Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

493 – Now a Major Motion Picture

In which the first X-Men film turns 25 (and holds up remarkably well).

X-PLAINED:

  • A startling absence
  • The X-Men’s big-screen debut
  • An X-film that might have been
  • X-Men (2000), in general; and related publications
  • Some very casting
  • What makes a good adaptation
  • Wolverine’s hair
  • Those costumes
  • The cinematic X-Men
  • The cinematic Brotherhood
  • Sabretooth’s eyebrows
  • Condensed backstories
  • The movie magic of magnetism
  • The worst toy of all time
  • Going to school with superheroes
  • Things we’d like to have seen in the movie

NEXT EPISODE: The origin of Thunderbird! (Not that one.) (Or that one.)


The visual companion to this episode is the film X-Men (2000).

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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 492 – Brain Sharks

Listen to the episode here.


492 – Brain Sharks

In which the Shockwave Riders are exceptionally silly; we are deeply impressed by brain sharks; and chrome plating and gun arms are among the lesser explored recurring Claremont motifs.

X-PLAINED:

  • The fate of Sara Grey
  • Revolution Claremont X-book disambiguation
  • Uncanny X-Men #381-383
  • The Neo (again)
  • An unmarked anniversary
  • A secret treasure trove
  • Vagaries of telekinesis and telepathy
  • The Shockwave Riders
  • Brain sharks that eat memories
  • The stuff of legend
  • The Lost Souls
  • Dirges and non-dirges
  • One way to start a conversation
  • Simyon Kurasov
  • Colonel Alexi Vazhin (again)
  • The Slash
  • How to dress to go clubbing
  • Blinkers, somewhat
  • Ransom Sole
  • Big Casino
  • Sketch
  • Revenant
  • Major Debra Levin
  • Bludgeon, Cudgel, and Manacle
  • Houndification
  • The best 21st century X-characters

NEXT EPISODE: The first X-Men movie turns 25!


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

491 – Live from the Library

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 483 – Piotr Lovely Locks

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS AND FURTHER READING

483 – Piotr Lovely Locks

In which a lot has happened in the Six Month Gap (and we even get to learn about some of it); we’d missed Claremontian narration; Miles has questions about Colossus’s ponytail; the Soulsword is basically a Poké Ball; the Shadow Pope is cooler than the regular Pope; and Magik has a secret.

X-PLAINED:

  • Some big news
  • X-Men: Black Sun #1-5
  • Phoenix and Psylocke’s sorta-power-swap
  • Implied continuity
  • The N’Garai
  • Belasco
  • Limbo
  • Magik (Illyana Rasputin)
  • New costumes
  • Priests vs blood magic
  • An impressively overcomplicated evil plot
  • Chekhov’s skeleton
  • Body swaps and/or possession
  • Thunderbird (Neal Sharra)
  • Pilgrimm and the Ru’tai (again, surprisingly)
  • Astral meetups
  • Confusing bloodstone math
  • A Triple-Tech
  • Magik (Amanda Sefton)
  • Counting X-generations
  • Our favorite X-decades

NEXT EPISODE: More Magik!


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 478 – The Monologue Tube

Listen to the episode here.


478 – The Monologue Tube

In which Alan Davis is Team Cyclops; everyone gets depowered; it’s hard to connect with kids your age when you’re a superhero; Sinister’s gotta sinister; everyone gets repowered; and the ‘90s were much more eclectic than they get credit for being.

X-PLAINED:

  • Side effects of Decimation
  • Uncanny X-Men #379-380
  • X-Force #101
  • X-Men #99
  • Cadre K
  • Summers family drama
  • The High Evolutionary (more) (again)
  • The (other) time all the mutants got depowered
  • Kevin
  • A very beautiful book
  • The ongoing mess of Genoshan politics
  • The Neo (slightly)
  • To what extent Logan’s claws are a mutant power
  • Sinister monologues
  • Herbert Evolutionary
  • The New New Men
  • The ‘90s, in general
  • What makes a Morlock

NEXT EPISODE: Magneto: Dark Seduction!


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 TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 477 – Ages of Apocalypse

Listen to the episode here.