Ah, the age-old question: would you scissor your clone while yelling? (Uncanny X-Men #367) In which the Magneto War comes to a close. X-PLAINED: X-Men #86-87 Uncanny X-Men #367 Quite a few other things, which we'll add to this post tomorrow! NEXT EPISODE: Nate Grey meets Generation X! Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog! Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and ...
Apr 15, 2024•52 min•Ep 446•Transcript available on Metacast In which not every story needs to be an event; Alan Davis returns to the X-line; X-mansion security is not what it once was; Rogue needs some new fantasies; and Magneto wants a country.
Apr 08, 2024•49 min•Ep 445•Transcript available on Metacast In which it’s difficult to flee with soup; Miles may or may not be haunting the X-Men; Colossus collaborates involuntarily; Marrow is full of surprises; Magneto is a dick; Jay continues to carry a torch for Secret Wars: Siege; and you should totally come to our birthday party. X-PLAINED: Several rather pointed allusions X-Force #86 Uncanny X-Men #365 X-Men #85 Almost Reno, NM Where mutants come from The Aguilar Institute (more) (again) Abandoned towns Mary the telepathic moppet (more) (again) Od...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep 444•Transcript available on Metacast Jay is dealing with an ongoing family medical emergency, so episode releases may be somewhat unpredictable for the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience!
Mar 24, 2024•10 sec•Transcript available on Metacast In which we walk down X-Plain Memory Lane; everyone needs Bitch Planet; HoX/PoX wouldn't stay on shelves; we learn how to make sure a comic doesn't get canceled; Marvel should have kept publishing those Krakoa-era anthology TPBs; X-Men is indeed a soap opera; and you can jump in here 'cause we're all confused. X-PLAINED: The most crowded X-year Books With Pictures, official best comics shop in the world Our upcoming 10th birthday party Katie Pryde’s X-history Prioritizing marginalized nerd ident...
Mar 11, 2024•55 min•Ep 443•Transcript available on Metacast In which Marrow remains a connoisseur of dead rats; Jay has opinions about the NYC Subway system; U.L.T.I.M.A.T.U.M. are snazzy dressers; Doctor Doom gets excited about Onslaught; Magneto can have a rocket pack if he wants; villainous game recognizes villainous game; weird retcons are the best retcons; and you should totally come to our birthday party.
Mar 03, 2024•56 min•Ep 442•Transcript available on Metacast In which Banshee should eat the rich; the real Monet is way more of a jerk than the fake one; the Marvel Universe is the world inside your brain-case; Maggott joins and quits Generation X at almost the speed of Sunfire; Dracula gives Chamber the D; and if Jay and Miles die in this episode, they die in real life. X-PLAINED: Dracula as a universal standard Earth-441 Generation X #48-49 The missed potential of 13,000-year-old teenager Gaia The Jay Faerber run of Generation X Emma and Banshee’s forg...
Feb 26, 2024•52 min•Ep 441•Transcript available on Metacast From organic steel to organic... whatever that is. (X-Men #83) In which the Hunt for Xavier remains vaguely disappointing; Gambit is good with kids; nanomachines are the new unstable molecules; Marrow is a walking armory; and we recommend comics for babies. X-PLAINED: The Hunt for Xavier, Part 2 Babies and/or ghosts Chekhov’s repowering X-Men #83-84 Uncanny X-Men #364 Cerebro / Cerebro Prime Cerebrite Alpha Cerebrite Beta X-Men serial numbers What Gambit’s friends call him How Miles stopped worr...
Feb 12, 2024•46 min•Ep 440•Transcript available on Metacast In which we reach the beginning of an end; Jay totally forgot Gambit was there; we’re all living in the Mary Purcelliverse; the X-Men split the party; and we explore The Bay Area’s Bohemian Hotbed of Student Anarchy. X-PLAINED: Mary Purcell (sort of) The re-defaulting of the X-Men Uncanny X-Men #362-323 X-Men #82 Nebraska Pyro (Saint John Allerdyce) and his endless illness Legacy Virus variations Going home again Running back and forth in quarries Marrow, who’s come a long way The two forms of f...
Feb 04, 2024•53 min•Ep 439•Transcript available on Metacast In which Gambit knows how to make an entrance; Rogue and Gambit only have relationship conversations during superhero fights; Wolverine fights a shark; and we have opinions on how to handle certain aspects of backstory.
