The Mutant Ages

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd convened in person (!!) to watch an episode of 1960s television that has lived in infamy for Chris Claremont and all X-Men fans. The show is called The Avengers (but not *those* Avengers), and the episode is called "A Touch of Brimstone" because it's about the Hellfire Club. We discuss the incomparable Emma Peel, the inspiration for Emma Frost, as well as all of the other une...

Maddy and Ryan are only on the third-ever episode of The Gifted, and already Maddy is worried that the show has run out of ideas. Not good! Polaris is still in prison; Caitlin is still a privileged white lady who doesn't understand bigotry against mutants (or anybody else, probably). Emma Dumont and Amy Acker are still putting in their best performances, but the writing isn't always there to back...

Maddy and Ryan find that the second episode of The Gifted is almost as good as the pilot, with the exception of some superfluous interrogation scenes between Jace Turner and Reed Strucker. This TV show remains a showcase of Amy Acker and Emma Dumont's acting prowess, and it's nice to see both of them getting their chances to shine. We know this show goes off the rails at some point, but for now, i...

After a little break to reset, Maddy and Ryan return to a biweekly release schedule and debut their review of The Gifted pilot episode, "eXposed." Emma Dumont and Amy Acker win one trillion acting awards from us for their performances here, but they're not alone -- this is a strong pilot episode! Ryan remembers The Gifted going off the rails at some point, but much like Wolverine and the X-Men, th...

Back in 1978, Magneto appeared in animated form on The New Fantastic Four, an animated series by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Maddy and Ryan brought Ryan Truman (a.k.a. Ry T) on the show to dissect the hilarious corniness of "The Menace of Magneto," in which one of our favorite mutants is depicted as a total buffoon. We also discuss the rights issues surrounding Fantastic Four at the time, which led t...

Back in 2006, animation students at the DAVE School partnered with an X-Men line of toys called Minimates, and this 3D-animated film was the result. It's got the official Marvel Comics license, alongside the toys, so it's official enough to qualify for our purposes. Plus it's pretty fun! It's also only 8 minutes, but don't worry, Ryan and Maddy can always easily talk for over an hour to one anothe...

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd watched the second half of Logan (2017). Maddy finally confronts her nemesis, X-24, while Ryan continues to question why this version of Logan doesn't match up with any other we've seen. Todd, meanwhile, regrets having watched this film. But we did it! We did it... Next week's episode: X-Men: Dark Tide (2006) E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on...

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd struggle through the first half of Logan (2017). We might be the only Marvel-themed podcast hosts ever to dislike this movie? We do shout out a lot of things that we like, such as the performances (especially Dafne Keen), the fact that Logan and Caliban are definitely married, and the unsettling design of Xavier's psychic seizures, but overall, this movie is a slog and we can...

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...