Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which incoming Iceman writer Sina Grace joins us to talk about the coolest X-Man; Adult Bobby Drake gets the spotlight; no one looks too closely at the jokester; the mutant metaphor works both globally and personally; and we are all a little horrified by how long ago Grant Morrison's New X-Men run happened. X-PLAINED: The Apocalypse Seed What ice powers sound like Ice puns and Memento-style tattoos Adult coming-out stories Intersecti...
Apr 10, 2017•44 min•Season 1Ep. 154
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which Miles gets an etymology lesson; Nightcrawler is the most dateable guy in the X-Universe; Meggan is basically all the cryptids; Michael Higgins must be stopped; Alistair Stuart is terrible at adulting; we really hope Brian wasn't too attached to that airplane; and in retrospect, there probably should have been a Spalding Gray joke in there somewhere. X-PLAINED: The Montesi Formula Excalibur #28-31 The Gilded Lady The quintessent...
Apr 03, 2017•58 min•Season 1Ep. 153
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which Franklin Richards makes everything more complicated; Reed Richards is a terrible parent; Days of Future Present is a surprisingly good ghost story; Valeria Richards is awesome (but does not appear in this crossover); everyone's got hounds these days; Banshee is your sad cyborg dad; Phoenix has a lot of feelings; and X-Factor once again manages to up the ante for child endangerment. X-PLAINED: Nightcrawler's brief clerical caree...
Mar 27, 2017•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 152
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which Laura easily is worth a dozen Old Mans Logan; Charlotte Jones is the EveryCop; Genosha remains a fairly versatile allegory; Hydra are totally Nazis; Jubilee gets the best sound effects; Rogue has a bad day; and it'll take more than a sun to stop Lila Cheney. X-PLAINED: Graydon Creed Logan oversaturation (more) (again) Uncanny X-Men #264, 268, 269 A somewhat convoluted status quo Death by Derrida New York's sewers (kind of) (may...
Mar 20, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 151
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which writers Dennis Hopeless and Charles Soule join us for a live episode at Emerald City Comic Con, Age of X is the world's worst morale boost; Charles and Dennis X-Plain the Marvel Universe; we still can't get Hieronymus Bosch's X-Men out of our heads; and apparently somehow we've recorded and posted 150 of these things. X-PLAINED: Age of X Evil Moira MacTaggert Disambiguation The post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe Major X-Men turni...
Mar 13, 2017•50 min•Season 1Ep. 150
Art by David Wynne. href="http://particlefiction.bigcartel.com/">Contact David to purchase the original! In which Old Man Logan is probably better than it deserves to be; Steve McNiven is magical; the post-apocalyptic future probably belongs to the LARPers; Miles's dad may or may not secretly be Hawkeye; all babies are supervillains; every movie should have a dinosaur chase scene; Emma Frost is our queen forever; and you should never trust a Hitler cosplayer. X-PLAINED: Wolverine: Lord of the Va...
Mar 07, 2017•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 149
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original! In which Archangel falls in with the LARP crowd; all yuppies are (probably) vampires; Beast is kind of a jerk; there are a lot of reasons to be mad at Forge; and you should totally come hang out with us at ECCC! X-PLAINED: A peculiar scheme X-Factor #54, 56-59 Crimson The Ravens A gallery opening Several varyingly tortured souls Charlotte Jones (more) Archangel vs. Archangel's wings Ethical reporting An accidental bank robbery The retur...
Feb 27, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 148
Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original! In which the New Mutants get a new status quo (and new costumes); we have deeply mixed feelings about Rob Liefeld; Cable is the comprehensive sex-ed to Xavier's staunch denial and Magneto's abstinence-only; Rictor gets a new dad by right of arms; and you should totally come party with us at Emerald City Comic Con! X-PLAINED: Feral Wolverine Jay & Miles at Emerald City Comic Con New Mutants #90, 91, 93, and 94...
Feb 20, 2017•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original! In which Elisabeth plans for her reign as Omniversal Majestrix; Hulks and moons are two great tastes that go great together; Nightcrawler takes the lead; Alastair gets a new gadget; it's just not a cosmic event without Alan Davis; Mastermind is still the absolute worst; Excalibur fixes problems by playing dress-up; Moira MacTaggert desperately needs to hire some staff; and Jamie Braddock is legitimately terri...
Feb 13, 2017•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 146
Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at RedBubble, or contact David to purchase the original! In which Val Cooper remains the club queen of U.S. Intelligence; the Shadow King is a huge jerk; Storm is a badass at any age; Gambit gets off to a surprisingly good start; "flesh and spirit" is the new "body and soul"; and we are guardedly optimistic about an upcoming release. X-PLAINED: Unconventional evidence of nefarious influence Uncanny X-Men #265-267 Storm's early origins The Shadow King Deb Levin A ki...
