Chronological X-Men - Legion Review

Legion!

The New Mutants #26 – Legion

The New Mutants #27 – Into the Abyss

The New Mutants #28 - Soulwar

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

Marvel Graphic Novel #50 – The Scorpio Connection

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

The New Mutants #26 – Legion: A

The New Mutants #27 – Into the Abyss: A

The New Mutants #28 – Soulwar: A

Marvel Graphic Novel #50 – The Scorpio Connection: B

Chronological X-Men - Firestar Review

Firestar!

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!

Firestar #2 – The Players and the Pawn!

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

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

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2

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

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!

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

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

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

Firestar #1 – Mark of the Mutant!: B

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

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

The Uncanny X-Men #193 – Warhunt 2: B

Firestar #3 – This Lady Kills: A

Firestar #4 – Now Strikes the Assassin!: A

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

Chronological X-Men - Dazzler The Movie Review

Dazzler – The Movie!

The New Mutants #22 – The Shadow Within

Sam is still trying to learn how to control his abilities and is undergoing training sessions with Kurt which doesn’t go over well with Rahne. The main plot of the story revolves around Rahne writing a story in which she’s a beautiful princess who needs to defeat an evil sorceress. In the story Rahne ends up stopping the sorceress and taking a necklace from her and when the issue actually ends we see Rahne asleep in her bed holding the very necklace. The sub plot introduces us to a new character: Friedrich von Roehm who is one of Selene’s High Priests. Speaking of Selene she has decided to take up a permanent residence in New York and uses Friedrich to find her a suitable place to establish a new power base that would allow her to continue her human sacrifices and feeding off of people. Naturally Friedrich suggests the Hellfire Club and arranges a meeting between Sebastian Shaw and Selene in order to put a bid in for her to become the new Black Queen – it’s as good of a time as any considering Roberto’s father Emanuel DaCosta is about to undergo his initiation into the Inner Circle. It was a good issue I just wish that they would have focused a little bit more on Selene and less on Rahne’s storytelling.

The Uncanny X-Men #189 – Two Girls Out To Have Fun

Okay I just need to get this out of the way – how sad and creepy was it seeing a book that was published in 1985 have a character who traveled back from the 21^st century and one of the things she remembers is the destruction of the Twin Towers. That was just… wow. Okay beyond that the story picks up right where The New Mutants #22 left off with Selene going to Sebastian Shaw to apply for membership to the Hellfire Club and the Inner Circle. She offers to give Sebastian a gift so it would help put her in better standing and of course she decides to give him Rachel and Amara. The two of them are in the city basically bonding and they end up crashing the Hellfire Club when they see Selene. After a heated battle Amara and Rachel are let go and the X-Men and the Inner Circle come to an agreement and the X-Men leave Selene in Sebastian’s hands. The other plots that run through this book is the fact that Alison Blaire has just been publically outted as a mutant (I’ll get in to that later since all of these issues in this review take place during the events of Dazzler – The Movie so they run concurrently); Ororo decides to leave the X-Men since she feels that she can no longer lead the team after the lose of her mutant abilities, and finally the magical necklace that the dock worker found a few issues ago ends up releasing an evil warlock – Kulan Gath -  who intends on exacting his revenge on the world.

The New Mutants #23 – Shadowman

The New Mutants #24 – The Hollow Heart

The New Mutants #25 – The Only Thing To Fear…

Well this set of issues manages to tie up some old plotlines so that’s good. We find out that Rahne wasn’t exactly dreaming her story but it was an interpretation of events that happened while she transformed into her wolf state and attacked two people – who are later recognized by Sam and Dani to be none other than Cloak and Dagger. Roberto ends up loosing control of his abilities and attacks Piotr and later Charles and Moira. It turns out that Roberto and Rahne are suffering from lingering side effects from the time Cloak and Dagger used their abilities to purge the drug from their system back in Marvel Team-Up Annual #6. Piotr comes to the realization finally that he actually didn’t love Zsaji and he figures out that he lost her and Kitty. We touch base with Father Michael Bowen who had been taking care of Leong and Nga Coy Manh ever since Xi’an had died. In a nice little twist he’s revealed to be the uncle of Dagger. I liked how Sam and Dani played off of each other and it was nice to see the little Star Wars reference. Charles learns of the magical armor Illyana and he and Rogue visit Limbo for the first time. The whole internal Illyana is going through while being in the church is a nice touch and a good little nod to exactly what would be going on with her considering half of her soul has been corrupted and given away to black magic in order to create the bloodstones. The other plot with Magneto and Lee was good, but it felt kind of off. This was one of those types of stories that I really liked, but I don’t really picture myself ever going back and reading it a second time. I've got to say though that I'm really digging the art. On some stories it seems a bit choppy but combined with this type of plot (or The Demon Bear plot) the style of the art really helps to set the tone of the book.

