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New 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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There Will Be a New Multiple Man Action Figure!
Once upon a time, we lived in a world where there were no action figures of my favorite superhero, Multiple Man. It made no sense. His super power is to make multiple copies of himself. That automatically means a person should buy multiple action figures! It makes so much sense! I wrote about this year ago, when we didn’t have such action figures.
Since then, we got a sweet Marvel Legends Multiple Man figure. And it looks like we’re getting another one, based on his original comic book costume!
It’s part of a classics line, packaged in old timey action figure packaging. That’s pretty neat. I used to buy X-Men action figures when they were packaged like that, and I would have loved to have a Multiple Man figure back then. I guess I’ll just have to settle for this one now.
The new figure goes on sale in April, I believe. Here’s hoping I can get a couple for my shelf!
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The 6 Most Interesting Dupes of Jamie Madrox The Multiple Man
The day has finally arrived that we fans of Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man have long been waiting for! He’s back in regular, ongoing comics! This day marks the first issue of the new X-Corp series by Tini Howard and Alberto Foche, a series I have long been anticipating as Multiple Man’s proper debut in the Dawn of X-era of X-Men comics!
Multiple Man is my all-time favorite comic book character. And it has been a long many years since he appeared regularly in ongoing comics — since the end of Peter David’s X-Factor in September 2013, in fact. And then he’s been dead for a good long while. But Dawn of X and the Krakoa-era are all about resurrection! Madrox has made multiple appearances here and there over the past two or so years, but X-Corp is now his time to shine! And I’m going to honor his return with a List of Six dedicated to Multiple Man!
Specifically, we’re going to look at some of the more interesting dupes to ever pop out of Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man! Join me after the jump!
Read the rest of this entryOh Baby, That is a Sweet Multiple Man Cover
I am very excited that Multiple Man, my all-time favorite comic book character, is finally going to return to ongoing comics next month with X-Corp. The real and proper Jamie Madrox hasn’t been in comics since 2013, when X-Factor ended! Then Marvel killed him in 2016 and then replaced him with a surviving duplicate in 2018. It’s been a long, horrible road for Multiple Man fans.
But X-Corp is coming. And in July, we’re going to get this sweet cover by artist David Aja for issue #3.
Oh baby. That’s just…ooo…I’m getting chills here. David Aja is an amazing artist. He was the guy behind the Hawkeye series that I still consider to be the best comic book series of the 2010s, and some of those covers are great!
Here’s the issue blurb for X-Corp #3.
He’s everywhere you want to be. He’s never not in the office. And his direct reports always fall in line. How does X-CORP meet their nearly impossible quotas with maximum synergy and minimal bandwidth? They’ve got Dr. Jamie Madrox, and he’s the world’s best boss.
I love it! He’s a doctor now? Sounds damn good to me! I can’t wait to see this series live up to the hype of the cover art.
And that’s it! Marvel revealed this cover in their July solicitations yesterday and I just had to share. It’s choice.
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My Ongoing Investigation to Determine the Truth of Multiple Man on Krakoa
A man needs a mission. What else do we have in this life but the urge to accomplish a goal? Why even keep this blog going after all these years considering it never became the biggest, most interesting blog in the world? I guess I just like having stuff to do. There’s my Strong Guy Watch, chronicling every random, minor appearance of Strong Guy. And now I’m going to dub this my Multiple Man Mystery!
Multiple Man is alive and well on Krakoa…but is he the real Multiple Man? New evidence arrived this week in Empyre: X-Men #1, the tie-in to Empyre. For the first time in Dawn of X, Multiple Man has speaking lines.
He’s also wearing his modern costume, which is mostly just a jacket over a stylized T-shirt. I really like the modern costume.
So in this issue, Multiple Man joins up with Angel, Monet and Magik to investigate one of the gateways on Genosha, with the lot of them getting wrapped up in the whole Empyre thing. Multiple Man is mostly used to help clean up the gateway.
And that’s it so far! We’ll find out more as the story continues.
But here’s the big deal: not too long ago, Multiple Man was killed off. He was eventually replaced by one of this dupes, who had reduced powers and just wasn’t the same guy. This duplicate starred in an actual Multiple Man-titled comic book mini-series, the only comic to ever bear that name, so it felt like a big deal.
When all the mutants were resurrected on Krakoa as part of Dawn of X, Multiple Man came with them…but which Multiple Man? Did they resurrect the original? Or did they resurrect the replacement? I’d like to think it was the original, but considering the weird retcons and continuity flubs inherent in the replacement storyline, I wouldn’t put it past the current X-Office to just not care to get Multiple Man right.
Hence this new Multiple Man Mystery segment! I will track every appearance the character makes on Krakoa to hopefully determine, once and for all, whether or not this is the original Multiple Man back among the living. It’s important to me.
Also, he’s worn a different outfit in every appearance so far. That part is kinda weird…to the point that it’s gotta be intentional, right?
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