Live at FlameCon! Left to Right: Leah, Sina, Mags, Jay, Miles
Look who finally got a proper con banner!
OH MY GOSH LOOK AT ALL THESE SKETCHES! (We also forgot to photograph a ton of the ones we did, including one of Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau in a Speedo. We are very sorry.)
Rogue, by Miles
Warlock, by Jay
Phoenix, by Miles
Business-Casual Cyclops, by Jay
Archangel, by Miles
Dazzler, by Jay
Phoenix II / Marvel Girl / Prestige, by Miles
MAGNETO! sharpie tats, by Jay
Iceman, by Miles
Quentin Quire, by Jay
Anole, by Miles
Jubilee, by Miles
Warlock, by Jay
Dark Phoenix, by Miles
Phoenix Quentin Quire, by Miles
Rictor, by Jay
Rogue, by Miles
Cyclops, by Jay
Wolverine, by Miles
A good drawing, which is how you can tell it’s not by us: Cyclops Has a Good Day, for Jay’s sketchbook, by Amy Reeder!
In which Leah dives headfirst into the world of con panels; Magdalene will burn down your idols; Sina is a fashion icon; none of the X-Men are straight (but they do share a sweater); you can’t spell “gay sex” without X; and we are all very, VERY in love with FlameCon.
Special thanks to Sina, Mags, Leah, Matt, Maya, Tea, Anna, the Discord crowd, and all our amazing listeners and patrons!
NEXT EPISODE: Stryfe’s Burn Book!
Check out some of our FlameCon photos and sketches on our blog!
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.)
Meet the Excalibur of Earth-99476! (Excalibur #51)
This Sauron’s opinions on jorts are never canonically established, but I think we all know. (Excalibur #51)
I see what you did there, Davis. (Excalibur #51)
Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land! (Excalibur #51)
The Fantastic Five! (Excalibur #51)
There is definitely an alternate universe that is the same as 616 in every way except that Dai Thomas ended this call by yelling, “The Aristocrats!” (Excalibur #51)
It’s true. I will pretty much always pay to watch the X-Men beat up Professor X. (Excalibur #52)
You know it’s an illusion because none of them is wearing a plaid suit. (Excalibur #52)
Several aspects of Rachel’s backstory as presented in this issue will be retconned away, but this is the most significant of those. (Excalibur #52)
WELL THAT EXPLAINS A THING OR TWO (Excalibur #52)
And then they went to space. For like a year. (Excalibur #52)
That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
Spoiler: Kitty is cutting off his cast and it’s itchy. (Excalibur #54)
That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
Oh, man, can you imagine Meggan at Disney World? I bet she has THE MOST fun and also gets asked to leave very quickly. (Excalibur #54)
It seems kind of ridiculous that he jumps straight to “must be an illusion” after everything he’s seen, but… That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
I love the Crazy Gang and very much want them to be happy. (Excalibur #54)
The best kind of twist ending! (Excalibur #54)
The mystery deepens and gets even cooler-looking. (Excalibur #54)
As promised, here is a photograph of two-year-old Jay dressed as a compsognathus.
In which you should all come see us at FlameCon; all lizards are good lizards; we recap a recap; the Phoenix force is really complicated; Earth-99476 may or may not be the secret history of Earth-616; Alan Davis takes on continuity; the X-Men fail to save the day; the Phoenix says its piece; Rachel takes a vacation in space; Captain Britain doesn’t like to be psychoanalyzed; and the Crazy Gang gets a happy ending.
X-PLAINED:
Evil Shadowcats
Jay & Miles at FlameCon
Excalibur #51, 52, and 54
A brief history of Excalibur
The Phoenix Force
A recap of a recap
What this episode isn’t covering
Lizard Excalibur
The most meta t-shirt in the multiverse
Several long-ago Halloween costumes
Dinosaurs of Earths-616 and -99476
National Lampoon Vacation apocrypha
Earth-99476 and its Savage Land
The Fantastic Five
A vow of vengeance
Feron as an antecedent to Kubark
Alan Davis’s modern authorial counterpart
A telepathic journey
The full history of the Phoenix Force (as established circa 1991)
Inherited vs. inherent mutant powers (and a No-Prize explanation thereof)
The rehabilitation of Rachel Summers
Several retcons yet to come
Jean Grey’s inconsistent relationship to the Phoenix Force
A mysterious disappearance
What the Crazy Gang has been up to
The nicest kind of twist
A very easy way to make Kitty Pryde textually queer
Differentiating X-teams
The X-Plain Discord
Strong Guy’s new hobby
NEXT EPISODE: Cable: Blood & Metal
UPDATE: Not only can birds see color, but they can see a wider spectrum than humans. THE MORE YOU KNOW!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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.)
