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

Charmed Season 9 Issue 7 'The Heir Up There' Review

Next up we have the most recent issue of Charmed, and this one only about a week after it came out! We have another great play on the history of the show here by the return of Kyle Brody. Apparently since he died in 2004 he spent the next five years as a Whitelighter and eventually worked his way up to the status of Elder. That’s not the only new piece of information – we find out that the Elders altered Melinda in order to make her also ‘twice blessed’ just like Wyatt. While it’s never specifically said that Chris is also twice blessed given the fact that he also has orb-based powers it’s safe to assume that. But it would have been kind of funny if older Chris was still around just to see his inferiority complex when he finds out that Melinda also has her own prophecy just like Wyatt.

We get a more fleshed out back story for Leo – which considering this storyline appears to focus more on him than the previous two I’m sure we’ll be getting a lot more information as it progresses. It turns out that Leo’s reward for battling an evil Darklighter Rennek was to be the Charmed Ones’ Whitelighter. It’s a nice little piece of information but its hard to consider that keeping the Charmed Ones lives is a reward.

Neena is back and is slaughtering vampires – I’m going under the assumption that it is because they won’t get in line with her plan. The only exception appears to be the current Vampire Queen Lorna who knows Neena and at some point betrayed her. Neena also seems to have ties to Rennek because he knows that she also goes by Isabel (a character that appears in ‘To The Warren Born’ I just haven’t covered it yet) and Victoria and he’s one of the few people that actually knows who and what Neena is.

I want to be fair about this issue but there is something about it that just seems off. I don’t know if it’s because there’s a new storyline starting or if it’s just sort of boring. I think it will take at least another issue for me to get a better grasp on the overall tone of this story – it should pick up soon considering that this arc is also going to be 5 issues and we’re already one into it. So far this is my least favorite issue, but only time will tell if that changes once I getter a better grasp on the actual story.

Rating: C

Charmed Season 9 Issue 6 'Morality Bites Back' Review

I went into this issue thinking that it’s going to be one of those things that all of the things that make it good are also the things that make it bad. Anyone who I’ve ever talked Charmed with knows that I absolutely cannot stand Phoebe  so the fact that this entire issue was going to be devoted to her came to bat with one strike already. The fact that this story is a continuation of the episode “Morality Bites” from season two was almost a slap in the face because of Prue existing in that potential future. Obviously things have changed, Paige now exists, and there are many more kids than just Melinda and obviously Phoebe isn’t on trial for the murder of Cal Greene. But lets be honest here, the second strike isn’t all of the extra kids or the fact that Paige exists – you know me… it’s all about the lack of Prue.

We don’t really get anybody new this time out – sure there’s the messenger Cherub but I really doubt that he’ll play a bigger role in the series. Cal Greene, and Nathaniel Pratt make their comic introductions – both of them were seen only in Morality Bites. Cal was the baseball player that Phoebe killed, and Nathaniel was the guy who kept walking his dog on the Halliwell’s yard and then in the future was the DA that prosecuted Phoebe. Finally after many mentions Elise Rothman finally makes her appearance in the comics and Mika makes her second appearance – but she looks different than the first time around. Nothing major, just younger than she first came off.

The good thing about this issue is that it sets a very specific timeline. Phoebe was executed in 2009, now even if you assume that given that she was publically outted as a witch she had a very speedy trial then Season 9 has to take place sometime between 2008 and February 26^th 2009 because that’s the date the sisters travel to back in season two. Now when you think about  how Phoebe isn’t even in custody, let alone about to be executed then it’s safe to assume that these events happen in late 2008 or even January 2009.

I like that this issue did tie up some things. Phoebe killed Cal with her Empathy power by focusing all of Cal’s rage on himself. Like I said it already cleared up the timeframe. We find out that the friend that Cal murdered was actually Elise. I’m not too sure that I’m on board with this. Part of me wished that they played off of the ‘Power of Three’ and that in the future where Prue lived that the person Cal murdered was Paige and that it was shortly after Prue, Piper and Phoebe found out about her. They could have turned it into the reason for there being four Charmed Ones was because one of them was always destined to die.

