Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/26/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we wrap up our first official two-parter; Gambit ruins everything; Rachel has a theory about Mister Sinister; Marvel communication technology is behind the times; Trish Tilby is tired of your bullshit; Walter Simonson is the best of the best; X-Factor pulls it together; Power Pack gets uncomfortably dark; Miles has Thor feelings; and even more mutants die. NOTE: This episode is...
Jul 20, 2015•50 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/19/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we hit the first big X-centric crossover; a lot of Morlocks die; X-Factor is a dark farce; Kitty Pryde talks down a mob without using racial slurs; when Doug Ramsey tells you there’s a problem, you listen; and Callisto should be one of the iconic leaders of the Marvel Universe. X-PLAINED: Death by intellectual-property dispute The Mutant Massacre Mutant Massacres that might hav...
Jul 13, 2015•52 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/12/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Louise Simonson saves X-Factor; Apocalypse gets off to a rough start; Cyclops is bad at people; Apocalypse should be the Kingpin of X-Men; Jean Grey is sick of your bullshit; you should totally cosplay Skids; and Mystique fundamentally misunderstands branding. X-PLAINED The Maximoff family tree The Whizzer X-Factor as sketch comedy Louise Simonson X-Factor #6-8 Apocalypse Bulk ...
Jul 06, 2015•49 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Guest art by Ryan Hill! In which cartoon logic is terrifying; it’s immensely frustrating to be Doug Ramsey; Psylock gets evil robot eyes; queer subtext is not just for the ladies; Danger Room cold opens are the new Kitty’s costume changes; Mojo predicts reality TV; Longshot joins the X-Men; and we answer what may be the best question we have ever gotten. X-PLAINED: Captain Britain Corps Alan Davis New Mutants Annual #2 X-Men Annual #10 Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) Psylocke (Betsy Braddock) S...
Jun 29, 2015•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/28/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we welcome Logan Bonner, Mikey Neilson, and AdministratriX Tina to the gaming table for an original X-Men Animated Adventure; the real enemy is BS&P; Australia is kind of terrible; Rogue is concerned about kangaroos; Wolverine taps into the power of love; Storm makes a long-distance call; and Cyclops plans for failure (but not color-coded labels). FEATURING: Logan Bonner as Wri...
Jun 22, 2015•2 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/21/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which the band gets back together; Dani faces down Death; Sam takes Lila home to meet his mom; revenge is a dish best left unserved; there is nothing sadder than Warlock confused by the concept of death; Kitty Pryde has a some opinions about identity politics; and X-Men has not been great with textual representations of neurodiversity. NOTE: Given some of the material covered in this...
Jun 15, 2015•58 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/14/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Rachel Summers went to sleep with Wolverine’s claws in her dreams and now there’s claws in her lungs and when she got out of bed this morning she tripped on her traumatic backstory and by mistake she dropped the Phoenix Force in the sink while the water was running and she could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. X-PLAINED: Freedom Force Superv...
Jun 08, 2015•49 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/7/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Chris and Chad teach us to stop worrying and love the ‘90s; the line between parody and homage is thin and flexible; everything happens at the mall; no one wants to play volleyball with Cyclops; and we totally fail to resolve the question, “Does a mall babe eat chili fries?” WARNING: This episode contains minor spoilers for X-Men '92 #1. X-PLAINED: The Westchester Wars Battlewor...
Jun 01, 2015•55 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/31/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Nightcrawler does Weird Tales; Iceman does Back to the Future; we want a vacation home in Dave Cockrum’s brain; Bamfs are terrible; the 1983 Iceman miniseries is straight-up bananas; parents just don’t understand; and Rachel will take literally any excuse to talk smack about John Ruskin. X-PLAINED: Vanisher Nightcrawler #1-4 Bizarre Adventures #27 Iceman #1-4 The Well at the Ce...
May 25, 2015•52 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Art by David Wynne. We're not selling prints of this one, but you can still hit David up for the original! In which Miles tries to find things to like about Bob Layton’s X-Factor run; Cyclops’s life is literally an anxiety dream; X-Factor is very Leverage; Layton’s Angel is just godawful; Rachel is all about the Red Scare; Frenzy is awesome; and we bid a fond farewell to producer Bobby Roberts. X-PLAINED: An Apocalypse that might have been Mid-80s X-title thematic disambiguation The limited valu...
