Chronological X-Men - Secret Wars II Part 1 Review

Secret Wars II (review part 1)

Dazzler #37 – The Girl in the Machine

Alison gets a call from an old friend of hers asking for help and Alison jumps at the chance to reconnect with her. The only problem is when she reaches Diana’s home she is told that Diana died over six months ago! We see the return of Revenge Inc which was nice but between their return, Diana’s involvement and the whole story behind Revenge Inc using Diana and giving her those operations that eventually caused her to be absorbed into this machine that apparently only she could use and then turn against them was a bit too much and it made it seem forced. This story could have easily been more than one issue, or they should have had a few things here and there that led up to it. Sure there’s the Revenge Inc thing, but we’ve never even heard of Diana Simon before this particular issue. It didn’t need to be a B or C plot in other issues, but at least one page or 2-3 panels here and there would have made this story better than it was.

Dazzler #38 – Challenge

See this right here – the few pages with O.Z. Chase and that mysterious man that we don’t see who suddenly turns to a pile of dust is exactly what I was talking about in the previous issue. There needs to be some kind of build up to the plots – it doesn’t need to have the bulk of an issue devoted to it, but it’s a perfect thing to put in to beef up stand alone stories, or filler issues. I was actually much more interested in the whole bounty hunter thing and that mysterious figure than I was about the main plot. It jumps around too much First Logan and Piotr are fighting Alison then it flashes back to Alison going to the X-Men wanting to train her new powers. There were just too many weird things. I understand Logan’s disgust at Alison wanting to train when she has no interest in being a super hero. I don’t understand why Piotr is all gaga over Alison when he’s busy ‘not loving’ Kitty. Rogue being all pro Alison is odd considering the two of them despise each other and I have no idea why Scott shows up out of the blue.

The New Mutants #29 – Meanwhile, Back at the Mansion…

Roberto and Amara are kidnapped by members of the Gladiators and it’s up to Sam and Illyana to save them. We see the return of the Gladiators from the Beauty and the Beast miniseries as well as Lila Cheney, Dazzler (obviously), Magneto and Lee Forrester. We have the first appearance of Guido Carosella AKA Strong Guy. Charles and the rest of the New Mutants are still on Muir Island so we basically only get Amara, Roberto, Sam and Illyana this time. There isn’t really much to say about this issue, Roberto and Amara stay with the Gladiators to save a bunch of runaway children; Charles contacts Magneto to let him know that the Beyonder has returned and charges Magneto to assemble a team to go up against him to save the world (Illyana and Sam join).

The Uncanny X-Men #195 – It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

We meet The Power Pack for the first time which I guess is okay – honestly I don’t feel one way or another about their appearance here. The X-Men are a little too old to be dealing with kids that young, it would have fit a bit better if this happened in The New Mutants title instead of Uncanny X-men but what can you do? The Morlocks are back: Annalee is still suffering from the murder of her children (they were killed in Uncanny X-Men #193), Leech, Callisto, Masque and Sunder we’ve seen before, I think this is the first time we’ve seen Ape or at the very least the first time Ape has had more than just a group shot in the X-Books I mean. Beautiful Dreamer, Erg and Tar Baby show up for the first time in this book. I’m not really sure where Kurt or Piotr are or why their absence means that Kitty is running point on this mission, especially over a tracker like Logan or a telepath like Rachel. It was a good issue though which is fine by me. Of course we have the build up to Secret Wars II here too because Rachel is summoned telepathically by Magneto ordering that she (how he knows about her I have no idea) and the rest of the X-Men return to the mansion immediately.

Secret Wars II #1 – Earthfall!

You know, I thought that the first Secret Wars series was packed with characters but this one takes the cake. This is just the first issue and we’ve got: The Beyonder, Molecule Man, Volcana, Wolfsbane, Warlock, Mirage, Cannonball, Magik, Captain America, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat, Magneto, Rogue, Rachel Summers, Iron Man (James), Tony Stark, Professor X, Moria MacTaggert, David Haller (Legion) Dazzler, Lila Cheney and Doug Ramsey *who for some reason is colored with black hair that makes him look like Roberto. We get a new character ‘Thundersword’ who is a TV writer who obtains a portion of the Beyonder’s power and pretty much goes crazy. I do like the idea of a potential inside joke looking back on it. The writer is sick of having to play by everyone’s rules and just wants to write what he wants to write. It’s funny once you consider that many X-book writers expressed their dislike of having to throw away their own plots to fit in with massive title wide crossovers and events. I like the concept of The Beyonder wanting to learn and grow but I think I need to see more of it before I can really judge it.

The New Mutants #30 – The Singer & Her Song

The New Mutants #31 – Saturday Night Fight

After having the evil portion of her soul pulled out into the open and becoming the demonic Darkchilde by the Beyonder Illyana transports herself, Rachel, Sam, Kitty and Dazzler to Limbo. Kitty manages to take Illyana’s Soulsword and use it on Illyana which effectively causes Darkchilde’s essence to retreat back into Illyana’s soul. From there the group returns to LA where they find that the Beyonder, X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man and Lila Cheney have all vanished. Kitty steps up as the leader of the group and they make their way back to the Gladiators to try once again to free Roberto and Amara. The big reveal here is that the mysterious person that has been running the Gladiators is really Xi’an Coy Manh! Obviously they can’t give out all the details of her sudden resurrection or why she has changed not only in behavior but drastically in the looks department as well. What is kind of explained is why the sudden change in the Gladiators mindset; while it’s not expressly said I’m choosing to believe that is why they returned to their old ways. Ultimately Xi’an gets away and Kitty decides that the New Mutants need to go on their own and track down Karma while she, Rachel, and Alison reconnect with the X-Men.

