And now for something completely different. (Death's Head II #1)

In which Death's Head gets around universes; AIM fails to recognize closed narrative loops; we need more huscarls in comics; time travel occasionally solves the problems it creates; and we bid a fond farewell (for now) to Al Kennedy.


X-PLAINED:

 	Death's Head
 	Death's Head II #1-4
 	Marvel UK
 	Death's Head I
 	Minion
 	Earth-8410
 	The far future of 2020
 	Dr. Evelyn Necker
 	How to dress for time travel
 	Reed Richards's mother's name
 	Earth-12892
 	Robin Hood of Future Past
 	Heavily armed nuns
 	Tuck
 	Spratt
 	The Lord High Protector
 	Huscarls
 	Baron Strucker V
 	Charnel
 	A large number of deaths
 	A deft solution to a complex problem
 	Essential Marvel UK
 	Marvel UK vs. Marvel US

NEXT WEEK:
Go outside and touch some grass!
NEXT EPISODE:
The return of Jay!







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404 – Marvel UK, Yes?

Did the Astral Plane used to be this cramped? (Kitty Pryde: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3)

In which Shadowcat gets a new miniseries; people don't talk that way (but probably should); holograms are magic; the Helicarrier gets possessed; Wolverine fights a computer; and Miles and Al pitch live-action X-series.
X-PLAINED:

 	Possession
 	Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) (more) (again)
 	Kitty Pryde: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1-3
 	A surprising helicopter
 	Frictionless bed sheets
 	S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.
 	The word "obstreperous"
 	The nefarious doings of nasty transom peekers, envelope steamers, and door kickers
 	Larry Hama dialogue
 	Rigby Fallon
 	Yet another return of Ogūn
 	One way to get from the Brooklyn Bridge to a Helicarrier
 	
Yet another fight on the astral plane
 	Wolverine vs. technology
 	The intrinsic power of life, I guess
 	Visibility of psychic powers
 	Live-action X pitches

NEXT EPISODE:
Death's Head II!





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403 – Sneaky-Peeky Stuff

Captain Mustache, Part the Second. (Excalibur #115)

In which Marvel UK was a wild ride; everyone has a definitive Kitty Pryde; Sari St. Hubbins studies her X-Men; Moira MacTaggert discovers contagion theory; ideas do not stories make; Meggan is the heart of the team; and Excalibur inches towards its finale.
X-PLAINED:

 	Marvel UK
 	Digitek
 	Excalibur #114-117
 	What Excalibur's been up to
 	Tunnels vs. sewers
 	An unexpected callback
 	Slang
 	The mutability of Kitty Pryde
 	Friendship
 	Sari St. Hubbins
 	Fashion
 	One way to get around a power inhibitor
 	A frosted tips outline
 	Viruses
 	Phalanx love
 	Greebling
 	A substantial retcon
 	Excalibur vs. the Sidri
 	Marvel characters' musical associations
 	Whether there have been more X-Men or Avengers


NEXT EPISODE: Kitty Pryde goes to work for The Man





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402 – What the Damn?!

And now for something completely different. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
In which Santa Claus makes problematic choices; we make good on a promise; Sebastian is the new Deadpool; Skrulls get stuck as animals more than you’d think; Nanny and Orphan-Maker celebrate; and Jubilee stops worrying and learns to love Christmas.
X-PLAINED


 	Santa Claus’s flirtations with villainy
 	A new direction for Generation X
 	Larry Hama
 	Al vs. U.S. geography
 	Generation X #32-33
 	Generation X Holiday Special
 	New Mutants #92
 	Thing One & Thing Two St. Croix
 	The Circus of Crime
 	The Pirates of Dark Water (somewhat)
 	Hacker T. Dog
 	Why Wolfsbane is scared of clowns
 	Skrull Kill Crew
 	Carnie Voltron
 	Chief Authier
 	Phat beats
 	A reality biscuit
 	Emplate’s pocket dimension
 	Chimera and Dirtnap
 	Variant interiors
 	Nanny & Orphan-Maker (more) (again)
 	Santa Claus (in general)
 	Benefits of inconsistent characterization

NEXT WEEK: Break week
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur!






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401 – True Tales of Double-Entry Bookkeeping

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which legacy numbering is best left alone; all roads lead to the Antarctic; we finally learn Gambit’s big secret; Erik the Red gets yet a third identity; no one soils the Juggernaut; Maggott saves the day; and we have somehow made (technically more than) 400 of these things.
X-PLAINED


 	Spat
 	The tragic loss of the Cyber Comics
 	How not to back up your work
 	Uncanny X-Men #350
 	X-Men #70
 	A shambles
 	What’s been happening since Operation Zero Tolerance
 	A very fancy cover
 	Insufficient outerwear
 	Senses
 	Justice as a decorating theme
 	Baffling statuary
 	The return of Erik the Red
 	Erik the Red (again)
 	Ferris
 	Gambit’s big secret
 	A large number of continuity errors
 	A total dick move
 	De-icing
 	Untitled Marrow Game
 	A big fight
 	Living room surgery
 	Legal documents
 	Favorite anniversary issues
 	Dangling plot threads

NEXT EPISODE: Generation X vs. Christmas






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Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

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400 – Loud Noises

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!