Jan 29, 2024•59 min•Ep 438•Transcript available on Metacast "Hot Topic Rennfaire" was a somewhat controversial choice for X-Force's prom theme. (X-Force #85) In which the overlap between Rocky Horror and ‘90s X-Force fans is probably pretty significant; Pandemonia has priorities; the warehouse gets an evil, sexy glowup; swears are great; Johnny Blaze’s motorcycle probably shouldn’t still be on fire; and there is no single definitive X-Men experience. X-PLAINED: Master Pandemonium X-Force #85 X-Force/Champions Annual 1998 What X-Force has been up to latel...
Jan 15, 2024•52 min•Ep 437•Transcript available on Metacast In which Colossus has had a rough time of it; the X-Men are at their best in bar fights; Bronze-age Wolverine was a jerk; Ursa Major deserves more page space; kids dig Nightcrawler; and we imagine an X-Men newspaper comic strip.
Jan 08, 2024•53 min•Ep 436•Transcript available on Metacast Illustration by David Wynne In which we have had an eventful year; Longshot is a classic folk hero; writer Kieron Gillen makes a triumphant and mildly terrifying return to the show; and you remain the best listeners of any podcast, ever. X-PLAINED: Our tenth birthday party! 2023 Longshot vol. 2 #1 Longshot as a folkloric archetype Longshot (more) (again) Dismal Nitch, Washington The Thingee Baum, Kansas Corn Betty Barrie, Kansas The Albony Avenue Sanitarium and several of its residents Innocence...
Jan 01, 2024•2 hr 53 min•Ep 435•Transcript available on Metacast In which the X-Men turn 35; we pause to celebrate the death of Henry Kissinger; Jay is a space nerd; Marrow hang-dries her delicates; space shuttles are not rockets; the band gets back together; and the Danger Room isn’t the first piece of X-tech to get sentience and a robot body. X-PLAINED How Excalibur got a Blackbird Uncanny X-Men #360 X-Men #80 Many callbacks The Benassi Rocket The Cassini Probe The All-New, Slightly Off X-Men The Grey King (Addison Falk) Chaos and/or Xhaos (Dan Dash) Mercur...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 434•Transcript available on Metacast In which we take a retrospective look at X-Factor and Excalibur: where the series began, where they went, and what’s in store after the ends of their first volumes. X-PLAINED: What Rictor’s been up to X-Factor Excalibur NEXT EPISODE: A Corbeau cameo! The visual companion to this episode is scattered through the last eight years of visual companions, mostly under the X-Factor and Excalibur tags. Find us on iTunes or Stitcher! Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported....
Dec 11, 2023•56 min•Ep 433•Transcript available on Metacast In which we reach the end of Larry Hama’s run on Generation X; Gaia remains remarkably normal for someone who has spent millennia chained up alone in a citadel; Synch practices radical forgiveness; we ponder the nature of Emma Frost and Sean Cassidy’s relationship; and Forge is extra unqualified to lecture on ethics.
Dec 04, 2023•53 min•Ep 432•Transcript available on Metacast No notes. (Generation X Underground Special #1) In which Synch is a more versatile character than he originally got credit for; “eep” and “eek” are likewise underused; space makes everything better; Nate Grey is the proto-himbo; and if you can decipher the secret code in this episode, you, too, can win a Silver Surfer jet ski! X-PLAINED: Diablo Generation X Underground Special X-Men Unlimited #30 X-Man: All Saints Day Jim Mahfood Skin’s video-game preferences Strange superpowers Poster pirates V...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep 431•Transcript available on Metacast In which birds have no business in sex dreams; feelings are complicated and allegories are imperfect; Mystique made some valid points; Psycho-Man is good at UI; Callisto was right; and the label “Omega-level mutant” actually kind of makes sense.
Nov 13, 2023•54 min•Ep 430•Transcript available on Metacast Dracularmy (X-Men Unlimited #21) In which you should stop hatin’, there’s a big difference between fill-ins and filler, Snow Valley needs higher Ferris wheel standards, Todd DeZago must really hate video rental clerks, and we’re all monsters - some of us just smell better than others. X-PLAINED: Strong Guy’s hellacious history The nature and purpose of X-Men Unlimited X-Men Unlimited #20-21 Rock Trolls (Chambliss, Nettles, and Munson) What Asgard was up to in 1998 Magik vs magic The Snow Valley ...
