Category Archives: Comics
My 6 Favorite X-Men Characters
Man oh man, the X-Men are everywhere these days! The new cartoon revival — X-Men ’97 — is going off like gangbusters! Everyone is loving it, myself included! And now the big Krakoa Era is coming to an end, with a From the Ashes relaunch ready to go for the summer! I’m also saving up money for the hopefully soon-to-be-announced X-Mansion LEGO set, but I suppose that’s more niche.
Anyway, to celebrate the X-Men, I thought I’d do a list of my all-time favorite X-Men characters!
I’ve done plenty of such lists over the years because it’s super fun to talk about the X-Men, especially obscure ones. I thought about doing a list of characters I’d like to see show up on the new cartoon, or a list of who I would include in my own imagined From the Ashes team lineup. When I realized both of those lists would be pretty similar, I decided to just make it easy on myself and throw together a list of my favorite mutants and X-Men-related characters in comics! This is a list borne from decades of reading X-Men and adjacent comics, and it cane get pretty niche and obscure. That’s on me.
Join me after the jump for my all-time favorite X-Men characters, and feel free to share your own in the comments below!
Read the rest of this entryHench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 3/30/24
Happy Easter weekend, everybody! I’ll be heading home to see the folks and am hoping for a nice weekend where I finally, at long last, defeat this sinus infection. Thankfully, had a trio of really enjoyable comics this week, including Duke and Power Rangers.
Comic Book of the Week goes to Ultimate Spider-Man #3 because, while all three issues were enjoyable, I found this one to be the most engaging and entertaining.
Meanwhile, I’ve started watching Shogun and am enjoying it, after all the rave reviews. And I started playing that new Saints Row game that came out in 2022. It’s…fine. I can definitely see why it crashed and burned, but it suffices as a cheap Grand Theft Auto knock-off for the time being. I really need to finally play God of War: Ragnarok.
Comic Reviews: Duke #4, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #118 and Ultimate Spider-Man #3.
Read the rest of this entryHench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 3/23/24
I swear to god, you guys, if this cold lasts any bit longer I’m going to start smashing stuff! I’ve had a whole week of this thing just rooting itself in my sinuses for a wee bit of a pressure headache! Argh! Anyway, new comics still came out this week.
Comic Book of the Week goes to Superman #12 for a truly excellent climax to its ongoing story so far. Fun stuff all around!
Meanwhile, I watched the first two episodes of X-Men ’97 and they were exceptional! I had high hopes going in, and was blown away by the style, depth, faithfulness and just all around quality job from everyone involved. They took the concept and really used it to its fullest, even if a couple characters don’t sound all that great. I think they should have recast everybody. But maybe that’s just me.
Comic Reviews: Cobra Commander #3, Nightwing #112, Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #2 and Superman #12.
Read the rest of this entryHench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 3/16/24
Ugh, what a week. I caught a nasty cold last weekend and have spent this whole week in some state of crumminess. Hopefully by the time you read these reviews I’ll be feeling better, but while I’m writing them, everything is crummy!
Comic Book of the Week goes to Transformers #6 because Daniel Warren Johnson just goes all out with the insane action!
Meanwhile, my two comic book Kickstarters both came to an end this week, both successful! So this year I will be making Gamer Girl & Vixen: Tyrant Lizard Queen, and a short story of mine will appear in The Cloakroom, a collection of shorts from students in Scott Snyder’s My Best Jacket Substack class. And I’m also finally getting to work on making that Cover Bard project I mentioned a long time ago. So this is gonna be a good year for me making my own comics!
Comic Reviews: ThunderCats #2, Transformers #6 and Ultimate Black Panther #2.
Read the rest of this entryNew X-Men Relaunch Announced; Multiple Man Anticipation is High
Once again, like the dawning of the sun, the X-Men have reached another relaunch. I’ve been writing about this phenomenon for years, and I call it the X-Men Assembly Line. Every two to four years, the X-Men do a full, linewide relaunch that involves taking classic team names and jumbling random mutants into their rosters.
This time, the relaunch is called From The Ashes and it sees the X-Men splinter off into different teams around the country/world in the wake of Krakoa falling apart.
The full details are available at Marvel.com.
To sum it up, Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman will be doing X-Men, about Cyclops, Beast, Magneto, Psylocke, Kid Omega, Oya (now Temper), Magik and Juggernaut being mutant superheroes in Alaska.
Gail Simone and David Marquez will be doing Uncanny X-Men, and will send Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Jubilee down to New Orleans to get up to various shenanigans.
Eve L. Ewing and Carmen Carnero will be doing Exceptional X-Men, in which Kate Pryde and Emma Frost train a group of three new mutants in Chicago.
All of these comics sound pretty good to me. I love most of the work I’ve ever seen of these creators — especially Gail Simone — so I’ll be checking out every single new issue. They launch in July, August and September, respectively.
I’m disappointed that Krakoa has come to an end. I thought that was a really neat idea with a lot of potential, but I don’t think Marvel ever really embraced that potential. They resorted to a lot of business as usual instead of embracing an entirely different world for the X-Men. And now we’re back with some pretty classic X-Men styles, which is fine. I’m not complaining. I will gladly see what these new comics are like.
The biggest question for me, of course, is what about Multiple Man?
He is my all-time favorite comic book character, but he’s been pretty C or D-list for years now, and before that he was dead. But every new relaunch is a chance to him to actually have a role in comics again. He wasn’t around at the start of the Krakoa Era, but he eventually showed up and I was grateful. So where is he new?
Well, the new From The Ashes relaunch will also feature six supplementary comics: Wolverine, Phoenix, Storm, NYX, X-Force and X-Factor! The creative teams and rosters have not been announced, but Multiple Man is a pretty popular guy when it comes to X-Factor comics.
So it looks like I’m going to be in a perpetual state of getting my hopes up for the foreseeable future until I know where — if anywhere — Multiple Man lands.
I’m also going to keep my eyes peeled for Blob, to see if he reverts back to his villainous ways or the keep him on the straight and narrow. And, as always, Mimic, who made one single appearance in the entire Krakoa Era. It happens.
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