Blog Archives
The New X-Men Team Stands Revealed!
I love the idea of an X-Men election. I love all the little ways the Krakoa-era is changing things up for mutants and the X-Men. And the idea that they would have the citizens of Krakoa vote on the roster for the official team of X-Men is a great idea!
And today, Marvel revealed that lineup!
The team looks fine. Nothing too crazy or exciting…but maybe that’s just me. We’ve got Cyclops and Jean Grey, with Rogue, Polaris, Sunfire, Synch and Wolverine. Seems a pretty solid lineup. Polaris won the reader poll, so that’s cool. Sunfire is a pretty unique choice. I hope to see great things from him. And Synch and Wolverine are obviously building from that very interesting story Jonathan Hickman has been running with, when they took on the Children of the Vault.
Unfortunately, Hickman won’t be writing the new ongoing X-Men series starring this roster. Gerry Duggan will be writing. And while I’ve liked what work of his I’ve read, I think his Marauders has gotten a bit lost in the weeds recently. But I’m going to remain positive.
Still, Strong Guy would have looked great on this team.
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 3/10/18
I’ve decided to give Gwenpool a try. I had very little use for that weird Gwen Stacy fetish that popped up a couple years ago, but all of the clippings I’ve seen of the Gwenpool comic have seemed pretty amazing. So the first tpb is on order! I’ll let you all know how it goes.
Meanwhile, in regular comic land, it’s a pretty sad week. We must say goodbye to two of my favorites, Hawkeye and Iceman, the latter of which earns Comic Book of the Week! I’ll miss them both!
Ice solves everything
Marvel’s Countdown to Infinity kicked off this week and I couldn’t care even a single iota. I didn’t read the issue and I keep skipping all these single page “Where is Wolverine” bits that show up at the end of comics. Just like Civil War II, this reeks of being a slapped-together event to tie into the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War movie. I don’t care.
I do care about Kelly Thompson’s Rogue & Gambit mini-series, which remains awesome! I hope they keep her around the X-Men franchise!
Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #797, Batman #42, Hawkeye #16, Iceman #11 and X-Men Red #2.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 2/10/18
Here we go again! Last week, I complained that there were too few comics released that I read and review. This week apparently makes up for that deficit! We’ve got Spider-Man, we’ve got Hawkeye, we’ve got Iceman, we’ve got so dang many comics! Including the debut of X-Men Red!
Comic Book of the Week goes to the new issue of Runaways! It’s a delightful issue capping off the first storyline. And just in time for me to finish the Runaways TV show, which I also enjoyed.
Mr. Twinkles! You traitor!
I’ll talk more about the Runaways TV show in a couple weeks. For now, I liked it and am looking forward to a second season.
Comic Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #795, Batman #40, Harley Quinn #37, Hawkeye #15, Iceman #10, Runaways #6 and X-Men Red #1.
Multiple Man Did Not Really Return…Yet…Again
A couple weeks ago, I got super hyped up because the dead Multiple Man made a cameo appearance in Phoenix Resurrection – The Return of Jean Grey. At the time, we didn’t know what these cameos meant and I got my hopes up that Jamie Madrox would finally come back to life!
Well the latest issue explains that all these dead X-Men cameos are just weird manifestations of the Phoenix. At least Multiple Man looks cool in red.
It’s at least a close visual proximation
Also, while we’re on the subject, why did they pick Colossus for the one-panel fight against Madrox? Strong Guy, Multiple Man’s best friend, is in that same group of X-Men fighting off these dead Phoenix manifestations. Not that this comic needs to address those characters in any way, but for a single throwaway panel, it would have been nice!
Looks like we go back to waiting for Multiple Man’s eventual return to comics.
In good news, Bleeding Cool ran an article a couple weeks ago about Marvel trademarking the name ‘Multiple Man’, so that’s got to be a good sign!
Also, while we’re on the subject of Phoenix Resurrection – The Return of Jean Grey, I really, really dislike Old Man Logan. He is just such a horrible character inserted into the regular Marvel Universe. It’s like everybody is just pretending he’s regular Logan!
On this page, Young Scott Summers has volunteered to go in and confront the Phoenix. But Old Man Logan talks him out of it for one specific reason:
He’s still not wearing a costume!
Are you kidding me?! She’s not your Jean Grey either, you stupid alternate reality character! I know this is being pedantic and nitpicky fanboyish of me, but the fact that everybody keeps treating Old Man Logan like he’s regular Wolverine really sticks in my craw. Did I miss some issue where he tricked everybody into thinking he was regular Wolverine, just really old? Do they not know he’s from an alternate reality?
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I Need to Stop Getting My Hopes Up With X-Men Rosters
If you haven’t heard yet, the original Jean Grey is going to come back from the dead next month. I have no real opinions on this turn of events. For one, characters coming back from the dead in comics is second nature, especially with the X-Men. For two, I’ve never cared about Jean Grey. Was she ever her own person? Can anybody tell me any personality traits or character trivia that is specific to the original Jean Grey that warrants her coming back?
Anyway, once Jean is back, she’s going to star in a new X-Men team book called X-Men: Red, to go along with the Blue and Gold books already seeing print. Why does the X-Men line need another team book? I dunno.
The important thing is, the reason I’m writing this post, is because Marvel once again did a big, day-long tease about what random X-characters would be on the X-Men: Red roster. As if the lineup matters.
And me, being a fool, got my hopes up that one of my favorite characters would be on the team. But none of them are.
Let’s see. We’ve got Jean Grey, obviously. She’s joined by Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Gabby, Namor, Gentle and new character Trinary, which is a really dumb name. The book will be written by Tom Taylor, with art by Mahmud Asrar. I like both of those creators, so I’ll probably pick up the first few issues, especially since Tom Taylor bringing both Laura and Gabby to an X-Men team sounds like fun!
But suffice to say, I don’t care about any of the other team members, especially after getting my hopes up. In fact, I kind of hate the fact that Marvel is putting Prince Namor back on an X-Men team. That is a personal comic book pet peeve of mine. He does not belong there.
In the end, this is just another example of what I’ve come to dub the X-Men Assembly Line. Slap together a new title made of adjectives and cobble together a roster of seemingly randomly selected X-characters. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Hopefully, someday, characters like Multiple Man, Mimic or Strong Guy will get to be randomly chosen! I’ll even take Maggott.
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