Chronological X-Men - Beauty and the Beast Review

Beauty and the Beast!

Beauty and the Beast #1 – Beauty and the Beast: Part One

Beauty and the Beast #2 – Heartbreak Hotel

Beauty and the Beast #3 – Showtime

Beauty and the Beast #4 – Checkmate

Okay this particular story starts off with Alison trying once again to rebuild her life after being outted as a mutant in the events of Dazzler: The Movie. She meets up with Alexander Flynn who promises to make her a star again and allow her to perform without being treated like dirt. I’ve got a problem with this right away because Alison was a character who escaped the Hellfire Club, battled She-Hulk, Enchantress, Doctor Doom and stood her ground with Galactus and yet we have her once again being manipulated by a man promising to make her a star. I don’t have any idea why they continue to choose to write the girl being this dumb. If she was that easy to manipulate why would the Hellfire Club let her escape so easily, or even want her at all; and why would Xavier have let her go off on her own? Anyway, Hank is also in town visiting Wonder Man and is trying to just go around in Hollywood since he thinks everyone will be so used to seeing things like him around. Alison starts to lose control of her powers and ends up staying at Heartbreak Hotel which is sort of a haven for mutants. Hank and Alison sort of start a little something but that quickly ends when Alison goes back with Alexander (who apparently is Victor Von Doom’s son) and soon gets wrapped up in an underground fight club. I don’t really buy that at all, but I’m willing to suspend belief for the rest of the series, but it was even harder to swallow the idea of Hank falling so hard for Alison and him sitting there crying over her. I think the pacing of the story didn’t help how quickly Hank and Alison fell for each other – everything happened to fast, and not just on the romantic front. All of a sudden Alison is a tough gladiator and then there’s a rebellion of the gladiators against Hugo and Alexander takes over. That doesn’t last long either before he’s ousted by the gladiators, Hank, Alison, Link and Poltergeist stop him while Doctor Doom (who also suddenly shows up again) watches. I think it would have been easier to swallow if there was more of a build up in Dazzler that carried over to this miniseries but alas that wasn’t the case.

Dazzler #35 – Brawl!

Alison returns home after her recent adventures – the only one she mentions though are the events of Dazzler: The Movie although the storyline order goes Dazzler: The Movie, Beauty and the Beast and then Dazzler 35. I do like that they remembered that Alison’s landlords weren’t mutant friendly to begin with, but they seemed to accept Alison a little too quickly after their initial freak out over her being a mutant. I don’t know if I Liked the idea of an exclusive all female club – I don’t really see why that was a plot point. However I did like the fact that Alison could see Barb needed help and tried her best to help her. It shows growth from her recent manipulations she had experienced. The whole ‘Janet Jackson’ thing was a nice wink and a nod to the fact that they already created a fictional Michael Jackson counterpart for the book.

Dazzler #36 – The Human Touch

 

Wow this is the first issue in a long time that really felt in character and like everyone involved knew what they were doing. Alison trying to sing, going on a job hunt and accidentally stumbling into a gig, reaching out to save the day; the tired clichés of duos spitting up the evils of Hollywood – it all just fit. The book hadn’t been the same since the big reveal of Alison’s half sister Lois being a mutant also and their run to Hollywood so it was nice to touch bases with the things about the book that were always good and sort of bring it back to basics. I know I ragged pretty hard on how cheesy the book used to be when it first started but there’s a big difference between subtle nods and things that make sense than having it constantly bashed over the readers heads that Alison wants to sing not be a mutant, she’s broke, she can’t afford to do anything, how lucky she is if she can afford tomato soup.

Beauty and the Beast #1 – Beauty and the Beast: Part One: C

Beauty and the Beast #2 – Heartbreak Hotel: C

Beauty and the Beast #3 – Showtime: B

Beauty and the Beast #4 – Checkmate: B

Dazzler #35 – Brawl!: B

Dazzler #36 – The Human Touch: A

Chronological X-Men - Dazzler The Movie Review

Dazzler – The Movie!

The New Mutants #22 – The Shadow Within

Sam is still trying to learn how to control his abilities and is undergoing training sessions with Kurt which doesn’t go over well with Rahne. The main plot of the story revolves around Rahne writing a story in which she’s a beautiful princess who needs to defeat an evil sorceress. In the story Rahne ends up stopping the sorceress and taking a necklace from her and when the issue actually ends we see Rahne asleep in her bed holding the very necklace. The sub plot introduces us to a new character: Friedrich von Roehm who is one of Selene’s High Priests. Speaking of Selene she has decided to take up a permanent residence in New York and uses Friedrich to find her a suitable place to establish a new power base that would allow her to continue her human sacrifices and feeding off of people. Naturally Friedrich suggests the Hellfire Club and arranges a meeting between Sebastian Shaw and Selene in order to put a bid in for her to become the new Black Queen – it’s as good of a time as any considering Roberto’s father Emanuel DaCosta is about to undergo his initiation into the Inner Circle. It was a good issue I just wish that they would have focused a little bit more on Selene and less on Rahne’s storytelling.

