Chronological X-Men - Secret Wars II/X-Men-Alpha Flight Part 2 Review

Secret Wars II (part 2)/X-Men & Alpha Flight

The Uncanny X-Men #196 – What Was That?!

The bulk of this issue revolves around Charles overhearing a random thought about one of his students plotting to murder someone. It’s a plot that has been used many times and I’m pretty much over it. I would say that there’s an interesting twist when it comes to the intended murder victim actually being Charles himself but I pretty much saw that coming by the second page. The three subplots that run through the story are more interesting. Andrea and Andreas von Strucker take their revenge on Ororo by shooting her and leaving her for dead in the wild – for me that was the weakest of the three subplots but it was still enjoyable. I liked Kurt going to Father Bowen to talk about his crisis of faith and Rachel giving in to her hunter/tracker ways from her future timeline could have been expanded on more but oh well. I get the feeling that this is one of those issues where the writer had no idea where they were going with the plot so they just did all of the things that came to mind.

The Uncanny X-Men #197 – To Save Arcade?!?

Another filler issue here but this one was kind of enjoyable. We make some progress in the Nimrod plot and we start to see the beginnings of the rift between Scott and Madelyne when he returns home to check on Charles who is now letting Magneto run the school. It’s not a rift per-say but considering the future events and plots that drive Madelyne’s character it’s pretty obvious that this is where the cracks start to form. The main plot about Piotr and Kitty getting taken by Arcade was fun, honestly I didn’t see the fact that the person taking ‘revenge’ on Arcade wasn’t Doctor Doom at all but really Miss Locke and that it was just their tradition of Miss Locke trying to murder Arcade for his birthday. We get the explanation that the last time the X-Men fought Doctor Doom it was really a Doom-bot but that wasn’t needed for the plot of either of these two stories. The one thing I’m not sure of is how did Arcade know about Zsaji? Does Arcade have some sort of device that can tap into the people in Murderworld’s minds and pull out their fears, or did Arcade somehow learn about what happened the first time the Beyonder surfaced?

The Uncanny X-Men #198 – Lifedeath – From The Heart Of Darkness

Ororo is left fighting for her life after being shot in the head two issues ago. I thought the first time they did Lifedeath it was over hyped and I still feel this way with the second part of it. However it is a nice conclusion to how Ororo’s storyline started when she basically wanted to die than live without her powers and now she’s on the brink of death and she’s fighting for her life because she wants to live. Retrospectively it’s a decent story but deep down I wish that Shani, the pregnant woman that Ororo helps and Mjnari, the head of Shani’s village that now must die because there’s no room for him and the baby were also figments of Ororo’s mind like the hallucinations she had of the X-Men and Forge. I think the entire time I was just assuming that they were since Ororo was having difficulty getting around but no where near enough difficulty considering she had just been shot in her head.

X-Men/Alpha Flight #1 – The Gift I

X-Men/Alpha Flight #2 – The Gift II

There’s a whole lot of characters here in this mini series and that makes me glad that each of the two issues were ‘giant-sixed.’ For the X-Men we’ve got: Colossus, Nightcrawler, Professor Xavier, Rachel, Rogue, Wolverine, Shadowcat and Lockheed; Magik and Cypher (Doug) make a cameo which gives us two of the New Mutants; Scott and Madelyne are taking a flight with Carla Ballenger, Dr. Jeanne Chretien, Paul Domenic, Jaques Moreau, Sam Ross, Dr. Boyd Wilson and Nick Rodriguez and finally with Alpha Flight we have: Heather Hudson, Aurora/Jeanne-Marie, Northstar, Puck, Sasquatch, Shaman, Snowbird and Talisman. And none of that counts Loki, ‘Those who sit above in shadow,’ or the Snow Giants. It doesn’t really help either that basically everyone on Scott and Madelyne’s plane become different characters. The whole plot of the series is Loki trying to gain favor and is told he must do something that makes humanity better so he creates an area that elevates everyone to pretty much the status of ‘gods’ and gives them abilities based on their hearts desires. The only consequence is in order to do this all of the magic based beings are dying because Loki’s power is feeding off of them. There was one thing that really didn’t make sense to me and that was Piotr’s actions once he learned about this ‘new world’ killing off all of the magical people on Earth. I know that he’s from a very poor area of Russia and his family really had to struggle and that honestly he might not care too much about Snowbird or Shaman, but he still sides with the ‘new world’ knowing that it could very well mean the death of his sister (and other people he knows, interacts with and cares about.) The biggest reveal here is of course the fact that Madelyne is pregnant and with a boy; I do wish that we had the chance to see more of Rachel’s freak out over that. The scene at the end with Scott and Rachel is a nice touch but I really wanted just one little throw away scene with Rachel and Madelyne and Madelyne saying how much Rachel looks like she did ‘growing up.’

The Uncanny X-Men #196 – What Was That?!: C

The Uncanny X-Men #197 – To Save Arcade?!?: B

The Uncanny X-Men #198 – Lifedeath – From The Heart Of Darkness: B-

X-Men/Alpha Flight #1 – The Gift I: A

X-Men/Alpha Flight #2 – The Gift II: A

Chronological X-Men - Wolverine Part 2 Review

Wolverine! (or Attack of the Bridzilla!)

