Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Widget

As Mentioned in Episode 135 – Kurt Wagner, Warlord of Mars

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Best cover, or best cover? (Nah, the best cover is Excalibur #4, but this one is pretty darn good, too.) (Excalibur #16)
Whoops. (Excalibur #16)
I’m throwing in some episode-irrelevant bonus swashbuckling this week, because that’s how much I love you. (Excalibur #16)
SO THERE. (Excalibur #16)
See?! Rachel’s barbarian-warrior costume is TOTALLY P.E.N.I.S.-five! (Excalibur #16)
See also: that one scene from Ghostbusters. (Excalibur #16)
Those are some very well-drawn tentacles. (Excalibur #16)
Remember that one time Kitty Pryde straight-up stabbed someone in the back? BECAUSE THAT HAPPENED. (Excalibur #16)
This is the last Alan Davis cover we’ll see for a while. Please join me in a moment of silent mourning. (Excalibur #17)
Much disguise very mystery. (Excalibur #17)
There is… a lot going on in these two panels. (Excalibur #17)
Except, wait, if this is just a super distant planet, then this ISN’T alt-Jean, except it still sort of is, and there’s also the Lockheed and OH GOD WHAT’S EVEN HAPPENING (Excalibur #17)
FUCK. YEAH. RACHEL. (Excalibur #17)
Nigel Frobisher: a jerk in any universe. (Excalibur #17)
You tried. (Excalibur #17)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #17)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (Excalibur #17)
It’s like Freaky Friday, but only halfway. Vaguely Abnormal Friday. (Excalibur #18)
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I would like to lodge my official complaint regarding this shameless waste of Speed Racer homage. Yrs., Jay Edidin (Excalibur #18)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #18)
NOTHING WILL EVER BE OKAY AGAIN. (Excalibur #18)
Jamie is a creep, but his powers are super cool. (Excalibur #18)
I got nothing. (Excalibur #18)
False-flag X-Men covers are kind of a running joke in this series. (Excalibur #19)
NOPE. (Excalibur #19)
Oh, Emma. (Excalibur #19)
Well, that’s unsettling on a lot of levels. (Excalibur #19)
“And then I’m going to feed you ice chips while you’re asleep!” (Excalibur #19)
NEXT EPISODE: Fill-In Frenzy!

LINKS & FURTHER READING

135 – Kurt Wagner, Warlord of Mars (Cross-Time Caper, Part 2)

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which the Cross-Time Caper continues; alliteration is awesome; someone else’s geopolitical conflict is not an appropriate place to play out your pirate fantasies; we are definitely not actually going to eat Alan Davis’s brains; Jamie Braddock is Evil Rex Racer; Widget eats a car; Rick Leonardi is the definitive fill-in artist; the problem is patriarchy; and everything’s sticky in Madripoor.

X-PLAINED:

  • X-Manga
  • Excalibur #16-19
  • Crosstime
  • A John Carter riff
  • A mysterious and dubiously reliable narrator
  • A terrible pick-up line
  • Kymri
  • Anjulie
  • Gender-neutral fantasy armor
  • Implicit fellatio in several media
  • Space Fred Savage
  • An alternate Jean Grey (and her untimely demise)
  • Tullamore Voge
  • A grand tourney
  • A deeply disappointing pastiche
  • ORZ-1
  • Dirty Pair (and a sustained riff thereon)
  • What makes a train sexy
  • Wolverine’s table manners
  • Jim Jaspers vs. Jamie Braddock vs. Jamie Jeffers

NEXT EPISODE: Fill-In Frenzy!

You can find a 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 129 – They Don’t Allow Dragons in Here

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Lockheed, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore. (Excalibur #12)
Spoiler: this ends exactly the way you’d expect it to. (Excalibur #12)
This guy. (Excalibur #12)
IT’S SUCH A GOOD SIGHT GAG! (Excalibur #12)
Fisticuffs! (Excalibur #12)
This series has the best covers, man. (Excalibur #13)
Swell new threads, Cap! (Excalibur #13)
Princess Kitty, now 100% more bland. (Excalibur #13)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #13)
THIS IS NOT A GOOD FOUNDATION FOR A RELATIONSHIP. Also, I’m pretty sure they’re both, like, fourteen. (Excalibur #13)
Another classic. (Excalibur #14)
I’m not saying he’s not, but… (Excalibur #14)
Whoa, dang. (Excalibur #14)
Oh. THAT guy. (Excalibur #14)
The more you know! (Excalibur #14)
Swell new threads, Meggan! (Excalibur #14)
I always remember Albert being in this scene, which he’s obviously not, because he didn’t exist yet. Go figure. -J (Excalibur #14)
It’s like the dog ending of Silent Hill II, but instead of shibas, you get Chris Claremont and John Byrne. (Excalibur #14)
You tell ’em, Galactus! (Excalibur #14)
Look, we get what you were going for, but, no. (Excalibur #12)
I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. (Excalibur #13)
You can go home now. We’ve hit single greatest panel of Excalibur, ever. (Excalibur #15)
Ah, “the old-fashioned way.” (Excalibur #15)
MEANWHILE… (Excalibur #15)
AND THEN… (Excalibur #15)
Jamie Jaspers is terrifying. (Excalibur #15)
LATER… (Excalibur #15)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE. (Excalibur #15)
NEXT EPISODE: Killing the X-Men, with Charles Soule!

