Chronological X-Men - Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars Part 2 Review

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #7 – Berserker!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 – Invasion!

The next part of this story was actually the most entertaining so far. First Lizard goes crazy when he thinks the Wasp died, then Volcana goes crazy when she learns that Wolverine nearly gutted Molecule Man, then She-Hulk goes crazy when the Wrecking Crew throw Wasp’s corpse into the heroes camp. If that weren’t enough Titania really doesn’t take it well when Spider-Man gives her the smack down, Volcana makes a deal with Enchantress and Doom nearly gets himself killed when Galactus finally notices that he is on his homeworld. I don’t really understand the point of introducing the new Spider-Woman if they’re not going to use her, especially after She-Hulk goes to Doom’s base to avenge Wasp’s death only to nearly get killed herself. If the team is loosing powerhouses left and right, you’d want someone strong on your side, especially if they’re practically begging you to join them. I also didn’t really understand why Captain America was so willing to accept Magneto and the X-Men back into the fold just because Charles said he’d promise to help. I also have a hard time buying Volcana and Molecule Man’s feelings for each other – it’s too sudden. Of course the major things here are the heroes capturing most of the villains, Spider-Man gaining his black costume (considering how major of a thing that ends up being in the Spider-Man books it’s odd that they would have introduced it in this miniseries,) Wasp coming back to life and Galactus begins to devour the planet they’re all trapped on.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #9 – Assault on Galactus!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #10 – Death to the Beyonder!

The next two parts of this series are possibly the most interesting because of the types of questions they raise – but I’ll get to that in a second. The big thing here is obviously the fact that the Wasp isn’t dead but that’s one of those things that you knew was coming so it isn’t really that big of a deal. I was a little surprised by Doom dissecting Klaw in order to create a device that would allow all of the energy Galactus absorbed from destroying his own homeworld and channel it into Doom rather than the world devourer himself. It does raise an interesting question though, if creating that device was all it took to take the giant out and Klaw doesn’t die from the process why hasn’t anyone used it since to take down Galactus? Of course if it was common knowledge it would have taken away from the dramatic effect when Reed Richards and the rest of the superheroes were trying to decide if it would be best to let Galactus destroy this planet and kill all the heroes was the best thing to do. I understand the logic, if Galactus wins he’ll get his wish and the Beyonder will take away his hunger, if the Beyonder doesn’t make good on his deal than Galactus will attack the Beyonder and get killed as a result of that. I like the idea of how Doom went about fighting the Beyonder, but it felt like a little more of it should have been shownwe get some stuff, and then at the end of this issue Doom shows up and is pretty much all ‘hey, the Beyonder is dead.’

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11 – …And Dust To Dust!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12 – …Nothing to Fear

Now the finale here is where I kind of lost interest in the story. I would have much preferred that the story ended with issue 10, but obviously they couldn’t just leave everything with the entire cast trapped on Battleworld and Doom with the power of the Beyonder but for the most part this felt like filler. Now we do need to know how the villains got off of the world, but did we really need to see scenes with the Enchantress locking herself in the bathroom and conjuring up an Elemental? Did Enchantress even serve a real point aside from lounging around saying she wasn’t going to do anything, trying to kiss Thor and that funny scene where she was drunk? Did we need scenes of Spider-Man eating? Or everyone trying to sleep? Did we need at least two pages worth of dialogue from Doom where he was telling Klaw that he can’t ever let him fall asleep? On the other hand the issues do tie into major changes in the Marvel Universe – we get the return of Klaw, new villains in Titania and Volcana, a new hero with Spider-Woman. The Thing decides to stay on Battleworld for a while which moves She-Hulk from The Avengers to the Fantastic Four and of course we get Spider-Man in his black costume – which will lead to the introduction of Venom. There’s the friction between Charles and Ororo, we get a new costume for Rogue (which she debuts in the next issue of Uncanny X-Men) and Piotr falling in love with the alien healer Zasji – before she ultimately dies – leaves him in love and later in mourning long enough to keep him and Kitty from hooking up until she’s over eighteen. Oh and there’s that dragon that teleports back to Earth with the X-Men. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the ending of this story, and it was surprisingly well done considering the series was created specifically to promote a line of action figures but I feel like issue eleven and twelve could have been condensed to one double sized issue instead of there being the regular sized 11 and then a double sized 12 – but at the same time it would have been odd for it to end with number 11, and of course it wouldn’t have been a year long event.