The Uncanny X-Men #189 – Two Girls Out To Have Fun

Okay I just need to get this out of the way – how sad and creepy was it seeing a book that was published in 1985 have a character who traveled back from the 21^st century and one of the things she remembers is the destruction of the Twin Towers. That was just… wow. Okay beyond that the story picks up right where The New Mutants #22 left off with Selene going to Sebastian Shaw to apply for membership to the Hellfire Club and the Inner Circle. She offers to give Sebastian a gift so it would help put her in better standing and of course she decides to give him Rachel and Amara. The two of them are in the city basically bonding and they end up crashing the Hellfire Club when they see Selene. After a heated battle Amara and Rachel are let go and the X-Men and the Inner Circle come to an agreement and the X-Men leave Selene in Sebastian’s hands. The other plots that run through this book is the fact that Alison Blaire has just been publically outted as a mutant (I’ll get in to that later since all of these issues in this review take place during the events of Dazzler – The Movie so they run concurrently); Ororo decides to leave the X-Men since she feels that she can no longer lead the team after the lose of her mutant abilities, and finally the magical necklace that the dock worker found a few issues ago ends up releasing an evil warlock – Kulan Gath -  who intends on exacting his revenge on the world.

The New Mutants #23 – Shadowman

The New Mutants #24 – The Hollow Heart

The New Mutants #25 – The Only Thing To Fear…

Well this set of issues manages to tie up some old plotlines so that’s good. We find out that Rahne wasn’t exactly dreaming her story but it was an interpretation of events that happened while she transformed into her wolf state and attacked two people – who are later recognized by Sam and Dani to be none other than Cloak and Dagger. Roberto ends up loosing control of his abilities and attacks Piotr and later Charles and Moira. It turns out that Roberto and Rahne are suffering from lingering side effects from the time Cloak and Dagger used their abilities to purge the drug from their system back in Marvel Team-Up Annual #6. Piotr comes to the realization finally that he actually didn’t love Zsaji and he figures out that he lost her and Kitty. We touch base with Father Michael Bowen who had been taking care of Leong and Nga Coy Manh ever since Xi’an had died. In a nice little twist he’s revealed to be the uncle of Dagger. I liked how Sam and Dani played off of each other and it was nice to see the little Star Wars reference. Charles learns of the magical armor Illyana and he and Rogue visit Limbo for the first time. The whole internal Illyana is going through while being in the church is a nice touch and a good little nod to exactly what would be going on with her considering half of her soul has been corrupted and given away to black magic in order to create the bloodstones. The other plot with Magneto and Lee was good, but it felt kind of off. This was one of those types of stories that I really liked, but I don’t really picture myself ever going back and reading it a second time. I've got to say though that I'm really digging the art. On some stories it seems a bit choppy but combined with this type of plot (or The Demon Bear plot) the style of the art really helps to set the tone of the book.

Marvel Graphic Novel #12 – Dazzler the Movie

Well eve get a whole hell of a lot of characters here Alison, Colossus, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine, Roman Nekoboh, Ziggy (roman’s butler) Mr. Witwicky and new characters Eric Beale and Freddy Stanacheck. It’s kind of hard to explain what happens here but I’ll try. Alison ends up having to quit her job after Eric buys the club and makes sexual advances on her. Roman continues to pursue Alison and the two of them eventually pretend to date in order to garner publicity and create a name for Alison. The duo eventually finds out that they do care for each other which is really cliché but oh well. Roman decides to make a movie that stars Alison and himself. Anti mutant hysteria continues to rise, so much so that Ororo calls up Alison and offers to let her come stay with the X-men so she can stay safe but she refuses. Roman decides to reveal to the world that Alison is a mutant (a fact he just recently found out himself) so it would help generate publicity and bring in more money. There’s a new aspect to Alison’s powers, originally she needed to hear sound in order to transmute it into light but now she can also apparently store up sound as well. It turns out that the person financing the movie is none other than Eric who as it turns out orchestrated this entire series of events just to get Roman on contract and to ruin Alison’s life because she turned down his sexual advances. So by the time all is said and done the movie doesn’t get released because Alison destroys the only copy left because she refuses to be Eric’s ‘slave’ (for lack of a better word) and leaving her alone in a world in which she can no longer hide. I wanted this story to be a lot better than it was, but at the same time it wasn’t bad – even with all the clichés.

The Uncanny X-Men #190 – An Age Undreamed Of

The Uncanny X-Men #191 – Raiders of the Lost Temple!

Yeah I don’t really know where to start with this one. Kulan Gath has transformed all of New York into a barbarian era and has essentially brainwashed everyone. It turns out that he has clashed with Selene in the past and she gathers the X-Men, a few Avengers, Callisto and Amara and Illyana to storm Kulan Gath’s palace to stop him. Since the way to fix this is a form of mystical time travel – thanks to Doctor Strange and Illyana it’s hard to tell who really died because the events end up never having happened. I do like that we get the continuation of Selene trying to make Amara and Rachel her slaves, and I’m glad that Charles FINALLY spoke to Doctor Strange about Illyana and I enjoyed the interaction between Ororo and Callisto. Overall though – I’m not really a fan of this story. It seems random and out of place and like it was a very large event that had already been plotted out and then they pulled the idea but had to use a condensed version of it for two filler issues. The big thing here obviously is the fact that we get the first appearance of Nimrod and he’s been a staple in the X-Men mythos for some time now. I guess aside form the book time devoted to Illyana that was the saving grace. I never have read the first few sets of Nimrod storylines so I never fully understood why all of the mutants seem to be more afraid of him/it than all the other villains combined so it will be nice to see if after reading those stories I still think he’s really overrated.

The New Mutants #22 – The Shadow Within: B

The Uncanny X-Men #189 – Two Girls Out To Have Fun: B

The New Mutants #23 – Shadowman: B

The New Mutants #24 – The Hollow Heart: B

The New Mutants #25 – The Only Thing To Fear…: B

Marvel Graphic Novel #12 – Dazzler the Movie: B+

The Uncanny X-Men #190 – An Age Undreamed Of: D

The Uncanny X-Men #191 – Raiders of the Lost Temple!: D