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

129 – They Don’t Allow Dragons in Here (The Cross-Time Caper, Part 1)

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which “Cross-Time Caper” is something of a misnomer; Excalibur is an awful lot of fun to summarize; none of us will ever live up to Oscar Wilde’s expectations; Captain Britain secretly derives his powers from genre; sometimes things turn out to be simple; Kitty Pryde is better at everything than you; manipulation and murder are the new flowers and candy; context may or may not ruin everything; Meggan gets a new outfit; Technet takes Brighton; and some universes are just too silly to survive.

X-PLAINED:

  • Rick Jones, Sidekick Supreme
  • The Cross-Time Caper
  • Excalibur #12-15
  • Three love triangles
  • Jay’s mom’s late iguana
  • Captain Marshall, Lord Champion of the Realm
  • Prince William
  • Butch the ogre
  • Princess Kate
  • Fisticuffs
  • Instant air conditioning, Excalibur-style
  • Bagpipe Vader
  • An anticlimactic solution to a protracted problem
  • Sorcery 101
  • Several profoundly unethical ways to initiate a relationship
  • Arrested Excalibur
  • The Campsite Rule of relationships
  • The logistics and social history of tarring and feathering
  • A protracted parody
  • A very large number and several names for it
  • A theoretical team-up
  • Ultimate Hunger
  • An unidentified comic that is not Ultimate Hunger
  • Some less-than-ideal creative choices
  • A multiversal montage
  • Jamie Braddock (more) (again)
  • A duck
  • The unenviable fate of Doctor Crocodile
  • Pairing mutants with metal genres
  • Inconsistent flight safety measures

NEXT EPISODE: Killing the X-Men, with Charles Soule

You can find a 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 120 – Observed by a Family of Lizard People

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Hi, there. (Excalibur #8)
They’re totally a girl gang, though, right? (Excalibur #8)
Ouch. (Excalibur #8)
Hi, Brian. (Excalibur #8)
Seriously, it’s never not funny. (Excalibur #8)
I want a statue of this cover SO BAD. (Excalibur #9)
Meet Lightning Force: The Nazi Excalibur you really, really don’t need in your life. (Excalibur #9)
The many faces of Meggan (and some slightly disastrous sound effects from Brian). (Excalibur #9)
Alastaire Stuart and his banana. (Excalibur #9)
Kittys Pryde. (Excalibur #9)
HI, BRIAN. (Excalibur #10)
Just gal pals, pallin’ around. (Excalibur #11)
If I had a dollar for every time this had happened… (Excalibur #11)
Well, then. (Excalibur #11)
Sure, why not? (Excalibur #11)
NEXT EPISODE: Deadpool v Gambit, with Ben Acker!

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

120 – Observed by a Family of Lizard People

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which everything is worse with Nazis; Excalibur gets its groove back; Meggan has an identity crisis; Kitty gets a crush; a dragon gets interdimensional sanctuary; and the Cross-Time Caper starts not with a bang, but a foomp.

X-PLAINED:

  • The death of Lilandra Neramani
  • Excalibur #8-11
  • The best name in Hollywood
  • Still more of Inferno’s aftermath
  • A basketball game
  • Blackbird disambiguation
  • Several long-delayed reunions and one subsequent resolution
  • Alastaire Stuart (and his banana)
  • Tourists who are also lizards
  • Lightning Force
  • A number of unfortunate encounters
  • The difference between Errol Flynn characters and Errol Flynn
  • The fall of Nigel Frobisher
  • The switch that turns the engine invisible
  • What may be the world’s least subtle euphemistic use of the term “roommate”
  • How the discourse around comics has changed since the ’80s
  • Jubilee vs. power creep

NEXT EPISODE: Deadpool v Gambit, with Ben Acker!

You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes, Google Play, 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 112 – Embers of Inferno (feat. Sam Humphries)

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Listen to the episode here!

