In which Dr. Andrea Letamendi of Arkham Sessions joins us to analyze some analysis; Doc Samson has major scope-of-practice issues; Ren & Stimpy references continue to fail to age well; it’s hard to be Quicksilver; Val Cooper is not your friend; Polaris pretty much always deserves better; Charles Xavier should not be allowed to inhabit positions of power; and labels are often not the best tools for good representations of mental illness and neurodivergence.
X-PLAINED:
A very high-stakes 3-D puzzle
X-Factor #87
Doc Samson
Making talking heads interesting
Wolfsbane’s relationship to pop culture
Appropriate boundaries
Several remarkable fashion choices
Pietro Maximoff in perspective
Therapeutic assessment vs. intervention
The extremely tragic backstory of Jamie Madrox
Imposter syndrome
A brief history of Polaris’s brushes with possession
A really poorly planned and presented sequence
Consequences of armchair diagnosis
Interactions of telepathy and psychology
Legion as a portrayal of mental illness
Writing mental illness in fiction
NEXT EPISODE: Rasputin Family Reunion!
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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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While this cover may be the first story page, it still follows the general rule of Excalibur covers: It’s funny when bad things happen to Captain Britain. (Excalibur #55)
Aw, they look so fancy! (Excalibur #55)
Alan Davis hair: expressive AND extra! (Excalibur #55)
HIS FOOT POPPED. (Excalibur #55)
Remember this plot thread? Alan Davis does. Alan Davis remembers EVERY plot thread. It is his blessing and his curse. (Excalibur #55)
Speaking of threads… (Excalibur #55)
This is both an excellent disguise and a quality Cross-Time Caper callback. (Excalibur #56)
Oof. (Excalibur #56)
This party is the worst. (Excalibur #56)
Captain Britain X-Plains the Plot. (Excalibur #56)
(There’s a lot of plot.)(Excalibur #56)
On one hand, Sat-Yr-9 is very evil. On the other hand, this is still very satisfying. (Excalibur #56)
Meggan is so badass. (Excalibur #56)
There’s a Monty Python sketch about this. (Excalibur #56)
“Next, you eat the banana, thus disarming him!” (Excalibur #56)
Too little, too late, Nick. (Excalibur #56)
Remember this kid? ALAN DAVIS DOES! (Excalibur #57)
KITTY, NO. (Excalibur #57)
Cyclops X-Plains X-Factor #41-42. (Excalibur #57)
(And so forth.) (Excalibur #57)
I don’t know why this is a thing. It doesn’t actually impact the story in any significant way. (Excalibur #57)
GAMBIT, NO. (Excalibur #57)
These jerks, again. (Excalibur #58)
This is a ruse, except for the part about Cyclops’s secret boot radio, because Cyclops is a nerd. (Excalibur #58)
I really, really want to know more about Margaret. (Excalibur #58)
TEAM-UP! (Excalibur #58)
Amazing what they cover in undergrad chemistry programs these days. (Excalibur #58)
JUST USE THE PHONE YOU RIDICULOUS PEOPLE (Excalibur #58)
And they all lived happily ever after! (Excalibur #58)
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor vs. therapy, with guest X-Pert Dr. Andrea Letamendi!
In which we finally emerge from the other side of X-Cutioner’s Song; rich people are different from us; Brian Braddock is probably not comfortable with menstruation; Dai Thomas cleans up pretty well; someone FINALLY remembers Sat-Yr-9; Psylocke knows how to defend herself from a man armed with a banana; the (non-Internet) trolls return; and we are fairly sure that Gambit does not actually speak French.
X-PLAINED:
Winzeldorf
Excalibur (so far)
Excalibur #55-58
Lip massage
The death of Alysande Stuart
A banana fight
Alchemy (again)
Many trolls
A fairly joyous reunion
The Brussels Sewer Museum
A fake heel turn
Our hopes and worries for the New Mutants movie
Comics covers
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor vs. Therapy, with Guest X-Pert Dr. Andrea Letamendi!
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!
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In which nobody but Stryfe’s diary understands him; Apocalypse is the best at what he does (and what he does is remarkably versatile); Scott and Jean weaponize their clichés; Jae Lee does his best Patrick Nagel; Apocalypse is poisonous; Cable goes full T-800; nothing good ever happens to Cyclops on the moon; Stryfe dies as passive-aggressively as he lived; and X-Cutioner’s Song finally concludes.
X-PLAINED:
How Cable dies
The Story So Far
Still more trading-card taxonomy
Uncanny X-Men #296
X-Factor #86
X-Men #16
X-Force #18
An AU we’d like to read
The not-Stüssy S
How to effectively reference X-Men #137
A decoy baby
An abortive escape
Moon gravity
Revelatory vandalism
A trip to the moon
A probably excessive number of hawk facts
Various daring rescues
How to kill time in space
Cathexes
A very fancy moon base
The cavalry, kind of
Stryfe vs. Cable
An X-Cellent epilogue
Several Silent Hill 2 references
Stryfe’s Legacy
Pawnee, Indiana vs. Marvel
Sexy high-security prisons of the future
NEXT EPISODE: Live from FlameCon, featuring Sina Grace, Magdalene Visaggio, and Leah Williams!
Special thanks to Matt for the subject of this episode’s cold open; and to the Protomen for use of their cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
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 Jubilee is underwhelmed by X-Force; Havok and Gambit make weirdly good buddy cops; Department K is a hot vacation destination; Cable is secretly a Coen Brothers protagonist; you can cancel Community but you can never take away Jay’s gratuitous Community references; Rusty goes full cultist; nobody is Stryfe’s real dad; smoking on a space station is a REALLY bad idea; Apocalypse is here to help; and Miles lies at length about music.
X-PLAINED:
Kuurth
Various Juggernauts
The Story So Far
More trading-card taxonomy
Uncanny X-Men #295
X-Factor #85
X-Men #15
X-Force #17
Varyingly hilarious misunderstandings
Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love
What happened
Good Cop / Sleazy Cop
A deal
A tragic absence of Draculas
The Coen Brothers’ X-Cutioner’s Song
Thanksgiving with Cable
Miles’s summer camp hijinks
Murderbots in space (again)
A dubious strategy
MLF Redshirts
The second time someone force-fed superheroes baby food in space
A dropped plot thread
Things you shouldn’t do on space stations
Additional awkward reunions
Whether Stryfe is a Summers
The X-Cutioner’s signature karaoke song
NEXT EPISODE: Dang, this event is long.
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 you may or may not have your own Black Bug Room; FlameCon was in fact every bit as wonderful as we projected (and more); Caliban hates true love; no one will ever be as extra as Mister Sinister; X-Cutioner’s Song is secretly a farce; we achieve Peak Cable; and the quintessential ’90s crossover event begins!
X-PLAINED:
The Black Bug Room
A good deal of pre-event status quo
Uncanny X-Men #294
X-Factor #84
X-Men #14
X-Force #16
Trading card taxonomy
The opening strains of a crossover event
A concert that worked out better in theory than in practice
An abduction
Several attempted murders
A large number of awkward reunions
An even larger number of inter-team brawls
Two villains pretending to be other villains
Cape logistics
Peak Cable
Many pouches
Many guns
The origin of Hope Summers
Our hopes for mutants in the MCU
NEXT EPISODE: Aw, Stryfe, no.
NOTE: At one point in this episode, Miles said “X-Force” when he actually meant “X-Factor.” If you can tell us where, you win the prize of eternal smugness (not as much smugness as Sinister, but still a lot).
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.)