Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
514 episodes - English - Latest episode: 8 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1.6K ratingsBecause It's About Time Someone Did
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Episodes
290 – The Obvious, the Silly, and the True
April 06, 2020 02:42 - 1 hour - 74.3 MBIn 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 has surprisingly strong feelings about Morph; Miles is all about judging some babies; resistance is fundamental to the X-Men’s identity within a superhero-unive...
X-TRA – Social Distance Special
March 30, 2020 03:33 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBNormally, 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!
HAWK TALK – Social Distance Special
March 30, 2020 03:33 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBNormally, 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!
289 – Unsolved Mysteries
March 23, 2020 04:21 - 1 hour - 75.8 MBIn which this episode is way more topical than it was when we recorded it; Apocalypse makes a terrible Statue of Liberty; there are no reliable narrators; Robbie Robertson and Carmen Sandiego are your new OTP; Emplate is creepy in any universe; lawful evil is still evil; and partial universe reboots come with some fairly silly problems.
288 – Cape Citadel Remix
March 16, 2020 03:56 - 1 hour - 69.4 MBIn which Magneto is a drama llama in any universe (but a remarkably decent parent in at least one); the soap opera hits the Age of Apocalypse; Weapon X is a man made of red flags; Gambit has an OT3; the better man wins; some blanks are better left unfilled; and we would probably not fare too well on Earth-295.
287 – Welcome to the Age of Apocalypse
March 09, 2020 02:59 - 1 hour - 81.9 MBIn which we enter the Age of Apocalypse!
286 – Family Before Continuity
February 24, 2020 06:54 - 1 hour - 74.8 MBIn which Sunspot is a bad enough dude to save the president; Black Air is nowhere near as fun as WHO; we reach the end of Fabian Nicieza’s X-Force run; Rictor and Shatterstar talk about feelings; Gambit does not go gently into that good night; Scott and Jean choose family over continuity; Legion Quest comes to a close, along with Earth-616; the heart of Dawn of X is its margins; you should come see us at ECCC; and we announce a new schedule.
285 – Immediately if Not Sooner
February 16, 2020 20:43 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBIn which Goldballs is still a better name than Egg; we continue our progress towards Earth-295; Legion pulls a Stryfe; we’re still pretty shaky on how to pronounce “M’Kraan”; Xavier and Magneto were absolutely and unquestionably doing sex in the 1970s; it’s time time; the Watcher is watching you masturbate; and what happens immediately before the end of the world is often as important as what happens immediately after.
284 – Precious Baubles, feat. Chip Zdarsky
February 10, 2020 02:32 - 58 minutes - 66.8 MBIn which we sit down with writer Chip Zdarsky to talk crossovers, continuity, metaphors, and X-Men/Fantastic Four!
283 – Legion Quest Quest
February 03, 2020 04:36 - 1 hour - 71.8 MBIn which Jay is writing a Cyclops one-shot; It is honestly truly almost Legion Quest; Mystique plays the long game; sometimes filler is a good thing; Havok is a geophysicist, not a geographer; Lila definitely stole it; and more stories should be set in space junkyards.
282 – The Tide Takes the Castle
January 27, 2020 03:57 - 1 hour - 79.4 MBIn which the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning should really be the setting of a stoner comedy; Garrabed Bashur’s brain is probably 90% porn by now; the tide always takes the castle; William Drake remains terrible; Adam X the X-Treme deserved better; Jay pitches a series; disability is not a boolean and exclusively medically-defined state; and we are all about some weird X-Men tie-in products.
281 – Memories
January 20, 2020 06:17 - 59 minutes - 67.7 MBIn which Warpath and Colossus should start a support group; X-Force gets a new HQ; we make an unprecedently large number of musical-theater references; Cable is a highly qualified individual; tranq darts don’t work like that; Emma Frost gives fairly decent advice; the malls of Boston will never be the same again; and we need mutant body diversity now.
