Tag: Wolfsbane
82 – Birds and Boys
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In which Louise Simonson’s New Mutants run gets off to a rough start; drugs are not a reliable way to impress your space girlfriend; Magma gets a character arc; Tarot’s powers are kind of iffy; it’ll take more than a few illegal fish to stop Magik; and Bird Brain thoroughly fails to live up to his potential.
X-PLAINED:
- Sunspot’s brushes with villainy
- The de-aging of the New Mutants
- New Mutants #55-58
- A memorable dress
- Raek
- A cautionary tale
- The New Mutants as a Saturday morning cartoon
- Bird Boy / Bird Brain
- June Brigman
- A romantic dilemma
- Several alternative foci for Tarot’s powers
- Redemption and humanization of villains in X-books
- Undignified birds
- The best and worst of Bret Blevins
- Non-comics writers we’d like to see write X-books
- Other teen time travelers we’d add to All-New X-Men
NEXT WEEK: Live in Las Vegas!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel 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’ll have prints of this week’s illustration up at our shop later this week. As always, you can contact David Wynne to inquire after the original!
As Mentioned in Episode 71 – The Once and Fuchsia King
Listen to the episode here!

LINKS:
- If you’re curious about the Starjammers, go listen to Episode 7 – Cyclops Has a Good Day, in which we discuss them at length with Greg Rucka.
- The podcast where two dudes watch and review Grown Ups 2 every week is an actual, real thing, which you can listen to here.
71 – The Once and Fuchsia King
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In which the New Mutants return from space; Professor Xavier ruins everything; Magneto is the Craig Pelton of X-Men; Cypher carouses shamefully with Hellfire tramps; Karma quits the team; and we wrap up Chris Claremont’s New Mutants run.
X-PLAINED:
- Leong and Nga Coy Manh
- New Mutants #51-54
- The Starjammers (again)
- The paradox of Professor X
- Several dramatic speeches
- The Hellfire Club for Creative Anachronism
- Plan Omega (but not that one)
- A fairly epic dress-code violation
- Magik vs. Limbo
- A very specific bit of fancasting
- Best Magneto
- What X-fans (may or may not) live for
- A well-wrought nightmare
- Hellion disambiguation
- Doug Ramsey’s Fancy Hair
- New Mutants X Frank Zappa
- Wacky teen hijinks at the Hellfire Club
- Carousing shamefully with Hellfire tramps
- A heroic challenge
- A counterintuitive heart’s desire
- Claremont’s New Mutants run.
- Libraries
- Emma Frost’s accent
- The sounds of blastin’
NEXT WEEK: It’s hard to be Havok.
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel 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 67 – Shadow of the Technarch
Listen to the episode here.

LINKS:
- The Fantasticast (Steve And Andy Fan-‘Splain The FF in Episodes 137 and 138)
- The British History Podcast
As Mentioned in Episode 65 – The Mutant Massacre, Part 1
Listen to the episode here.

If you want to follow along with the crossover, you can find a guide to the reading order–and how we’re dividing it between episodes–here.
65 – The Mutant Massacre, Part 1
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In which we hit the first big X-centric crossover; a lot of Morlocks die; X-Factor is a dark farce; Kitty Pryde talks down a mob without using racial slurs; when Doug Ramsey tells you there’s a problem, you listen; and Callisto should be one of the iconic leaders of the Marvel Universe.
X-PLAINED:
- Death by intellectual-property dispute
- The Mutant Massacre
- Mutant Massacres that might have been
- Uncanny X-Men #210-213
- New Mutants #46
- The Marauders
- The best way to guarantee the New Mutants’ involvement in a storyline
- Limbo fashion
- The responsibility of leadership
- Wolverine vs. Sabretooth
- Psylocke vs. Sabretooth
- The evolution of crossovers
- Characters we’d like to see more of post-Secret Wars
NEXT WEEK: The Mutant Massacre, Part 2!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel 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!
The New Mutants Graduate in Style!
In Episode 63, we asked you to design the New Mutants some alternate graduation costumes, since the canonical ones… left a bit to be desired. And dang, did you deliver! We’ve collected the first batch here, but we’ll be putting up another late this or early next week (or both, depending on volume), so you’ve still got time to get yours in! (E-mail to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION.)
As Mentioned in Episode 63 – Wildways
Listen to the episode here!


LINKS AND FURTHER READING:
- We talked about Longshot in Episode 49 – Of Mullets and Miracles
- Protect yourself from goose attacks.
ART CHALLENGE: Design a new graduation costume for one or more of the New Mutants! Send your designs to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION, and we’ll collect ‘em on the blog at the end of the week!
63 – Wildways
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which cartoon logic is terrifying; it’s immensely frustrating to be Doug Ramsey; Psylock gets evil robot eyes; queer subtext is not just for the ladies; Danger Room cold opens are the new Kitty’s costume changes; Mojo predicts reality TV; Longshot joins the X-Men; and we answer what may be the best question we have ever gotten.
X-PLAINED:
- Captain Britain Corps
- Alan Davis
- New Mutants Annual #2
- X-Men Annual #10
- Captain Britain (Brian Braddock)
- Psylocke (Betsy Braddock)
- Slaymaster
- Mojo
- Why cartoon logic is terrifying
- Animal Man vol. 1 #5, “The Coyote Gospel” (Incorrectly described as “The Ballad of Wile E. Coyote” in episode)
- Wildways
- Robot eyes
- Template
- Snitch
- Straight Arrow
- Jubilee (but not that Jubilee)
- The trouble with determining character ages in superhero comics
- The stated mission of the New Mutants
- The proto-X-Babies
- Longshot’s X-Men debut
- The New Mutants’ graduation costumes
- A really charged costume choice
- Tonal shifts in New Mutants
- X-Men vs. geese
NEXT WEEK: APOCALYPSE NOW!
ART CHALLENGE: Design a new graduation costume for one or more of the New Mutants! Send your designs to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION, and we’ll collect ‘em on the blog at the end of the week!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel 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!
Special thanks to Ryan Hill for this week’s art, and to Claire Miller for the research X-Pertise!