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 - Part 03 Review

Okay, part three of who knows how many it will end up being.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #7 The Return of the Blob-

Well the X-Men graduate which is a major thing on it’s own. It didn’t feel like they were ‘in school’ long, but that could be because when the series first came out it started as bi-monthly instead of being read over the course of three sittings. Magneto and The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants tries to recruit the Blob and it almost works but Magneto’s willingness to murder the Blob in an attempt to also kill the X-Men leaves the Blob not wanting to be apart of anything mutant related and he goes back to working at the circus/carnival. We get two introductions this time one in the form of a girl named Zelda who ends up dating Bobby in the future and this is the first time we see Cerebro, Charles’ mutant detection device. A few more major things happen here, Charles leaves on a quest and appoints Cyclops the leader of the X-Men, also Magneto’s willingness to murder even more people helps to deepen the growing rift between himself and Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #8 The Uncanny Threat of … Unus, the Untouchable!-

Hank and Bobby save a boy who managed to climb to the top of a building only to have the crowd turn on them thinking they were only doing it to trick humanity into thinking they aren’t evil. Fed up with how he has been treated Beast quits the X-Men wanting nothing more to do with the quest for acceptance; he ends up using his mutant powers selfishly and becomes a pro-wrestler where he meets Unus the Untouchable who can repel anything that touches him. Magneto learns that Unus is a mutant and sends him on a trial mission, defeat an X-Man and he can join The Brotherhood. Hank builds a device that augments Unus’ powers which causes the X-Men to think Hank is working for Magneto also. Hank’s device increases Unus’ power so much that he can’t touch anything, he agrees to not work for Magneto and Hank reverses the devices powers and rejoins the X-Men. We get to see a little bit of what Charles is doing, he’s repelling down into some cave looking for a man called Lucifer.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #9 Enter, the Avengers-

 

Well this issue here has a whole lot of firsts: the first appearance of Lucifer, the first time the X-Men fight The Avengers, the first appearances of Captain America, Giant-Man, Iron-Man, Thor and Wasp; the first retcon and actually the second retcon too. In X-Men #1 Charles states that he was crippled in a childhood accident only now a mere 8 issues later it’s revealed that he was crippled in the middle of a heated battle with Lucifer. The second retcon isn’t that big of a deal actually it almost doesn’t even count considering Angel and Iron-Man meeting was sort of a ‘what if’ type story and doesn’t technically exist within the X-Men universe.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #10 The Coming of… Ka-Zar!-

 

This issue is a big on because it introduces Ka-Zar, and his pet Zabu as well as The Savage Land, which plays a larger role in the Universe as the years progress. Other than that, this issue wasn’t that big of a deal. The copy I read was riddled with mistakes, Jean is held prisoner with Angel but she calls him by Scott’s name was really the only mistake that took me out of the story, the others weren’t that big, just spelling errors so it’s not that bad – it just sticks out because of Ka-Zar’s speech pattern being the way it is you sort of expect more from the rest of the writing and characters.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #11 The Triumph of Magneto-

The X-Men and The Brotherhood battle over the fate of ‘the Stranger’ who everyone thinks he’s a mutant only it turns out he’s some space traveler who goes from planet to planet collecting ‘mutant species’ for study. I don’t know how I feel about this issue but it does serve some importance: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch officially leave the Brotherhood and head back to Europe, Mastermind is turned into stone by the Stranger, Magneto manages to defeat the X-Men but that’s not really a good thing because a result of the battle leads to the Stranger taking Magneto (and Toad) back with him into space.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #12 The Origin of Professor X!-

 

We meet the Juggernaut – Charles’ step-brother Cain Marko. Most of the story is told in flashbacks where we meet Dr. Kurt Marko and Sharon Xavier-Marko and a young Charles and Cain. We find out Kurt let Charles’ father die in an explosion so he could marry Sharon and gain her wealth and status. This is also the first issue where we see a version of Charles that can walk. The Juggernaut isn’t a mutant, he’s only magically augmented. There really isn’t much to say about this issue, it was good and I liked the use of flashbacks but I have a very hard time believing that Charles would be so afraid of his brother that he’d go to the lengths he does to try to stop him, yet he’s calm enough to essentially sit around and tell the X-Men a story.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #13 Where Walks the Juggernaut!-

The battle with Juggernaut contines and all of the X-Men, with the exception of Jean are severely injured in the battle. Charles reaches out with his mental powers for help and manages to contact The Teen Brigade (a bunch of kids listening to police scanners I guess,) Matt Murdock/Daredevil and the Human Torch. See this is why I counted Iceman meets Human Torch as cannon because Johnny has a richer history with the X-Men than Tony Stark does. Granted the meeting between Bobby and Johnny isn’t touched on here but you get the sense that it really did exist. I don’t know, I’m grasping at straws here mostly because I like Johnny a lot more than I do Tony so it’s harder to ignore.

