Chronological X-Men - Legion Review

Legion!

The New Mutants #26 – Legion

The New Mutants #27 – Into the Abyss

The New Mutants #28 - Soulwar

This is a small little story but it’s a pretty big one so that’s why I decided to separate it into its own little section. We do get a draw on some recent history as well as a few things that up until this point had seemed to have been forgotten. The most recent events that are covered are the fact that Thunderbird (II) kidnapped Banshee to exact revenge on Charles Xavier, Charles getting jumped and beaten nearly to death only to be saved by Callisto and Emma Frost not being happy with Empath’s recent actions which played a role in ruining Emma’s plans to use Firestar to assassinate Selene. The stories that seemed long forgotten were Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander being transformed by the Demon Bear and Moira and Gabrielle keeping the fact that David Haller is autistic and Charles’ son. The little things really helped to fill out the story - it was nice to see Jamie Madrox show up, he has been MIA for quite some time now. The aftermath of Empath’s actions was surprising because of Emma shutting down his powers. She has always been ruthless but to take away someone’s powers like that is a new level of sadistic even for Emma. Of course this leads to Empath reaching out to a mysterious group to seek revenge on Sunspot and Magma – although I’m not sure why he didn’t go after Emma, Thunderbird (II) and Angelica instead. We touch bases briefly with Magneto and Lee who have started up a romance that appears to end within this particular storyline. The cast is pretty full as it is but it would have been a nice touch to have Illyana present for this story because she was with Moira when they first met Gabrielle. We finally see David Haller for the first time and meet three of his stronger personalities: Jack Wayne – who is a telekinetic, Cyndi who is pyrokinetic and Jemail Karami the telepath who was part of an assassination team sent to kill Daniel Shomron (David’s godfather,) Gabrielle and David. Unfortunately Gabrielle wasn’t there and David’s psychic powers manifested after he witnessed Jemail murder Daniel. David killed the assassination team and unintentionally managed to absorb (at the very least) Jemail’s mind. The main story revolves around Charles and the New Mutants trying to help cure David similar to the way that Charles cured Gabrielle years ago but in the process: Charles, Gabrielle, Dani, Rahne, Doug, Moira, Tom and Sharon all get pulled into David’s mind which is a battlefield. At first we’re led to believe that Jemail has taken over David’s mind and is trying to destroy the boy and take over his body but we learn that Jemail actually wants to help knit David’s fractured mind back together and that Jack Wayne is the one who is trying to keep everything the way it is. Ultimately Jemail and Dani combine their powers to return all of her friends to their physical bodies and Jemail and Jack (under Dani’s threats) piece together David’s mind. However after Dani returns to her physical body Jack built in a failsafe that kept himself, Cyndi and Jemail all separate personalities within David who is now awake and finally comes face to face with the father he thought had abandoned him and Charles remembering that he felt the Beyonder probing David’s mind while they were all trapped in there. It was a good story, nothing really to pick on – there was one little mistake where there’s an image of Gabrielle and Moira with David as a little child but that’s easy to over look. I do wish that they had more time to play up the betrayal factor of the two women he loved the most keeping such a thing from him. Once again the art really suited the story, but I wish it was a bit darker and I’m not really a fan of David’s overall look in the ‘real’ world.

Marvel Graphic Novel #50 – The Scorpio Connection

I put this one in here mostly because I didn’t feel comfortable just doing three issues here and Wolverine/Nick Fury: The Scorpio Connection was the easiest to place. Sure it happens a bit further in the continuity since Dazzler is an X-Man, however she’s only really in one panel so it’s very easy to ignore. Plus Kurt and Ororo aren’t around and that makes sense since Ororo lost her powers and since Nightcrawler is about to go off on his own little adventure thanks to Kitty (who is also not present) and Illyana. The story itself is all about Wolverine and Nick Fury teaming up to take down a man who killed a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and left a calling card in the shape of the Scorpio Zodiac sign. Logan wants revenge because one of the men that Scorpio killed was an old friend of his that once saved his life; Nick wants in on this not because of the dead agents but because the original Scorpio was Nick’s younger brother. Now the big problem for Nick is that he witnessed his brother killing himself so there’s no way it’s possible for Scorpio to be back. Through the story we have the first appearance of Mikel Fury – Nick’s nephew but we find out that he’s actually Nick’s son. We have the first and only appearance of Amber D’Alexis – Mikel’s mother and an outright ruthless woman who manipulated her son into thinking another man was his father just so she could secretly train him to kill his actual father. I really liked the story despite me not being familiar with the bulk of the characters within the story; the only problem I had was the art and coloring. It just wasn’t my thing and all those red panels kind of hurt my eyes with how they’d pop in and out.