In which the X-Force road trip era begins; Team X takes on a new dimension; Dani Moonstar gets her subtext back; pointing out a stereotype doesn’t excuse using it; Tabitha Smith generally deserves better; platypuses are underrepresented in the superhero genre; Hell becomes Stryfe; and Domino gets back in the game.
X-PLAINED


 	A dastardly plot
 	X-Men 2099
 	Road trips
 	X-Force #71-74
 	Team X
 	A Love & Rockets reference
 	Stan and Ollie
 	The Triplets of Belleville
 	How not to fund your film
 	Michael Whitecloud
 	Project Stepladder
 	Colossal Man
 	Several references to X-Force -1
 	Platypuses
 	Edwin Martynec
 	Weaponized humming
 	The death of Warpath
 	Hell
 	Blackheart
 	Friendship
 	A mysterious villain

NOTE: Whoa, The Cybertronic Spree is actually a real band!
NEXT WEEK: The return of Erik the Red!






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Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

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399 – The Cybertronic Spree

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!


In which the rest of the X-Men return from space; Maggott is the new cool; Gambit's past catches up with him; Chris Bachalo takes over as regular artist on Uncanny X-Men; Deathbird flirts singularly aggressively; Eany and Meany eat a truck; dating a telepathic ninja is going to take some getting used to; and Havok predictably remains ABD.

X-PLAINED

 	Motormouth (Harley Davis)
 	Motormouth and Killpower
 	Uncanny X-Men #347-349
 	Grovel and Spat
 	A horse guy who is actually a cat-frog-lizard guy
 	An extraordinarily half-assed action figure
 	Load-bearing backstory
 	Landscape
 	The other Nanny
 	Elegant foreshadowing
 	Beast's appearance as a mutant power
 	Gambit's chest hair
 	The end of playtime
 	CCA-compliant foliage
 	Deathbird and Bishop
 	A vanity plate
 	Eany and Meany
 	One-off psychometry
 	Psylocke vs. Maggott
 	Decompression
 	Havok's enduring lack of a Ph.D.

NEXT EPISODE: X-Force hits the road!

NOTE: In this episode, Miles theorized Grovel's voice as sounding halfway between Cable and Kermit the Frog without realizing that he was in fact just describing Sweetums. -Jay





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398 – Shanna the Wee Devil

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Al Kennedy and Miles enter a somewhat post-OZT world, the art of Frank Teran (whose uncle built a jetpack) elevates an otherwise merely decent story, Puck is played by Bob Hoskins, Wild Child gets a chance to shine, Mystique and Forge are sitting in a tree, and Swamp Thing is amazing.

X-PLAINED:

 	Spider-Man's head cold
 	Sabretooth: Back to Nature #1
 	Sabretooth (Victor Creed)
 	Wild Child (Kyle Gibney)
 	Horrible violence, expertly implied
 	The ubiquity of sewers
 	Saturday morning cartoons of R-rated movies
 	Serial killers with G.I. Joe names
 	Improbable tracking
 	Bilingual crime
 	Chekhov's waterfall
 	DRUGS
 	X-Factor #136-137
 	The Hound program
 	Skeumorphism
 	Doctor Valerie Cooper and Major Edmond Atkinson, excellent exes
 	Questionable wound-dressing
 	Holograms
 	Government jobs
 	The sad fate of the Chase family
 	Nimrod disambiguation
 	The Marvel Universe According to Doctor Seuss

NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men return from space!



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Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

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397 – Mürdr at IKEA

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we spend too long trying to place a time-travel miniseries in continuity, Al Kennedy does us a solid, Bernard Chang draws some excellent New Mutants young and old, Al Ewing x-plains X-Men: Red, Forearm and Random play Nintendo, and we reveal the winners of The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence!

X-PLAINED:

 	Jay's spatial and temporal whereabouts
 	Cannonball, Mirage, Magik, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Karma, Magma, Cypher, Warlock, and Douglock
 	New Mutants: Truth or Death
 	Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin, gal pals
 	Triple-dog dares
 	Nova Roma, or not
 	Mikhail F**king Rasputin
 	The arrogance of reality warpers
 	How to write Magma
 	The Technarchy and the Phalanx
 	Hardee's X-Men: Time Gliders
 	Farmboy chic
 	Bernard Chang's 21 Panels
 	Branching vs. overwriting timelines
 	The effects of de-aging and history rewriting on immunology
 	Found family
 	She Who Swam With The Acanti
 	Sleep-Eeze Mattresses Starring The Hulk
 	Arrako
 	Continuity synchronicity
 	S.W.O.R.D. as a workplace drama
 	The moral downfall of Abigail Brand
 	The leadership styles of Storm, Magneto, and Sunspot
 	Himbo disambiguation
 	The fates of Armor, Risque, and Peeper
 	Mysterium Clicker
 	Santa Claus
 	The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence

(Note: Our interview with Al Ewing contains spoilers for X-Men: Red!)