The Uncanny X-Men #181 – Tokyo Story

The Uncanny X-Men #182 – Madness

Well the X-Men are now back on Earth, only instead of returning to New York they end up in Tokyo along with Lockheed’s dragon ‘friend.’ I do find it a little odd that the X-Men claim to have a relationship with the now much larger dragon. In the Secret Wars series Lockheed takes off pretty early on and doesn’t show up until just before the X-Men return to Earth with the dragon in tow. It appears that while the heroes have been gone for a very long time, on Earth only a week has passed. Scott returned with the X-Men but he ended up back at home where Madelyne was waiting for him so it leaves me to wonder did She-Hulk return to where the Avengers vanished from instead of reappearing with the Fantastic Four? And did Spider-Woman go back home, or did she return to the location the Avengers vanished from? Rogue ends up flying home to check on Kitty (I’ll talk about that in a second) while the remaining X-Men try to stop the giant dragon from destroying Tokyo. It was kind of a filler plot and after reading a year long event I’m actually alright with an issue that doesn’t give us a lot of revelations. The major thing is the passing of Senator Kelly’s Mutant Affairs Control Act bill. The other half of the story (which is actually the next issue since it takes place at the same time) is Rogue’s return to the mansion. She begins checking over phone messages, first from a scared Madelyne, and next she receives one from Colonel Rossi who tells Charles that their suspicions were right and then there’s the sound of him being abducted. Rogue ends up taking off to save him before she hears the phone message from Illyana. I do have a little problem with this because Illyana leaves a note saying that Kitty went with Doug to the Massachusetts Academy to check things out – it kind of implies that Charles knew nothing of Kitty going. It’s a problem because not only was it mentioned that all of the X-Men knew this in the last issue, but it was shown both in the New Mutants and Uncanny X-Men issues before the whole Secret Wars saga that Kitty and Charles came up with the plan. To make matters worse both books are written by the same person so you can’t even base it on lack of communication between the writers of the two books. I like the idea of Rogue struggling with what she had done to Carol and how her mind is now massively fractured but I would have liked more of a build up. Rogue suddenly appears on the mansion’s door step claiming that she’s having trouble dealing with the extra mind in her head, but beyond that issue it isn’t touched on again – and when Rogue was hanging out in the Dazzler book before she left the Brotherhood her fractured mind wasn’t an issue. So it was like they dropped the plot and then suddenly remembered that they needed to do something with it. There’s a little bit of an overlap with the scenes where Emma uses astral projection to appear to Sebastian to tell him she has the New Mutants, but if you think about it, and read this in publication order it wouldn’t have been an overlap. I like the idea of The Inner Circle spying on S.H.I.E.L.D. but I’m going to reserve any judgment on it until I know why they’re spying. Oh, I almost forgot – we got the first appearance of Amiko Kobayashi – Logan’s foster daughter.

The Uncanny X-Men #183 – He’ll Never Make Me Cry

When I read this I wasn’t sure what to think about it – I didn’t really care about the main plot at all, but the little sub-plots helped to carry things on a bit. I have decided that when Chris Claremont isn’t writing epic end of the world battles he must be convinced he’s writing a soap opera. The largest chunk of this story revolves around the break up of Piotr and Kitty from a relationship they weren’t even really in to begin with. Kitty needs time on her own so she leaves to spend time with her father, and then Logan and Kurt take Piotr out to teach him what it means to be a member of the team. The side plots are what I really enjoyed here, Rogue still dealing with the fall out of her encounter with Michael Rossi, Valerie Cooper traveling with Raven Darkholme to meet someone named Forge; and it’s revealed that Selene is still alive and now she’s in New York to begin her plan to rule the world. We do get some new info on her, she claims that she is over 2,000 years old, and implies that she was imprisoned (I’m assuming in Nova Roma) and now she is finally free. We also get to see a new way of how she ‘feeds’ which is much more visually disturbing than simply throwing her sacrifices into a volcano. Now there were a lot of mistakes here and that doesn’t help with the overtly soap-y plot. In the issue it states that Kitty has spent almost 2 years at Charles’ school, so she joined when she was 13 ½, so that makes her almost 16 now, yet later on in the issue they specifically state that she is only 14. Now Piotr who started off as over 21 (because the new X-Men were older than the original team) was then de-aged to 18 to take away some of the creepy factor of Piotr/Kitty has now been aged to 19. Make up your mind on their ages already!! Sheesh. The drinking thing isn’t a mistake because it turns out that when this story was written the drinking age was 18 in New York. What happened to Amiko? There’s absolutely no mention of her whatsoever. Also what’s up with Kitty’s hair? It’s suddenly short, yet for an upcoming storyline Kitty’s hair getting cut is a plot point, so to explain this away they claim that Kitty is wearing a wig in Uncanny X-Men 183…umm okay, except Kitty hasn’t ever done anything like that ever before so it seems odd that she would do it suddenly and that no one would mention either the wig or her hacking off her hair assuming that she’s doing it because Piotr broke her heart.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #7 – Berserker!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 – Invasion!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #9 – Assault on Galactus!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #10 – Death to the Beyonder!: A

