Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men - podcast cover

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Jay Edidin & Miles Stokeswww.xplainthexmen.com
Because It's About Time Someone Did

Episodes

HAWK TALK – Call Any Vegetable

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 vegetables. Kind of. Topics, roughly: Vegetables. Like we said. Is Apocalypse a fruit? Ghost vs. slime trees Dwarves in the rutabagas Ramen mishaps How to be less terrible at cooking Cherimoya, that weirdo

Feb 08, 202140 min

322 – Do More Crimes

In which the X-Babies fail to charm; clones are people, too; Iceman doesn’t (quite) come out; Gambit and Bishop bond; Joseph comes into ambiguous being; and Principal Nezu and Charles Xavier would probably get along okay.

Feb 01, 20211 hr 5 minSeason 1Ep. 322

321 – Revolving Doors

In which Sabretooth does not get effectively rehabilitated; nobody has the moral high ground; Val Cooper is the worst possible person to call in any emergency; Bishop needs a better support system; Jay knows several things about onions; and not everything has to be a mammal.

Jan 25, 20211 hr 1 minSeason 1Ep. 321

320 – The Accountability Wagon

In which Pete Wisdom is the guy you love to glare at; Nightcrawler is right (and a delightfully complex individual); Colossus has a lot of issues; and Wolfsbane gets the confrontation we’ve been waiting for since the New Mutants graphic novel.

Jan 18, 20211 hr 3 minSeason 1Ep. 320

319 – Giant-Size Special #9 (feat. Vita Ayala, Tini Howard, and Leah Williams)

In which Jay and Miles receive a mysterious missive and are visited by three of our favorite X-writers; Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix is a pleasant surprise; Nathaniel Essex is the most dramatic man in the Marvel Universe; the sewers of Victorian London were a happenin’ place; Apocalypse isn’t even French; Beast is the flip-side of Sinister; community is for everyone; the Internet is (kind of) Krakoa; and death is fixable, but trauma might take a little more work.

Jan 04, 20213 hr 38 minSeason 1Ep. 319

HAWK TALK – Surviving 2020

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 (exhaustedly) about This Freaking Year. Topics, roughly: This year was pretty rough Maybe next year will be better? Some things are cool, though NOTE: Miles watched Knives Out immediately after recording this episode, and Jay was right: it is delightful.

Dec 28, 202035 min

317 – Acquaintances of Humanity

In which Nicholas Cage is more of a concept than a human being; Rogue’s angst-fueled road trip continues; Gambit and Sinister have complementary aesthetics; there are a lot of Guthries; the Trasks are never up to any good; and whether or not it is canon, Ghost Rider has definitely teamed up with Johnny Cash.

Dec 14, 20201 hr 1 minSeason 1Ep. 317

HAWK TALK – Surviving the (Holiday) Experience

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 holidays, winter and otherwise. Topics, roughly: Time, which used to make sense Several holidays and feelings, media, and traditions related thereto Flash Gordon Mixed-faith families A New York Christmas Wedding (the lesbian time travel gay dead baby angel movie) Gingerbread Secular rituals Night in the Woods: Lost Co...

Nov 29, 202054 min

315 – Theater Is Dead

In which Jay and/or patriarchy ruin everything; Archangel is dubiously aspirational; we need a moratorium on Jack the Ripper stories; there are a lot of Masterminds; and Arcade is a whole bundle of psychosexual weirdness.

Nov 23, 202050 minSeason 1Ep. 315

314 – Feelings, Alaska

In which Haven deserved better; Cyclops and Havok have a lot of feelings in Alaska; X-Factor is the cop team; breaking up with your girlfriend between issues is a massive faux pas; Haven got a bad deal; no one cares about Random’s feelings; Spiral is weird Twitter; and Alex Summers once again fails to finish his dissertation.

Nov 16, 20201 hrSeason 1Ep. 314

313 – Iguanafall

In which sky pirates are the best pirates; Wolverine eats chicken in the woods; Xavier’s area loses its status as our least favorite panel; Cable is suspiciously credulous; we search in vain for a consistent metaphor; Storm has a thing or two to learn about restorative justice; and this entire miniseries should probably have been an annual.

Nov 09, 202056 minSeason 1Ep. 313

311 – Love Makes a Super-Team

In which we decide to stop recognizing the nominal difference between X-Men and Uncanny X-Men; time travel may or may not wait for you; Mister Sinister has probably appeared in at least one Ed Wood film; we are a pro-Tingle podcast; X-Men is about family; the Braddock twins catch up; Sailor Moon > Shinobi Shaw; Generation X is inducted into the baseball tradition; and Storm does what she does with Morlocks in sewers.

Oct 19, 20201 hr 4 minSeason 1Ep. 311

310 – Attack and Dethrone God

In which we take a substantial detour; Minipax is no Raul Julia; Corsair tries (and fails) to retire; everything is cooler in space; vengeance is more of a vocation than a career; the Starjammers win an intergalactic war with a slide show; and we pitch some television.

Oct 12, 202057 minSeason 1Ep. 310

HAWK TALK – Hawktober

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 our current, and Jay's favorite, season. Topics, roughly: Beatni(c)ks Spoopiness vs. Spookiness Fat bears Seasons (and hemispheres) Symbolism and secular ritual Jay's very specific Halloween costumes Disappointing bats Asymmetrically recognizable couples' costumes Inaccurate TMNT journalism Over the Garden Wall Costum...

Oct 04, 202049 min

309 – Excellent Turtle

In which ballistics get weird; Black Air is no W.H.O.; we have surprisingly mixed feelings about Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde as a couple; there is an actual creepy clown bar in Portland; blood eagles are excessively ostentatious; the Uncreated just want to be cool; and Rory Campbell continues his descent into supervillainy.

Sep 27, 202054 minSeason 1Ep. 309

308 – No Story Is the Whole Story

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.

Sep 21, 202059 minSeason 1Ep. 308

307 – Ugly Mootants Only

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.

Sep 14, 20201 hr 9 minSeason 1Ep. 307

HAWK TALK – Playing With Super Power (feat. Matthew Hunter)

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 IV) Street Fighter II Rockin' Kats Shatter Hand Battletoads Lemmings The Incredible Machine The Leg...

Sep 07, 20201 hr 29 min

306 – Between Here and There

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 call go to voicemail.

Aug 31, 202057 minSeason 1Ep. 306

305 – The Sleep of the Wicked

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 conducive to consistent acoustics (sorry!).

Aug 24, 202059 minSeason 1Ep. 305

304 – Explosive Ops

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.

Aug 17, 20201 hr 7 minSeason 1Ep. 304

HAWK TALK – Video Renaissance

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) The Crow Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy Help Yellow Submarine Wayne & Garth & Bill & Ted Defending...

Aug 10, 202055 min

303 – No Simple Answers, feat. Laura Hudson

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 some of the Lobdell allegations and Jay's response to 2013 discussion of same. No visual companion to this...

Aug 03, 202057 minSeason 1Ep. 303

302 – Space Junk

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 regret not making more Satellite of Love jokes about Avalon.

Jul 27, 202053 minSeason 1Ep. 302

301 – Can’t Beat the Real Thing

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 Onslaught now.

Jul 20, 20201 hr 8 minSeason 1Ep. 301

HAWK TALK – Attack of the Franchise Cartoons

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 of Horrors Beetlejuice Toxic Crusaders Attack of the Killer Tomatoes The Adventures of Pete & Pete (and the...

Jul 12, 202047 min

300 – Götterdämmerung

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.

Jul 06, 20201 hr 7 minSeason 1Ep. 300