Your regular Upstarts are joined this week by Dr. Hailey “Stone Cold” Austin to talk about good and bad buts/butts in the totally radical Excalibur #72, “Oohhh... Siena!” In which the team moves to Muir Island and nothing will ever be the same again, including our eyeballs and eardrums after this barrage of bodacious badonkadonks and phoney phonetic accents. The one good infection is infectious laughter and this ep’s got plenty of that!...
Oct 09, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 80
For better or worse and death 'til us part— Excalibur is an X-Men comic now. It’s also definitely a 90s comic, with all the explosive melodrama that implies But it’s not all bad (in fact, some of it is even good!) in Excalibur #71, “Crossing Swords,” the tail end of the “Fatal Attractions” crossover in which Colossus doesn’t understand the difference between atheism and nihilism and one good Jean/Rachel page demands a bad one. X-pert Austin Gorton makes his triumphant return to help us wade thro...
Oct 02, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 79
For the crime of podcasting about Excalibur for 126+ weeks, we're being punished with reading one more issue about kissing Cerise goodbye... if in fact it is Cerise, and not a 90s Bad Girl who just happens to have the same fondness for pink armor and fuzzy blue elves. In any case, we've blackmailed returning guest Dr. Michael Hancock into joining us on this backwards journey into irrelevance, discussing Excalibur #70, “Crime and Punishment.” We talk Bad Girl tropes and what makes a good goodbye ...
Sep 24, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 78
A sexy little number can’t save Excalibur #69, “Blight and Fog,” from living up to its title. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun writing better (and queerer!) stories about everyone’s favourite Warrior of the Ghrand Jhar Shi’ar war criminal with the stalwart support of a writer who’s also Cerise’s Biggest Fan, Hunter Felt ! We talk might-have-been’s and could-still-be’s and wonder what a good Cerise/Kurt relationship might look like in a different world where they were allowed to love their...
Sep 17, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 77
After a brief sojourn lost in a temporal wave, we’re back and ready to talk you through Excalibur #68, “Facades”—a comic that maybe shoulda stayed lost in a temporal wave. But it's not all grim ‘n’ gritty griping and mourning the loss of more than one character we used to love. We also have lots of fun talking 90s tropes and reboots and transmedia transformations with comics & games scholar and all-around Gotham expert Dr. Kalervo Sinervo !...
Sep 10, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 76
The 90s have arrived in 2015 and Excalibur is a gun now... but actually, Excalibur is still Excalibur, which is to say—a beautiful story about love saving the multiverse
Aug 27, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 75
This week, we’re going back to “Back to the Present,” and by present we mean future, and by future we mean the far-flung year of 2015, when the world was/will be run by Sentinels and a dude obsessed with Rachel Summers, Moby Dick, and thigh-high boots. Joining us on this journey is returning guest Nola Pfau , fresh off an Eisner Award hat trick for her Editor-in-Chief-dom of Women Write About Comics ! We wax poetic about women and circles, debate the mechanics of time travel vs interdimensional ...
Aug 20, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 74
Andrew got lost in the timestream this week, but we learned from the best that when you lose a founding member to cosmic forces beyond your control, you gotta solider on with new friends. So here we are, doing our first annual discussion of the first Excalibur Annual, accompanied in this heroic endeavor by educator and fellow podcaster Jason Hundey, co-host of the Requiem Metal Podcast ! We hash out important topics like: why Annuals? Can we give 1993's newest Dark Elf enough heat to make Jason’...
Aug 13, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 73
Some truths are dark and many lies are white in the not-aptly-named Excalibur #65, “White Lies, Dark Truths.” We talk about that plus KISSING with scholar, educator, and psychotherapist Dr. Valentino Zullo ! Do Cerise and Kurt really love each other? How can we tell? What does love mean, anyway? We're not sure, but Alan Davis sure draws it pretty
Aug 06, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 72
Fresh off winning a freakin’ award , your very genetically stable team of comics scientists is back! Talking superheroes and science and why mutants are like vaccines in Excalibur #64, “Ascension,” with multi-talented researcher, writer, game designer, and educator Alison Humphrey ! Plus a perfect Nightcrawler panel, Anna’s favourite Rachel sequence, the glory of nine-panel grids, and (gasp) discussion of the mutant metaphor? But this time, with SCIENCE....
Jul 31, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 71
Don’t let the cool Kylun cover fool you— Excalibur #63, “Denial,” is in denial about being about Kylun because it’s clearly a Nightcrawler comic, in which Kurt Wagner superfan Alan Davis delivers a super-scientific sermon about all the super-scientific ways Kurt is super-scientifically awesome. Here to celebrate this momentous achievement is our first guest from a country where Kurt's called Diablo—writer and fellow fuzzy elf superfan Maxime Fontaine ! When we’re not talking glorious fanservice,...