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11 – …And Dust To Dust!: B

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12 – …Nothing to Fear: B

The Uncanny X-Men #181 – Tokyo Story: B

The Uncanny X-Men #182 – Madness: A

The Uncanny X-Men #183 – He’ll Never Make Me Cry: C

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 - 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 4 Review

Days of Future Past.

Dazzler #6 – The Hulk May Be Hazardous To Your Health

Dazzler #7 – Fort Apache, The Hulk!

Okay this next storyline for Dazzler has a lot going against it for me: the Hulk, country music, the woe is me I’m a starving artist thing, and Nurse Collins – who is still acting like she’s time traveled from 1940 and thinks Alison is a bad seed and how she has to save Paul (the man that she secretly loves) from Alison. All that said the issue is kind of passable, I don’t think I’ll ever read these issues again, but I don’t feel bad that I’ve spent the time to read them. Sure there are some weird things like the fact that the cover of issue 7 is very similar to issue 3 and there’s the whole ‘Hall of Science’ thing – this is a college, shouldn’t at the very least it just be ‘the science building? – and the previously mentioned cliché and far too campy storyline that Nurse Collins is sporting; but at the same time the disco singer is performing country music and fighting The Hulk. I know I complained in previous issues that Dazzler is feeling more like a Marvel Team-Up spinoff instead of an additional X-book, but this is one time where they could have afforded to throw in some Avengers, or Spider-Man or X-Men simply given the fact that Alison and Hulk are on such drastically different power levels that it’s not even funny. We get more of the whole Alison/Paul plot which I can take or leave, and we see Alison experience some anti-mutant bashing of her own which I know this is going to sound weird is nice. I don’t like that she’s so far been exempt of the anti-mutant hysteria and everyone who knows that Alison is a mutant just loves her and accepts her. We meet ‘The Enforcers’ (Montana, Ox and Fancy Dan) who are working for some shadowed figure that believes Alison’s agent Harry S. Osgood a murder who in his own right deserves to die. On top of that Alison’s also being followed around by the Techmaster – in his first appearance. Technically he’s a Dazzler character because outside of his appearances in her book he’s only ever popped up one time and that was in an issues of an Avengers book over 20 years later. The one thing that really stuck out for me in these two issues was the story pacing – there was actually a build up and a seamless progression to the storyline instead of rapid mid-page gear shifting that has been going on for a few issues now in Uncanny X-Men.

Marvel Team-Up #109 – Critical Mass!

Spider-Man and Paladin are in a heated battle with the new villain Thermo when Dazzler runs into them while she’s on her way home from a recent performance. She jumps into the fight when Thermo is about to kill Spider-Man and distracts him long enough so the three of them can escape. Alison and Paladin take the critically injured Spider-Man back to Alison’s apartment to recover while everyone tries to figure out their next move. Thermo runs into some cultists who quickly turn into his lackeys when they are promised similar powers to his. After another rather large battle Thermo eventually falls and everyone else goes on their own separate ways. This was actually interesting, I want to know more about Paladin (so much like Spider-Woman this might be something I look into after I’m all caught up on the X-books) and I’m honestly surprised by how much I enjoy the interaction between Alison and Peter; I wish that they would team up a lot more than they do.

Marvel Super-Heroes #10 – Sabertooth Stalks The Subway

Marvel Super-Heroes #11 – Cry Vengeance

This next stop isn’t so much a retcon as it is fleshing out of history. Ms. Marvel originally had her own comic book series, but it was canceled on the 23^rd issue, and these next two stories were supposed to be issues 24 and 25. The Sabertooth issue was obviously closer to being finished because this one actually had a cover done for it. I would have skipped this one but it does tie in to Department H going back on their word to leave Logan alone by recruiting Sabertooth and extraditing him to Canada to begin his training to return Weapon X to them. Carol has to deal with his escape when her friends almost get killed when the transport crashes in to the café they are in, and Carol begins to be haunted by visions of her own death thanks to her 7^th sense. The second issue takes place directly before Avengers Annual #10- Mystique and Destiny are trying to keep Ms. Marvel and Rogue separated because of all of the potential futures that Destiny has seen will lead to Rogue’s death. The teenage Rogue doesn’t take this well and looks at it like she’s being excluded and she goes off to fight Ms. Marvel on her own. They do add some additional information when they talk about Rogue joining the X-Men after needing their help and how Carol eventually transitions into Binary – but those are stories soon to be told….