The New Mutants #26 – Legion: A

The New Mutants #27 – Into the Abyss: A

The New Mutants #28 – Soulwar: A

Marvel Graphic Novel #50 – The Scorpio Connection: B

Chronological X-Men - Firestar Review

Firestar!

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!

Firestar #2 – The Players and the Pawn!

This is a bit odd because this miniseries sort of takes place over the course of at least two years, given the fact that when we first see Kitty in this she has long hair it means that the first issue takes place before Kitty Pryde & Wolverine but then over the course of the first two issues the main character ages two years. Speaking of the main character – in this issue we meet Angelica Jones – Firestar. Now this miniseries isn’t technically her first appearance – it’s actually Uncanny X-Men #193 but certain events in this story lead up to those events. We also meet Angelica’s father Bartholomew and Angelica’s Nana. I actually liked the idea of introducing Angelica since she originally was created for the cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and she was so popular she was later introduced into the mainstream continuity (much like how Harley Quinn was treated in the DC universe years later.) Another high point for me is just how evil Emma is acting in this series, hurting her minions, manipulating Angelica, mindwiping random people, creating a whole series of events that would bring the New Mutants to her school just as Emma is about to push Angelica over the edge by killing her horse and then allowing Angelica to believe tht she did it.  There were a few errors – mostly Emma being colored with white hair and Tarot being shown to have black hair instead of her red/brown color that she’s been shown with so far. It’s easy for me to get over a mistake like that because as a whole the art itself I really good (there are a few weird depth perception problems I found with the first issue but they had moved past that on the second.

The Uncanny X-Men #192 – Fun ‘n’ Games

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2

Kitty and Logan return from Japan to find that things have changed a bit – Ororo has lost her powers and there’s a new team member in the form of Rachel. Kitty remembers meeting Rachel when she unwillingly visited the future which sets Rachel off onto her own series of flashbacks (which are technically flash forwards) and we learn that Kitty created a plan to fight Nimrod and she had implanted a mental trigger in Rachel that would force her to go into the past so she couldn’t stop Kitty from going off on a suicide mission. Magus, Warlock’s father finally reaches Earth and attacks the X-Men in an attempt to get them to flush out his son. I like the idea behind Warlock and Magus but it’s hard to take Magus seriously with how he’s drawn. There are a few big things here – the first being that Kurt is now the leader of the X-Men. The next big event is the fact that Charles is assaulted at a school he’s lecturing in and beaten and left for dead because his students believe him to be a mutant. We learn that someone murdered the Morlock Annalee’s two children and find out that Nimrod is staying at the home of Jaime Rodriguez (the man he saved recently. There are a few major things happening here the first being Nimrod deciding to kill all mutants to protect humanity, like I said before the murder of the two Morlock children, Thunderbird (II) seeking his revenge for his brother, Thunderbird (II) and Firestar learning that the Hellions aren’t all that they thought they were but both of them decide to stay in order to set things right and finally thanks to Empath’s actions caused a riot that initiated the media coverage that now has left the X-Men branded as criminals. It is a good story and I know that they wanted to act on the anniversary of the new team of X-Men but it felt a bit rushed, the story would have been better served if there was more of a buildup.

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!

The Firestar limited series ends directly after the events of The Uncanny X-Men #192-193 – Angelica makes references to meeting the X-Men as well as recounts the events of those issues. We learn that the reason why Emma was so desperate to recruit Angelica into the Hellions was because she and Sebastian had decided to train her as the Inner Circle’s personal assassin – the first target Selene. First Emma sets up a meeting with Angelica and her father, which she knows won’t go well and then stages an attack at an airport after Angelica is outted as a mutant to prove that she has instinct enough to defend herself if her life is at stake. The plan originally was for Emma to take Angelica to a party at the Hellfire Club and have her kill Selene, in order to make this happen Emma had to fake an assassination attempt on her own life and then once Angelica’s bodyguard Randall found out about Emma’s plan she then staged his death to make it look like Selene did that as well. Ultimately Angelica learns the truth and turns on Emma and destroys the underground training center below the Massachusetts Academy leaving Emma and Sebastian to start over and Angelica leaves to reunite with her father. My only real complaint here was I don’t understand why Emma didn’t simply kill Randall instead of holding him hostage.