Feb 06, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 145
Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original! In which we get a visit from Kid Apocalypse and debut a track from his upcoming album; Jay No-Prizes Community; Rahne of Terra is pretty damn delightful; Cable is an armchair editor; we finally release the unexpurgated version of Dennis Hopeless's version of the Noodle Incident; and you remain--to nobody's surprise--the best listeners of any podcast, ever. X-PLAINED: Kid Apocalypse (Quinn Allan) Portland Snow...
Jan 30, 2017•2 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 144
Art by David Wynne. In which the Cross-Time Caper has finally outstayed its welcome; we bid a reluctant farewell to Alan Davis; Inferno may or may not finally actually be over; Evil Doug Ramsey rocks our socks; the Shadow King is not a particularly nuanced villain; Kitty Pryde celebrates a birthday; and Courtney Ross represents an awful lot of dangling plot threads. X-PLAINED: Nocturne Excalibur #21-24 The end of the Cross-Time Caper Post-Alan Davis Excalibur Chris Wozniak Crusader X Earth-2122 ...
Jan 16, 2017•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 143
Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original! In which Jay and Miles make a personal announcement; moles (probably) don't lay eggs; Angel is full of angst and flechettes; there's always room for cello; and no matter how complicated our personal lives get, X-Factor's will always be worse! X-PLAINED: The Tanaka family business Jay & Miles vs. time travel Some personal stuff that's going on Our definitive Iceman artist A whole lot of child endangerment Two ...
Jan 09, 2017•55 min•Season 1Ep. 142
Art by David Wynne. No print this week, but you can contact David to purchase the original! In which we ring in the new year with Cable's on-page debut; it's really the '90s now; we enter the third major era of New Mutants; what Liefeld lacks in craft he makes up for in energy; we pitch a new "What if--" line; Rusty and Skids are terrible superheroes; X-Factor has probably given up on a lot of things; we speculate at gratuitous length on the content of Cable's pouches; you have reason to go to t...
Jan 02, 2017•59 min•Season 1Ep. 141
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which writer Dennis Hopeless returns to the show for an informal introduction to the (first) mutant messiah; Cable is the best-case retcon scenario; Summerses don't get to retire; calculating relative character age remains functionally impossible; Cable is Marsha to Stryfe's Jan; and there's probably already a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta about all of this. X-PLAINED: That one time Cable and ...
Dec 26, 2016•51 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and coffee mugs available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which Spotlight on Starjammers is basically a RPG module; Jay may or may not have developed superpowers; artfully tattered clothing is a Summers family tradition; the Starjammers kill a planet; Raza may or may not be super progressive; and Professor X dies (again). X-PLAINED: The T-Bomb Spotlight on Starjammers #1-2 The Starjammers (more) (again) Phlazers Keel-hauling The space...
Dec 19, 2016•53 min•Season 1Ep. 139
Art by David Wynne In which we continue to follow the post-Siege Perilous X-Men; Dazzler finally makes her big-screen debut; Callisto gets a day job; Colossus gets a ponytail; still more X-Men fake their deaths; Jean Grey gets tentacles; Professor Wolverine is a jerk; and Jay overthinks Community. X-PLAINED: The new-new Howling Commandos Hit-Monkey Uncanny X-Men #259-263 Dazzler: The Movie (again) Freddie Stanacheck Eric Beale What Dazzler would do Peter Nicholas Jenny Ransome and Phillip Moreau...
Dec 12, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and coffee mugs available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which author Sarah Kuhn joins us to talk about Asian-American and Asian-British representation in superhero comics; Psylocke is the literal embodiment of British imperialism; Jubilee speaks for us all; representation isn't a Boolean state; Wolverine fails at pop culture references; and somewhere there's probably a really dark alternate universe where Betsy teamed up with Jamie ...
Dec 05, 2016•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 137
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and coffee mugs available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which we find the idea of Jack Kirby as G-d deeply comforting; "Jercules" is our new favorite insult; the difference between camp and divinity is good backlighting; Zeus does not have the moral high ground; Ron Lim's Captain Britain is the definitive cad; the Demon Druid is the saddest supervillain; Archangel broods like it's his day job; and Jay gets to do all the fun voices f...
Nov 28, 2016•54 min•Season 1Ep. 136
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which the Cross-Time Caper continues; alliteration is awesome; someone else's geopolitical conflict is not an appropriate place to play out your pirate fantasies; we are definitely not actually going to eat Alan Davis's brains; Jamie Braddock is Evil Rex Racer; Widget eats a car; Rick Leonardi is the definitive fill-in artist; the problem is patriarchy; and everything's sticky in Madripoor. ...