I am interested to see where they’re going to go with the fact that Elise now knows that Phoebe (and at the very least I’m assuming Paige since she healed her) is a witch. How much did Phoebe tell Elise, did she leave it as just being a witch or did she tell her everything? Now that Elise knows are we going to see more of her having to cover for Phoebe at work or have we officially started the Elise Rothman Deathwatch Clock? All in all, it was a good issue – much better than I thought it was going to be.

Rating: A+

Young Justice Issue 1 'Haunted' Review

I decided to give the new Young Justice comic book another shot – partly because I really enjoyed the first issue but mostly because of my weird Fandom OCD and the fact that this series covers things that happen in between the episodes. While the first issue takes place between the last two scenes of the one hour pilot this issue takes place right after the team meets Miss Martian at the end of the first episode. The plot revolves around Superboy officially moving into the cave. The panels with M’gann and Superboy going from room to room trying to pick out bedrooms for themselves since they’ll be the ones living there full time were fun. It amazes me how much less annoying M’gann is in the comics compared to how she is portrayed on the cartoon. I like that they put Snapper Carr in – I liked his involvement in the original series so I hope they find away to bring this incarnation into the fold more often. This idea that someone – either Superboy or Snapper are going to lead to the destruction of the Justice League is interesting (again I hope it’s Snapper so he can hang around more) and it plays in nicely with the theme of the cartoon. I don’t know how I feel about the Joker being in this issue, yes he plays an important role in the DCU in general but he’s not a Super-family villain, and he’s no where near powerful enough for him to knock Superboy down like he did. I still don’t know what to think about this series because the pacing is really off, but Superboy doesn’t talk much in this incarnation so for them to split the focus of the issue between M’gann who tends to babble, and Superboy who doesn’t speak much makes the Superboy centric pages too quick of a read. It actually only took me at most two minutes (more than likely less) to read this issue.

Young Justice #1 – Haunted: B

Charmed Season 9 Issue 5 'Unnatural Resources' Review

Well now that I’m home I’m trying to play catch up and that brings me to Charmed Season 9 Issue 5 ‘Unnatural Resources.’ I’ve been a huge fan of  the use of history within this comic but at the same time I haven’t sat silently by and not voiced my thoughts on the history they’re choosing to leave out (for whatever reasons.) With this issue we do get a bit of a resolve with that when we finally see Grams and Billie for the first time this season - they were in the Book of Shadows along with Prue, Cole and the older versions of Chris and Wyatt but this is their first real appearances this year. There are more ties to the history when Piper uses Excalibur while Paige goes and collects small portions of magic from Billie, Mermaids, Leprechauns, Fairies, Nymphs and Unicorns.

I really liked this particular issue, but I think it might have been better suited as a double sized story – it would have helped to make certain things feel less rushed. Billie for example, it’s great that she’s here but when they’re going up against The Source and there’s this history of Prue dying because of it and how Billie ended up having to kill her own sister to save the world even something as simple as Paige trying to stop Billie from rejoining the fight by saying something like ‘haven’t both of our families lost enough already’ would have gone miles to make the story feel heavier than it is.

I get why they killed off Hogan, I mean this is the Source, and there’s multiple seasons worth of history establishing the fact that whenever he comes back someone HAS to die but again – rushed. There were a few unanswered questions like why Piper’s daughter Melinda can telekinetically orb; or what exactly Nina is; but I get the feeling that those two things will play larger roles in the near future. I do want an explanation as to why Paige named her children Tamora and Kat though; almost all of the kid’s names make sense except for those. There really isn’t anything much else to say that I haven’t said before: I want more Billie, and I actually like the idea of Tyler sticking around for a while but the problem is that he doesn’t really have established characters to interact with. He’s too young to spend all his time around Phoebe, Piper, Paige, Leo, Coop and Henry, he’s far too old to spend his time with all of the Halliwell kids and even if Billie was around more, or they brought back Future!Chris they’re both too to be around him.