The Uncanny X-Men #174 – Romances

The Uncanny X-Men #175 – Phoenix

The first half of this story feels very much like filler but I don’t really mind it as much as I normally would. Logan is still in Japan trying to make sense of why Mariko called off the wedding before he returns back home to the X-Men. Scott is up on the Starjammer with Madelyne and his father where he proposes to Madelyne and Corsair makes an offer for Scott to join the Starjammers and remain in space with him. Lilandra is also on board the Starjammer ready to return to the Shi’ar Empire to overthrow her evil sister Deathbird. We find out that Charles is still having difficulty walking and is onboard the Starjammer getting examined. Ororo’s extreme makeover goes past her physical appearance and has decided to get rid of every single one of her plants in her attic/bedroom; Kitty gets bored reading Star Wars comics and ends up practicing phasing another living person with her and makes her big move on Piotr. Kurt takes care of a recovering Rogue and they sort of bond when Kurt tells her all about Jean. Scott asks if Madelyne is the reincarnation of Jean and she decks him right before transforming into Dark Phoenix. The story concludes in a double sized issue where we learn that Mastermind has been pulling everyone’s strings for the past few months. He has slowly recovered from what Jean had done to him and has plotted revenge on all of the X-Men and has used the fact that Madelyne is a dead ringer for Jean for his advantage. Eventually the X-Men manage to defeat Mastermind although it almost costs Madelyne her life but in the end all is good and Scott and Madelyne end up getting married.  There were a few interesting things here Kitty reading the Star Wars comic was kind of funny, but I don’t really find it ‘interesting’ the really odd thing is given everything I know about Madelyne who the heck was it walking her down the aisle? My only real problem with this entire story was how rushed everything with Scott and Madelyne was – and I know it was done that way on purpose but it doesn’t make it any easier for me to swallow.

The Uncanny X-Men #176 – Decisions

I could have done without this particular issue. I didn’t really need to see Scott and Madelyne on their honeymoon. Even the attempt to spice it up by the duo outrunning a massive storm, Scott almost getting eaten by a shark, and Madelyne and Scott fighting against a giant octopus all while their plan can’t start didn’t really make it more interesting. There’s nothing wrong with the story, and usually the first story coming off of a major issue number (1,25,50,75,100…etc) is a slow one so I can’t blame it on that because it’s something that happens with almost every series ever done. The subplots running through it were okay, but also kind of boring. Logan and Mariko came to an understanding that the two of them cannot be together until Markio separates her family from all illegal activities and severs any ties to the Yakuza. There must be something major coming in with the Morlocks because it seemed really random to just have Caliban show up and it be revealed that he’s sort of in love with Kitty and how Callisto is going to use that to her advantage. We do get two new bits of information – Caliban, Callisto, Masque and Sunder were the ones who created the Morlocks and we also get the first appearance of Valerie Cooper. The only thing I really liked about this issue was the start of the plot for the US Government to create a team of mutants to combat any mutant teams that might be created by other governments.

The Uncanny X-Men #177 – Sanction

The Uncanny X-Men #178 – Hell Hath No Fury …

The Uncanny X-Men #179 – What Happened To Kitty?

Okay this next story is good, but it’s kind of all over the place. First we learn that Mystique has hired Arcade so she can train in Murderworld so she’ll be prepared to kill the X-Men and if need be Rogue. Raven has some hesitation about killing Kurt and throughout this storyline Destiny goes out of her way to keep any of the Brotherhood from seriously hurting Kurt. Kitty and Piotr continue their pseudo relationship and Piotr is a little bit too jealous of Kitty’s friendship with Doug Ramsey - he’s already appeared but I just haven’t gotten to reading the issue within the time line yet. The Starjammer returns to space with its crew and Lilandra leaving Scott, Madelyne, Alex and Charles on Earth. Charles continues to be sporadically mind-probed (so I’m guessing it had nothing to do with Mastermind), and Kitty is still really upset by the recent change in Ororo – which this isn’t something I understand either. We get the first appearances of the Morlocks Jo and Leech, and we also get the first time we see Amanda fight with team. Obviously Margali is more experienced than her daughter Amanda but apparently there are spells that can cause someone’s death instantly and Amanda was never taught them. The plot switches between the Brotherhood plotline and the Morlock plotline which is alright I guess but I felt it was odd to have all the action be in the first half of the story and the final part be the slow paced one. Mystique gets into a stand off with the X-Men and makes a deal that if they let the Brotherhood go she won’t kill Xavier (she had already shot him once by this point) all while Kitty breaks into the Baxter Building to steal a device from Reed Richards that can help save Colossus’ life. Ultimately Piotr is saved by Rogue (proving her place on the team to Ororo) and the help of a Morlock healer. Kitty is a little busy now, what with being kidnapped by Callisto and having an exact double of her be found dead at the base of the Baxter Building. Now the odd thing here is that when they go to identify Kitty’s corpse Ororo says that kitty is only fourteen – now the problem with this is that Kitty joined the team when she was 13 ½ and she has had no less than two birthdays since she has joined the team. So she should be fifteen, on top of that Illyana is supposed to be 14 (she was seven when she was abducted and lived seven years in Limbo) and Kitty is supposed to be older than her – plus Piotr is eighteen (he should be older but he had to be gradually de-aged so it would lessen the ick factor of his romance with Kitty. I get that they had to change the ages around for their relationship to work, but what’s the point of rapidly aging Kitty only to suddenly make her younger just to add shock value to her ‘death?’ The next thing isn’t so much odd as it is an overuse of plot. First we get Callisto trying to marry Warren, then Mariko’s marriage to whatshisname, then her non wedding to Logan, then Madelyne and Scott’s wedding and now we get Kitty and Calliban’s almost wedding. That’s a total of 5 and it breaks down to 3 near weddings, 1 badly ended marriage and one actual wedding over the past two storylines. Am I reading a comic about superheroes that everyone hates who randomly travel to space and get possessed by various things and sporadically die multiple times only to come back to life or am I reading a soap opera? Okay the random non-death deaths and suddenly showing up identical doubles to long dead characters is kind of soap opera-y too… but I really don’t want to read a wedding issue every 3 issues.