Jul 23, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 70
We're in (and on!) Cloud Nine talking Warpies, Warpies, and more Warpies in Excalibur #62, “Of Birth, Death and the Confused, Painful Bit In Between,” with educator, scholar, and expert in posthuman science fiction, Dr. Clare Wall ! We explore whether superheroes are posthuman (or transhuman, or metahuman) and talk through different types of monstrosity plus whether Alan Davis' monsters are too cute to be scary. We also talk about Beetroot—poor, beloved Beetroot, and the melodramatic context and...
Jul 16, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 69
Gosh Golly Wow Returns! And so does Rachel Summers! Sort of! All that and the pod’s most anticipated guest of all-time, writer and founder of the Phoenix Force Fan Club, (as featured in Excalibur #51), Jason Grey ! We talk (natch) lots of Rachel and Phoenix, and work through lots of complicated feelings about Galactus’ pro-life politics. Plus! Meggan and Brian get engaged, Kurt gives some advice we didn’t love, and Kitty and Feron have a meet-cute...? We don’t cover quite as many permutations of...
Jul 09, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 68
We’re trying to emphasize the positive this week... while still doing plenty of griping about part 2 of a crummy colonial sojourn in Wakanda known as Excalibur #60, "Braddock of the Jungle." We’re joined in our journey through tribulations and tropes by Dr. Deborah Elizabeth Whaley , author of the critically acclaimed book Black Women in Sequence: Re-Inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime ! We talk histories of Tarzan and the challenges of studying representation, and even though she’s not in ...
Jun 11, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 67
We sure hated this week’s comic, but we sure love this week’s episode, talking hip hop, comics, Black Panther, and Afrofuturism with scholar Dr. Michael B. Dando ! We do a little griping about the team’s colonial jaunt to Wakanda in Excalibur #59, “Enter... the Panther!” But we also talk about better stuff you can do with comics, Vibranium, race, power, poetry, and supers who save the world with flowers. Plus, we find a sliver of joy in Kurt’s makeup mastery....
Jun 04, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 66
We are most definitely not calling all trolls to this week’s nuanced discussion of the different but equally complex personal and professional successes and failures of Kurt Wagner and Scott Summers in and around Excalibur #58, “Troll Call,” in the gracious company of X-Twitter fixture, social justice researcher, and all-around expert in the inner lives of mutants, Conor Mulvaney (@ConorReadsXMen )! Will Kurt prove to Jubilee and Gambit he’s not a troll? (And why should he have to, anyway?) Did ...
May 29, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 65
Not a dream, not a hoax, not a fuzzy image of Cable on a video screen asking who the heck's calling at 3 am. The real X-Men are here , in the same room (er, sewer) with Excalibur, and also—trolls! (By which we mean Phumm, Phop, Phay, Phlopp, Phlegm, Phough, Gambit, and Jubliee.) Anna, Mav, and Andrew plus special guest writer/podcaster/X-pert Austin Gorton wade through hugs, hurt feelings, and humongous Joe Mad art in Excalibur #57, “For Whom the Bell Trolls!” In which Cyclops is mean, Nightcraw...
May 21, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 64
You know that we do it together. In our case, that means podcasting about Excalibur with super-smart friends, and in Nightcrawler and Wolverine’s case, it means spending a relaxing weekend in Bavaria, taking in a few shows, fighting/helping monsters, and sharing a romantic horseback ride under a pinkish moon. Well, maybe relaxing isn’t the right word... but we stand by the romance 😉 Comics and medieval studies scholar Dr. Christopher M. Roman , author of the forthcoming book Queering Wolverine ...
May 14, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 63
If you’re a superhero, you probably shouldn't throw a party. And you especially shouldn’t throw a party where you invite the fascist dictator from an alternate dimension masquerading as the former girlfriend with whom you’ve been cheating on your current girlfriend, who’s teamed up with the reality-warping older brother who hates your guts. We reckon with the consequences of this state of affairs in Excalibur #56, “Things That Go Shriek in the Night,” talking gender, violence, and body horror wi...
Apr 30, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 62
The last time Excalibur threw a party, Meggan became a vampire and tried to eat a dog. So expectations are high! But this issue’s up to the challenge, and so’s our guest, comics and pop culture scholar Jeffrey A. Brown , author of many fabulous books including, most recently, Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes . We talk plenty about those four topics in this episode, in which multiple blonde ladies smooch Brian, Kurt and Cerise spend seven minutes in heaven, and a bunch of less-fun stuff gives u...
