Hey, Jay, so what's the deal with John Sublime?

Is he just a creepy rich dude who really wants to be a mutant, or what?

Well, a creepy rich dude who's also a sentient bacteria created by an ancient race of mutants

billions of years ago to aid in their war against an anaerobic society, and which inevitably

turned on its creator, and then its so-called twin sister strain before being lobotomized

by a time-traveling Cassandra Nova.

What?

I'm Jay Editedon. And I'm Miles Stokes.

And we are here to Explain the X-Men.

Because it's about time someone did.

Welcome to episode 520 of Jay and Miles Explain the X-Men, where we walk you through

the ins, the outs, and the retcons of comics' greatest superhero soap opera.

And welcome back to our coverage of Grant Morrison's new X-Men. So last time we did

the first arc, this episode's going to be a little weird. It's not structured quite the same as the

rest of the ones we'll be doing. Right. This episode will be looking at two issues which

functionally lay the foundation for a lot of the upcoming material. That's going to be one regular issue, but also one annual.

So we're going to be covering New Exman Annual 2001, and that was one of three annuals and a single

manga-esque series that Marvel did in a format called Marvel Scope, which basically just means

it's sideways. It's just sideways. You hold the comic sideways called Marvel Scope, which basically just means it's sideways.

It's just sideways. You hold the comic sideways.

Marvel Scope. I'm imagining something sort of Dr. Seussian.

I want a Marvel Scope. Yeah. You could see all sorts of marvelous things.

...