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #7 – Scavenger Hunt

So this is everything an annual is supposed to be – a story that contains little to no connection to the actual story going on at the time yet gives subtle nods to current events without having the main books ruled by the annual. We do learn that it was Mastermind who had caused Emma’s catatonic state, but I don’t get when if everything he had done was reversed why Emma is still out of it. We also get some mentions of bad blood between Rogue (back in her Brotherhood days) and the Inner Circle. I find this odd because there have always been nods to this big feud between them; first Mastermind tormenting Mystique (and that makes Mastermind’s vendetta with Emma even more odd since she has so far been loyal to the Inner Circle) and now Shaw  talking about how much he hates Rogue. It’s odd knowing that this story never gets told. I know it’s odd that I’m focusing on those things so much but the main plot is just too random and off the wall for me. Basically the X-Men are having yet another baseball game only to be stopped by The Impossible Man (posing as Galactus) who steals the mansion and then the team hunts him running into different characters as they go along (Nick Fury, Ka-Zar, The Inner Circle, The Avengers, etc) because he is collecting things for a scavenger hunt his family is having. But hey… at least there’s no wedding in this one.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4 – Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself…!

I skipped out on the first three issues of this mini series simply because Wanda and Pietro are Avengers characters at this point (much like Hank is) and it isn’t really required to get into every single thing that happens to them that isn’t ‘x-book’ related. However I did choose to include the final issue of this series not only because it has Wanda, Pietro and Magneto in it, but it is the first time that the twins become aware of the fact that Magneto is their father. The fact that I didn’t have any idea what was going on with the first three issues didn’t end up taking away from the reading experience. What did detract from the story was the fact that the dialogue seemed too proper. The other thing that might have bothered me was the retcon that Magneto had used his abilities to fight the Nazis during the war, but they’ve already retconned Magneto’s past like three times already so it doesn’t bother me too much.

Daredevil #196 – Enemies

There was a four part story in Daredevil that began with this issue but I’m only covering the first part of the story. I did read the entire story and it was good but for some reason the writer decided to include Wolverine in the first issue and only the first issue – which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever for two reasons. First Daredevil has followed a crippled Bullseye to Japan in order to keep Dark Wind (his first appearance) from restoring his body and setting him back loose into the world. Now this is odd that Logan exited the storyline before anyone even arrived in Japan. It would have made sense to keep him around, especially after all that’s recently gone down between Logan and Mariko, and it gets even more odd when we find out that Dark Wind does have connections to the Yakuza and Mariko is currently trying to get her family clan out from their connections with the Japanese Mafia. The other odd thing is that Logan states that he is tracking Bullseye because he wants to find out if the person who is going to lace his skeleton with metal is connected to whoever augmented Logan’s own body with adamantium – yet once again Logan leaves the story before Bullseye even undergoes the bonding process.

The Uncanny X-Men #174 – Romances: B

The Uncanny X-Men #175 – Phoenix: A-

The Uncanny X-Men #176 – Decisions: C

The Uncanny X-Men #177 – Sanction: A

The Uncanny X-Men #178 – Hell Hath No Fury …: B

The Uncanny X-Men #179 – What Happened To Kitty?: C

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #7 – Scavenger Hunt: F

Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4 – Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself…!: B

Daredevil #196 – Enemies: B

Chronological X-Men - Days of Future Past Part 2 Review

Days of Future Past.

The Uncanny X-Men #143 - Demon

The first part of this issue deals with flashbacks from Uncanny X-Men #96 when the N’garai first appeared and attacked the X-Men. It’s Christmas time at the mansion and everyone has plans but Kitty. Logan is spending time with Mariko Yashida and the rest all have plans of their own – the plans apparently are to surprise Kitty with a visit from her parents as a Chanukah present. Kitty is left at the mansion alone and soon discovers that Storm’s room has been trashed and all of Ororo’s plants are dead. Not long after that she is attacked by one of the N’garai and spends the entire night desperately trying to survive. The demon is smarter than she thinks and can actually keep in step with the young genius; eventually Kitty ends up destroying the demon with the jets from the Blackbird jet – but not after totally destroying the Danger Room, breaking the jet, and leaving the mansion not better off. We do see a little bit of what Scott has been up to, he’s now down in Florida and joins Aleytis “Lee” Forrester (this is the first time she’s in an X-book) and is interested in spending some working with her crew. Personally I liked the issue; it was a nice little stand alone that didn’t really suffer for being a stand alone story. Plus it’s a nice little start to a trial by fire trend of a ‘new’ X-Man having to fight the N’garai.