Rating: A+

Chronological X-Men - Secret Wars II Part 1 Review

Secret Wars II (review part 1)

Dazzler #37 – The Girl in the Machine

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

Dazzler #38 – Challenge

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

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

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

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

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

Secret Wars II #1 – Earthfall!

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

The New Mutants #30 – The Singer & Her Song

The New Mutants #31 – Saturday Night Fight

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

Dazzler #37 – The Girl in the Machine: B

Dazzler #38 – Challenge: C

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

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

Secret Wars II #1 – Earthfall!: B

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

The New Mutants #31 – Saturday Night Fight: B

Chronological X-Men - Beauty and the Beast Review

Beauty and the Beast!

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

Beauty and the Beast #2 – Heartbreak Hotel

Beauty and the Beast #3 – Showtime

Beauty and the Beast #4 – Checkmate

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

Dazzler #35 – Brawl!

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

Dazzler #36 – The Human Touch

 

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

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

Beauty and the Beast #2 – Heartbreak Hotel: C

Beauty and the Beast #3 – Showtime: B

Beauty and the Beast #4 – Checkmate: B

Dazzler #35 – Brawl!: B

Dazzler #36 – The Human Touch: A

Young Justice Issue 0 'Stopover' Review

Young Justice #0 – Stopover

You know, I’m not even going to get into the different characters thing here – it is obvious how I feel about that so I’ll just move on. I’m glad to have Young Justice comic back in my life, but it’s painful that Todd Nauck isn’t drawing it. I loved his style on the original Young Justice run and he did the majority of the book so it is odd seeing someone else tackle the characters. However I can’t hate on it too much because the art is actually good and it fits the style of the TV show nicely. I wish they would have gone with a different cover though, I mean Artemis and Miss Martian don’t even appear in the book, heck, Artemis hasn’t appeared in the series at all yet – but she’s plastered all over the promotional art. Also…. She’s not Arrowette – sorry, I couldn’t help myself there. The new characters are a nice touch and they do remind me a lot of the original run and in the original run we would have gotten characters like Tommy and Tuppence Terror. I like the aspect of this whole issue taking place between the two final scenes of the pilot episode it was a nice tie in and helped bridge the gap – I wouldn’t mind if the series continued on and did that more often. It was a bit odd though whenever they displayed the date and time no matter what time it always was ‘16’ seconds – I’m sure that’s probably an inside joke that I’m just not a part of. I like the idea of possibly building on a friendship between Wally and Superboy. It did feel a lot like the old series which was nice and one thing really stuck out to me: in Wally’s bedroom we see a poster of He-Man and Skeletor from Masters of the Universe, as well an action figure of He-Man, Electro and Morph figures from Marvel comics and a Bat-Mite from DC and a poster of Richard Dragon – a DC universe character. This is a really nice nod to things that ran in the original series like Wendy the Werewolf Stalker. There was another little ‘dig’ this time at the long running TV show Smallville when Superboy is dressed very much like the TV Clark Kent and Superboy can’t stand it. It was a fun book and I want to see where it goes, but at the same time I’m not entirely sure I can fit another comic book into my reading/collecting rotation.

Young Justice #0 – Stopover: A

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

Young Justice 101/102 Independence Day Parts 1 & 2 Review

Well I finally got around to watching the premiere of Cartoon Network’s Young Justice. I’ve actually wanted to watch this for a while because Young Justice is in my top five favorite DC comic series of all time. It’s going to be hard for me not to be more critical of this show because I was such a fan of the comic series – but I’m trying to go into this with an open mind and I think the only way I can do this is if I remain completely spoiler free.

