Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

26 – The Other Team America (featuring Chris Sims)

Art by David Wynne.
Art by David Wynne.

In which Danielle Moonstar is the Wolverine of the New Mutants, Henry Peter Gyrich is the Walter Peck of the Marvel Universe, Michael Rossi is no Peter Corbeau, Xavier is a Brood Queen (who is a jerk), Bob McLeod draws really good teenagers, the New Mutants do an after-school special, Chris Sims drops in for some emergency X-Plaining, Elsie Carson is the Harvey and Janet of Hydra, and Team America is generally sort of baffling.

X-Plained

  • Viper
  • Brood stuff
  • The original New Mutans (more) (again)
  • The New Mutants #1-6
  • Denial
  • Dani vs. the Danger Room
  • Mall stories
  • Neighborhood kids
  • Henry Peter Gyrich
  • Sebastian Shaw (again)
  • Project Wideawake (sort of)
  • Michael Rossi
  • A poorly-timed crossover
  • Gabrielle Haller
  • A profoundly unethical relationship
  • A Very Special Episode
  • Overkill
  • Magnum, P.I.
  • Team America (but not that one)
  • Elsie Carson, middle manager of Hydra
  • The Girl With the Silver Eyes
  • X-Men reading order

The visual companion for this episode will go up mid-week, due to New York Comic-Con generally kicking our asses (Among MANY other things, Rachel is tweeting–mostly cool X-cosplay pics–from the show floor, and Miles is working at the Dark Horse booth. Come say hi!). Meanwhile, for further supplemental material, we recommend reading Chris’s in-depth history of Team America:

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As Mentioned in Episode 14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

Listen to the podcast here!


Links and Further Reading:

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The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage

Savage Wolverine #21


All Those Signature Moves We Listed Off (We’ll Do a Visual Directory Eventually, We Promise):

FASTBALL SPECIAL VARIATIONS:

  • Fastball Special: Colossus throws Wolveine at something.
  • Phaseball Special*: Someone throws Kitty through robots

OTHER MOVES:

  • The Most Comics-Code-Adherent at What He Does*:  The thing where Wolverine has his claws out during a fight but doesn’t cut anyone.
  • Cue-ball Special*: The thing where Cyclops takes out like six bad guys with ricochets from one optic blast.
  • Slippery Slope*: The thing where Iceman tries to be awesome and ends up beating up his teammates by accident.
  • Blue-Plate Special Special*: The thing where an X-man uses their powers to prepare lunch.
  • The thing where Kitty wrecks everything by accident phasing through it.
  • The thing where everyone switches opponents mid-fight, and that’s what turns the tide.
  • The thing where Nightcrawler is awfully dashing about beating people up.
  • The thing where Storm’s claustrophobia saves the day.
  • The thing where Angel just dodges shit for like an hour instead of participating in the fight.
  • The thing where Xavier fakes his own death.
  • The thing where Cypher and/or Kitty and/or Illyana and/or Wolverine do the “Ain’t I a stinker?” thing from the control booth of the Danger Room.
  • The thing where Cyclops uses his optic blasts to slow or stop inertia or a fall.
  • The thing where Storm has no powers and STILL kicks someone’s ass into next week.
  • The thing where Colossus and Wolverine throw themselves at Magneto every goddamn time despite being made of metal.

*We made these names up. They are not official canon, but we live in hope.

14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

In which Canada is complicated, the X-Perts join Twitter, Rachel cares about a Wolverine story, Angel had one job, Kitty Pryde is pretty cool, Cyclops gets a hat, neither of us knows how to pronounce “Aleytys,” Doctor Doom is a terrible date, and the X-Men have an awful lot of signature moves.

X-Plained:

  • Department H
  • Department K
  • Director X
  • The Weapon Plus Program
  • Weapon P.R.I.M.E.
  • Weapons I-XVI
  • The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage
  • The new normal
  • Stevie Hunter
  • The Wendigo
  • Berserker rage
  • Yard work
  • Wolverines
  • Angel’s one move
  • The N’Garai (again)
  • Lee Forrester
  • D’Spayre
  • Magic-Feather villains
  • Man-Thing
  • Doctor Doom
  • Arcade
  • Why it sucks to be Havok
  • The X-Perts’ relative areas of X-pertise
  • Cyclops vs. Storm
  • Signature moves

CORRECTIONS: Lee’s dad’s house is in Florida, not Louisiana; Doctor Doom is not in Europe but in New England, where has taken over Toad’s theme park, because that was definitely a thing.

If you’re looking for our coverage of X-Men 141 and 142—”Days of Future Past”—you can find that in Episode 6, “Days of Future Whatever.”


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

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