Category Archives: X-Men
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/28/13
Christmas has come and gone, and both major comic book publishers decided to go really light this week. What’s up with that? Do they think we comic book geeks aren’t going to buy our favorite books just because New Comic Book Day falls on a holiday? For shame! But hey, at least my wallet isn’t complaining.
Even though this week saw only a few books released, they are some big ones. Origin II continues the early years of Wolverine, and Forever Evil and Justice League continue the whole Forever Evil foofarah. I hope it’s going somewhere good. Comic Book of the Week goes to Avengers #24! Jonathan Hickman actually delivers a comic I really enjoyed. I only wish his entire run had been this good.
Comic Reviews: Avengers #24, Forever Evil #4, Justice League #26 and Origin II #1.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/21/13
Merry Soon-to-be-Christmas, comic book lovers! Have you got your presents all bought and wrapped? Plane tickets home to visit the family? Menorah put out and safely tucked away until next year? If only the world was such a place that we could give everybody comics and everybody would be happy. Nope! Instead, I actually had to go and pick out specific gifts for everybody. I doubt my aunt would have anything to do with an All-New X-Men tpb.
Speaking of All-New X-Men, it’s in our pile this week, which is – admittedly – a little short. I guess the week just got away from me and I wasn’t able to read too many off my stack. But we’ve got some good titles here, including Wonder Woman and the first issue of the new Harley Quinn series! I bet there are a lot of happy Harley fans out there. I’m only lukewarm at best, and that’s exactly how I feel about this first issue. It’s a fine start, I suppose, but it’s not going to win any awards for creativity.
But if they’re handing out awards for adorkableness, then FF would win’em all! We’re gearing up for the big finish, and the family Allred are pulling out all the stops! FF #15 easily smashes its way into Comic Book of the Week with it’s fantastically fun use of the FF kids and their robotic assault on Castle Doom!
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #20, FF #15, Harley Quinn #1, Wonder Woman #26 and X-Men #8.
2013: The Year of Iceman
Websites across the Internet are all doing their year-end wrap-ups right about now, and while mine is coming, I wanted to first take a special moment to praise the standout comic book character of the year: Iceman!
There were a ton of great comics released this year, and I’m sure everyone has their favorites, but I don’t think any comic book character had a better year than this frigid freedom fighter!
I have always been a huge Iceman fan, and there have been times when the character was just flat-out ignored for some reason or another. But ever since the early 00s, Iceman has been a tried and true background member of the X-Men. And all of that hard work and effort paid off in spades this year. Iceman appears in almost half of the various X-books, and while he’s usually still just a background supporting character, he has become the go-to guy for light-hearted humor and character.
The X-Men are serious business, but Iceman always keeps things chill.
Join me after the jump for some of Iceman’s finest moments this year!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/14/13
I hate Inhumanity already. I know, I know, I’m getting way ahead of myself. The event has barely even started, and it’s being written by one of my favorite comic book writers, Matt Fraction. But the evil that Inhumanity commits against Uncanny X-Men this week is nigh unforgivable! You’ll see what I mean when we get to it.
The rest of the comic book haul was pretty good this week. I especially enjoyed Mighty Avengers and Wolverine and the X-Men, both good books with some strong characterizations. I also gave a few looks at Batman, Superman/Wonder Woman and even Green Lantern Corps! But the hands down winner of Comic Book of the Week goes to Superior Foes of Spider-Man for turning in the funniest issue yet!
Comic Reviews: Batman #26, Green Lantern Corps #26, Mighty Avengers #4, Superior Foes of Spider-Man #6, Superman/Wonder Woman #3, Uncanny X-Men #15 and Wolverine and the X-Men #39.
I Do Not Want an X-Men/Fantastic Four Movie Crossover
Ever since the monumental success of Marvel’s The Avengers movie – to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars – all of the other studios are scrambling to make team-up movies as well. Because when something succeeds in Hollywood, everyone else wants to do that exact thing (hence the 3D craze). The sequel to Man of Steel is now going to feature both Batman and Wonder Woman, with rumors of even more Justice League cameos.
But making even less sense is the desire of FOX Studios to put their X-Men and rebooted Fantastic Four franchises into a shared universe. I may just be another nerd angrily ranting on the Internet, but I have zero interest in this coming to pass.
First of all, this reeks of studio manipulation, and I don’t like studio manipulations. Marvel and Disney pulled off a masterstroke combining their Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk movies into The Avengers, and FOX wants that same success regardless of how much sense it makes.
And that’s the second thing, it doesn’t make any sense! The X-Men and Fantastic Four don’t have anything to do with one another! In the history of comics, the two teams have barely said two words to each other. They live in entirely different corners of the Marvel Universe, dealing with entirely different themes. The X-Men use super-powers as a metaphor for minorities. The Fantastic Four use super-powers to go on awesome adventures, pushing the envelope of science fiction and fantasy.
But I’ll never be able to convince a studio of this. Heck, I probably can’t even convince some of you reading this. But it’s my rant, and I’m gonna rant it.
What point would it serve? Money, obviously. That’s the only answer studios care about. But Marvel Studios just seems above all of that nonsense. Yes, they want to make money too, but they seem to have integrity. They took their time with the Thor and Captain America films instead of rushing to the Avengers after the success of Iron Man. They’re taking their time to build up their movieverse, taking risks on films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. But FOX is just churning out superhero films helter skelter. We all know that if they stop making X-Men and Fantastic Four movies, then the rights will revert back to Marvel and Disney.
And as much as I liked X-Men: First Class, I can’t imagine ‘quality’ is at the forefront of FOX’s plans.
They made the first two Fantastic Four films, after all.
Storywise, what possible sense would it make to combine the X-Men and Fantastic Four films? Unless FOX plans to make the rebooted Fantastic Four into mutants, what could they possibly have to do with the X-Men? It’s not like the movie X-Men are superheroes. Not in the way the Fantastic Four are superheroes. What are they going to do? Team up to take down a partnership between Dr. Doom and Magneto? How could the massive, sprawling, time-traveling plot of the X-Men films possibly lead to them teaming up with the Fantastic Four? Why saddle a rebooted Fantastic Four onto the X-Men instead of letting them stand alone?
Neither team has any business being subservient to the other. Neither team has any business being in a movie together.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Still, I’d probably watch it.