280 – Business-Casual Basilisk
January 13, 2020 06:53 - 52 minutes - 60.1 MBIn which the future is not great at codenames; spot foil is cool as hell; Mountjoy is bafflingly business-themed; Bishop goes full Point Break; Jean Grey and Lorna Dane should absolutely be friends; and Jay & Miles are heading to ECCC 2020!
279 – Giant-Size Special #8
December 30, 2019 03:19 - 2 hours - 180 MBIn which Jay would absolutely fight Christmas; we welcome guest X-Perts Christina Strain and Chip Zdarsky; a gift arrives; we consider the relationship of Generation X to Generation X; it is really not okay to leave your discarded skins lying around; D.O.A. is inordinately delightful; Chamber is the punk Shadow; Gateway goes to school; the Generation X TV movie is very, very bad; telepathy is free; the grown-ups are all right; home sucks; freedom rocks; Mondo deserves better; Matt Frewer did ...
278 – A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
December 23, 2019 01:54 - 54 minutes - 62.2 MBIn which Moonstar really wasn’t fooling anybody; Bird Brain is somehow still alive; Cassidy Keep is weird; Gene Ha draws excellent Storm; Reeva Page makes her sole comics appearance; and Shinobi Shaw is wrong about everything.
277 – Hedgehogs of Cairo
December 16, 2019 04:49 - 48 minutes - 56 MBIn which Sauron is a huge nerd; the Savage Land is where Marvel stores the weird stuff; an etymology detour does not come from the X-Pert you’d expect; and Storm will straight-up stab you.
276 – Wizard Problems
December 09, 2019 05:51 - 53 minutes - 61.3 MBIn which Excalibur gets a regular writer again; we judge a book against against its covers; nothing good ever comes from being sexy on Muir Isle; and the soul sword’s real power is cutting through continuity.
275 – End of the Summer
December 02, 2019 03:25 - 1 hour - 69.6 MBIn which Professor is too cool for the Phalanx; fatphobia is significantly more dangerous than Fred Dukes; Strong Guy catches a plane; Emma Frost will not let you coast; Jubilee says goodbye to the X-Men; and it’s probably for the best that we have avoided corporate advertisers.
274 – The Red Shoe Prophecies (feat. Chris Eddleman)
November 25, 2019 03:41 - 1 hour - 73 MBIn which Chris Eddleman joins us for a close look at House of X and Powers of X; Doug Ramsey is highly relevant; resurrection is problematic in a universe with a documented afterlife; there is no reasonable in-continuity justification for the lack of trans Marvel characters; and your OT3 is canon.
273 – The Back-End Creep (The Phalanx Covenant, Part 3 of 3)
November 18, 2019 07:52 - 1 hour - 69.4 MBIn which we have been on All the Podcasts; Full Shred Thrash is easier to say that it sounds; the Phalanx uses dial-up; Cable is a very large man; Larry Hama writes excellent banter; Cyclops has been progressively desensitized to plane crashes; Cameron Hodge is never graceful in defeat; and Final Sanction is actually about family.
272 – Children of the Phalanx (the Phalanx Covenant, Part 2 of 3)
November 11, 2019 04:10 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBIn which Ship was inside Cable all along; Life Signs is the Two Towers of the Phalanx Covenant (but only in the bad ways), it’s lucky that the Phalanx doesn’t have WiFi; Nightcrawler embraces chaos; and we promise the crossover gets better next chapter.
271 – Abs for Days (The Phalanx Covenant, Part 1 of 3)
November 04, 2019 05:00 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBIn which we’re finally both back in the virtual studio; Generation X is the new Inferno; the Phalanx Covenant begins; we’re not talking about Hickman in our coverage of this story; Banshee is the adult in the room; the Phalanx is pretty sexist; and gross powers are cool.
