The Mutant Ages

Maddy and Ryan played through another "choose your own adventure" tape cassette for the 2-XL robot (start with last week's episode if you want to know what that is!) and, once again, we got very different storylines. This time, Maddy got a good story, and Ryan got a boring, nonsensical one. Maddy gets excited that "Ghosts That Haunt Us" includes Mystique's love of Destiny as canon (more or less),...

Maddy and Ryan play an official X-Men "choose your own adventure" style audiobook, originally released on a tape cassette for a robot toy called the 2-XL. The robot could skip to different parts of the story depending on inputs, although we played the web browser version on 2xlbot.com. "X-Men: Deadly Games" is a hell of a ride; somehow we both ended up with pitch-perfect plotlines for our preferen...

Maddy, Todd, Ry P and Ry T (the two Ryans!!) draft their ultimate X-Men teams in a competitive format, despite how nice all of them want to be towards one another's choices. Whose team will be strongest? And wait, why is Cloaky here? Next week's episode: The 2-XL X-Men adventure cassettes E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges, MIDImyers an...

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd discuss the X-Men and Wolverine seasons of the Marvel anime series, with some brief discussion of Blade and Iron Man as well. We rank our favorite and least favorite characters, best and worst episodes, and what the future of Marvel anime could look like. What if the X-Men could be a magical girl show? We have a great pitch, actually. Next week's episode: The Mutant Ages draf...

Turns out the Wolverine anime had a secret epilogue, and it's episode 7 of the Blade anime. Good news, the Blade anime is a lot better than the Wolverine anime, since it's an action-comedy with fun jokes and an actual plot (or so it seems from what little we've seen). Maddy and Ryan might actually watch the rest of the Blade anime, but we'd prefer to never visit this version of Madripoor again! Ne...

The Mutant Ages hosts take a brief reprieve from the hustle and bustle of reviewing every adaptation of the X-Men to read RuPaul's memoir, specifically the list of drag name suggestions. Maddy has a lot of thoughts. Next week's episode: "Day Walker and Mutant (Claws and Blades)," Blade (Marvel anime) E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media @TheMutantAges, MI...

Todd joins Maddy and Ryan for the series finale of the Wolverine anime, which might be worse than any previous episode because it's so unfulfilling. Sure, all the plot points get wrapped up; Yukio even confesses to killing Asano. But the ending is no less frustrating, since it involves Hideki blowing up the entire Dragon Palace while it's full of his own wedding guests (why???). Then, everybody el...

Maddy and Ryan reach the penultimate episode of the Wolverine anime, and they're very excited to reach the finale next week. So close! Luckily, this week's episode had some actual plot in it: Logan, Yukio, and Kikyo have finally climbed the steps to the Dragon Palace, with Yukio's grandfather Koh just ahead of them. Koh gets in a big swordfight with Shingen, then gets interrupted by Yukio, Logan,...

Maddy and Ryan step away (once again) from the Wolverine anime to open up the listener mailbag, answering questions about obscure X-Men who deserve a storyline, Mystique as a trans allegory, the music scene on Krakoa, and more. In the second half of the episode, we've got a brand-new episode of The Mutant Ages: The Comic Book! Next week's episode: "Kurohagi," Wolverine (Marvel anime) E-mail us you...

Yukio and Logan still haven't made it inside the Dragon Palace, even though we're all the way up to episode 10 of the Wolverine anime. This episode is called "Shingen," even though it's not about Shingen, and he doesn't even appear in the episode. That makes no sense, but neither does the episode, which features a lengthy fight scene with Vadhaka and the shocking, pointless death of one of the ser...

Every episode of the Wolverine anime has felt more like a video game level than a TV show, but none more so than "Hell Road." In this installment, Logan and Yukio evade a series of traps, all of which play out like quicktime events in a 90s-era action game made by Capcom. Also, Maddy and Ryan lose their minds over the reveal of Koh's "plan," which makes no sense, could barely be called a plan, and...

Connor Goldsmith of the Cerebro podcast comes on the show to analyze the motion comic adaptation of Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, written by Joss Whedon and illustrated by John Cassaday. This means we analyze all of Joss Whedon's work up to the source comic's original debut in 2004, meaning full spoilers for Buffy, Angel, and even a little bit of Dollhouse and Firefly/Serenity chat. Since Connor's he...

