Jay & Miles X-plain The X-men

In which the band gets back together; Dani faces down Death; Sam takes Lila home to meet his mom; revenge is a dish best left unserved; there is nothing sadder

In which Rachel Summers went to sleep with Wolverine’s claws in her dreams and now there’s claws in her lungs and when she got out of bed this morning she

In which Chris and Chad teach us to stop worrying and love the ‘90s; the line between parody and homage is thin and flexible; everything happens at the mall; no

In which Nightcrawler does Weird Tales; Iceman does Back to the Future; we want a vacation home in Dave Cockrum’s brain; Bamfs are terrible; the 1983 Iceman miniseries is straight-up bananas;

In which Miles tries to find things to like about Bob Layton’s X-Factor run; Cyclops’s life is literally an anxiety dream; X-Factor is very Leverage; Layton’s Angel is just godawful;

In which nothing comes between Sam Guthrie and his classic sci-fi allusions; Sunspot tries; the Beyonder is really scary; you can have Danielle Moonstar’s agency when you pry it from

In which Secret Wars II ruins everything (more) (again) (forever); Rachel Summers hates the Beyonder almost as much as we do; Miles gets mad at comics; Nightcrawler does not do

In which the X-Men get their third ongoing series; Elle drops in to x-plain the Defenders; the band gets back together; rich people are not like the rest of us;

In which Wolverine doesn’t care about your baby; Storm takes charge; duels are terrible bases for systems of government; editorial mandate is hell on a marriage; Magneto is a pretty

In which we recap a year’s worth of podcasts–and 23 years’ worth of X-Men–in under an hour. X-PLAINED: Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Episodes 1-51 Uncanny X-Men #1-200 &

In which Rachel and Miles go to Emerald City Comicon; six people try to share one microphone with varying success; you will never love anything as much as Kris loves Broo;

In which Magneto makes an official alignment shift; Claremont does a court drama; Professor Xavier makes poor choices; Rachel Summers comes by her communication skills honest; the Strucker kids are

In which we meet Miles’s favorite X-Man; Longshot is Secret Wars II done right; we are fairly committed to the idea of Ann Nocenti as a post-apocalyptic daredevil superhero; Longshot

In which Asgardian Wars occupies the precise intersection of Miles’s favorite things; Marvel Asgard is your favorite metal album; no one appreciates Cypher; Wolfsbane gets some action; Warlock gets meta;

In which Emergency Backup Co-Host Elisabeth Allie saves the day; the Berserkers are not the breakout hit you’ve been waiting for; Paul Smith continues to be awesome; nothing good ever

In which we bid a fond farewell to Bill Sienkiewicz; Secret Wars II continues to ruin everything; the New Mutants end up in an improbable number of gladiatorial arenas; Shadowcat’s

In which we discard our regularly scheduled programming to focus on Storm and Lifedeath II; no one draws motion like Barry Windsor-Smith; Storm goes up to eleven; and we really

In which Legion grows from setting to protagonist; Rachel is a master of narrative rationalization; “Claremont” is a verb; Warlock befriends an airplane; Xavier owns a significant mistake; New Mutants does

  In which we cover 21 issues in one episode; Secret Wars is a toy commercial; Jim Shooter’s X-Men are not the X-Men to which we are accustomed; Doctor Doom

In which Miles has a brush with nostalgia; Angelica Jones is secretly a Thomas Hardy protagonist; it doesn’t need to make sense if it’s awesome; and Emma Frost really needs