Nov 05, 2023•49 min•Ep 429•Transcript available on Metacast Love and chaos. (Excalibur #125) In which you shouldn’t invite nazis to your wedding, there’s a lot of multiverse, Captain Britain and Meggan are pretty heteronormative but make it work, everybody forgot Feron, and the next husband will be Gatecrasher’s. X-PLAINED: Captain Britain varieties The history of Brian Braddock and Meggan Puceanu, abridged Excalibur #124-125 Mutants most likely to jump out of a cake The Crazy Gang (again) Meggan’s crush on Colossus Colossus’s guilt about Meggan’s crush ...
Oct 23, 2023•53 min•Ep 428•Transcript available on Metacast In which we have grown to love Adam Pollina; the Vanisher is delightfully awful; Ekaterina Gryaznova gets a new look; Domino rejoins X-Force; superheroes actually have a conversation instead of fighting; Cannonball rejoins X-Force; we don’t even remember recording this one; and something cool is coming (stay tuned).
Oct 16, 2023•55 min•Ep 427•Transcript available on Metacast In which the Shi’ar have zero chill; Bishop and Deathbird do space opera; we travel to the far-future year of 2018; Alanna Nerimani stretches the definition of “bird”; Deathbird is the cool aunt; Bishop needs a break from dark futures; and Bishop and Sauron have an intimate encounter.
Oct 09, 2023•59 min•Ep 426•Transcript available on Metacast In which moose are nothing to mess with; Cyclops requests a reality check; Bachalo does Kirby; Rogue absorbs a catchphrase; and the Shadow King needs a villain song.
Sep 26, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep 425•Transcript available on Metacast In which everything is Havok’s fault; Jay is a bad influence; Polaris makes some valid points; Jamie Madrox is the Bobby Drake of X-Factor; and X-Factor vol. 1 ends with a bang.
Sep 18, 2023•55 min•Ep 424•Transcript available on Metacast In which subtlety is not Sabra’s strong point; Moira takes a vacation; Meggan broods; you should take care in referencing the Dark Phoenix Saga; Excalibur may or may not shave Mimic; and Captain Britain is a silly man. X-PLAINED: Ghosts Excalibur #121-123 The Mutant Underground Empathic recon An extremely disgruntled kiss Kitty’s new costume Several of Legion’s personalities A mysterious disk A very fancy trash can and/or ice cream maker Ice cream of Cloud City A good dog Remains of Operation Ze...
Sep 11, 2023•52 min•Ep 423•Transcript available on Metacast In which the X-Men’s membership is a complicated subject; not all angels know each other; we need to talk about Beast’s Wasp costume; Cecilia Reyes speaks for all reasonable folk; Storm gets a mysterious package; and reading comics day-and-date may not be for everyone.
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr•Ep 422•Transcript available on Metacast In which one letter can make a big difference; it’s just not Arcade without giant pinballs; Colossus is nobody’s fool; Margali Szardos is not a relative you want to stay in touch with; Nightcrawler turns to the jerk side; and Jay and Miles pitch an X-Men kids’ show.
Aug 21, 2023•47 min•Ep 421•Transcript available on Metacast In which Jay sits down with scholar Christopher Michael Roman to discuss his recent book, Queering Wolverine in Comics and Fanfiction: A Fastball Special; alongside queer theory, porous bodies, and nontraditional mentorship.
Aug 14, 2023•48 min•Ep 420•Transcript available on Metacast Run, Penance! The retcons are coming for you! (Generation X #40) In which the St. Croix family is constructed largely of retcons; Generation X adjusts surprisingly quickly to a massive status quo shift; Psi-War is coming soon to a podcast near you; Snow White - I mean, Bianca LaNeige - has an intriguing but exceptionally minimal backstory; and if you die in this podcast episode, you die in real life. X-PLAINED: Hellfire Club history Generation X #40-43 MillXnials Mercy General Hospital vs Our Mo...
Jul 30, 2023•42 min•Ep 419•Transcript available on Metacast Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Episode 418 - Reignfirefighters: In which S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are scarier in suits; Reignfire is the new Erik the Red; “background assets” would be a very funny euphemism; it’s always either time travel or clones; and you should probably not get a corporate logo tattooed on the side of your head.
Jul 24, 2023•51 min•Ep 418•Transcript available on Metacast 
