Category Archives: Marvel
The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning
Boy, Wolverine is really going to stick it to Cyclops in the upcoming Regenesis storyline. While Cyclops and his Uncanny X-Men stay behind on Utopia in San Francisco (I think), Wolverine is going to take his team of X-Men back to Westchester to rebuild the old Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Only Wolverine isn’t going to name it after Chuck. He’s got a much better name in mind.
The logo is not as nifty as an 'X'
Take that, Cyclops! Wolverine is going to honor your dead wife while you stay in California having sex with Emma Frost. Take that! I like the change. Professor X is still around, as far as I know, but the X-Men series has been great recently about moving forward and coming up with new ideas. There’s absolutely no reason to name the school after Charles Xavier anymore.
The war between Xavier and Magneto is long over. And for that I’m grateful. I wonder if it will now be replaced by the war between Cyclops and Wolverine!
The school looks pretty badass too.
It's probably going to be a bitch to draw, though.
My 6 Favorite Alternate Versions of Superheroes
This is going to be a very geeky list. We’re talking the height of comic book geekery. Maybe some of your non-geeks will learn something. This will hopefully be a silly list too, celebrating the depths of comic book awesomeness. Is everybody familiar with alternate realities? The idea that somewhere out there in existence is an alternate Earth, with alternate versions of us living alternate lives? Well superhero comics love this concept. There are dozens of alternate realities in comics, hundreds even. It’s a favorite of comic writers and fans to create alternate reality versions of famous superheroes.
Like Calvin and Hobbes as Batman and Robin, for example
Click the jump to read six of my favorites!
Awesome Upcoming X-Factor Cover
Marvel’s December solicitations came out today, and while I’m not going to go through every single issue, I just thought I’d show you all the awesome cover to an upcoming issue of X-Factor. Two issues will ship in December. The first issue will deal with new villain Bloodbath, and the death of one of their team members. The second issue will finally deal with a cliffhanger that’s been around since very early on in the series.
The prophecy that Wolfsbane will murder Madrox and Layla Miller on their wedding night!
How’s it going to happen? Are they really going to die? Are they really going to get married!? To make matters worse (or funnier), Layla was still a little girl when the prophecy was made. Now she’s been aged through time travel to a young woman, perfectly not-creepy for marriage. She and Jamie have even kissed! Plus they share matching face tattoos from their journey together into the future (long story). So I’m excited to see what happens and this is the cover to one of those issues. And it’s an awesome cover.
Not looking too good for Madrox. Note the face tattoo. I told you so!
Review: X-Factor #225
X-Factor is my favorite comic book on the stands, mostly because it stars my favorite character: Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. But it’s also a very fun comic, with great characters, great stories and occasionally great art. So I want to dedicate my blog to giving X-Factor as much love as possible. Writer Peter David has penned nearly 80 issues (!!!) starring the same group of B and C-list mutants from the X-Men franchise. X-Factor doesn’t get a lot of press, rarely does anything to draw attention to itself, but maintains enough fans to keep publishing.
X-Factor #225
X-Factor is the little series that could.
So I’m going to start reviews with the latest issue, X-Factor #225. I should have started with the last issue, X-Factor #224.1, but I couldn’t get around to it that weekend. Such are the distractions of a wealthy, studly, millionaire cowboy/astronaut such as myself. In this issue, the team is still recovering from the last big storyline, which involved the birth of Rahne’s demon baby, as well as the events of the separate series Avengers: Children’s Crusade. X-Factory had a brief but very meaningful cameo in that series, which I’ll get to in a moment. The crux of this new issue is that Madrox and his team are pulled into a murder investigation in Kansas, one that occurred on the farm where Jamie Madrox grew up.
But the victim isn’t as dead as she seems.
Review: X-Men: Schism #4
Finally, the confrontation between Cyclops and Wolverine comes to the breaking point. Or is that the slashing/eye-blasting point? Not only is the rift between them clearly laid out and understandable, but the two heroes actually do come to blows at the climax of this issue. And it’s an awesome fight. X-Men: Schism #4 is an exciting and tense issue, one that thankfully is not bogged down by the ridiculousness of the Hellfire Club Kids. It’s just Cyclops and Wolverine laying it all on the line.
X-Men: Schism #4
And I am completely on Cyclops’ side.
Wolverine comes off like a fool! I understand his reasoning, and I suppose it fits with the character, but in the context of everything we know about the X-Men and in the context of what we’re reading here, Wolverine is a blind, stubborn fool. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like we’re made to root for Wolverine anymore. Both sides are pretty clear and neither one comes off as completely favored over the other. The reader can choose for themselves who is right, and also see that both Cyclops and Wolverine are being more than a little selfish. That’s a plus and definitely helps to better define the titular Schism of the X-Men.
Spoilers after the jump.
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