Tag: retcons
530 – Not for Beginners
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which we remain frustrated with Morrison’s Magneto; Esme Cuckoo’s hat game is lacking; and the status quo dies with Jean Grey.
X-PLAINED:
- Dubious X-relationships
- Some excellent songs from an excellent show
- New X-Men #149-150
- Various atrocities and catastrophes
- The resistance, such as it is
- Magneto’s limits
- A rebirth
- Neutron warheads
- The cavalry
- Yet another death of Magneto
- Yet another death of Jean Grey
- A peculiar epilogue
- A legacy of retcons
- A miasma of bleakness and futility
- The Xorn retcon
- Disability in “Planet X”
- Miracles of Magnetism
NEXT EPISODE: The future!
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 Dashery shop!
As Mentioned in Episode 491 – Live from the Library
Listen to the podcast here.
LINKS & FURTHER READING
- Go read “Kitty Queer,” by Sigrid Ellis.
- Done? Great. Next, read “The Judgment of Magneto,” by Asher Elbein.
- If you’re looking for a jumping-on point to this podcast, you could do worse than the Age of Apocalypse.
- Jay has some additional thoughts on identity politics, which you can read here.
491 – Live from the Library
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS
In which we record live from the Library of Congress; time travel complicates everything; X-Men is a fundamentally queer narrative; we attempt to summarize a lot of history very fast; and when identities are politicized, claiming them becomes a political act.
X-PLAINED:
- LC-GLOBE
- The first openly queer X-Man
- Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
- Why we do what we do
- Why the X-Men are worth studying
- Returning nuance to critical discussion of media
- A brief(ish) history of X-Men and queerness in X-Men
- Iceman Watch
- Retroactive foreshadowing
- The mutant metaphor
- Found family
- Subtext
- Text
- Facets of mutant activism
- Coming-out stories
- Various vectors of diversity
- Some comics Jay wrote
- Comics in libraries
- Where to start with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
- X-Men for horror fans
- Our favorite X-Men lineups
- Identity politics
- The T-O virus vs. the Legacy Virus
NEXT EPISODE: Brain Sharks!
This episode doesn’t exactly have a traditional visual companion, but you can click through the entire slide deck from the live show–and find links to the essays we mentioned–on our blog.
Jay has some additional thoughts on identity politics, which you can read here.
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 Dashery shop!
As Mentioned in Episode 411 – Tearaway Pants
411 – Tearaway Pants
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS
In which we actually kind of like a Sabretooth story; we’re not asking for viscera, here; all pants on Earth-616 are tearaway pants; we’d like to see more Wolverine stories about bodily autonomy; Gambit’s hallucinations have hallucinations; and there are probably too many X-books.
X-PLAINED:
- Punch-clock villains
- Hydro-Man’s secret weakness
- 411
- ‘90s fashion
- X-Men Unlimited #17-18
- X-Men Unlimited vs. annuals
- A difficult casting decision
- Forge’s neutralizer gun
- Costume injuries
- Color symbolism? Kinda? I guess?
- Mrs. Hoo
- Saberine & Wolvertooth
- Warren Kenneth Worthington III vs. shirts
- How to dress for Earth-616
- Hot buttered whatever
- Boob foliage
- Clones
- Very tenacious blood stains
- The return of the Angry Claremontean Narrator
- Lots of hallucinations
- Oscar the Fixer
- Hydro-Man
- Redemption, symbolic and otherwise
- The evolution of Magneto’s name
- Our ideal X-line
NEXT EPISODE: Back to the core!
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 276 – Wizard Problems
Listen to the podcast here.
LINKS & FURTHER DIVERSIONS:
- You can hear all about the time Margali made Kurt his own personal hell in Episode 134 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.
- The Raven probably isn’t a good film; but it is a delightful one.
- Here’s Max’s significantly funnier take on Tarot’s potential.
- Jay co-wrote a Thor novel! You can pre-order it here, if you are so inclined.
276 – Wizard Problems
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which Excalibur gets a regular writer again; we judge a book against against its covers; nothing good ever comes from being sexy on Muir Isle; and the soul sword’s real power is cutting through continuity.
X-PLAINED:
- Stegron
- Dinosaur powers
- Excalibur #83-85 (The Soul Sword Trilogy)
- Warren Ellis on Excalibur
- Excalibur (more) (again)
- Bends Sinister and Bend Sinister
- Outsider days
- Boundaries
- Darkoth
- Gravemoss
- The Winding Way
- Shrill
- A problematic prosthesis
- Roger Corman’s The Raven
- A large number of continuity errors
- Gratuitous dickery
- An untold tale
- The semantics of skin removal
- Possession vs. retrograde amnesia
- The circle of nostalgia
NEXT EPISODE: Jorts Unlimited!
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 274 – The Red Shoe Prophecies

Listen to the episode here!
LINKS & FURTHER RECORDINGS:
- Read Chris Eddleman and Robert Secundus’s X-Annotations at Xavier Files and Polygon!
- Follow Chris on Twitter here!
- Listen to Chrises on Infinite Earths…
- …and follow them on Twitter!
274 – The Red Shoe Prophecies (feat. Chris Eddleman)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which Chris Eddleman joins us for a close look at House of X and Powers of X; Doug Ramsey is highly relevant; resurrection is problematic in a universe with a documented afterlife; there is no reasonable in-continuity justification for the lack of trans Marvel characters; and your OT3 is canon.
X-PLAINED:
- The Phalanx (more) (again) (retconned)
- House of X
- Powers of X
- Krakoa (more) (again) (retconned)
- Moira MacTaggert (retconned)
- Bar Sinister
- Sinister Secrets
- Portentous red shoes
- The Man-Machine Ascendancy
- Chimeras
- North
- Cardinal
- Rasputin
- Homo Novissima
- Transhumanism in the Marvel Universe
- The metaphysics of Krakoan resurrection
- The Five
- The true nature of Goldballs’ powers
- Trans representation and its absence
- Retroactive foreshadowing
NEXT EPISODE: Still not quite Generation X
CORRECTION: The story Jay referred to as “Everything Burns” is in fact titled “Time Runs Out,” although a good many things do burn over its course.
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!

