56 – Death by Crossover
Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
Jay Edidin & Miles Stokes
4.7 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2015
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 her cold, dead hands; Empath remains the worst kid; Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander just cannot catch a break; Emma Frost gets nuanced; Magneto does the wrong things for the right reasons; Rachel and Miles like liking things; and we finally wrap up Secret Wars II.
X-PLAINED:
- Soulsword custody
- New Mutants #36-40
- The best Secret Wars II tie-in
- Several Beyonder-triggered crises of confidence
- A literal derailment in the midst of a metaphorical derailment
- The Greek tragedy of Illyana Rasputin
- Personal personifications of death
- Counting coup
- The death of the New Mutants
- Crossover-related PTSD
- A pep talk from a frog
- Art style as a component of narrative
- The Hellions (again)
- Sadneto
- Madneto
- A completely avoidable fight
- Rachel’s definitive Emma Frost moment
- Emma Frost, Charles Xavier, and moral culpability
NEXT WEEK: The dubious debut of Apocalypse!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | So Rachel, what's the deal with the soul sword? |
| 0:02.1 | You've read the magic mini-series, Miles. |
| 0:04.1 | It's forged from part of Lianna Resputin's soul, |
| 0:06.3 | basically a physical manifestation of her magical powers |
| 0:08.5 | and her link to Limboe. |
| 0:09.4 | So it's part of her, right? |
| 0:10.5 | Yep. |
| 0:11.1 | Then how come Kitty can wield it? Well, the soul sword is kind of a manifestation of Lian. of her |
| 0:13.3 | right? soul sword is kind of a manifestation of Ljana's magical powers, her |
| 0:16.1 | demonic corruption. |
| 0:17.7 | When she's dead or later when she's reverted to childhood and therefore also to |
| 0:20.5 | innocence, it transfers to the person closest to her or anyway it tries to. |
| 0:24.0 | So what I'm getting here is that queer subtext is literally magical in the Marvel Universe. |
| 0:28.4 | Miles, queer subtext is always magical. But again, the soul sword isn't just a manifestation of |
| 0:33.6 | Aliana's magical powers. It's also linked inextricably to Limboo. |
| 0:36.8 | The demon dimensional Aliana took over from Bilasco. Right. Wait, wait, wait, go back. You |
| 0:41.6 | said Transverse or Tries to. What do you mean tries to? |
| 0:45.0 | Well, Kitty's never really been comfortable with the soul sword, so when a liana gets deaged after |
| 0:49.4 | inferno, instead of going straight to her, it ends up stuck in a rock outside Excalibur's |
| 0:53.1 | Lighthouse. Wait wait wait the Soul Sword is Excalibur the team not Excalibur the |
| 0:58.2 | sword. Anyway the Soul Sword ends up stuck in a rock outside their |
| 1:01.0 | lighthouse waiting for Kitty to claim it. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jay Edidin & Miles Stokes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jay Edidin & Miles Stokes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.