Dazzler #37 – The Girl in the Machine: B

Dazzler #38 – Challenge: C

The New Mutants #29 – Meanwhile, Back at the Mansion…: B

The Uncanny X-Men #195 – It Was A Dark And Stormy Night: A

Secret Wars II #1 – Earthfall!: B

The New Mutants #30 – The Singer & Her Song: A

The New Mutants #31 – Saturday Night Fight: B

Chronological X-Men - Part 18 Review

The road trip ends… for now.

The Incredible Hulk # 172 And Canst Thou Slay… The Juggernaut?

I’m going to be honest folks; I’m really biased here. It’s common knowledge that I hate The Hulk with a passion so it’s hard to be objective here, especially when I know I’ll have a few more issues of his title to read over the course of several storylines yet to come. Just like always I can’t comment on any of the cast of characters because I don’t know enough about them to know who is important and who I can just ignore. Basically the story is Hulk gets captured and the government uses a ray to try to banish him to another dimension and in the process this brings Juggernaut back to Earth and quite a few pages are devoted to catching everyone up on what Cain Marko’s been up to over the years. The issue ends with the X-Men (Charles, Scott and Jean) trying to find out what happened to Warren. I wish I could give this a better rating system because an alphabet grade doesn’t really work for me this time. I’d rank this one some where between ‘meh’ and ‘ehh.’

Captain America #172 Believe It or Not: The Banshee

Captain America #173 The Sins of the Secret Empire

Captain America #174 Its Always Darkest….

Captain America #175 Before the Dawn!

The next pit stop brings us a whole lot of things going on. We learn that while mutants are being hunted down and captured by a mysterious force it turns out that Falcon and Captain America are actually the most wanted men on the block. Banshee shows up for an issue and runs into Cap and Falcon, after a misunderstanding they end up fighting but when Cyclops shows up Banshee takes off. The remaining X-Men and Cap and Falcon team up to go after The Secret Empir who had not only managed to frame Captain America for murder but also kidnap several mutants (Iceman, Havok, Lorna, Beast, Unus, Mastermind, the Blob, Angel and Mesmero and is using them to power a machine that they will end up using to force the United States into either surrendering their power to The Secret Empire or just destroy them outright. We learn that Hank, Bobby, Alex and Lorna were all captured as well which really just serves as an explanation as to why none of them appeared in any of the X-Men’s off book adventures recently. One thing that I couldn’t help but laugh at was the fact that the leader of The secret Empire who calls himself Number One looks an awful lot like Cobra Commander, in reality he’s a ‘high ranking government official’ while his true identity wasn’t revealed it had been later stated that it was intended that his alter ego would end up being Richard Nixon. This whole thing is a big thing in and of itself because of the fact that after Captain learns the true identity of Number One and witnesses his suicide Cap decides to leave the superhero business behind 3for now.

Marvel Team-Up #23 The Night of the Frozen

Bobby and Johnny Storm both get framed for a robbery by the villain Equinox who has both ice and fire based powers. Naturally there is some confusion where Bobby thinks Johnny did the break in and Johnny things Bobby is responsible for it. They end up fighting each other before they figure out who really did it and then team up to go after him. I don’t know what to think of this one, I mean it was a fun little read and I’ve always liked the way Johnny and Bobby play off of each other but I’m not entirely sure that I wanted to read this story. However I think the reason for that is simply a case of bad timing because if I think about it, I would honestly read this story again, and there have been quite a few issues that I’ve reviewed since I started this journey that I will never pick up and read again even if my life depended on it. It was still a pretty good story. I think that I might have read this one a bit out of order because it feels like the X-Men are off looking for the missing mutants and if that's the case this would have had to have happened a lot sooner than the Captain America issues, but at the same time it feels like it could also have taken place after because Hank isn't anywhere to be seen and it's around this time that he joins the Avengers, and that happens after the whole Secret Empire thing.

The Incredible Hulk #180 And the Wind Howls… Wendigo!

The Incredible Hulk #181 And Now… the Wolverine!

The Incredible Hulk #182 Between Hammer and Anvil

Speaking of things I’ll never read again even if my life depended on it this story has to be one of them. I’ll be honest here, I only read this because it’s the first appearance of Wolverine and almost all of the X-Men related stories that I’ll be reading from this point on will heavily feature him so it’s pretty hard to ignore. Maybe I would have enjoyed this story more if I had any idea what the hell was going on half of the time but there isn’t anything that I can do about that. Well there is, but I’m choosing not to. The debut of Wolverine was kind of lackluster but considering he just shows up and fights Hulk and then goes back into Weapon X’s custody there isn’t that much that can be said about it- the story is supposed to be just a violent battle and that’s what it delivers so I guess ultimately it lives up to that promise, but still…. I guess for me the worst part of this is that Logan only appears in the last page of the first issue and the first page of the last issue so it makes me feel like I had to sit through two extra stories that I didn’t have to read just so the middle issue would make sense to me. Not that it made it any better because while I liked the whole plot with the Weendigo, Georges and Marie I had absolutely no investment in what happened to them at all so it didn’t end up being as important as I’m sure it was meant to be.

The Incredible Hulk # 172 And Canst Thou Slay… The Juggernaut?: D

Captain America #172 Believe It or Not: The Banshee: B

Captain America #173 The Sins of the Secret Empire: B

Captain America #174 Its Always Darkest….: A

Captain America #175 Before the Dawn!: A

Marvel Team-Up #23 The Night of the Frozen: C

The Incredible Hulk #180 And the Wind Howls… Wendigo!: D

The Incredible Hulk #181 And Now… the Wolverine!: C

The Incredible Hulk #182 Between Hammer and Anvil: D