May 17, 2015•50 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/17/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which nothing comes between Sam Guthrie and his classic sci-fi allusions; Sunspot tries; the Beyonder is really scary; you can have Danielle Moonstar’s agency when you pry it from her cold, dead hands; Empath remains the worst kid; Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander just cannot catch a break; Emma Frost gets nuanced; Magneto does the wrong things for the right reasons; Rachel and Miles...
May 11, 2015•44 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/10/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Secret Wars II ruins everything (more) (again) (forever); Rachel Summers hates the Beyonder almost as much as we do; Miles gets mad at comics; Nightcrawler does not do gritty well; Lady Deathstrike gets wired; and we consult our favorite 3-year-old for book recommendations. X-PLAINED: Rogue vs. Carol Danvers Life before social media Uncanny X-Men #202-205 Alpha Flight #33-34 Ph...
May 03, 2015•40 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/3/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which the X-Men get their third ongoing series; Elle drops in to x-plain the Defenders; the band gets back together; rich people are not like the rest of us; Cyclops is in desperate need of some kind of intervention; and X-Factor is basically Ghostbusters. X-PLAINED: Cameron Hodge The fairly spectacular secret origins of X-Factor The Champions The New Defenders The evolution of Hank M...
Apr 26, 2015•38 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Rachel screwed up and accidentally gave David material for episode 54 instead of 53, so there's no illustration this week. Instead, we offer both our sincere apologies and this photo of Miles dressed up as Mister Sinister for a costume party. In which Wolverine doesn’t care about your baby; Storm takes charge; duels are terrible bases for systems of government; editorial mandate is hell on a marriage; Magneto is a pretty cool teacher; Jean Grey comes back; and we have mixed feelings about the Ph...
Apr 20, 2015•44 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Art by David Wynne. In which we recap a year’s worth of podcasts--and 23 years’ worth of X-Men--in under an hour. X-PLAINED: Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Episodes 1-51 Uncanny X-Men #1-200 & assorted annuals Giant-Size X-Men #1 The New Mutants New Mutants #1-35 & assorted annuals and specials The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans God Loves, Man Kills Wolverine vol. 1 X-Men/Micronauts Storm and Illyana: Magik Kitty Pryde and Wolverine Dazzler: The Movie Beauty and the Beast Firestar Secr...
Apr 13, 2015•40 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Art by David Wynne. We're not selling prints of this one, but you can still hit David up for the original! In which Rachel and Miles go to Emerald City Comicon; six people try to share one microphone with varying success; you will never love anything as much as Kris loves Broo; Marguerite may or may not be a time-traveling supervillain; Peter is Laser Guy; Kieron joins an X-team; Hell is other X-Men; everyone lies egregiously; and it all comes back to Namor’s abs. Special thanks to Jean, who let...
Apr 06, 2015•42 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/29/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Magneto makes an official alignment shift; Claremont does a court drama; Professor Xavier makes poor choices; Rachel Summers comes by her communication skills honest; the Strucker kids are the evil Wonder Twins; and the podcast hits a major milestone! X-PLAINED: Xorn Uncanny X-Men #196, 199, and 200 The X-Men status quo circa 1985 Magneto’s alignment shift Beyonder-related exis...
Mar 30, 2015•43 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/29/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we meet Miles’s favorite X-Man; Longshot is Secret Wars II done right; we are fairly committed to the idea of Ann Nocenti as a post-apocalyptic daredevil superhero; Longshot is patient zero of the ‘90s; Ricochet Rita is the best; luck is a zero-sum commodity; Mojo is legitimately terrifying; and nuance is Longshot’s secret weakness. X-PLAINED: Spiral The Body Shop Several ill-a...
Mar 23, 2015•53 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/22/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Asgardian Wars occupies the precise intersection of Miles’s favorite things; Marvel Asgard is your favorite metal album; no one appreciates Cypher; Wolfsbane gets some action; Warlock gets meta; Cannonball is a catch; Rachel Summers gets a new costume; Loki does Shakespeare; and Rachel overthinks Leverage. X-PLAINED: Various Mjolnirs and their attendant powers Asgardian Wars Ne...
Mar 16, 2015•59 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/15/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Emergency Backup Co-Host Elisabeth Allie saves the day; the Berserkers are not the breakout hit you’ve been waiting for; Paul Smith continues to be awesome; nothing good ever happens in the Danger Room; Charles Xavier dabbles in cosplay; Nightcrawler has serious hat game; Rachel Summers lacks healthy coping skills; your life would be way more epic if Claremont narrated it; Nort...