270 – X-Ray Goggles and Mail-Order Lizards (feat. Steve Stokes)
October 27, 2019 20:55 - 50 minutes - 57.9 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which we hear from two generations of Stokeses for the price of one, buying comics for your son is a great way to rationalize reading them yourself, you should probably be reading The Immortal Hulk, and a 30-year comics hiatus ain’t stopping Steve. X-PLAINED: A well-loved copy of Fantastic Four #1 Marvel vs. DC in the Silver Age Requirements for an acceptable Doctor Doom The perils of competitive newsstand shopping C...
269 – NYCC 2019 Sofa Special: Double Dactyl, feat. Seanan McGuire
October 21, 2019 03:16 - 1 hour - 82.1 MBIn which Seanan and Jay break down their favorite X-Villains; technically everyone is always cosplaying Mystique; Magneto remains the gold standard; and we have some concerns about Eye Boy.
268 – Disquettes
October 14, 2019 03:30 - 1 hour - 70.8 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Excalibur addresses a number of dangling plot threads, Britanic finally gets (somewhat) interesting, Kitty really wants Douglock to be Doug, Professor Xavier and Moira MacTaggert are the best exes, and the future has peculiar priorities. X-PLAINED: The life and death of Jamie Braddock Excalibur #81 Douglock (more) (again) Inker ambiguity Britanic and Meggan’s Christmas costumes The Excalibur Lighthouse’s sudd...
267 – The Saddest Joyride
October 08, 2019 06:21 - 56 minutes - 64.9 MBIn which Emma Frost is a better Iceman than Bobby Drake; Generation X is aggressively foreshadowed; Malcolm and Randall are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Bishop’s Hamlet; and we launch a campaign for our own Multiversal designation.
266 – They’re Good Dogs, Miles
September 30, 2019 03:37 - 50 minutes - 57.7 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Havok goes surfing; Malice eats a poodle; Strong Guy’s ex is a big jerk; Sinister’s gotta Sinister; and Miles learns about a meme. X-PLAINED: The Puppet Master X-Factor #103-105 Comparative Summers brooding Perks of being a mutant geologist and/or geophysicist Malice and Polaris’s complicated history A somewhat convoluted plan Several reasons to go to Rhinebeck, NY Friendship The extended Carosella fami...
265 – Rude Awakenings
September 23, 2019 05:17 - 1 hour - 74.2 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Glen Danzig was the most popular Wolverine fancast for a weirdly long time; breasts have physical mass; the Shi’ar empire is not your friend; Deathbird should not be left in charge of anything alive; Jubilee learns about privilege; Sinister is not subtle; plasma is the new magnetism; Scott and Jean return from the future; and Nick Fury probably sews his name into the waistband of all his underpants. X-PLAINED: Some guy...
264 – Autotune the Phalanx
September 16, 2019 04:57 - 50 minutes - 57.6 MBIn which we celebrate our 100th episode with producer Matt Hunter; you should always be kind to robots; Stryfe has a lot of very petty contingency plans; Britanic is bad at helping; we explore a peculiar pairing of book and arc; Charles Xavier has his moments; and Zero and Douglock defiy destiny.
263 – The Oldest Teens of Them All
September 09, 2019 06:21 - 53 minutes - 61.4 MBIn which Cable and Domino may or may not be very old teenagers; disguises are not Dani Moonstar’s strong suit; Empath remains awful; Shatterstar probably talks exactly like a telenovela; X-Force needs an office manager; Mothra is larger than most things; and if you get to choose between being an External or a Guthrie, always be a Guthrie.
262 – Science Fiction Double Feature
September 02, 2019 05:39 - 59 minutes - 68.4 MBIn which the Phalanx would make pretty fun novelty candy; “B-Plot” implies that we only have 26; nobody will take Jubilee to the movies; Repo Man and Repo: The Genetic Opera are in fact two entirely different films; Storm is a fashion icon; Sabretooth is the monster in the basement; it’s really rough to be the kid on the X-Men; Yuko gives Gambit a shovel talk; and a number of familiar faces return to the page.