NEXT EPISODE: Sabretooth betrays an X-team! Again!



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Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

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396 – Giant-Size Special #11

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Jay has exciting news, Rick Leonardo draws an impressively creepy mad scientist’s lair, the clouds are purple and so is the prose, Powers of X gets a subtle prequel 21 years early, Cable’s own tolerance has finally reached zero, and we summarize Bastion’s backstory way, way faster than Bastion does.

X-PLAINED:

 	Machine Man (X-51) (Aaron Stack)
 	Operation Zero Tolerance (more) (again)
 	Jay’s upcoming parental leave
 	Bastion (Sebastion Gilberti)
 	M-Tech
 	Powerman 5000
 	Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998
 	Hobgits and their sound effects
 	Street Fighter: the Roleplaying Game
 	Batroc ze Lepair
 	Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
 	X-51 / X-23 overlaps
 	Classic Summers Family Bullshit
 	Psionic soapboxes
 	What makes Bastion a compelling villain
 	The necessity of companions
 	Master Mold 3.0 & Nimrod 2.0
 	Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998
 	Terrible font choices
 	ZORCH
 	Cable vs. floors
 	The carbon footprint of robotic fascism
 	Marvel Comics Presents #17-24 (just a little)
 	Incredible Hulk Annual #7 (just a tad)
 	The Siege Perilous
 	The future of Machine Man
 	The hypothetical 2022 version of Bastion
 	Historical events in which we’d love to see long-lived mutants take part

NEXT WEEK: We take a break for the holidays!

IN TWO WEEKS: The Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men 2022 Giant-Size Winter Special!




 	Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
 	Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
 	Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
 	Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

395 – Boxer Briefs of Humanity

This would usually be a skip week, but thanks to some generous donors to Equality Florida, Hawk Talk is back! This week: Dave Tomaine and Rho Sovia's graphic novel, Keeper!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

 	You can buy Keeper digitally at BigCartel or physically at Studio Two Boys!
 	Check out Dave's band Cave People!
 	Find Dave on Twitter (twice)!

HAWK TALK – Keeper

In which there’s always room for another X-cast; Cecilia Reyes wasn’t even supposed to be here today; Sabra has indestructible underwear; prime sentinels are probably even worse pets than quail; Marrow probably swears more than superhero comics allow for; and Operation Zero Tolerance comes to an end.

394 – We All Have to Go Sometime

In which Operation Zero Tolerance continues; the X-Men take over Wolverine; wolverine is the designated John McClane of the X-Men; torsos are confusing places; and we sincerely hope that Jean Grey got to do some off-panel dating.

393 – Camping With Uncle Mustang

In which Chris Bachalo changes things up; we theorize about Prime Sentinel hierarchy; the headmasters go undercover; fictional characters spend a lot of time in sewers; M’s secret comes to light; J. Jonah Jameson is at his best in X-books; Jay pitches a video game; Marrow gets a makeover; and part of journalistic integrity is choosing what not to cover.

392 – The Mullet of Leadership

This would usually be a skip week, but thanks to some generous donors to Equality Florida, Hawk Talk is back! This week, we talk about lawyers and law.

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

 	Follow Lyra Foster on Twitter!
 	Check out the Trans Family Network!

HAWK TALK – Lawyers

In which the X-Mansion has unusually large vents; Cable’s hair should not be floppy; Nate Grey meets his maternal grandparents; and we would really like to know more about the Siege of the Vapor Ants.

391 – Mansion of Theseus

In which Danielle Moonstar quiet quits; a bunch of people regular quit; we are pleasantly surprised by the survival of a minor character; tough guys wear hearts; and X-Force once again takes its place as the best comic of the line.

390 – Corners and Conspiracies

In which some puns are fundamentally visual; Jubilee is a really good kid; Bastion is a bad person but a good villain; Bachalo does Romita; Seagulls are assholes (but reasonably good narrators); Skin has no time for fantasies; Hitch does Cockrum; and Operation Zero Tolerance (unofficially) begins (again).

389 – Wreck Gotta Recognize

This would usually be a skip week, but thanks to some generous donors to Equality Florida, Hawk Talk is back! This week, we talk about basketball. (Kind of.)

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

 	Check out donor Dave Buesing's site, Comic Book Herald!

HAWK TALK – Basketball

In which there’s a lot of good television out there; Shang-Chi says the title of the story at every possible opportunity; Wolverine is probably not a Deadhead; Sebastian Shaw thinks he’s a bigger deal than he is; and Operation Zero Tolerance officially begins.

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

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