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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/10/24

There’s only going to be one review this week, I’m afraid. I still read a bunch of comics, but I don’t really want to do a write up for just any comic, especially if its just humming along nicely like, say, Scarlett. But I definitely wanted to get my thoughts down about Gail Simone’s Uncanny X-Men #1!

Comic Book of the Week goes to Uncanny X-Men #1 because it lives up to the hype and excitement.

“Ground Bear” is the perfect Rogue to Wolverine nickname

Meanwhile, I’m spending the month busying myself with nonsense games as I await Star Wars: Outlaws at the end of the month. I hope that game is going to be fun. I spent money on the latest IDW hardcover Ninja Turtles collection, which means I now own 16 of these things without having read a single one. I have a problem. And the Kickstarter remains ongoing for the second issue of The Cloakroom! Check it out!

Comic Reviews: Uncanny X-Men #1.

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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?

Here he is on a boatercycle with his best buddy, Strong Guy!

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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My 10 Favorite Comics of the 2010s

Another decade has come and gone and we are all, therefore, another decade older. I know I’m feeling it! Let us distract ourselves from such mortal concerns by reflecting on my favorite comic books from the past 10 years!

Fav Comics 10s List 13

It was a nice decade in comics

My memory isn’t all that great, but I’ve looked back over my various comic reviews and favorites lists and I think I’ve narrowed down a good list of 10 comics that I very much enjoyed. This blog started in 2011, so I’ve definitely been talking about a lot of comics over the past 10 years. It was a pretty monumental decade! We had the New 52 from DC Comics and the influence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Marvel Comics.

This was also the decade where I finally started writing my own comics! Gamer Girl & Vixen has been doing pretty well, and volume 2 is in production!

GG & Vixen Bust commission

Join me after the jump as I take a look back at my favorite comics from the past decade! They are not in any particular order.

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 2/23/19

Last week had a bunch of comics; this week, not so many. Such is the ups and downs of buying and reviewing comic books! I love it, you love it, and we can’t live without it.

Like I said, not many comics this week, especially since I’ve dropped both Aquaman and Catwoman from DC Comics. Catwoman was good, Aquaman was not, but neither of them held my attention all that well. Marvel put out some comics this week, with Comic Book of the Week easily going to Unstoppable Wasp again for a great follow-up issue.

Nadia Not Fine 05

It’s on!

Meanwhile, I watched Umbrella Academy on Netflix and it was really good. I highly recommend it. I never read the comic, so I can’t compare them. But it was a fun TV show.

Comic Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy #2, Uncanny X-Men #12 and Unstoppable Wasp #5.

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Strong Guy Watch: He’s Dead

Welp, Strong Guy is dead. Remember last summer, when I was worried that he would be sacrificed in that New Mutants mini-series? Only for him to survive? Welp, that didn’t last long. The moment he returns following that mini-series, he’s needlessly killed.

Strong Guy takes the brunt of a bomb in this week’s Uncanny X-Men issue.

Strong Guy Dead 05

The issue, of course, ignores any response from Wolfsbane or Havok to the death of Strong Guy

There didn’t need to be a bomb. And he didn’t need to sacrifice himself. Neither is intrinsically important to the story at hand. It just happens. Maybe to raise the stakes of the story? Maybe to underline how dark and gritty it is?

I don’t know and I’m starting to not care. Just kill everybody I love. Why not? What have you got to lose? Just kill’em all and bask in the awesome writing skill of killing characters!

That’s how you know it’s a good comic. If a lot of characters are killed, then it’s a good comic. That’s a rule of making comics. Right? Surely that’s right.

This isn’t the end of Strong Guy Watch. It’ll come back in a year or two when he’s resurrected. Because that’s the other god damned rule: characters don’t stay dead. Unless they’re Multiple Man, my all-time favorite comic book character. When he’s killed…no wait, hold off for a second. He’s actually been killed several times now. When he was killed the last time, he’s stayed dead, and Marvel has instead put a puppet in his place.

So no, my favorite comic book characters don’t get resurrected. They get replaced by a mocking simulacrum.

There is no joy in Mudville.

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