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #8 – The Adventures of Lockheed the Space Dragon and his Pet Girl Kitty

For this annual we take a break from the traditional baseball game interrupted by a major event and instead we are treated to a camp out where Illyana tells a story to the X-Men and the New Mutants that is very similar to the story Kitty once told Illyana before she had been taken to Limbo. The story Illyana tells is a skewed reimagining of how Kitty was introduced and a series of events that followed. Kitty and her parents are part of a crew for the space ship Chicago and are soon attacked by the White Queen and her crew. The White Queen ends up killing Kitty’s parents as well as the entire crew of the Chicago in an attempt to force Kitty to work for her. Kurt and Logan arrive and are led by Lockheed and after temporarily defeating the White Queen they decide to take Kitty in. Eventually Kitty meets Peter, Charles and Lilandra at Charles’ birthday. She quickly falls for Peter and that upsets Lockheed so he storms off. The White Queen attacks the party and kidnaps Logan and another dragon. Kitty meets Ororo in a bar and convinces her to pilot their ship to track down the White Queen and get revenge on her (she believes Lockheed is dead) – but it turns out that Lockheed has actually been teleported to his homeworld because he is the last male dragon left and the females of his planet need him to help repopulate their race. Ultimately they defeat the White Queen but it costs Lockheed his life but Kitty is able to resurrect him through the power of her love for him. It’s a fun story that I really liked and I’m glad that it was used because hopefully now we can move past the whole Kitty/Piotr thing and it shows Ororo exactly how broody she’s been.

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!: B

Firestar #2 – The Players and the Pawn!: A

The Uncanny X-Men #192 – Fun ‘n’ Games: B

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2: B

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills: A

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!: A

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #8 – The Adventures of Lockheed the Space Dragon and his Pet Girl Kitty: A

Chronological X-Men - Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars Part 1 Review

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars!

The New Mutants #15 – Scaredy Cat!

The New Mutants #16 – Away Game!

The New Mutants #17 – Getaway!

Well this particular story takes place right after the X-Men vanish. Kitty is being held captive by Emma Frost – who has woken up from her coma with no real explanation as to why, and Doug is now at Emma’s Massachusetts Academy and being telepathically controlled by Emma.  Wet get several new characters thanks to Emma’s own team of teenaged mutants The Hellions: Catseye, Empath, Jetstream, Roulette, Tarot and Thunderbird (II) – who is really James Proudstar who has joined Emma’s team to take down the X-Men and Charles Xavier whom he blames for his older brother’s death. Some of the team’s powers act as direct opposition to the New Mutants- Catseye can switch from cat form to human, but she performs her feline form, so she’s their version of Rahne. Jetstream’s abilities are similar to Cannonball’s only Sam is stronger, but Jeatstream has better control over his abilities. Thunderbird is the powerhouse, much like Sunspot is for the New Mutants. Tarot who can create psychic visions based off of her tarot cards is Dani’s counterpart. Empath and Roulette are kind of just extras, and since Emma didn’t know about Amara or Illyana she never recruited counterparts for them. The plot revolves around the New Mutants (which now includes Magik) going after Kitty and Doug to rescue them from Emma Frost once Illyana spies on the Massachusetts Academy while in her astral form and sees what is really going on. There are some interesting things here: Illyana’s ability to use astral projection (so far only a few characters could do this, and with the exception of Magneto they all had telepathic powers,) Dani’s growing ease with using her powers yet they’re taking a toll on her soul – it would be really nice to do some bonding with Illyana and Dani, I always wished the two of them were closer and this would have been the perfect opportunity to do it. I really love Tarot’s powers and I wish she would have had a more visible role over the years. There are a few things though that I wished they cleared up, or explained. Illyana wants to keep her sorceress side hidden from everyone, then maybe she shouldn’t have chosen the codename Magik (the secrets out now though), another odd thing was the fact that Kitty could see Illyana’s astral form, yet Kitty has no psionic powers. How did Emma wake up? Why did she want Doug so badly, when even Charles Xavier didn’t consider him ‘worth’ recruiting? Why did Emma go through all this trouble of taking Doug just to let him go? Why does the team have such a hard time even being in the same room as Magik because they’re afraid of her and what she is and can do, yet the team watched Roberto kill Selene and bury her in her temple? The plot was good, it got us some good new characters and it will provide future material for people to pull from – but there were a lot of unanswered questions that created too many loose ends. One thing I’m really excited for though is to see where they’re going with the whole Demon Bear. It was rather surprising to see him suddenly appear in front of Dani and tell her that he’s coming to claim her soon.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 – War Begins

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #2 – Prisoners of War!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #3 – Tempest Without, Crisis Within!