261 – Out of the Subtext, Live from FlameCon with Vita Ayala!
August 26, 2019 03:12 - 55 minutes - 63.8 MBIn which we return to our favorite convention; writer Vita Ayala remains an absolute legend; everything was always already queer; and nobody should ever have to wait 37 years for a kiss.
260 – Professor Power’s Prodigal Podcast
August 19, 2019 03:42 - 1 hour - 71 MBIn which we explore the aftermath of Multiple Man’s death; X-Factor has a lot of feelings; it probably sucks to grieve with Charles Xavier; neither power nor responsibility is particularly fun; we finally find out who was trying to kill Polaris; Professor Power makes it to the big leagues; and the ‘90s were one long leg day.
259 – Kwannon Leap
August 12, 2019 03:52 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBIn which fix-it fic goes canon (or vice versa); Psylocke is a complicated individual and/or individuals; assassins have complicated personal lives; it is probably ethical to tell your teammates about your camera eyes; Beast takes over Blue Team; we get our first tease of Generation X; Sabretooth is a surprisingly fun narrator; that Hickman fellow seems to know what he’s doing; and you should totally come see us at FlameCon!
258 – True Believers, Opportunists, and Crooks (feat. Lisa Winters)
August 04, 2019 21:29 - 1 hour - 73.3 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Lisa Winters pinch-hits for Jay, we take a trip to the newspaper funnies and back, Spider-Man and Beast are natural BFFs, nothing good ever happens at the Brand Corporation, and "mutant" can be a pretty fuzzy concept. X-PLAINED: Bessie the Hellcow Spider-Man: Mutant Agenda (the newspaper strip storyline) Spider-Man: Mutant Agenda (the comic book miniseries) Spider-Man: Mutant Agenda (the cartoon episodes) Four-...
257 – The Adventures of Rachel Summers in the 37th Century
July 22, 2019 04:39 - 57 minutes - 65.9 MBIn which Rachel Summers’ continuity somehow becomes even more complicated; X-Men: Phoenix is pretty much a Star Wars (minus the stars); cultural appropriation remains a problem in the distant future; we are surprisingly into the origins of the Askani; and you should totally come see us at FlameCon!
256 – Mullets of Time and Space
July 15, 2019 01:22 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBIn which you raised a lot of money for Trans Lifeline; we continue to miss Alan Davis; Rory Campbell should not be narrating a climactic event; Daytripper needs to dial up her eldritch patter; the universe is dubiously self-correcting; Britannic is not nearly weird enough; and we have ongoing concerns about the anatomy of incarnate concepts.
255 – Rules of the Game
July 08, 2019 02:02 - 57 minutes - 66 MBIn which the Upstarts are the worst at Calvinball; Moonstar remains a non-mystery; Speedball gets a new costume; Shinobi Shaw never gets to finish a bath; Gamesmaster comes perilously close to getting context; Cable gets a new superpower; and Rahne Sinclair is too good for your crossover.
254 – Carry Each Other
July 01, 2019 03:05 - 1 hour - 72 MBArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line! In which Nicole Miller is fashion designer to Earth-1218 and Earth-616, Jay rejects the word “bestest”, we kind of want to just read every word of X-Men #30 aloud, One is a perfect wedding song for Scott and Jean, and you save the last dance for who brought you. X-PLAINED: The perils of animated weddings X-Men: The Wedding Album Nonstandard trim sizes Misattributed Oscar Wilde quotes Shatterstar’s favorite Olympic event...
253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley
June 24, 2019 05:14 - 59 minutes - 68.1 MBIn which an engagement begins; Jean Grey’s Walden Puddle counterpart is definitely Nicole; Cyclops is the telepathic equivalent of a pit trap with spikes at the bottom; Charles Xavier’s subconscious is very dialogue-heavy; nobody ever has appropriate professional boundaries; Cable dabbles in passive aggression; and the best is yet to come.
