Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which writing X-books requires a somewhat different approach to continuity than writing about them; time is weird; Jay overthinks fictional publications; Scott Summers is (at least sometimes) Autistic; Sinister is not subtle; and no story is the whole story. X-PLAINED: Marvels Marvels Snapshots X-Men: Marvels Snapshots #1 Why Cyclops...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Cable has clearly inherited his father’s inability to go on a date that doesn’t end disastrously; Husk is a lightweight; we are very taken with a turtle; you really don’t want to run into the other Hemingway in an elevator, either; Jubilee can speak in logos; and Wolverine gives some fatherly advice. X-PLAINED: One way to get yo...

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, our producer Matthew Hunter subbed in for Jay and he and Miles talked about the video games they grew up on! Topics, roughly: Crystalis Power Blade Fighting robots (in general) Super Mario World F-Zero Final Fantasy II (which is to say...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which we continue our ongoing tour of the post-Age of Apocalypse X-Universe; Onslaught gets a name; nobody’s sure what Noah Dubois is doing there; Iceman gets to be the practical one, for once; T&A should not generally appear on the same visual plane; someone needs to talk to Cannonball about kink safety; and Emma Frost lets a cal...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which X-Factor gets its own roster shakeup; most bartenders will look at you funny if you order a flight of superheroes; Kaboom is a great name for a nightclub; we lack significant feelings about the clone saga; Yukio probably sends love to everyone’s girlfriends; Forge has terrible coping mechanisms; and Jay’s current life is not con...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Jay discovers a continuity loop; phonetic spelling reaches a new level of implausibility; it’s always already Onslaught; X-Force’s roster gets shaken up; Siryn goes undercover; and the Upstarts remain vaguely plot-relevant despite our fervent wishes. X-PLAINED: Mimic (Calvin Rankin) Wing problems X-Force #45-47 One of Adam Polli...

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked about the movies we grew up on! Topics, roughly: The glories of VHS Flight of Dragons Fantastic Planet Star(s), both Wars and Trek The Princess Bride, which is objectively perfect The Dark Crystal My Dinner With Andre (again)...

In which writer and editor Laura Hudson joins us as we take a break from X-Men comics to discuss the complicated ethics of consuming and covering comics by creators we’re not comfortable promoting. LINKS: Read more of Laura’s work ! We were going to discuss this very germane Orwell essay but ran out of time. CW: Description and discussion of abuse and harassment: So Many of Us An overview of...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which you should probably not mess with space junk; Exodus is terrible at many things; Rusty Collins deserved better; X-Men #100 references are dirty (but effective) pool; Magneto goes through a lot of orbital bases; Nate Grey makes things worse; Frenzy is generally the most competent member of any team she’s on; and we sincerely regr...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which we enter our fourth century of podcasting with brand new theme music; we have both Wolverine questions and wolverine questions; it is extremely rough to be Bishop; the creator of Garfield may or may not live in a sewer on Earth-616; Rogue needs better coping mechanisms; bigotry is depressingly timeless; and everything is Onslaug...

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked about the television shows we grew up on (and a few current ones)! Topics, roughly: Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood Masters of the Universe She-Ra The Real (vs. non-Real) Ghostbusters Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Little Shop o...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which the Age of Apocalypse comes to an end; Angel briefly lives up to his potential; Bishop was sometimes right; It’s not a climactic ending without an X-Men #137 reference; Colossus breaks our hearts; X-Men: Marvels Snapshot will be out in September; and somehow we have made 300 of these things . X-PLAINED: Beast vs. Dark Beast X-Me...

In which some universes are more pleasant than others; Havok is basically a Care Bear; Wolverine is a P.R. nightmare; Nate Grey tries; stealth is not among the Silver Surfer’s strengths; Night Thrasher ascends to godhood; Jay and Miles dive down the What If rabbit hole. X-PLAINED: Earth-200500 (again) Earth-42409 What If? vol. 2 #77 What If? Featuring X-Men: Age of Apocalypse What If? vol. 2 #81 E...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which the moments of X-Universe are better than the whole; the code name “Dirigible” carries some inherent risks; Tony Stark is often more interesting without Iron Man; Clint Barton is no James Rhodes; there is somehow a Matt Murdock who makes even worse choices than the one from Earth-616; nobody should ever trust Mikhail Rasputin; a...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Nate Grey is a drama kid; Forge-295 is the hero we need; Mister Sinister is a graduate of the Danielle “Moonstar” Moonstar school of secret identities; and we really, really, really wish that the theater troupe had gotten the ongoing series. X-PLAINED: Just how powerful Nate Grey is X-Man’s somewhat baffling ongoing appeal X-Man...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Magneto doesn’t really do work/live divide; Amazing X-Men is a bit of a misnomer; Exodus is the lawful evil to Fabian Cortez’s chaotic evil; smoking is bad for you; moisture molecular inversion is fairly definitely not a real thing; Earth-295 Quicksilver and Earth-616 Cyclops would probably get along; OSHA would probably like a...

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked about a whole bunch of random topics suggested by you! Topics, sorta: Good birds Dinosaurs Florida Nostalgic video games Booze Avatar: The Last Airbender Probably some other stuff I’m forgetting

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which this episode may or may not be a temporal aberration; Gambit is bad at marketing; Jubilee’s sixth birthday was probably worse than yours; Earth-295’s chronology doesn’t make that much more sense than 616’s; Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau wears this timeline well; Rictor makes a terrible Javert; Jubilee has no time for your...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which a whole lot of things burn; Nightcrawler gets gritty; it’s hard to be Dead Man Wade; Apocalypse’s IT department has some explaining to do; Mystique is the most mom of all moms; Doug Ramsey dies (again); and Jay will fight anyone who says comics can’t be “real” literature. X-PLAINED: Damask X-Calibre #1-4 Switch...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which not all Mondos are created equal; the kids are only rarely all right; the Age of Apocalypse is not Magneto’s fault; Sugar Man is the stuff of universal nightmares; “cartoonish” is not necessarily a plus; and the Age of Apocalypse is not particularly sustainable. X-PLAINED: Generation Next #1-4 The tradition of YA horror in X-boo...

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talk about the (non-comic) books we grew up on! Books we mentioned, alphabetical by author: The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams Start with: The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The Chronicles of Prydain by Llo...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which it is probably not actually possible to be too nasty for Earth-295; Sinister is on nobody’s side but his own; Vulcan is still the worst Summers in the multiverse; the Bedlam Brothers are too delightful for the EMF; Heaven is just straight-up Rick’s Bar now; Polaris of Earth-295 is the saddest Polaris; Scott Summers and Jean Grey...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which we celebrate a birthday; nuclear war is never a good Plan A; every Logan is Old Man Logan; we are underwhelmed by the Pretty Boys of Earth-295; Jean Grey is one hell of a pilot; there are so many reasons not to like Donald Pierce; teleporters are the narrative nuclei of the Age of Apocalypse; and Gateway of Earth-295 deserves si...

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which it’s kind of a relief to be talking about a fictional apocalypse right now; Joe Madureira defines the look of the mid-late 1990s; Sunfire is less cheesecake than crepes Suzette; it all comes back to capes; Wild Child is more than he seems; Holocaust sucks about as much as you’d expect of someone who picked that code name; Jay ha...

Normally, this would be a skip week and there wouldn’t be an episode – but things are pretty weird in the world right now. Let’s talk X-Men comfort reads – with bonus complete lack of editing!