Okay let me get one thing out of the way first: this is a huge massive event that was created back in the 80s in order for Kenner Toys to have a publishing event to help promote the sale of their Marvel properties toys. That being said, the cast is HUGE: Captain America, Captain Marvel II (not the original guy, but a new lady taking the name), Hawkeye, Iron Man, She-Hulk, Thro, Wasp, Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Colossus, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Professor X, Rogue, Storm, Wolverine, Lockeed, The Hulk, Spider-Man, Magneto, Dr. Doom, Dr. Octopus, Enchantress, Galactus, Kang, Lizard, Molecule Man, Ultron, Absorbing Man, Bulldozer, Piledriver, Thunderball, and Wrecker. That being said we get (so far) three new characters introduced: The Beyonder, Titania and Volcana. All this and I’m only on issue three. It turns out that The Beyonder has been responsible for the recent disappearances on Earth and he has also been the one who was behind the psychic probing of various characters over recent months. There’s a lot going on here which at times makes the series a bit hard to follow, but I don’t know if it would be easier if I was up to date on the books of the non X-characters. I’m going to try to be more objective about this story until I read all of it. I mean the storyline is pretty popular, but at the same time it was created just to sell toys so it’s either going to be awesome or awful.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #4 – Situation: Hopeless!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #5 – The Battle of Four Armies!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #6 – A Little Death…

As the first half of this story closes out we get two apparent deaths – Doom kills Kang for questioning his orders and in the process of trying to bring Lizard back into the villain’s fold it appears that the Wasp was killed trying to save him. We get the introduction of new characters in the form of Spider-Woman II aka Julia Carpenter – but it’s just a cameo, and we meet Zsaji – a healer who fixes Johnny’s broken arm, heals up Spider-Man and saves Colossus. I did find it a little odd that Johnny and Peter have apparently fallen in love with her after she healed them. It’s not odd, but it would make more sense if Spider-Man was also affected by this weird love obsession – especially if it is caused by Zsaji’s healing abilities. Speaking of odd, Piotr’s love for Kitty comes off a little like he’s obsessed with her. It definitely amps up the creepy factor that was always there because of their age differences. We also get the resurrection of Klaw (who had been killed by Dazzler) – honestly I don’t mind this one at all. I know that over the years quite a few of the X-Men have had to kill people but still. I mean out of all the ‘active’ mutants pretty much the only ones who hasn’t killed someone are Sam and Rahne. I do find it a little odd that Charles is so upset that he manipulated Spider-Man’s mind only because over the years he has done that to quite a few people. His guilt over it starts to ring a little hollow when he keeps doing it. So the story has really picked up: why does the Thing keep changing from human to ‘thing,’ is Wasp really dead, is Kang really dead, who is in the shadows watching everyone, is Galactus really about to eat the planet?

The New Mutants #15 – Scaredy Cat!: A

The New Mutants #16 – Away Game!: A

The New Mutants #17 – Getaway!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 – War Begins: C

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #2 – Prisoners of War!: B

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #3 – Tempest Without, Crisis Within!: B

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #4 – Situation: Hopeless!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #5 – The Battle of Four Armies!: B

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #6 – A Little Death…: A

Chronological X-Men - X-Men and the Micronauts Review

X-Men and the Micronauts!

X-Men and the Micronauts #1 – First Encounter

X-Men and the Micronauts #2 – Into the Abyss

X-Men and the Micronauts #3 – Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory!

X-Men and the Micronauts #4 – Doppelganger!