The Uncanny X-Men #144 – Even In Death …

This issue is a little odd, not so much that it focuses mostly on Scott, but because it just feels odd for me. We see Jock Forrester (Lee’s father) who is having difficulty dealing with the fact that he has cancer and ends up killing himself. It could be just that it struck me as shocking that they showed someone blowing their brains out (not that they showed the bullet entering or exiting, but still) back in the early 80s. This was published before I was born but like other issues of this era I originally read when I was like 5-6, it would have been pretty shocking for me to have seen this then. The rest of the issue is devoted to Lee and Scott battling D’Spayre (first time we see him here) who has assumed the form of Jock and is feeding off of everyone’s tormented mindset. Scott is soon joined by Man-Thing (again, first time we’ve seen him here. Given the fact that D’Spayre can alter people’s perceptions of reality, and that Scott was only a child when it happened it’s hard to tell if they made a mistake by calling Scott and Alex’s mother ‘Anne’ – I don’t know what to make of it because a few panels later they call her ‘Katherine Anne.’

The Uncanny X-Men #145 – Kidnapped!

The Uncanny X-Men #146 – Murderworld!

The Uncanny X-Men #147 – Rogue Storm!

We’ve got a lot going on here so I’ll just start with what we’re dealing with here. Kitty is suffering from a fever which forces her to give her ticket to the ballet to Ororo which forces her to go with Stevie Hunter. I’m still not exactly sure why Ororo doesn’t like Stevie, I’dl ike there to be some real reason and this is all slowly building up to a big reveal but I’m not getting my hopes up – especially since Ororo has been written quite oddly over since around the time that Jean died. Miss Locke ambushes Ororo and Stevie forcing Ororo to use her mutant abilities in front of Stevie. Miss Locke tells them that Arcade has been taken by Dr. Doom and as a result she has kidnapped all of the X-Men’s loved ones to force them into freeing Arcade for her. Between Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers they manage to kidnap Stevie, Moira, John and Elaine Grey, Amanda Sefton, Candy Southern and Illyana Rasputin and are holding them captive in Murderworld. Charles reaches out to former X-Men: Sean, Lorna, Alex and Bobby and recruits them to go to Murderworld to try to free the X-Men’s loved ones while Ororo, Logan, Warren, Kurt and Piotr try to free Arcade from Doom. Charles tries to reach out to Scott but he can’t contact him, Charles suspects that Magneto is somehow involved. Doom captures Kurt, Logan and Piotr and intends to test the limits of their powers and he turns Ororo into a living metallic statue. This doesn’t go over too well with Ororo and her claustrophobia and a massive storm begins to brew outside – the storm is so large that Scott and Lee’s ship gets capsized and the two of them wash up on an island. Scott ends up unable to contain his powers and Lee sees them for the first time. There are a few things about this story which seem a bit off. How was Amanda captured? She would be the hardest to take out of the bunch considering her magical powers. Why is Lorna no longer struggling with her powers? Before the strength level seemed to fluctuate a lot, now she’s having no problems with them… did she learn to use them on her own or does the Shi-ar costume (that she wore when Eric the Red brainwashed her) she is still wearing have anything to do with it? If Scott’s eyebeams are so powerful that only his ruby quartz glasses/visor can contain his powers how the hell does a cloth blindfold keep them at bay? Why does the spelling of Lee’s name change every issue (when they were both written by the same writer) from Aleytys to Aleytis? There are just a lot of unanswered questions and mistakes that make this storyline as a whole a bit odd. I'm sure if you look at these three issues and read them alone that it would be a better story, but it's hard to look at everything else that was going on at that time with the X-Men (and how for example almost at the same time Doom was off battling Dazzler in her own book) without it detracting from the story.

Dazzler #5 – Tell Joey I Love Him!

Alison finally wakes up in the hospital after being injured in her recent battle with Doom. We do see her supporting cast: Harry, Lancelot, Cassandra; we get more ‘guest stars’ with the inclusion of Beast and Johnny Storm (we sort of get Ali’s father Carter, Enchantress, Doom and Nightmare, but this happens when Alison is dreaming so it doesn’t really count;) and finally we get a few new characters: Dr. Paul Jansen – who treats Alison’s injuries and the two end up going out for brunch afterwards, Mrs. Cartelli who is a patient sharing a room with Alison, Joey Cartelli – the Blue Shield (his first appearance), Bo Barrigan and his henchmen. The hard thing about this issue was that it’s both equally good and bad. I loved how they write Alison this issue and the plot in general – but I really didn’t need to have scenes with Nurse Collins judging Alison and looking down on her because she’s an artist, or scenes where she talks about how she disapproves of Alison’s make up, or how at the end of the issue she didn’t approve of Alison dating Paul. It kind of felt like someone was writing Veronica from the Archie comics and she was judging Betty who was trying to be a superhero. It is just odd, but the battle and action scenes, and Alison trying to reconnect Joey with his dying mother were all good.

The Uncanny X-Men #143 – Demon: A

The Uncanny X-Men #144 – Even In Death …: C

The Uncanny X-Men #145 – Kidnapped!: B

The Uncanny X-Men #146 – Murderworld!: A

The Uncanny X-Men #147 – Rogue Storm!: B

Dazzler #5 – Tell Joey I Love Him!: B

Chronological X-Men - Proteus Part 1 Review

Proteus.

