Sunday, December 19, 2010

Chronological X-Men - God Loves, Man Kills Review

God Loves, Man Kills

Marvel Graphic Novel #5 – X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

Okay this is one of those stories that have been praised for being so strong and so ahead of the times and all that jazz – it’s one of the stories where when you mention the X-Men people know this story. Anyway, it was a little hard for me to place this story because currently Logan isn’t with the X-Men, he’s in Japan and Scott is off in Alaska, yet the X-Men are all together back on Earth so this takes place after the Brood Queen Egg that Charles was carrying had been destroyed.  Kitty has already switched to the Ariel codename (she was currently Sprite – but given that all this is going off of the Purifiers files it’s possible that they only knew her as Ariel – even though that doesn’t make any sense because she only used that codename for like 10 seconds when she first joined the team before switching to Sprite) and Ororo hasn’t gone through her own extreme makeover et. This is one of those stories (much like when Jean died) that you can’t help but go ‘$..! just got real.’ Not only were there quite a few deaths but there was torture, violence, execution style killing of children – and it wasn’t done in a way like the Brood story was where it just happens with this story there is a lot of shock value that makes the story extremely heavy. The plot revolves around the introduction of William Stryker and his Purifiers who believe that they have been commanded by God to purge the world of all mutants and they intend on using Charles own mutant powers as a way to destroy all the mutants. The only other (like there weren’t enough major events going on already) big revelation is that Stryker’s mutant detection device doesn’t know what to make of Illyana she registers as human yet not human, mutant yet not mutant so that’s interesting. I really don’t have anything bad to say about this story I can see why it gets all the hype that it does.

The Uncanny X-Men #168 – Professor Xavier is a Jerk!

I put this story here because it seems to fit after everything that the X-Men recently went through with Stryker it would make sense that Charles would still be hesitant to put Kitty back with the X-Men. Logan has left the X-Men to go to Canada (so this takes place after God Loves, Man Kills) and Scott leaves for Florida to meet up with his kind of former girlfriend Lee before he takes off for Alaska with Alex and Corsair so Scott and Alex can meet their grandparents (we haven’t seen them yet) and meet a pilot Madelyne Pryor who looks identical to Jean. Kurt goes to visit his girlfriend Amanda and Kitty tries her best to prove to Charles that she deserves to be an X-Man. Unfortunately that leads Kitty into a not so pleasant encounter with a nest of Sidri hatchlings that have just been born – the good news is somehow the dragon (that kitty names Lockheed) managed to follow her back to Earth and he destroys most of the nest.

Dazzler #25 – The Jagged Edge

This is another story that felt like it belonged in this plot line simply because of the story matter. Alison continues her rise to stardom and fame only to gain a brand new fan that turns out to be a psychopathic stalker army vet who lost his grip on his sanity and reality once he heard that his father had died. It was a good story when you lump it in with the current plotlines and I actually think it was almost strong enough to stand on it’s own too which is saying a lot because there aren’t that many issues of this book that I would ever read again but not only is this an issue that I can picture myself reading a second time – it’s actually a story that I would want to read again and for this book that is a huge deal. There isn’t really anything negative that I can say about this issue which is a good thing. The only downside I can think of is that this is the final issue of the series before it switches from monthly to bimonthly. And given certain plots this book has had in the past even this could almost be considered a good thing.



Marvel Graphic Novel #5 – X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills: A
The Uncanny X-Men #168 – Professor Xavier is a Jerk!: A
Dazzler #25 – The Jagged Edge: A

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