jeyl

Eleven and a half years into it's run, the ever-enjoyable X-plain the X-Men podcast has just reached it's demi-millenium as episode 500 dropped.

For those unaware of it, it is, in it's own words a look at "The ins, the outs, and the retcons of comics greatest superhero soap-opera" which started at the dawn of the Silver Age and has only just reached the end of the 90's. So the Morrison run awaits.

Hosts Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes have, IMHO, a great presenting and bantering style and between Mile's enthusiasm, Jay's critical analsyis (though each have aspects of the other) and the queer prism they bring to look at the media through, plus the sheer amount of research they must do, this has been one of my go-to podcasts for pretty much a decade (Plus they share my affection for the OG New Mutants, and a certain omnilinguist and his technorganic soulmate in particular, so how could I not be a fan? :) )

They've also had some excellent guests over the years, including Kurt Busiek, Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson.

The Anniversary episode is great fun. They bring in a professional expert on the industrial applications of magnets to discuss just how much of Magneto's infinitely varied magnetic powers might be based in reality (Answer: More than you might think, but not necessarily in the way you might think), then are themselved interviewed about the podcast itself, which is fascinating.

Anyhoo, well worth a listen if you fancy some affectionately, if sometimes slightly snarky, X-discussion and analysis.

(Look, this podcast managed to make me even vaguely invested in parts of 90's X-Force, and you have NO idea the barriers it was working against there... well, actually you might, but that doesn't make it less impressive)