Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

454 – X-Men ’97, Part 2

SPOILER WARNING: ALL OF THEM, NONSTOP

In which Barry Windsor-Smith is too sexy for television; we know what happens when unstable molecules get struck by lightning; X-Men gets political and does it spectacularly; this Captain America would not sew the cape; Magneto continues to throw things into space; and they kissed and we missed it.

X-PLAINED:

  • Fabian Cortez’s name
  • X-Men ’97 episodes 6-10
  • Lifedeath I & II: a surprising adaptation
  • Varying levels of going in blind
  • A somewhat different and possibly better Forge
  • The Adversary vs. the Owl Queen
  • Stormiest and least-Stormy costumes
  • Professor Charles Xavier, Official Space Boyfriend
  • Colonialism vs. Identity
  • Delayed catharsis
  • The narrative power of altered opening credits
  • What makes allyship effective (and not)
  • Justified mutant anger
  • The worst version of Nina DaCosta
  • What makes Prime Sentinels scary
  • Summers family feels
  • The best damned fight scenes out there
  • Bastion, robo-avatar of conservative white patriarchy
  • Simultaneous crossovers
  • A psychic gay bar
  • A last boss arena
  • Acolyte equivalencies
  • Phoenix Ex Machina
  • Crying
  • Whether Magneto was right
  • Apoca-futures and Apoca-pasts
  • A bulletin board and our hopes for its contents
  • Soft Serve
  • Kitty Pryde’s coffee shop AU
  • X-Men ’97 as the perfect gateway

NEXT EPISODE: Skrulls!


LINKS AND FURTHER READING:


No visual companion this week!

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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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453 – X-Men ’97, Part 1

SPOILER WARNING: ALL OF THEM, NONSTOP

In which we put the comics on hold to take a look at X-Men ’97; it is still always Inferno in here; Wolverine is best used sparingly; a Marvel show finally embraces politics; Wolverine is best in small doses; Madeylne Pryor still always deserves better; Jubilee grows up; and we are all in on this series.

X-PLAINED:

  • “Beyond Good and Evil”
  • X-Men: The Animated Series and our respective feelings about it
  • X-Men ’97, episodes 1-5
  • Watching X-Men ’97 with and without context
  • Making animated Cyclops work
  • The Magneto’s-hair-length morality index
  • Politics
  • Voices
  • Adaptation pacing
  • Agency
  • Abcissa
  • Foreshadowing
  • Time compression
  • Horniest Rogue
  • Death in cartoons
  • A metaphor
  • Nonbinary identity in 1997
  • Character evolution

NEXT EPISODE: Episodes 6-10


No visual companion this week!

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!

ECCC 2016 Round-Up!

Listen to the live episode here.


Miles, Scott, and Jay performing the Hamilton cold open live at Phoenix Comics (video courtesy of Annie Bulloch):

ECCC Show Diaries:

ETA: If you absolutely can’t get enough of Hamilton and X-Men cross-references, here’s the time someone asked Jay to associate songs from the show with specific X-characters and they couldn’t stop.

105 – Live from ECCC with Kris Anka, Al Ewing, Scott Koblish, and G. Willow Wilson

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 continuity has its eyes on you; the multiverse is so complex that we have to drag Al Ewing out of the audience to X-plain it; the X-Men mean a lot of different (but mostly compatible) things to all of us; we will accept any retcons necessary to maintain Magneto’s history as a Holocaust survivor; and ECCC rocks our world.

X-PLAINED:

  • Secret Wars
  • Alternate universes vs. alternate timelines
  • Multiversal problem-solving
  • New Arcadia
  • Definitive alternate-timeline X-Men
  • The weird joy of reading comics out of order
  • That one alternate timeline where Storm has a leather jacket and is hooking up with Wolverine
  • The only happy Cyclops in the multiverse
  • What makes the X-Men the X-Men
  • Intersections we’d like to see explored in canon
  • The appeal of universe-hopping
  • Relative ratios of metaphors to punching
  • Proof of concept in comics publishing
  • Battleworld characters we’d like to import into the 616.1
  • Which X-Men should get solo series

NEXT WEEK: X-Terminators!


CORRECTION: During the panel, Jay claimed that Spider-Man had been married for their entire life. Jay was in fact five years old when Spider-Man got married. We regret the error, but maintain our stance that Spider-Man is totally married.


You can find links to all our ECCC coverage–as well as a live video of the Hamilton cold open, from the Phoenix Comics party–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!

 

73 – Evolving Evolution, with Robert N. Skir

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 9/6/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 9/6/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which Rachel holds down the fort; Robert N. Skir X-Plains several cartoons; teenagers are basically mutants; Southern goths are the best goths; and you should really just watch X-Men: Evolution already.

X-PLAINED:

  • Bad parenting choices
  • Rachel & Miles @ Rose City Comic Con
  • Secret origins of Robert N. Skir
  • The development of X-Men: Evolution
  • The Unauthorized X-Men
  • Point-of-view points of entry
  • The Evolution series bible
  • Spyke (Evan Daniels)
  • Mutants in society
  • Rogue variations
  • Brushes with fandom

NEXT WEEK: Fantastic Four vs. X-Men


There’s no visual companion to this episode, but you can find links and further reading 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!