Apr 23, 2022•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 61
A legally binding Twitter poll said we had to cover Excalibur: Air Apparent , and we are very law-abiding citizens so here we are, giving you an hour and fifteen of smart talk about a comic that coulda been smarter but hey, at least some of the pictures are nice! Comics scholar Zachary J.A. Rondinelli , creator of the award-winning “Welcome to Slumberland” project, joins us to hash out what works, what doesn’t and why in this visual extravaganza spotlighting seven leading artists of the era—incl...
Apr 16, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 60
Listeners of this pod know we share one thing with Brian Braddock, which is that we’d follow Meggan anywhere, including down a rabbit hole into a series of Alice in Wonderland-inspired nightmares that teach us things about ourselves! Jason R. Lady , author of fantasy and sci-fi for young readers, helps us unpack why Brian’s archnemesis is whimsy in Excalibur #54, “Curiouser and Curiouser,” in which Meggan has a good time, Brian thinks he has a bad time, and old enemies find happy endings. Plus, ...
Apr 09, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 59
Welcome back to the podcast where we talk about Excalibur and nothing but Excalibur … except when we talk about Spider-Man! Which we’re doing this week! Comics scholar and Steve Ditko expert Dr. Zack Kruse joins Anna, Mav, and Andrew to discuss Spidey and the unique vision of his complicated co-creator along with some Excalibur #53, “The Litter,” in which Brian tells Meggan a story from his misspent youth, part of which he spent rooming with some uptight nobody named Peter Parker, who’s always s...
Apr 02, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 58
And we’re back! With a special episode of “Retconning with Reck,” in which writer/artist/podcaster Adam Reck of the Battle of the Atom Podcast joins us to untangle Excalibur #52, “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Phoenix… But Were Afraid to Ask,” which left us wondering if some questions are better left unanswered. But we’re gonna ask anyway, delving deep into our mighty collective knowledge of X-Men lore to get to the bottom of whether this story makes any sense—and whether it matters. Plus, w...
Mar 26, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 57
New logo… new species?? That right—we’re back to regular episodes and getting weird about dinosaurs with Christi and Chris Eddleman, sauropod enthusiasts and hosts of the Chrises on Infinite Earths podcast, taking a bite out Excalibur #51, “Don’t Drink the Water,” starring Alysdon and Alysaur Stewart, Shadowcompsognathus, Britanicus Rex, Megon, and Nightstrutter in a story that’s not as profound as the ABC sitcom Dinosaurs , but does feature a teacup-sized Zabu, so all is forgiven. We discuss wh...
Mar 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 56
What’s this? Anna, Mav, and Andrew talking about a current comic book? Released this very past Wednesday?? It took Chris Claremont writing a tie-in to our darling, officially known as X-Men Legends #12: “Start Again: A Prelude to Excalibur ” to drag us into the present. Except it’s not really the present; it’s still the past, specifically, the space between “Fall of the Mutants” and the arrival of the Technet at Muir Island in “The Sword is Drawn.” We do some griping but also wax nostalgic about...
Mar 12, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 55
Anna, Mav, and Andrew plus a plethora of amazing guests have been podcasting about Excalibur for an entire year—54 weeks to be exact! Which seems like a perfect time to look back on the year that was. This Anniversary Special features approximately one minute from each of our regular episodes, chronicling Excalibur #1-50. Sit back, relax, and relive all the guffaws, griping, and gushing. I can only hope some of you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed putting it all together. Here’s to th...
Mar 06, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 54
Our guest, venerable comics scholar Dr. Andrew Kunka , says he wanted to join us for the mega-sized Excalibur #50, “Winner Loses All,” in part to hear us talk about a particular scene, in which saving the multiverse requires everyone going inside everyone. We hope we didn't disappoint him (or you!) with our discussion of this supersexy climax—and its scholarly and narrative significance. We also discuss what makes a good anniversary issue and bask in the cosmic glow of Rachel’s very big (literal...
Feb 26, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 53
This week, Anna threatens to spend the whole show talking about teleporting, but shows admirable restraint in letting our honored guest, comics and pop culture scholar Nicole Freim , lead us through at least twelve fun and fascinating discussions of at least twelve other dimensions in the mostly-stationary but nonetheless jam-packed Excalibur #49, “Let There Be Dark.” In which Necrom gets closer (and stays naked), Feron gets a snack, Brian gets bigger, Alistaire gets pretty, and Micromax (finall...
Feb 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 52
We forget to celebrate our 50th episode with a deep dive into an archeological dig turned theological dilemma in Excalibur #48, “Irish Stew,” guided by comics and pop culture scholar and host of The Protagonist Podcast , Dr. Joseph Darowski ! Asking important questions like: what is the Anti-Phoenix? And do we actually care? We also extol the virtues of Kylun, catch up with the team’s team-building, and dig through familiar topics from new angles, including the mutant metaphor, diminishing retur...
Feb 13, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 51