Mar 09, 2015•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/8/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we bid a fond farewell to Bill Sienkiewicz; Secret Wars II continues to ruin everything; the New Mutants end up in an improbable number of gladiatorial arenas; Shadowcat’s secondary mutation is queer subtext; Magik gives no fucks about your crossover event; Warlock transcends storytelling conventions; and Karma rejoins the team. X-PLAINED: The chronologically inconsistent mobili...
Mar 01, 2015•46 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 3/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we discard our regularly scheduled programming to focus on Storm and Lifedeath II; no one draws motion like Barry Windsor-Smith; Storm goes up to eleven; and we really wish we had the frame of reference to place this story in the larger context of diaspora literature. X-Plained: Forge The Adversary Uncanny X-Men #198 (Lifedeath II) Storm The narrative impact of sex...
Feb 22, 2015•42 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 2/22/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Legion grows from setting to protagonist; Rachel is a master of narrative rationalization; “Claremont” is a verb; Warlock befriends an airplane; Xavier owns a significant mistake; New Mutants does a deep dive into power dynamics; you should go read X-Men: Legacy already; and Si reveals the true secret nature of reality. X-PLAINED: Blindfold (Ruth Aldine) Luca Aldi...
Feb 16, 2015•52 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 2/15/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we cover 21 issues in one episode; Secret Wars is a toy commercial; Jim Shooter’s X-Men are not the X-Men to which we are accustomed; Doctor Doom makes a surprisingly benevolent god; Secret Wars II is neither secret nor a war; The Beyonder learns to poop; and Boom-Boom is the best thing to come out of Secret Wars. X-Plained: Secret Wars The not-particularly-secret...
Feb 09, 2015•47 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Miles has a brush with nostalgia; Angelica Jones is secretly a Thomas Hardy protagonist; it doesn’t need to make sense if it’s awesome; and Emma Frost really needs a mustache to twirl. X-Plained: Trevor Fitzroy Firestar (Angelica Jones) Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Nostalgia X-Men, if sometimes the main characters were bears Inexplicably Australian Wolverine Ms. Lion Marve...
Feb 01, 2015•37 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Nimrod is probably an honorary Summers by this point; Claremont hits a centennial; it’s probably pretty hard to get an unconscious person into tight leather pants; the X-Men finally encounter a world that actually hates and fears them; and the Power Pack fits somewhat uneasily with the grown-up Marvel Universe. X-PLAINED: Nimrod Uncanny X-Men #193-195 Thunderbird II (James Proud...
Jan 25, 2015•46 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Art by David Wynne. Prints available until 1/25/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which writer G. Willow Wilson joins us to talk about her new run on X-Men; the Future is really confusing; we consider the many iterations of Rachel Grey; Storm probably has strong feelings about climate change; and writing for a shared universe takes some seriously fancy footwork. X-Plained: Jubilee Shogo (a little) The future vs. the Future X-Men vols. 1-4 The logistics of stepping into a bo...
Jan 19, 2015•44 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Art by David Wynne. Prints and travel mugs available until 1/11/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which Miles and his Doom voice return triumphant; we reach an understanding regarding Lila Cheney; Mob science is pretty shoddy; Magneto has fancy hair; New Mutants Xavier is Best Xavier; no one is more goth than Cloak and Dagger; and you can have Rachel’s Speed Racer references when you pry them from her cold, dead hands. X-Plained: Spider-Man crossovers Cats Marvel Team-Up An...
Jan 12, 2015•49 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Art by David Wynne. Prints and travel mugs available until 1/11/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we welcome back Emergency Backup Co-Host Chris Sims; comics writers are basically supervillains; Cyclops is not here to have fun; Spider-Man flirts with objectivism; Murderworld is probably not financially sustainable; you should totally cosplay the Proletarian; Arcade may or may not secretly be the Archie Andrews of Earth-616; and Doctor Doom remains absolutely delightfu...
Jan 05, 2015•46 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Art by David Wynne. Prints available until 1/15 in the shop, or contact David for the original. In which we launch our first-ever giant-size special; God Loves, Man Kills is the definitive X-Men story; Bobby makes his R&MXtXM on-air debut; we repopulate the world with X-writers; Rachel is really excited about x-plaining X-Cutioner’s Song; Miles takes a strong stance on Wolverine’s mask; we award some awards; and it’s all your fault. X-Plained God Loves, Man Kills (Marvel Graphic Novel #5) Willia...
Dec 28, 2014•2 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 37