(The Uncanny)X-Men #7 The Return of the Blob: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #8 The Uncanny Threat of … Unus, the Untouchable!: B

(The Uncanny)X-Men #9 Enter, the Avengers: B-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #10 The Coming of… Ka-Zar!: C-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #11 The Triumph of Magneto: C+

(The Uncanny)X-Men #12 The Origin of Professor X!: A-

(The Uncanny)X-Men #13 Where Walks the Juggernaut!: A-

Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due Issues 1-5 Review

 

I continue my journey through the Ultimate-verse today and it brings me to Elektra: Devil’s Due; which serves as a sequel to Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra. While the second outing into Ultimate Elektra’s history is a lot better than the first mini-series the follow up isn’t without its faults; some of which are intentional some aren’t, and some are just victims of the plot device.

Most of the cast from the first mini-series is back, obviously Elektra, her father and Matt return for this run. Foggy is back too, this time with a little more to do than simply being Matt’s college roommate and tag along, on the flip side Phoebe is back only to be reduced to a brief cameo like appearance in which she serves as a decoy for all of two seconds. Trey is no where to be seen or mentioned and neither is Melissa which I find odd considering the events surrounding those two characters were the catalyst for Elektra’s actions as well as the conflict between her and Matt.

While I complained in the first mini-series about Melissa and Trey having too much time and energy devoted to their plot I actually found myself wanting to read a little about what happened to them. Even if I didn’t agree with the plot you just can’t build something up then never bring it up again. They sort of did the same thing with Phoebe, at the end of the first series she was furious with Elektra and now all of a sudden she had apparently gotten over her anger enough to be willing to risk her life for Elektra. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue if they simply stated how much time passed between the first mini-series and the second.

Another victim of plot devices happened to be Elektra’s father. In the first series after Trey had their dry cleaner shop and the home they lived in above it destroyed by arsonists they had to go to Elektra’s Sensei because they had no where else to go. Now to move the plot along in the second series Elektra and her father are suddenly flush with family, and not just family but ‘Family.’ So we’re stuck going through the motions with her father getting money from their family and the store being used as a front for the mob, nothing new here and it wasn’t even written in a way to make this particular point exciting.

Elektra continues to throw herself onto grenades for people she cares about and tries to work off a deal in order to work off her father’s debt. Eventually she meets Benjamin Poindexter aka Bullseye who was sent by the Kingpin to murder a man who was going to testify against her cousins and the Kingpin. Naturally the man was tied to the case Matt and Foggy were working on, so this causes Elektra to interact with him, more as Daredevil than Matt though. Elektra ultimately goes to the Kingpin and is forced to face off with Bullseye. As part of her deal since she defeated Bullseye the Kingpin will produce evidence that clears Elektra’s father’s name while implicating her cousins.

The series ends with Matt and Elektra more at odds than ever. He still wants to follow the law, and actually found a way to clear her father’s name that wouldn’t have involved her coming in contact with the Kingpin and now it appears that Elektra has earned a place inside the Kingpins organization.

I’m not sure what to think about this run. The pacing was a little better, but that’s because it had an extra issue to deal with that the first series didn’t. The writing is good, but considering they’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just rehashing more overused plots and preexisting plots being sacrificed or simply thrown away just to move this new story arch along; the writing could be considered average. The art is okay, but a lot of the times the proportions seem a bit off, especially on the women in the issues, they seem to be pinched and bloated at the same time, but it’s not the overtly sexualized unrealistic art that’s quickly becoming the normal in comics. I don’t mind a bit of retroactive continuity but considering the first series ran from 2001-2002 and the second one ran in 2004; add to that the fact that anything in the Ultimate universe is sort of a combination of retcon and reimagining I think it’s a bit too soon to be changing the fact that Elektra and her father had no family in the first series, and suddenly is overrun with family in the second.