The Uncanny X-Men #125 There’s Something Awful on Muir Island

Classic X-Men #31 Spigot At The End of The Universe

I’ll start with the back up feature here. It’s one of those stories that could either fit within the pages of the main issue, or it could happen either before or after the current storyline. Charles isn’t fitting in too well on Lilandra’s homeworld and it’s making him restless. Lilandra suggests that he spends time with Chakra the Shi-ar’s plumber. It’s a little odd because Charles who always boasts about equality and treating people the same but now he’s acting like being a plumber is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. It was kind of a middle ground story, not good, not bad yet it still holds potential to be read again. The main story is pretty good but clearly some time has passed. Beast visits the mansion and is surprised to run into all of the X-Men that he thought were dead, Sean is still suffering from the damage to his throat and decides to leave the team at least until his powers return. Lilandra is dealing with issues in the Shi-ar galaxy and Charles is suffering homesickness and is basically still moping around about not being treated fairly among Lilandra’s court. All that changes when he sees how Jean saved the universe, she’s so powerful now that it actually scares him enough into feeling like he needs to return to Earth. Mastermind reveals that he is officially working for the Hellfire Club and wants to turn Jean into his Black Queen – we also see through a series of flashbacks how Mastermind has been working his way into Jean’s life over the past few months, a lot of this is explained in recent back up stories of ‘Classic.’ Magneto still recovering from his battle with the X-Men on Asteroid M and is severely missing his wife Magda. The two major things that happen are Moira discovers that there is something wrong behind the door marked ‘Mutant X,’ which will lead us into our current story. The second thing is Jean appears to be spending time in another life where she was a noble woman – the first flash lasts just long enough for Jean to succumb to an ambush. Jamie and Alex go to investigate but Lorna decides to answer the phone in case it’s Charles, Hank or the Avengers calling because she thinks that they’ll need whoever it is help taking down whoever was strong enough to scare Phoenix like that. It turns out to be the X-Men and Lorna is ambushed while talking to Scott.

The Uncanny X-Men #126 How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth…!

Classic X-Men #32 Shreds of Humanity

The X-Men arrive on Muir Island to a brief confrontation because Alex doesn’t know the X-Men are really alive. Jean is still having flashbacks of another life, only they are getting progressively worse. This time she’s with her husband (Mastermind) and for sport they are hunting a human – thankfully she snaps out of it before she actually has to kill the man. Jamie creates a large amount of dupes in order to search the island faster only one of them becomes possessed by Mutant X who is jumping from body to body draining them of their lives leaving nothing more of them than a mummified corpse when he jumps to the next body. We learn that Mutant X is in fact Moira’s son, which I guess could explain why she abruptly cut things off with Charles in the past. Given that Mutant X essentially kills everyone he possesses and he has taken one of Jamie’s dupes this is the first time Jamie actually ‘dies.’ The back up feature for this issue takes place in the middle of the battle between Logan, Kurt and Mutant X (now possessing a cop) who has decided to take the name Proteus. It focuses on Proteus’ using his reality warping ability to basically torture Logan and take advantage of how Logan relies on his healing factor so much so that he has gotten to the point where he enjoys being hurt. I really wasn’t feeling the art here, but considering it is supposed to be sort of like a dreamscape I can ignore it. This is one of the few times the weird art style actually works for the story, but I've noticed recently the quality of the art in relation to the actual story being presented is starting to decline, and that's not something that I'm loving.

The Uncanny X-Men #127 The Quality of Hatred!

Classic X-Men #33 So Good It Hurts

The back up story here takes place shortly after the X-Men split up last issue (so before the battle between Logan, Kurt, Ororo and Proteus.) Alex and Lorna are looking for Moira’s son but Alex keeps getting pulled into these visions of a darker world where both he and Lorna are getting hurt. He claims that this is because of how afraid he is of the fact that if he and Lorna ever go back to the X-Men that they will die, and then he switches to this idea that he can’t separate the feelings of how if their relationship ends it’s like death for him. Personally I think that Alex is just too close to Proteus and has succumbed to his reality altering powers than Alex having panic attacks and creating this whole dark world all on his own. It’s easier for me to just over look the fact that Alex and Proteus haven’t had any contact yet than it is to accept that Alex is doing this all on his own. This is the first time we see Joe Mactaggert – Moira’s husband and father of their son Kevin (Proteus.) I’m not sure I’ve got the time line right but it seems that Joe and Moira were together (it turns out he’s a real abusive little man,) she goes to the states and meets and falls in love with Charles. Charles gets drafted and Moira tries to get a divorce from her husband only he doesn’t go along with it and soon after Charles has left she discovers that she is pregnant. Knowing that it can’t be Charles she decides to end their engagement in the Dear John letter she wrote him and then went back to Muir Island to raise Joe’s baby. Anyway, enough exposition… Moira goes to warn Joe, it doesn’t go well and Proteus ends up possessing his father and threatens to kill Moira if the X-Men choose to follow them.

The Uncanny X-Men #128 The Action of the Tiger!

