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Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

21 – Kurt Busiek at the Coffee-a-Go-Go

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Jay Edidin & Miles Stokes

Books, Visual Arts, Arts

4.71.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2014

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Famous Five
Art by David Wynne

In which special guest Kurt Busiek is the J. Robert Oppenheimer of X-Men, Rachel and Miles learn to love the Silver Age, Cyclops gets a job, Bernard the Poet falls from grace, we really wish X-Men: The Secret Years was a real book, everyone recites poetry, and we still don’t get around to Marvels.

X-Plained:

  • METOXO, the Lava Man
  • The true, secret purpose of Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • The Phoenix retcon
  • Archival pocket dimensions
  • Enid Blyton’s X-Men
  • Early-to-mid-20th Century American Jewish Socialism
  • Why the X-Men are terrible mutant P.R.
  • Band names of the Silver Age
  • An X-Men series that might have been.
  • Why Cyclops should be the Rachel Maddow of Marvel
  • Quicksilver’s childhood dreams
  • The Coffee-a-Go-Go
  • Bernard the Poet
  • Zelda Kurtzberg
  • The Barefoot Beats

Next week: The wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey!


You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey Rachel, what's the deal with Matoxo?

0:02.0

You mean like is it available over the counter?

0:04.0

What? No, no, no, Matoxo.

0:06.0

Oh, wait, the lava man?

0:07.0

Right, that guy.

0:08.0

So Kurt Busick mentioned that Next Men 48,

0:10.0

it says that in the next issue, Beets and Iceman will face the fury of Mataxo the Lava Man.

0:14.0

But they don't. They fight Mesmerone and the Demi-Men.

0:17.0

Yeah, Mataxo kind of fell through the sales cracks, or oozed, I guess, given that he's a lava man.

0:22.0

How so?

0:23.0

Well, in 1968, Marvel decided to try splitting the team for a while and have each issue focus on

0:27.6

one or two characters.

0:29.2

But it wasn't really selling, so they decided at the last minute, number 48, to get the band back together,

0:33.5

but they either forgot to change the Matoxo blur, but they didn't have time before it went to press.

0:37.0

Well, that sucks. Matoxo The Lava Man is pretty much the greatest name ever.

0:41.0

Did he ever show up?

0:42.0

Man, you know, I don't know. but you know what, I bet Kurt Busick does. Hey Kurt, what happens to Mataxo?

0:47.0

I got to introduce him. 1993 or 1994 Marvel Holiday Special, I think.

0:53.0

They asked me if I wanted to do a holiday story featuring the X-Man, and I asked,

0:58.0

can I write a wrong, can I overturn years-long injustice, and introduce Mataxo the Lava man.

1:05.0

So I ended up doing a story with the modern day beast and ice man getting involved in a

1:11.3

storyline that involved them flashing back to 1968 when they met Mataxo the Lava man and taught him the meaning of Christmas.

...

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