Boudreaux
  • What may or may not happen if Rogue kisses a Transformer
  • Cody Robbins (again)
  • Natural causes
  • Supervillain funeral crashers (again)
  • Inverse Ninja Law (Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu)
  • The Bill the Pony incident
  • Relative culpability
  • Nature vs. nurture
  • Tante Mattie (Mattie Baptiste)
  • Candra’s new threads
  • How long it takes to drive from Westchester, NY, to Caledcott, MI
  • How Jay learned to love Gambit (but not to stop worrying)
  • Gris-Gris
  • Lapin
  • Fifolet
  • Punching hallucinations
  • Questa
  • Knives as superpowers
  • Inversions of several gendered superhero tropes
  • Closure
  • The limits of intent
  • Magnetos’ (sometimes) kids’ hair
  • Whether we’ll cover Ultimate X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: Spiky boys, yelling!


Check out the 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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 244 – Terminal Nudity

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER DRAMA:

  • Jay is writing a thing that may be relevant to your interests in the intersection of Marvel and audio.
  • We first encountered the T’ieves’ Guild in Episode 194 – Brood Trouble in the Big Easy.
  • Go watch Intacto; it’s brilliant.
  • The Thief of Always is basically Clive Barker in Ray Bradbury drag. It’s not going to blow your mind; but it’s a fun read.
  • As a gloomy ’90s teen, Jay was of course very into The Crow; which holds up surprisingly well. It can’t rain all the time!

 

244 – Terminal Nudity

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

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!


Check out the 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 235 – Fatal Extractions

Listen to the episode here.


235 – Fatal Extractions (Fatal Attractions, Part 2)

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

In which Magneto may or may not own a Namor body pillow; Cyclops probably doesn’t color-code his files; Colossus is Not Okay; bats are nature’s flashers; there are a lot of reasons to be mad at Fatal Attractions; Charles Xavier is surprisingly durable; the X-Men know their Aeschylus; Jean Grey goes in through the face; and bringing Wolverine to fight the guy who controls metal was probably not a great idea.

X-PLAINED:

  • Mutant Alpha
  • Uncanny X-Men #304
  • X-Men #25
  • False foreshadowing
  • Costume storage and display
  • Relative moral event horizons
  • The character dehabilitation of Magneto
  • The Magneto Protocols
  • How Cyclops organizes his files
  • An excellent eulogy
  • The complicated legacy of Illyana Rasputin
  • Several noteworthy absences
  • A memorable funeral
  • The ‘behold’ thing
  • A protective mesh of electromagnetic fire
  • A well-played callback
  • A strategically dubious plan
  • Several Prometheus Bound quotations
  • An uncharitable assumption
  • The blood-brain barrier
  • A severe costume injury
  • The definitive scene of Fatal Attractions
  • The root of Onslaught
  • Which X-Men would podcast
  • Our preferred comics formats

NEXT EPISODE: Colossus still can’t catch a break


Check out the 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!

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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 230 – Touchstones

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & OTHER TRAGEDIES:

230 – Touchstones

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

In which tragedy strikes; leisure suits are underappreciated; Jubilee is fundamentally opposed to feelings; that MCU joke would definitely have been hilarious; we have trouble accepting Beast as a 20-something; when Gambit and Rogue work, they work; Wolverine makes an unlikely agony aunt; Dr. Strange was the mentor Illyana Rasputin really needed; and What If: Magik is pretty much a perfect comic.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Human High Council
  • Many terrible things that have happened to the Rasputin family
  • Uncanny X-Men #303
  • X-Men #24
  • What If: Magik
  • A tonal disconnect
  • Leisure Suit Larry
  • A prospective movie marathon
  • Insecurity
  • Molecular Cohesion Unit
  • The death of Illyana Rasputin (and its aftermath)
  • Death in America
  • A dubious idea for a theme park
  • A reunion
  • Papa Gumbo’s Cajun Cookout
  • Illyana Rasputin and Dr. Strange
  • Navigating vs. erasing trauma
  • Why What If: Magik is absolutely amazing
  • How to cite X-Men volumes
  • Earth-242 (Earth on Fire)

NEXT EPISODE: The other X-Cutioner!


Check out the 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!

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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 222 – A Tale of Two Betsys

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER SORROWS