In the comic the original line up was Robin, Impulse and Superboy and they were quickly joined by Secret, Wonder Girl and Arrowette and Red Tornado served as their mentor and then later Snapper Carr. In the book Robin was Tim Drake, Impulse was Bart Allen, Superboy was Kon-El later going by Conner Kent, Wonder Girl was Cassie Sandsmark, Arrowette was Cissie King-Jones (it always bugged me that Cassie and Cissie’s names were so similar) and Secret was first known as Suzie but then later revealed to be Greta Hayes.

However in the TV series things are a bit different. Superboy’s origins remain the same but he hasn’t been given a name yet. Robin while sporting Tim Drake’s costume he’s actually Dick Grayson, Impulse is actually Kid Flash and instead of being Bart Allen it’s Wally West I don’t really mind this because it gives us a ‘sidekick’ from each era but I want the magic that was Bart, Kon and Tim. We still get Red Tornado as the mentor but we also end up with Black Canary who will serve as a trainer to help the team improve on their fighting skills. I’m actually okay with the addition of Black Canary I just hope they use her well. We have a new character in the form of Aqualad, Miss Martian joins the team. According to the promo images a character by the name of Artemis will be joining the team shortly – it makes sense since Speedy pulled a hissy fit and stormed out of the Hall of Justice. This is actually the most upsetting change to me – I want Arrowette and Wonder Girl – not Artemis. If you want to change the name because ‘Arrowette’ sounds too weird that’s fine, but don’t make it a mixture of two characters, omit Wonder Girl and name the archer of the team after a character who also is in the Wonder Woman mythology. And at the very least keep her red and white costume!

 

The main plot of this pilot started off with the heroes’ sidekicks finally being given access to the Hall of Justice. Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Speedy initially are excited but when they learn that it’s basically a glorified backstage pass Speedy gets upset and ends up storming out – I actually liked Speedy in the brief amount of time he was in the episode I wish that he ends up making a few more appearances.

 

One thing I didn’t like was the very next scene. Think about it, if the fire at Cadmus was at the point where Superman had to contact the Justice League exactly how big of a threat was whatever it was that Zatara was fighting that would require all the Justice League’s help? I know it was a plot device but at the same time it was taken seriously where as in the comics they would have made a huge joke about it and reference it themselves. The teen heroes take it upon themselves to put out the fires at Cadmus where they soon learn the truth behind Cadmus.

I liked the inclusion of this because of the fact that Superboy hadn’t been introduced yet they needed to include these characters in order to maintain the quality of his origin. I really enjoyed the design choices behind Guardian and I love that they included Dubbilex but I didn’t really care for his look – but it was creepy. I also enjoyed the idea behind this council of people who make up ‘The Light’ and how they created Superboy to use as a weapon to kill Superman if he ever turned evil. I like the idea of the little cloned aliens that are used to mentally control all of the employees. And I really enjoyed the fact that Guardian and Doubbilex are now running Cadmus while the ‘Light’ watch him. It’s going to make for an interesting plot if Guardian and Doubbilex need to reach out to Young Justice (the team still hasn’t taken that name) and the Justice League for help.

The one thing that I really couldn’t stand was the inclusion of Aqualad. It’s not that he’s a new character, or that possibly they felt the need for a more racially diverse team it’s the fact that he’s basically a Mary Sue. The ability to manipulate water is one thing, but adding in the gills and the ability to breathe in water and on land, and then he’s strong enough to go toe to toe with Superboy…. Apparently the kid can do it all. This is supposed to be about the kids finding their place in the world no longer as kids but not experienced enough to be the heavy hitter superheroes – it makes absolutely no sense to me to have a character as powerful as Aqualad on the team in addition to Superboy. If you wanted to have included him that’s fine but tone down his powers – he’s a new character without an established fanbase don’t try to justify his existence by making him be the best at everything he does.

This episode was pretty fun and there was a lot I liked about it, including the animation but I just need more time to get used to the changes to look at it objectively. It was still good though.

Rating: B