Avengers Annual #11 – By Friends – Betrayed!

Speaking of stories soon to be told… here we have the first appearance of Rogue. Spider-Woman finds a woman floating  in the river and takes her to the hospital to be examined. A little funny nod there’s a young girl named Maddie Pryor running around the hospital. Jessica brings in Charles Xavier to mindscan the woman after finding out that she is Carol Danvers a former Avenger. Carol’s memories have been removed and Charles begins to work on helping her regain who she is. Jessica goes the Avengers for help only to find out that Rogue has been there and absorbed Captain America and Thor’s powers as well and is using them to break out the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who have been in prison for some time now. Rogue and Mystique do manage to free the Brotherhood but when Rogue’s powers start to decrease they are forced to flee which leaves Blob, Avalanche, Destiny and Pyro back in prison after the lost battle with the Avengers and Spider-Woman. Jessica takes the Avengers back to the X-Men’s mansion to come face to face with Carol. There’s a few things that they talk about that I really had no clue what was going on because I don’t follow The Avengers but the gist of it seems to be that Carol met a man from Limbo (oh I can’t wait until we get to some Limbo stuff in the main X-books) who used his powers to make her believe that she was in love with them – he gook her with him and basically got her pregnant with… himself and she returned to earth to give birth to him only it didn’t happen, or it did and then the Avengers sent him back to Limbo or something. Like I said I didn’t really follow what was going on. I know this is an Avengers book, but I would rather have had the book focus more on Rogue and Carol as opposed to Jessica and the Avengers fight the Brotherhood. Since this was essentially Rogue and Carol’s story it feels like they spent more time on other characters than they did the two of them.

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #5 – Oh, La La… Badoon!

The next story brings us the return of Arkon and his homeworld as the X-Men and Sue Storm team up to save the Fantastic Four and Arkon from the evil Brother Royal and his Baddon warriors who have not only taken over Arkon’s world, but have now apparently been killing Shi-ar scouts and preparing to move on to Earth next. Ororo has been suffereing bouts of nightmares thanks to Sashia who has been using them to reach out to her friend in an attempt to show her that her people need help. All in all the story was good, I liked this visit to Arkon’s world a lot more than the first annual that featured him. This is what an annual should be; it’s a little bonus reward for everyone who has stuck through the book the entire year. Big events or revelations (like Amanda or introducing her mother and Kurt’s foster mother Margali, or the introduction of Rogue) or a chapter of a major over all story arch that forces you to read it. It should be a fun little outing that has little to nothing to do with the current plots of it’s main book.

Dazzler #6 – The Hulk May Be Hazardous To Your Health: B

Dazzler #7 – Fort Apache, The Hulk!: B

Marvel Team-Up #109 – Critical Mass!: A

Marvel Super-Heroes #10 – Sabertooth Stalks The Subway: B

Marvel Super-Heroes #11 – Cry Vengeance: B

Avengers Annual #11 – By Friends – Betrayed!: C

The Uncanny X-Men Annual #5 – Oh, La La… Badoon!: A

Chronological X-Men - (Part 19) Second Genesis Review

Second Genesis baby.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 Second Genesis!

Giant-Size X-Men #3 Teamwork

Classic X-Men #1 First Night

Well ladies and gents we now come to the second major chapter within the X-Men’s history and this brings some drastic changes. With this story alone we see Jean, Warren, Lorna, Bobby and Alex officially leave the X-Men; Hank has already left and is now an active member of the Avengers; Scott’s powers get a jumpstart and we see the recruitment of Storm, Banshee, Thunderbird, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler, and finally we see the first appearances of (aside from Kurt, Piotr, Ororo and John) Ilyana (Piotr’s sister) and Nicolaj and Alexandra his parents and the mutant island Krakoa. The other stories show us Logan trying to bring the new x-Men together as a team by pitting them against each other in the Danger Room to see who will be the first to ‘die,’ we see that Lorna has finally chosen between Alex and Bobby, and we see Jean struggle with her place in a team that she no longer wants to be a part of, but is too afraid to leave. Bobby struggles like the youngest child of a family when a new baby comes along, Logan and Jean start off down the whole Scott/Jean/Logan triangle. One thing that I didn’t really like, and that was mostly because of the later retcon was the fact that we had already seen Ororo and there’s no mention of her knowing anyone – another thing was the fact that in the retocon a conversation between Charles and Moira we learn that Kurt, Piotr and Ororo are all younger than the current X-Men, but in the first actual appearances we see that they’re all older than the first team. I know they’ll probably get into it later down the line but I’m sick of them always mentioning Lorna’s weakening magnetic powers, yet they never explain why her power level is slowly decreasing- but that’s kind of a nit pick. Oh it should be noted that the back up features in Giant-Size #1 are reprints of the stories from the original series where the X-Men explain to ‘us’ how their respective powers work. There is no need to cover Giant-Size #2 since it’s just a straight reprint of the storyline that introduced Alex to us with only a few pages edited out, but no additional content.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #94 The Doomsmith Scenario!