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
“So, y’know–business as usual.” (Amazing Spider-Man #313)
The Ghostbusters references just keep coming! (Amazing Spider-Man #313)
HE’S NOT WRONG. (Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #146)
This is in fact literally what it is like to work in publishing, all the time. (Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #147)
CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW JARVIS’S MOM IS A HUGE WRESTLING AFICIONADO? (Avengers #298)
Well, then. (Avengers #298)
He does this every time he fights a possessed machine. (Avengers #298)
No, seriously. Every time. (Avengers #299)
Stories involving Nanny and the Orphanmaker are never not super sad and messed up. (Avengers #299)
That one time the Avengers got back together in a tie-in to someone else’s crossover event. (Avengers #300)
Never leave your house. Seriously. (Power Pack #42)
Actually, no. Your house isn’t safe, either. (Power Pack #42)
And then a group of young children looked back nostalgically at the time they fought Sabretooth in a sewer. (Power Pack #44)
Aw. (Power Pack #44)
LIES. (The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #4)
For full effect, you have to imagine the narration being read by David Attenborough. (Daredevil #262)
And that was how Daredevil beat up a vacuum cleaner. (Daredevil #262)
It’s actually pretty surprising that no one else thought to do anything with possessed hospital equipment, because that is TERRIFYING. (Daredevil #263)
Officer Drillbit, in all his glory. (Daredevil #265)
For 1989 Daredevil, this ending is positively chipper. (Daredevil #265)
NEXT EPISODE: So. Much. Wolverine.

112 – Embers of Inferno (feat. Sam Humphries)

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which we cover (almost) all of the Inferno tie-ins with the help of writer Sam Humphries; the Marvel Universe used to be really X-Centric; Jarvis is unstoppable; Daredevil fights a vacuum cleaner; it’s probably best not to ask about the whole Celestial Madonna thing; Power Pack gets incredibly upsetting; working in comics makes you appreciate crossovers on a whole new level; and we’d all really have liked to have seen Guy Davis’s Inferno.

X-PLAINED:

  • Peter Quill’s brief music career
  • Widget
  • The Amazing Spider-Man #311-313
  • Spectacular Spider-Man #146-148
  • Web of Spider-Man #47-48
  • Avengers #298-300
  • Power Pack #42-44
  • Daredevil #262, 263, 265
  • Cloak and Dagger (vol. 3) #4
  • Fantastic Four #322-324
  • Inferno, as a whole
  • The fate of Madelyne Pryor
  • Jay’s Madelyne Pryor song
  • How working in comics taught us to appreciate crossovers
  • Our ideal Inferno artists

NEXT EPISODE: So. Much. Wolverine.

You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes, Google Play, 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 103 – Warwolves of London

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
It’s the front-cover equivalent of the slow-motion hero walk. (Excalibur #1)
Hi, Widget! (Excalibur #1)
Kitty is ridiculous and also awesome. (Excalibur #1)
Nigel “The Worst” Frobisher. (Excalibur #1)
Aw, man. (Excalibur #1)
Welcome to the perfectly ordinary lighthouse full of perfectly ordinary rooms! Hope you survive the… (Excalibur #1)
“No one can move in Rachel’s costume except Rachel” is going to become a running joke over the course of the series. (Excalibur #1)
Somewhere there’s a universe where Meggan grew up watching Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, in which this scene went very differently. (Excalibur #1)
Vixen, never change. (Excalibur #2)
The Warwolves are awful, but also fairly delightful. (Excalibur #2)
Oh, dear me. (Excalibur #2)
HIJINKS! (Excalibur #2)
Well, that happened. (Excalibur #2)
This cannot POSSIBLY end well. (Excalibur #2)
Alan Davis covers are the best covers. (Excalibur #3)
SOMEHOW TEAM VIXEN’S OUTFITS GOT EVEN BETTER. (Excalibur #3)
And so it goes. (Excalibur #3)
Well done, Kitty. (Excalibur #3)
Well done, Kurt. (Excalibur #3)
FRIENDSHIP! (Excalibur #3)
Including this panel purely for Kurt’s dashing outfit. (Excalibur #3)
PERFECTLY NORMAL LIGHTHOUSE. NOTHING TO SEE HERE. (Excalibur #3)

LINKS & FURTHER LISTENING:

103 – Warwolves of London

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

 

In which Excalibur is x-tra x-ceptional; we once again gush at length about Alan Davis; Kurt Wagner is reliable with the ladies; nothing in Excalibur is ever perfectly normal; Warwolves are regular folks; Brian Braddock still doesn’t get to take a bath; Jay overthinks a question; and there’s more where that came from!

 

X-PLAINED:

  • The Unstoppable Juggernaut
  • Earth-10724
  • Jay & Miles at Emerald City Comicon
  • Excalibur #1-3
  • Fun
  • The Crazy Gang (again)
  • The somewhat ignominious death of Ray Mulholland
  • Warwolves
  • Nigel Frobisher
  • A somewhat dubious ploy
  • Bathroom etiquette
  • Widget
  • A kid named Colin
  • Rupert Holloway
  • Friendship, kind of
  • The Lighthouse
  • Courtney Ross
  • Excalibur vs. the Juggernaut
  • Kitty’s powers
  • An exceptionally specific theoretical crossover

NEXT WEEK: Checking in on the current state of the X-line, with guest Brett White!

You can find a 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!