This was a particularly odd miniseries. It wasn’t anywhere nearly as strong of a miniseries as Magik but it didn’t have as slow of a build up as Wolverine did. Clearly this takes place after New Mutants 13 but before 14 because Amara is on the team yet Illyana isn’t and obviously this happens before the events of the next story arch. But what makes this even harder to place in the time line is that Rogue is a member of the team yet she’s nowhere to be seen and isn’t mentioned at all in this miniseries. Dani appears to have left her Psyche codename behind her and is now going by ‘Spellbinder’ – of course this is just a pit stop before Dani switches to her better known codename. I can’t comment too much on anything having to deal with the Micronauts because I never followed any of their exploits so I don’t know if anything was out of character or if it just doesn’t fit at all. One thing I didn’t really understand was how Kitty phasing through Karza would have caused the two of them to switch bodies. The thing I really did enjoy was the whole ‘Dark Xavier’ thing- it is an interesting concept that they should have touched on but at the same time it is a bit odd. Charles has a psychic bond with Lilandra, couldn’t she have sensed the shift in him? It’s understandable that Dani couldn’t sense the change because her powers aren’t anywhere nearly as fully developed and there really aren’t that many other telepaths around that are on the X-Men’s side. It might have been interesting to see The Inner Circle try to use this to their advantage but Mastermind is still in jail and after attacking Emma and putting her into a coma he’s not in good enough standing to try to manipulate Charles – and Emma is in a coma so she can’t do it. It just seemed like a missed opportunity. Another missed opportunity I think was not focusing more on Kitty trapped in Karza’s body while she’s trying to remain hidden and has to see the how Karza and his army rule and sees the inner workings of the Body Banks. It would have been nice to see a little more focus on the fact that it is very similar to the concentration camps the Nazi army had and drawing on what it would feel for Kitty to see something similar to that and deal with how she should react since she is Jewish.

The New Mutants #14 – Do You Believe In – Magik?

So this story sort of acts as an epilogue to the Magik miniseries. Not only does it start with where the miniseries ended – with Illyana standing in the snow watching the New Mutants play, but in the story Illyana is forced to use her stepping discs to bring the New Mutants to her aid when S’ym tries to kill her but in the process they end up in Limbo where they watch S’ym attack and try to kill a younger version of Illyana. There’s a bit of a mistake with this because in the original limited series Amara and Stevie weren’t around for that scene, yet suddenly they’re included now. Obviously in Amara’s case it’s because she didn’t exist within the series yet, but it’s easy to explain away as the two of them simply still being in the car at the moment. A few more odd things are: while there is no announcement with this issue Illyana joins the New Mutants. Also without explanation Charles suddenly can walk without any pain. It seems odd that they would give that story such a build up in the main book but then never explain how or why it got fixed. The issue ends with Doug telling Kitty that he has been accepted at the Massachusetts Academy – which plays into the next issue of The Uncanny X-Men.

The Uncanny X-Men #180 – Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

The issue ends up switching its focus on Ororo trying to come to terms with the changes that have happened to her recently and Kitty trying to figure out how to save Doug from the Inner Circle without letting him know that she’s doing it. I wouldn’t call the scene where Doug asks Kitty to go with him to check out the school as a retelling or even a retcon it could just be a recap, or given everything that was going on the night before – the party, the shock of Doug’s revelation, seeing Charles walk it’s possible that Kitty never gave him an answer and this is just Doug’s way of asking again. It does seem odd that Charles reveals to everyone that Doug is a mutant and that he’s been keeping tabs on him. Charles claims that he never invited Doug to the school because his mutant ability to understand all forms of languages isn’t really as productive or useful compared to some of the other X-Men. Now I find this odd considering Stevie isn’t a mutant, yet she’s involved in the school, up until like three seconds ago no one knew that Illyana was a mutant, sure you could argue that they keep her there because of her aging seven years over the course of a few minutes (she’s fifteen now, which theoretically should make Kitty 16, but Kitty was recently retconned into being 14 – even though she’s had 2 birthdays since joining the team when she was 13 ½) but it doesn’t explain why no one bothered to return her home when she was rescued from Murderworld when Arcade abducted her when she was only 7. The main thing is we kind of resolved the whole Kitty/Ororo fight. I don’t get why Kitty was so upset about the changes in Ororo’s look, but it does make sense considering her friendship was the only stable thing she had since joining the team and her parents divorcing – but it is odd that Kitty assumed that Ororo would automatically become Mom2.0. I like that they resolved the conflict but I wish they would just explain why Ororo changed already. The issue ends with Kitty and Doug being taken by Emma who is on the plane and has apparently woken from her coma and the X-Men vanishing into a mysterious void.

X-Men and the Micronauts #1 – First Encounter: C

X-Men and the Micronauts #2 – Into the Abyss: C

X-Men and the Micronauts #3 – Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory!: B

X-Men and the Micronauts #4 – Doppelganger!: B

The New Mutants #14 – Do You Believe In – Magik?: A

The Uncanny X-Men #180 – Whose Life Is It, Anyway?: B