Classic X-Men #34 Double Negative

This issue ends the main storyline here. Joe is dead because Kevin possessed him. The X-Men struggle through a heated battle, which isn’t going well considering every time Proteus uses his powers he grows stronger. It doesn’t make it any easier considering that all of the X-Men that aren’t metal based (metal is the only thing that can hurt or even kill Kevin.) The X-Men work to force Kevin to use up Joe’s body faster than he normally would, one by one the X-Men use their abilities on him until the only one left is Piotr. By this point Kevin is without a body, desperate and near death he tries to take possession of Piotr only to be surprised when he transforms into Colossus. By this point Kevin is so badly damaged that one punch actually managed to kill him. This is a big thing because for the first time a villain doesn’t die as a result of his own actions but instead is essentially killed by the X-Men. Granted with a villain that can kill anyone he comes within physical contact with there are very few ways that he can be dealt with but it’s still a shock because it’s something totally different than Logan using his claws to kill some random henchman. The backup story shows a typical night at the Hellfire Club and the members of its Inner Circle. Emma and Jason engage in a game of chess on the astral plane, the two of them are so evenly matched that the only way to end the game is with both of their ‘deaths.’ I don’t really care for the server girl and Emma’s talk with her about sexism.. it wasn’t really needed – I would much rather have had them spend those pages showing us more of Emma and Jason’s duel.

Marvel Team-Up #89 Shoot Out Over Center Ring

This time Kurt and Spider-Man team up. Nothing real spectacular here, Kurt meets Amanda at the airport and the encounter Miss Locke near one of Arcade’s private jets. They stow away in the trunk of the man that was meeting Miss Locke and find out that he has hired someone to murder Spider-Man. It turns out that all of this leads back to the circus and Kurt pretends to be Spider-Man to draw out the shooter. Umm okay the issue was good, but there were too many weird things that started to add up. Kurt was taken in by the circus and was sort of raised as Amanda’s foster sister, yet none of this is revealed yet – this could just be a case of me knowing too much too soon so I can over look that. But then it gets worse when Kurt runs into the man who was running the circus he was a part of, the guy remembers Kurt but makes no mention of knowing Amanda. So it seems to me that eventually Kurt and Amanda knowing each other as children and being raised together will be a retcon the writers will deal with later on. This was a good issue, but it would have been a lot better if I didn’t know about Amanda’s future events.

The Uncanny X-Men #125 There’s Something Awful on Muir Island: A

Classic X-Men #31Spigot At The End of The Universe: C

The Uncanny X-Men #126 How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth…!: A

Classic X-Men #32 Shreds of Humanity: B

The Uncanny X-Men #127 The Quality of Hatred!: A

Classic X-Men #33 So Good It Hurts: F

The Uncanny X-Men #128 The Action of the Tiger!: A

Classic X-Men #34 Double Negative: B

Marvel Team-Up #89 Shoot Out Over Center Ring: C

Chronological X-Men - Murderworld Review

Murderworld – or just how deadly a game of extreme pinball can be.

The Uncanny X-Men #122 Cry For The Children

Classic X-Men #28 Who Am I?

I’ll start yet again with the back up feature because it doesn’t fit within the main storyline at all. Jean and the X-Men are interacting so it’s at a point where they all know each other are actually alive so that places it in the future. It doesn’t help that a few issues ago it was Christmas Eve and now suddenly its Halloween so almost an entire year has passed over just a handful of issues. I like the idea of Kurt being into Halloween because he can actually be himself for once, but other than that the whole thing was a mess. It just threw together as many Halloween clichés as possible and that really hurt it; still though it wasn’t anywhere nearly as bad as most of the recent back up features have been though. The main issue shows us the first X-Book appearances of Arcade, Miss Locke and Luke Cage. Logan begins to court Mariko Yashida so we see the start of that relationship. Jean, Moira, Lorna, Alex and Jamie are one step closer to Muir Isle. Jean runs into Jason Wyngarde (who is really Mastermind) as he begins his subtle manipulation of her. He doesn’t really ‘begin’ seeing as how this started in the additional pages and back up features of previous ‘Classics’ issues. Scott and Colleen are sort of dating I guess and Ororo goes back to her parents home in Harlem only to find that it has been turned into a crack house and is attacked by the teens there and is saved by Luke Cage and Misty Knight. One thing I don’t like is the fact that Misty used to live with Jean and she is really tight with Colleen, doesn’t either of them know that Jean is actually alive? If they do shouldn’t they tell Scott, or if they don’t know shouldn’t Misty be affected by the death of her friend? The issue ends with Black Tom and Juggernaut hiring Arcade to take down the X-Men. I think I’d like this issue more if they actually idd something with the drugged teens instead of just using them to shock Ororo with how drasticly different things are from what she is used to.

The Uncanny X-Men #123 Listen – Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before, But This One Will Kill You!

Classic X-Men #29 Motherland

Well this issue we see the return of Colleen Wing (although she’s been around a lot lately, so it’s almost like she’s a part of the book), Mariko Yashida, Amanda Sefton, Betsy Wilford, Arcade, Spider-Man and Miss Locke. Mr. Chambers and Colonel Alexei Vazhin appear for the first time, for Chambers it is the first time in the book, for Vazhin it’s the first time at all.  This issue shows Mr. Chambers, Miss Locke and Arcade picking off the X-Men one by one – and in the process kidnapping Colleen, Amanda and Betsy. Spider-Man tries to help, but that doesn’t end well and Arcade manages to brainwash Piotr into thinking he has betrayed his homeland and is a traitor because he works with the X-Men, which causes Colossus to temporarily take on the name ‘The Proletariat’ while he is brainwashed. The back up feature actually works best if you look at it as how Arcade brainwashed Piotr instead of a seprate trip to Russia where his entire town considers him to be a traitor.