The Wolverine anime didn't let us down this week, because this episode has plot points that all follow logically and make sense. We get some character development for Yukio, some goofy antics from Hideki's lackeys (all of whom are Wolverine fanboys, apparently), and an ominous description of what our heroes might face on Hell Road, the "shortcut" to the Dragon Palace. This show might actually be g...

You know times are tough when Maddy and Ryan start saying they miss when the Wolverine anime was about Omega Red. Hard to believe, right? That's the only conclusion to be had after watching "Vadhaka, a.k.a Statue," a bizarre boss battle between a magical statue and Wolverine, followed by a maze in the sewers that ends with Min introducing Logan to Yukio's grandfather. Logan learns a lot more about...

This episode of the Wolverine anime is slightly better than the norm ... but only slightly. After some hilarious flirting with Cyclops, Logan arrives at Madripoor with Yukio. Soon after that, Yukio abandons him and Logan gets a new female friend -- a teenage girl this time. Took him long enough! Next week's episode: "Vadhaka, a.k.a. Statue" E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or fol...

Dr. Christopher Michael Roman appears on the podcast with Maddy, Ryan, and Todd to discuss his book, Queering Wolverine in Comics and Fanfiction: A Fastball Special. We discuss the previous scholarship that analyzes Wolverine as the ultimate example of straight male (toxic) masculinity, and the analyses in Christopher's book, which push back against that reading and instead view Logan through a qu...

In the "Asano" episode of the Wolverine anime, Logan insists that his fight with Omega Red was "not a complete waste of time." Maddy and Ryan beg to differ in their review. Also, as of this week, Kikyo returns to fight Logan again, but by this point, we're pretty sure they're friends? Or ... more than friends? Next week's episode: Interview with the author of "Queering Wolverine" E-mail us your fe...

Omega Red and Wolverine have a lot of unresolved sexual tension in this episode, which amounts to a series of fight scenes in which nothing ever gets resolved between them. Half of those fight scenes are in flashback with a voiceover from a nameless SHIELD agent identifying who Omega Red is, and what his powers are. See if you can guess whether Maddy and Ryan enjoyed this episode! Next week's epis...

The Wolverine anime might be getting worse with each passing episode, but onward we go ... or perhaps upward, since most of this episode takes place on a rooftop. Wolverine (and his new pal Yukio) meets and fights a brand-new character named Kikyo, who is a beautiful bishonen hired by Shingen as an assassin. That's the first half of the episode; the second half is a failed drug drop that Logan and...

The Wolverine anime is still not good, but we're doing our best to goof on it in an entertaining way. This week, that means lots of references to Initial D music, because there is a crappy car chase between Asano and Hideki. Meanwhile, Logan spends most of this episode being passed out and getting saved by Yukio. We're really starting to wonder what this anime is about. Like, really. What is going...

The pilot episode of the Wolverine anime may be called "Mariko," but that doesn't mean she's going to have any agency or character development on this show. Luckily, her sexist plotline goes down a bit easier this time, because the show is so freakin' goofy. Logan's character is a cross between Gambit and Dante from Devil May Cry; we are pretty sure he doesn't know what sex is. Also, all of the di...

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd struggle through the second half of Dark Phoenix (2019), which abandons all of the decent ideas set up in the first half of the movie. Forget about Jean's dad, it's all about the D'Bari now ... and also Magneto, who doesn't need to be in this movie, despite that Michael Fassbender provides a great performance. We conclude our revisiting of this movie's failures by asking Simo...

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd dive in to the first half of Dark Phoenix (2019), which is significantly better than the second half of the movie. Despite being the lowest-rated X-Men film in the 20th Century Fox version of the franchise, Dark Phoenix has some good scenes and strong portrayals of Jean, Scott, and Xavier. When the movie sticks with the character drama unfolding between these three characters...

At long last, here's the comic book segment from last week's Listener Mail for April 2023. It's a good one; Ryan fights against Logan's League of Evil Exes (including some exes who are mostly just cute and not that evil). Wolverine can't remember why any of them are there, or that there's a Book of Destiny between himself and Sabretooth that dictates the terms of these fights. Also, Mr. Sinister f...

Maddy and Ryan open the listener mailbag once more to respond to queries about the mutant metaphor as it relates to mental illness, which aspects of airline travel would piss off Wolverine the most, which mutants Mr. Sinister should combine into super-powered chimeras, and so much more. Also, Maddy divided this listener mail into two episodes because Ryan got sick and she didn't want our listeners...