Nov 21, 2016•56 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which Deadpool and X-Men '92 artist Scott Koblish joins us to present the Summers Family Tree as you've never experienced it before; the X-Men go to Dante's Hell; Dr. Strange gets his Virgil on; Wolverine sniffs snakes; Iceman has probably killed a lot of people; and X-Men fans have remained remarkably consistent over the years. X-PLAINED The Summers family Birthdays at the Xavier mansion A ...
Nov 14, 2016•51 min•Season 1Ep. 134
In which the plot thickens; Jay and Miles fix Avatar; Ship is a good bro; you are in space right now; the Beginagains go full This Island Earth; Cyclops weaponizes love; voting is really important; and you're listening to ten straight hours of soft jazz and subversion on ZZ-105 X-PLAINED: The other Dazzler (Bertram Worthington) Our newest t-shirt X-Factor #48-50 A metaphor within a metaphor, in space The first half of Judgment War (briefly) (again) A prisoner exchange Hairstyles of the possessed...
Nov 07, 2016•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which Rusty is an honorary Bluth; we bid a sad farewell to Bret Blevins; Hogan the Grim is probably the best at bedtime stories; Asgard has really tight hat game; Hela is a remarkably competent supervillain; there are some sound effects you have to earn; Rusty and Skids fight the Vulture; and Miles has so many feelings about Thor. X-PLAINED: Cortex Damian Tryp Our weird 2016 recording schedu...
Oct 31, 2016•58 min•Season 1Ep. 132
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which Jubilee is the sassiest Xenomorph; Lady Deathstrike is way too good for the Reavers; Wolverine gets a sidekick; Forge arm wrestles the Shadow King; Moira takes a cavalier approach lab safety; Magneto's motives get kind of reconciled; Legion is a chaos gamer; Mystique and Destiny break our hearts; queer erasure in fiction reflects erasure in life; and the Shadow King is not even a littl...
Oct 24, 2016•59 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which writer Charles Soule joins us for a (spoiler free) discussion of Death of X and how to make mortality matter in universes where death is a revolving door. X-PLAINED: Fang Who's really trying to kill off the X-Men Death of Wolverine Death of X Charles Soule's favorite death scenes Several reasons to care about the Inhumans Unpacking Cyclops The correct pronunciation of "ResurrXion" NEXT...
Oct 16, 2016•39 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which "Cross-Time Caper" is something of a misnomer; Excalibur is an awful lot of fun to summarize; none of us will ever live up to Oscar Wilde's expectations; Captain Britain secretly derives his powers from genre; sometimes things turn out to be simple; Kitty Pryde is better at everything than you; manipulation and murder are the new flowers and candy; context may or may not ruin everythin...
Oct 10, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 129
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which X-Factor goes to space; Miles gets judgmental about spelling; Paul Smith returns to an X-title; Celestials are a pain; Judgment War is the Star-Trekkiest story that doesn't actually involve Star Trek; monster ladies are super important; if you can be a green dude, you should be a green dude; and Cyclops gears up to fight some gods. X-PLAINED: One way to kill a Celestial Judg(e)ment War...
Oct 03, 2016•56 min•Season 1Ep. 128
We're celebrating International Podcast Day with a bonus mid-week episode! In which Jay and Al settle down in the living room to talk about cats, conventions, X-karaoke, Summers Brothers road trips, and what Al has planned for those New Mutants he's been collecting in New Avengers! SOME RELEVANT LINKS: You can find all of our RCCC minicomics right here! Here's the original SPLINK PSA! David Malki's Magneto voicemails are a gift to the world. You can find the full collection here. This episode co...
Sep 30, 2016•2 hr 32 min
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original. In which we get back on the continuity train; everything is the aftermath of Inferno forever; you should never fight a tractor or a horse without first putting on some damn pants; Vincent Price would've made a terrific Doctor Strange; Rusty Collins never really gets a fair break; Boom Boom is in over her head; and Brett Blevins takes his place as the definitive New Mutants artist. X-PLAINED: Mi...
Sep 26, 2016•55 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Art by David Wynne. No prints this week, but you can contact David to purchase the original! In which we return to Rose City Comic Con and somehow manage to one-up last year's Stryfe cold open; Greg Pak has secretly written all of the X-books; Cullen Bunn may or may not be watching you RIGHT NOW; the X-Men distill down to murder and kissing; Toshiro Mifune should be everybody; Miles swears first (for once); and we can't wait to see all of your X-Men roller derby names! X-PLAINED: Cold open escal...
Sep 19, 2016•47 min•Season 1Ep. 126