252 – Snakes on a Trolley
June 17, 2019 03:37 - 1 hour - 75.5 MBIn which Miles invokes Freddie Mercury; Polaris is more competent than the rest of X-Factor put together; Armageddon theology does not intersect well with superpowers (or politics, or anything else); Val joins a cult (kind of); Random joins the team (kind of); Haven is a surprisingly nonviolent mass-murderer; Havok is confused by women; and good guys don’t have orbital lasers.
X-TRA – Jay & Miles Spoil the Hell out of Dark Phoenix
June 14, 2019 22:02 - 52 minutes - 60.1 MBWe had a long conversation about Dark Phoenix; and we have uploaded it here for your edutainment! WARNING: CONTAINS A WHOLE LOT OF SPOILERS FOR DARK PHOENIX.
Jay & Miles Spoil the Hell out of Dark Phoenix
June 14, 2019 22:02 - 52 minutes - 60.1 MBWe had a long conversation about Dark Phoenix; and we have uploaded it here for your edutainment! WARNING: CONTAINS A WHOLE LOT OF SPOILERS FOR DARK PHOENIX.
X-TRA – Jay and Miles Spoil the Hell out of Dark Phoenix
June 14, 2019 22:02 - 52 minutes - 60.1 MBWe had a long conversation about Dark Phoenix; and we have uploaded it here for your edutainment! WARNING: CONTAINS A WHOLE LOT OF SPOILERS FOR DARK PHOENIX.
251 – Triple Word Score
June 10, 2019 02:59 - 1 hour - 69 MBIn which Jay proposes a new way of comparing superheroes; Beast faces an ethical dilemma; Mister Sinister has an Xavier moment; Sabretooth is a terrible houseguest; Cyclops totally gets what you see in Wolverine; Psylocke would absolutely be into hunting humans for sport; Sage probably vapes; rich people are definitely not like us; Shinobi Shaw is his own best friend; and Classic X-Men backup stories are canonical as hell.
250 – Minding the DNA, feat. Fabian Nicieza
June 03, 2019 02:46 - 1 hour - 73 MBIn which writer Fabian Nicieza joins us to talk ‘90s crossovers, narrative legacies, and what Adam X’s word balloons really sound like!
249 – The Parent Trap
May 27, 2019 06:00 - 58 minutes - 66.8 MBIn which Sabretooth is weirdly ubiquitous; Maverick is a terrible guest; not all second chances are equivalent; Graydon Creed is the red delicious apple of people; Mystique is the master of murder monologues; and the Darkholmes give the Summers family a run for its dysfunctional money.
248 – Destructo Woman
May 20, 2019 02:02 - 52 minutes - 60 MBIn which Tom Cassidy and Cain Marko may be the most stable couple in the Marvel Universe; Rory Campbell is no Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau; Siena Blaze remains a big jerk; the Cassidy family has some issues; and we are dismayed by an inexplicable dearth of leprechauns.
247 – The Butt-Kick Scale
May 13, 2019 05:35 - 59 minutes - 67.7 MBIn which the Hand probably doesn’t even offer dental; literally everyone is less creepy than the Joker and Harley Quinn; toxic masculinity is Sabretooth’s adamantium; Mark Trail is a wild ride; Wolverine trashes the dress code and gets funky; Larry Hama is your god now; and Sabretooth: Death Hunt scores a solid six on the butt-kick scale.
246 – Foreshadow Puppets
May 06, 2019 02:43 - 54 minutes - 62.6 MBIn which Danielle Moonstar is not a master of disguise; the MLF are bad enough dudes to kidnap a guy who works near the president; Tempo wasn’t even supposed to be here today; Reignfire is no Magneto; we now desperately want X-Force matryoshka dolls; Feral quits the team; Henry Peter Gyrich fails to learn from experience (or anything else); small children are bad at everything; Shatterstar gets a tagline; Sam Guthrie REALLY needs a vacation; and it’s surprisingly difficult to choose a favorit...