One of my very favorite humans and authors–as well as a long-time friend of the show–Seanan McGuire was just announced as the writer of the upcoming X-Men: Gold Annual #2 (cover above). I caught up with Seanan on Discord for an x-clusive chat about her history with the X-Men and what it’s like to write your childhood favorites.
Keep going for the full interview, as well as the cover to X-Men: Gold Annual #2 (WITH BUNNIES)!
In which space bugs break time; you may already be a member of Excalibur; Earth-616 remains somewhat baffled by basic telecommunications technology; you should absolutely not order monkeys from an ad in a comic book; Widget gets a new look; Excalibur gets a new logo; Merlin X-Plains everything; and Rachel gets in touch with her roots.
X-PLAINED:
The Timebroker
Excalibur #48-50
What “fair use” doesn’t mean
Penis bones, revisited
Feron
Prophylactic levitation
Several inaccurate flashbacks
Someone who is neither a Nazi nor Charles Xavier
Necrom (again)
The art of heroic exposition
Monastic population maintenance
Mail-order monkeys
Widget’s new look
Kylun’s mutant power
Several alternate Excaliburs
The True Secret Purpose of Excalibur
The new Excalibur logo
Fighting weird with weird
A whole lot of history
Phoenix vs. Anti-Phoenix
Some very epic thwarting
The end of an era
Alan Davis’s Excalibur
How we work alternate timelines into coverage
Bishop and Deathbird as a couple
NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure and Bloody Choices!
UPDATE: Apparently the dead mail-order monkeys were apocryphal, although we were able to dig up some fairly nightmarish accounts of live mail-order monkeys. …Yay?
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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.)
In which Gambit is transatlantically terrible; Rick Leonardi is the poor man’s Alan Davis (but in a good way); we try and fail to care about British royals; Miles should probably read some Oscar Wilde already; Jay has a lot of feelings about The Rocketeer; Shadowcat gets a genuinely stylish costume; and we would read the hell out of a series about Destiny, Mystique, and Wolverine’s WWII adventures.
X-PLAINED:
Why Gambit isn’t welcome in the United Kingdom
X-Men: True Friends #1-3
The poor man’s Alan Davis
Trad night
Laird Alasdhair Kinross and his nonthreatening but convenient heterosexuality
Inexplicably absent familial relationships
Queen Lilibet the Second
Lady Regina Windermere
Several notable British fascists of the 1930s
A snazzy airplane
Several nefarious plots
Formal pajamas
The mystery of the Hypercolor™ kilt
A large number of strong feelings about The Rocketeer
Kitty Pryde’s best costumes
Weaponized cosmic queerness (again)
Power, agency, and the Dark Phoenix Saga
How characters end up with their specific mutations.
NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine, again.
You can find the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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.)
In which Miles speculates about superheroes’ sex lives; Doctor Doom is an incorrigible scamp; the Lady of the Lake visits California; Captain Britain lacks basic superheroic social skills; Jay has strong feelings about doggerel; the warwolves know how to commit to a bit; and Excalibur and the X-Men continue to have terrible communication skills.
X-PLAINED:
One aspects of doombot functionality
Excalibur #37-41
The Soul Sword’s origins and current status
Promethium
Semantic disambiguation with regards to Limbo
The West Coast Avengers
The Lady of the Swimming Pool
Doctor Doom’s personal demons
Several team-ups
The heart of Limbo
Phoenix science
Darkoth the Demon (Desmond Pitt)
The Trial of Lockheed
A long-awaited reunion that isn’t actually a long-awaited reunion
A theoretical Frost-Summers wedding
What happened to Jen Askani post- “Endgame”
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor Forever
You can find the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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.)