Devil’s Due was by far better than Daredevil and Elektra, but so far D&E has been the worst I’ve read (which is sad considering she’s my favorite character out of Elektra, Daredevil and Iron Man) the fact that Devil’s Due was better is kind of like saying it’s the best of the worst.

Rating: B -

Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra Issues 1-4 Review

My third stroll through the Ultimate Marvel Universe brought me through the origins of Elektra Natchios. Once again her origin has been ‘updated’ to become more accessible to different types of comic book readers. However unlike Iron Man’s new origin Elektra’s seems to work against her. Her mother’s death due to breast cancer caused her to become depressed so her father enrolled her in martial arts classes because she was a fan of Bruce Lee. Her father now is a simple dry cleaner who is just trying to make an honest living and have enough money to send his daughter to college.

That’s right; Elektra has been de-aged down to eighteen years old in order for them to be able to successfully play off the college freshman aspect of the story. We get a few supporting characters, which I find a bit odd. I don’t like the idea of Elektra having friends, a roommate or a support system; and in this case she has all three and that’s even before she meets Matt Murdock.

This is where the plot loses me it took away all of the best dramatic aspects of Elektra’s story and replaced them with a cross between a Lifetime TV Network’s movie of the week and a Lifetime Romantic Comedy. You have the love at first sight aspect with Elektra and Matt, even a slumber party type scene between Elektra and her two friends Phoebe and Melissa where they’re taunting her for having feelings for Matt. Thankfully the love-y dove-y aspect isn’t the main story line, but the b plot does drag out too long in my opinion.

The other plot is something that honestly I am sick of. It could be a good plot if done correctly but it just gets used way too much and it’s sort of the ‘go to’ plot in order to do female vigilante storyline. There is Trey Langstrom who is a stuck up entitled character who thinks he can do whatever he wants. He constantly harasses the females on campus until messes with Melissa, Elektra intervenes only to have Trey later attack and (it is implied) rape Melissa. Elektra is furious and takes Melissa and their friend Phoebe to her sensi in order to teach them self defense.

Trey’s family gets the charges dropped but Elektra doesn’t want to let it go. In order to teach her a lesson Trey hires two thugs to burn down her family’s dry cleaning business. Naturally Elektra’s father is inside, only he doesn’t die. She insists that it is Trey and is even more furious when he gets released from police custody yet again. Now we’re in for yet another over used plot device here, we meet Trey’s father who appears to be more abusive than Trey is. In the brief time we see him all he does is beat Trey around, yell at him, call him a failure and let him know how ashamed he is of him and essentially orders him to ‘take care’ of Elektra. Well Trey tries to attack Melissa again and this is ultimately the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The whole time unknown to Elektra Matt has been investigating the arsonists and Trey, so we do get a little bit of Matt’s early outings as Daredevil, if not his first outing. At this point I would rather have seen more of Matt than Elektra which is a shame because I am a huge Elektra fan – but this plot and her new origin does absolutely nothing for her at all.

We get a bit more action in the final issue of the four issue series which is good, but almost too little too late. Elektra set up an ambush in the park for Trey where she intended on killing him; they fight for a while, not long though considering Trey is no match for her. Just when Elektra is about to kill him the masked man that Elektra has been running into stops her, again we get more fighting – nothing really special there -. The masked man reveals himself to be Matt and that sends Elektra over the edge, she can’t stand that he lied to her and thinks he was lying about everything. The issue ends with Elektra stabbing Trey in an artery and giving Matt a choice: save Trey’s life or run away with her. Matt chooses to save Trey which leads us to Elektra vanishing but not before she leaves her father a letter, Melissa and Phoebe get one too, Matt doesn’t though, instead she leaves him flowers that were just like the ones she gave to him when they first officially met.

I wanted to like this, I really did; and I went in with high hopes after how much I liked the two Iron Man series but Elektra and Daredevil left me disappointed. It was like it was trying too hard to be more important than it actually was. I don’t get Elektra’s quest for vengeance for Melissa at all. It would have made more sense if Trey had attacked Elektra, the attack led her to become involved in the martial arts world, he gets off due to his family buying him freedom then he hires the arsonists and then Elektra goes after him. I have a hard time believing that this character who is supposed to be so ruthless and cold blooded was suddenly turned into a shy love sick teenager who all of a sudden wanted to murder someone because her friend got hurt. It was too drastic of a change in Elektra and it happened too quickly for it to work.

Rating: C -