Category Archives: X-Men
Review: Mimic and the X-Men #5
Mimic successfully beat his record for appearing in issues as a member of the X-Men, then promptly quit. Oh sorry, SPOILERS. No wait, I’m not sorry! I’m angry! I’m angry that writer Christos Gage would make all my dreams come true by putting Mimic back on the X-Men after nearly 50 years, then went ahead and spent a bajillion stupid, boring issues on Rogue being transported to another planet to join a war between stupid, boring aliens who don’t have anything to do with anything! And I’m angry at Marvel NOW!’s stupid decision to take Gage off of X-Men: Legacy and completely change the title, forcing him to wrap up his personal storylines and take Mimic out of the series before his time!
And yet Mimic isn’t on the cover
And what I’m angry at the most is that Gage did this by giving us the greatest Mimic adventure of all time!
Comic rating: The square root of sadness/5: Terrifisad.
Do you want deep Mimic introspection and character development? BAM! You got it! Do you want Mimic mimicking all the powers in the world and then single-handedly holding off a super-villain prison riot? BAM! You got it! Do you want hot Mimic on Rogue action? BAM! You got that too – sort of! This is the Mimic we have always wanted! He’s handsome, he’d badass and, most importantly, he’s a hero. I would even go so far as to say he’s the greatest hero the Marvel Universe has ever seen! Not only that, but he’s hip, as you’ll see in the synopsis. This is one awesome guy. I mean, I suppose there is a large portion of this issue dedicated to Rogue. But nobody cares about that, right? That would be like watching The Matrix and caring more about Neo than Switch. And Switch was awesome.
If Mimic had to go out – though I think he would have been awesome as new leader of the X-Men – he probably couldn’t have gone out any better way. Rest well, gentle soldier. This review will sing you to your sleep.
The Wolverine Is Lookin’ Fancy
The first official poster for The Wolverine has been released, and it looks pretty snazzy.
I’m sure somebody who knows art could tell you a lot about this image, but I know diddly squat. What I do know is that I love it. Minimalist style is coming back in a big way these days, and I’m excited to see a movie actually take advantage of that instead of going with some hideous, overly photoshopped picture of the cast. Like they did for The Avengers, or pretty much every X-Men movie. So this is a good sign that someone somewhere may have some design sense.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews
I’ve been wanting to do this style of comic book review for a long time, but I never end up reading all my new comics before the weekend. However, I’ve got some time on Wednesdays now, so I really want to start. My long reviews take awhile to write, and I can’t do one for every comic I read. So from this week forward (hopefully), I’ll be providing some shorter, quicker reviews on the week’s new comics.
I buy a large smattering of comics across both DC and Marvel, and a few Indy titles. If there is any comic you’d like me to review, let me know via e-mail or in the comments.
Let’s begin!
Amazing Spider-Man #696
Amazing Spider-Man #696
Writer: Dan Slott & Christos Gage
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Phil Urich is one of my all-time favorite comic book characters. His brief series as the good Green Goblin in the 90s was the first comic book series that I ever bought and read with my own money. So of course his transformation into the villainous, perverted Hobgoblin was sad. I preferred him as a down-on-his-luck hero. But with a character as minor and obscure as Phil, I’ve mostly just been grateful that he’s even appearing anywhere. So I’ve been following his career as the new Hobgoblin, and it comes to a head in this issue, as original Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley, returns to New York City to crush Phil for good – and, of course, Spider-Man is caught in the middle.
I’ve mostly been enjoying Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man run. He brings a light-hearted feel to the wall-crawler, with brightly colored adventures and really personal stories. This one is no different. Peter Parker has just been outed as the man who builds all of Spider-Man’s gadgets at Horizon Labs, so the Hobgoblin kidnaps Peter for the Kingpin. They want to hold him hostage so that Spider-Man will turn over a special briefcase he’s holding, little knowing that Peter actually is Spider-Man. So it’s up to Peter’s boss, Max Modell, to bring the briefcase in an attempt to free Peter. But just as the exchange is about to go down, Roderick Kingsley attacks, determined to kill Phil.
In the chaos of the Hobgoblin War, Peter and Max escape with the briefcase – which holds a key to Norman Osborn’s entire Goblin arsenal!
Comic rating: 4/5: Good!
This was a fun adventure, and your typical Peter Parker in trouble story. The Hobgoblin War idea is pretty cool, as the characters look absolutely wicked under Camuncoli’s pencils. Seeing them battle is the highlight of the issue. Orange is always a great color for super-villains. I’m hoping Phil puts up a fight, and the idea that Roderick is threatening Phil’s girlfriend might bring some heroism out of Phil. One can hope. The Peter action was fun as he pulled off some web-slinging skill, while simultaneously trying to keep Max from deducing the truth. So yeah, entertaining story, fun characters and the hope that one of my all-time favorite comic book characters gets to shine.
Join me after the jump for more! Including AvX: Consequences, Batman Incorporated, Invincible Iron Man, Talon and Wolverine MAX!
Forgotten Characters: Lacuna
Whatever happened to Lacuna, the mutant talk show host and would-be member of X-Statix?
The green blob Doop has been given new prominence in the popular pages of Wolverine & The X-Men, but he wasn’t the only character to survive the massacre that was Peter Milligan’s X-Statix. I want to know whatever happened to my personal favorite character from that series, the beautiful, the excitable, the orange Lacuna! X-Statix may have been controversial in its day, but the rose-colored glasses of hindsight have proven just how ahead of its time that series really was.
X-Statix was a comic that satirized Jersey Shore several years before Jersey Show was even on the air. X-Statix was making Kim Kardashian jokes before ‘Kardashian’ was even a thing. And there in the wings, doing her part to mock talk show hosts, was Woodstock Schumaker, the sometimes superhero known as Lacuna. She was one of the few characters to survive the end of X-Statix, but she hasn’t been seen since. I want to know why not!
She looks absolutely awesome
Here is a young female character ripe for use in any number of rebooted X-teams. She’s got an awesome look, nifty powers and her own talk show! At the very least, why hasn’t anybody had Lacuna and the Stars playing in the background of any scenes?
Join me after the jump for more!
Just When You Thought Cyclops Couldn’t Get Any More Awesome!
I want to consider my blog a bastion of pro-Cyclops ideology and understanding. Because even though I was, at times, frustrated with his portrayal during Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel are clearly turning him into the greatest hero ever in the aftermath!
I don’t want to spoil too much right away – I’ll save that for the jump – but suffice to say, from almost everything I’ve seen post-AvX, Marvel seems poised to do some exciting things with Cyclops in the future. More and more, it looks intentional that Marvel and their writers knew exactly what they were doing with Cyclops in Avengers vs. X-Men, and I am absolutely loving it! The character is on this fascinating journey, and not some cliched apologetic quest for redemption.
Cyclops is a total boss! As we can see in a few previews of the upcoming All-New X-Men #1! Join me for more after the jump to view them!
Henchman-4-Hire 