Classic X-Men #2 First Friends

Giant-Size X-Men #4 Finding Home

(The Uncanny)X-Men #95 Warhunt!

Classic X-Men #3 Mourning

Well the X-Men title is back, and that’s a good thing. We get a few characters new to the universe ehre by way of Count Nefaria’s Ani-Men team consisting of Bird-Man, Cat-Man, Croaker, Dragonfly and Gort. Beast makes a brief cameo as an excuse to justify why the Avengers can’t fight Nefaria and he learns of the team of new X-Men- it is a little odd that Hank is shocked by this because it almost seems like everyone of the original team is going out of their way to ignore him. Sunfire is the first of the new members to officially leave the team, which kind of works for me because I feel like he should still be in jail after murdering his uncle in front of multiple witnesses. Additional pages show us the first appearances of Rahne Sinclair and her foster father Reverend Craig, but yeah that’s a whole hell of a lot of stories for another time. The side stories from the other books give us a little bit more insight to the timeline, Ororo and Jean try to become friends and we learn of Ororo’s claustrophobia (but this is a side story so it hasn’t actually happened within the main storyline yet) and we see the first appearance of Misty Knight but much like other retcons this hasn’t actually happened yet so it doesn’t really count. The next side story shows John trying to find his place in the team and Ororo trying to put down roots and start a budding friendship with him (although that won’t last long.) The X-Men fight Nefaria and as an unfortunate price John ends up dying, so this is the first time an X-Men dies (Charles doesn’t count because it wasn’t ‘Charles’ and Calvin doesn’t count because.. uhh well he just doesn’t okay?) and he is far from the last. The story is bookended with the X-Men, Charles and Jean returning John’s body to his family only to have it get stolen by James Proudstar, John’s younger brother who gives him a warrior’s sendoff and vows revenge on the X-Men (among others.) So yet again we have a first appearance that isn’t really a first appearance because it’s still a long while before James actually shows up in any ‘real’ X-book.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #96 Night of the Demon!

 Classic X-Men #4 The Big Dare

This is some good stuff right here. Scott is taking the death of John badly and starts shooting off his powers outside of the mansion and ends up breaking open ‘the Cairn’ and the mansion is soon under siege by a demon calling himself Kierrok who is part of the N’Garai race of demons. This is pretty big considering the N’Garai do show up quite a few times over the course of the years (it sort of becomes a right of passage for new teams) we see the first actual appearance of Moira MacTaggert who has come to the states in order to take care of the Xavier Institute while Charles goes on ‘vacation;’ and we see the start of Moira/Sean which becomes a large factor in quite a few plots down the line. We also see Dr. Steven Lang who also factors in to be a major player down the line and Colonel Mike Rossi, who eventually ends up migrating to the Ms. Marvel universe. Additional pages show us hints at a relationship between Moira and Charles (which will be established later, but already has been due to future retcons – man I’ll be happy when I’m done reading these ‘flashback’ stories.) Ororo is still struggling with the fact that she has to wear clothing while doing things; and Kurt’s reaction to the whole thing is quite funny. The back up story gives us a new character Harry Morrell who runs a bar near the Xavier Institute that the X-Men frequent. We see the first appearance of the ‘image inducer’ although again, side story; not a main story, so it doesn’t really count. Logan and Kurt go to the bar and Logan sort of guilt trips him into turning it off and walking around town as his blue fur-clad self.

Giant-Size X-Men #1 Second Genesis!: A

Classic X-Men #1 Second Genesis/First Night: A

Giant-Size X-Men #4 Finding Home: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #94 The Doomsmith Scenario!: B

Classic X-Men #2 First Friends: B

Giant-Size X-Men # Finding Home: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #95 Warhunt!: B

Classic X-Men #3 Mourning: A

(The Uncanny)X-Men #96 Night of the Demon!: A

 Classic X-Men #4 The Big Dare: C