The Uncanny X-Men #124 He Only laughs When I Hurt

Classic X-Men #30 Play With Me

This issue concludes the main Murderworld arch. The X-Men help Piotr overcome his brainwashing and make him realize that he is truly among his family with the X-Men. It’s clear that Amanda knows about Kurt before this point, but now we know for sure that Betsy knows about Kurt and Piotr being mutants as well. I don’t know if it is just because there was so much going on with this story that they couldn’t devote the time to showing Betsy freak out about learning the truth or if she actually knew about this before hand. We see in a brief flashback the first X-Book appearance of Captain Britain and a little recap of when he and Spider-Man were in Murderworld. One thing I found out was Miss Locke’s comment about having ‘taken care’ of the girls. I mean at the end of them they are clearly alive, so did Miss Locke set them free and lie to Arcade- are we seeing the beginning of a rift here- or did she put them in a place that would lead to their deaths and lived up to her partner’s game rules by giving them a chance to escape on their own? The back up feature could be before this storyline, during or even after but we do gain some insight into how Arcade’s mind works because the whole issue is about his nightmares and what it was like growing up with his father. We see how Arcade killed his father and ultimately we learn that he himself is trapped in Murderworld, and to make matters even worse he programmed this game himself, so on some level he’s either fighting or punishing himself for his actions.

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #3 A Fire In The Sky

This was a fun little story even though the current events spin out of something that happened previously in another book, but I think that added with the fact that there are a bunch of characters and things happening made me pay closer attention to the story. Basically Arkon arrives on Earth yet again to seek the Avenger’s help save his world from being destroyed. By this point though Thor has left the Avengers and the rest of the active team aren’t around so that leads him to the X-Men and in particular Ororo. A huge battle happens ending with Storm being zapped by one of Arkon’s bolts which transports her to his homeworld. The X-Men overpower Arkon and use his bolts to transport all of them, except for Sean to wherever Storm ended up. We see more battles, this time it’s the X-Men against an entire army. Kurt looks for Storm who is more than willing to give her life in order to save an entire world. We learn exactly why the world is being plunged into darkness and this leads the X-Men to come up with a plan that won’t involve Ororo basically committing suicide. Colossus is going to act as a grounding material to amplify Storm’s powers that she is building up and then shoots Scott to power up his optic charge and he then uses his powers to repower the machine that keeps the planet going. I could actually see myself reading this issue again, not just once, but multiple times.

The Uncanny X-Men #122 Cry For The Children: B

Classic X-Men #28 Who Am I?: D

The Uncanny X-Men #123 Listen – Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before, But This One Will Kill You!: A

Classic X-Men #29 Motherland: B

The Uncanny X-Men #124 He Only laughs When I Hurt: A

Classic X-Men #30 Play With Me: B

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #3 A Fire In The Sky: A

Chronological X-Men - The Phoenix Saga Part 2 Review

The Phoenix Saga!

Marvel Team-Up #53 Nightmare in New Mexico

Marvel Tales #262 Nightmare in New Mexico

This story takes place right after the events of Marvel Team-Up Annual #1, the X-Men and Spiderman are on their way back to New York after dealing with their recent battle only to have find out that The Hulk is fighting Woodgod in The Dead Zone. Charles and Phoenix are too weak to take part in the battle so they head back to the Xavier Institute leaving Banshee to help deliver Spiderman to the battle. It is a little odd that Banshee just drops Spiderman off and then leaves, but I guess that’s good considering it means I don’t have to follow the Hulk plot. Meanwhile the X-Men are shot down by the mysterious Sunstroke of the Desert Dwellers. It’s an all out smash up battle between the X-Men (sans Banshee who is traveling back to them as this is happening, Charles who is still too weak from recent events and Jean who only lasts a few moments before tapping into the power of Phoenix drains her) and at first Sunstroke but he is later joined by Cactus and Butte. Banshee shows up and basically saves the day before Gila the final member of the Desert Dwellers shows up. When all is said and done the X-Men continue to head for home while the Desert Dwellers wait for their master to summon them again.

Iron Fist #15 Enter, The X-Men

Hey it’s a party at a recently dead but not dead girl’s house! The X-Men are now back in town, only recently have landed which is obvious I guess because of the fact that Logan is still wearing Fang’s costume – although this makes no sense when you think about how in Marvel Team-Up he’s back to his regular costume. The X-Men want to celebrate having lived through the recent events out in the middle of the Shi-ar Empire’s homeworld. Of course there’s some misunderstandings when Iron Fist shows up at his friend Misty’s apartment at roughly the same time as Wolverine and each of them think the other is after their respective friends. Soon Kurt and Piotr show up and join the battle. Next to enter the fight is Storm, for quite possibly the most ridiculous reason of all… a plate of potato/egg salad falls on her face. Things are finally worked out and Iron Fist joins Jean’s party just in time to save her from being evicted from her apartment due to all the recent damage. It’s a fun little issue but honestly considering this was the last issue of Iron Fist it was a let down- so many dangling plots and unresolved issues- I can imagine how hard it would have been to swallow for someone who was actually a fan of the book and it’s characters.

