Author Archives: Sean Ian Mills
6 Write-In Candidates for the X-Men
The polls are open! For the next week, comic book fans can head over to Marvel.com to vote on a new member of the X-Men! The idea was introduced in the latest issue of Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men comic: the team is going democratic. The residents of Krakoa will vote for who they want on the X-Men lineup. And to sweeten the pot, Mavel is having the fans vote for one of those members. I love this idea!
I absolutely love the idea of making the main X-Men team lineup dependent on a vote — both in-story and for the fans. This, along with Nightcrawler forming a mutant religion, is exactly the sort of strange and new idea I wanted to see in Dawn of X. You can keep your interdimensional swordfights and your ancient Apocalypse children, give me neat new infrastructure quandaries for how X-Men teams are formed! I’ve long been annoyed by what I call the X-Men Assembly Line for team rosters. This new idea is the bee’s knees!
If you go vote at Marvel.com, there’s a list of choices to choose from: Banshee, Polaris, Forge, Boom-Boom, Tempo, Cannonball, Sunsport, Strong Guy, Marrow and Armor. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I immediately voted for Strong Guy! But seeing as how I’m a rather opinionated fellow, I have a couple of suggestions for write-in candidates.
Join me after the jump for six(ish) characters that I think deserve a spot on the main X-Men team and a chance to get more character exploration in the new status quo!
Read the rest of this entryI Made a Wraith Squadron LEGO Figure!
Behold my arts & crafts capabilities! With a kitchen knife and some sandpaper, I made a custom Voort “Piggy” saBinring LEGO mini-figure just for kicks and giggles!
How did this come about? Well let me share the tale!
On Jan. 1, LEGO released a new set for Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing. It was a bit smaller and a bit cheaper than usual, and seeing as how I’m on a real LEGO kick these days, I snagged me a copy. But I already have a mini-figure of Luke in his orange pilot jumpsuit; I don’t need another one. So I got it in my head to make a custom mini-figure of my favorite Wraith Squadron character, Piggy!
I knew there existed a Gamorrean Guard mini-figure. What I didn’t realize was that this thing was an entire body armor piece. I just wanted the head. So I got a sharp knife and some sandpaper and simply…cut off all the extra body and shoulder armor. I whittled it down to just the head and put it on top of the Luke jumpsuit body. And just my luck, the big Gamorrean head just barely fits into the new X-Wing cockpit.
So this isn’t exactly some marvel of engineering. I just did a little work and can now pat myself on the back for a custom LEGO character.
And I’ll do it all again in another couple of weeks! I also bought LEGO’s new smaller, cheaper TIE Fighter set…and an Ewok mini-figure. Yub yub, commander!
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There’s Gonna Be a Fight! Godzilla vs. Kong!
Behold! The rematch of the century! The slobberknocker to end all slobberknockers! Godzilla is gonna fight King Kong once again on the big screen! And for some reason, the first trailer seems to favor Kong…
What’s up with that?! The movie clearly appears to favor King Kong! Hello?! Godzilla is far more popular! Godzilla is our boy! Our collective boy! We should all be in Godzilla’s corner. But I suppose we’re going to have to watch the movie to find out what really happens.
Also, it seems another generic white male actor has been brought in to star in the film. What is up with that? Are they supposed to be interchangeable? And even though Millie Bobby Brown is coming back, and even though Godzilla: King of the Monsters introduced those Mothra twins, we apparently still need a white male as the lead character?
What’s up with that?
Godzilla vs. Kong is coming to both theaters and HBO Max at the same time on March 26.
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 1/23/21
Thankfully, I’ve got a much smaller pile of comics to read and review this week…mainly because I just skipped a bunch of Future State stuff. It’s already wearing thin, but there’s still The Next Batman to look forward to. And Power Rangers! And the apparent final issue of Legion of Super-Heroes!
Comic Book of the Week goes to the first issue of Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon. I wasn’t expecting a new Iron Fist series, but it’s here and it’s pretty fun.
Meanwhile, have you watched Ted Lasso on Apple+? I threw it on as a whim and fell in love with the first episode! Such a fun program! I highly recommend it.
Comic Reviews: Future State: The Next Batman #2, Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon #1, Legion of Super-Heroes #12 and Power Rangers #3.
Read the rest of this entrySo They Never Did Anything With That Great Matter-Eater-Lad Redesign
This week, the final issue of Brian Michael Bendis’ Legion of Super-Heroes reboot came out and I enjoyed it. In fact, I ranked this series as my second favorite comic book series of 2020! Bendis and artist Ryan Sook, along with a plethora of additional artists, recreated the Legion and told a pretty fun story involving a bunch of fun characters. This 12-issue series is notable for how it insisted on using all of its characters, giving little moments here and there to pretty much everybody.
Except for Matter-Eater-Lad. He didn’t do squat for the entire series! I’m not even sure if we saw him eat anything on panel! What a waste of this amazing redesign!
Now, I’m no longtime Matter-Eater-Lad fan. Honestly, I’m not even much of a Legion of Super-Heroes fan. They’ve never been my cup of tea. But I was on board for this reboot and I enjoyed it. I especially loved the character redesigns provided by Sook and others. This is one great looking bunch!
And of the lot of them, I was tickled pink by the redesign of Matter-Eater-Lad. Check out this glow up!
From scrawny, nondescript dude in tights to that big, beefy, glorious god of a man up top. The new Matter-Eater-Lad looks like a fun time. He looks like the life of the party, turning swarthy into the new sexy. How can you go to all the trouble of redefining peak masculinity with a simple look and then not put it to good use?
And that’s all I really want to say. This reboot gave one hell of a character redesign to the beloved weirdo that is Matter-Eater-Lad, and then they didn’t do anything with him for 12 issues. We never saw his recruitment. We never saw him eat anything. He was only ever part of the same group shots as everybody else.
That’s a damn shame.
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Henchman-4-Hire 