The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 At the Sign of the Lion

This is just a standard reprint here of Wolverine’s first appearance. There’s nothing new to cover which is good because I did say that I probably wouldn’t ever re-read this particular story. The new feature is okay for what it is. Logan is itching for some action – I guess the freedom he experienced while battling D’Ken and the Imperial Guard got to him now that he has to show restraint now that he’s back on Earth. It doesn’t take Logan long to find some action because as soon as Hercules shows up at the same bar the two of them get into a huge bar brawl. It was kind of fun to see how ticked off Logan got when Hercules kept taunting him about his height. Eventually the two of them decide that they’re wasting their time and start drinking again. I actually liked this issue, it wasn’t strong enough for it to have been stretched out into a full length storyline, but for what it was it was really good.

Marvel Team-Up #65 Introducing, Captain Britain

Marvel Team-Up #66 Murder World

This is an odd one here because while this is Captain Britain’s first appearance in the ‘American’ Marvel Comics publishing he’s been around in the UK Marvel Comics for a while now. And again while this is his first appearance in the American it’s still not his first appearance in an X-title so I have no idea where or how to categorize this. The same could be said about the ‘Siege Perilous’ which is tied to Captain Britain and later is part of a major X-Men event. It was interesting to see a young and inexperienced version of Brian and I wish that they kept him in this mindset for longer than they did, but there isn’t anything I can do about that. The whole story revolves around Arcade and his assistants Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers being hired to take out Brian Braddock who is believed to be one of fifty people who might be Captain Britain. We see an abridged version of how Brian came into his powers and we actually get the first real appearance of Arcade, Miss Locke and Mr. Chambers on any side of the pond, and since this is the first time we see Arcade this is by default the first time that we see Murderworld which is sort of Arcade’s playground. I liked the issues and I was glad that it was a two-parter. Normally I don’t like crossovers because this early in the game it’s with books that aren’t X-titles so I have no idea what’s going on in the mythology of the other half of the team up but considering this was the first time we see Captain Britain and Arcade it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what was going on in Peter Parker’s life because the whole aspect of the team up involved shaking up the events of their individual lives and starting a new chapter so I didn’t feel like I had been weighed down by some unseen mythology.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #109 Home are the Heroes!

Classic X-Men #16 Dearest Friend

Well it had to happen sooner or later but the X-Men have FINALLY arrived back to the Xavier Institute. The X-Men are all dealing with the recent events in their own way: Scott is brooding, Jean is telling her parents all about what happened on the space station and how she became Phoenix (I’m assuming that she also is telling them that she’s a mutant too, but since there is no dialogue for this particular scene it’s hard to tell, it could be argued that she’s not telling them about that, just that she died and became Phoenix since it is later retconned that Jean’s parents knew she was a mutant when she was a little girl and Charles came to seal off her telepathic abilities.) Kurt, Moira, Sean and Piotr go on a picnic which is soon crashed by Weapon Alpha (later known as Vindicator and Guardian) who has come to reclaim Wolverine/Weapon X. It was a little odd that Logan says that James Hudson was there when Logan left (what later becomes known as ) Weapon X considering that James didn’t appear at all in Giant-Size X-Men #1. The additional pages show more of James before and after he targets Logan, including a scene between himself and Heather (still not her first official X-Men appearance though) and Lilandra exploring the mansion and learning how to use the shower. The back up story shows us a little of Sean in his teen years when he was growing up with his cousin Tom. We see them battle over Maeve Rourke (which get this.. this is actually her first appearance period, she shows up again later in the 90s and once more in X-Men: First Class, but this was published before either of them happen;) while she’s not a ‘major’ character there are important events that surround her; the first being the more fleshed out feud between Sean and Tom.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #110 The X-Sanction

This is just a filler issue so it’s hard to judge it because only one major event (that we’re supposed to know about right now) happens: Jean rejoins the X-Men. The bulk of the issue is devoted to Mitchell Tanner (Warhawk) breaking into the mansion in order to test the X-Men’s abilities and monitor them for his as yet unknown, unseen boss. We get to see Colosso 2.0, mostly as an excuse to get all the X-Men in the Danger Room long enough for Warhawk to trap them in there. We do get to see something now for the first time that later becomes a recurring staple in the X-Men’s lives when they need some time to unwind; we see the first ever X-Men baseball game. Half the time in the future this is used as a fun little outlet and other times it’s used to just get everybody together long enough for something bad to happen. I really don’t know what to say about this issue, it’s kind of forgettable but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad issue. The whole thing just stinks of ‘filler’ and things that will later be explained. This is just a hard issue for me to rate.

Marvel Team-Up #53 Nightmare in New Mexico: C

Marvel Tales #262 Nightmare in New Mexico: C

Iron Fist #15 Enter, The X-Men: B

The Incredible Hulk and Wolverine #1 At the Sign of the Lion: A

Marvel Team-Up #65 Introducing, Captain Britain: A

Marvel Team-Up #66 Murder World: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #109 Home are the Heroes!: B

Classic X-Men #16 Dearest Friend: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #110 The X-Sanction: C