Marvel Graphic Novel #12 – Dazzler the Movie

Well eve get a whole hell of a lot of characters here Alison, Colossus, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine, Roman Nekoboh, Ziggy (roman’s butler) Mr. Witwicky and new characters Eric Beale and Freddy Stanacheck. It’s kind of hard to explain what happens here but I’ll try. Alison ends up having to quit her job after Eric buys the club and makes sexual advances on her. Roman continues to pursue Alison and the two of them eventually pretend to date in order to garner publicity and create a name for Alison. The duo eventually finds out that they do care for each other which is really cliché but oh well. Roman decides to make a movie that stars Alison and himself. Anti mutant hysteria continues to rise, so much so that Ororo calls up Alison and offers to let her come stay with the X-men so she can stay safe but she refuses. Roman decides to reveal to the world that Alison is a mutant (a fact he just recently found out himself) so it would help generate publicity and bring in more money. There’s a new aspect to Alison’s powers, originally she needed to hear sound in order to transmute it into light but now she can also apparently store up sound as well. It turns out that the person financing the movie is none other than Eric who as it turns out orchestrated this entire series of events just to get Roman on contract and to ruin Alison’s life because she turned down his sexual advances. So by the time all is said and done the movie doesn’t get released because Alison destroys the only copy left because she refuses to be Eric’s ‘slave’ (for lack of a better word) and leaving her alone in a world in which she can no longer hide. I wanted this story to be a lot better than it was, but at the same time it wasn’t bad – even with all the clichés.

The Uncanny X-Men #190 – An Age Undreamed Of

The Uncanny X-Men #191 – Raiders of the Lost Temple!

Yeah I don’t really know where to start with this one. Kulan Gath has transformed all of New York into a barbarian era and has essentially brainwashed everyone. It turns out that he has clashed with Selene in the past and she gathers the X-Men, a few Avengers, Callisto and Amara and Illyana to storm Kulan Gath’s palace to stop him. Since the way to fix this is a form of mystical time travel – thanks to Doctor Strange and Illyana it’s hard to tell who really died because the events end up never having happened. I do like that we get the continuation of Selene trying to make Amara and Rachel her slaves, and I’m glad that Charles FINALLY spoke to Doctor Strange about Illyana and I enjoyed the interaction between Ororo and Callisto. Overall though – I’m not really a fan of this story. It seems random and out of place and like it was a very large event that had already been plotted out and then they pulled the idea but had to use a condensed version of it for two filler issues. The big thing here obviously is the fact that we get the first appearance of Nimrod and he’s been a staple in the X-Men mythos for some time now. I guess aside form the book time devoted to Illyana that was the saving grace. I never have read the first few sets of Nimrod storylines so I never fully understood why all of the mutants seem to be more afraid of him/it than all the other villains combined so it will be nice to see if after reading those stories I still think he’s really overrated.

The New Mutants #22 – The Shadow Within: B

The Uncanny X-Men #189 – Two Girls Out To Have Fun: B

The New Mutants #23 – Shadowman: B

The New Mutants #24 – The Hollow Heart: B

The New Mutants #25 – The Only Thing To Fear…: B

Marvel Graphic Novel #12 – Dazzler the Movie: B+

The Uncanny X-Men #190 – An Age Undreamed Of: D

The Uncanny X-Men #191 – Raiders of the Lost Temple!: D

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

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars!

The New Mutants #15 – Scaredy Cat!

The New Mutants #16 – Away Game!

The New Mutants #17 – Getaway!

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

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 – War Begins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The New Mutants #15 – Scaredy Cat!: A

The New Mutants #16 – Away Game!: A

The New Mutants #17 – Getaway!: A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-Men and the Micronauts!

X-Men and the Micronauts #1 – First Encounter

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

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

X-Men and the Micronauts #4 – Doppelganger!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronological X-Men - Nova Roma Review

Nova Roma!

The New Mutants #7 – Flying Down To Rio!

I spoke about this before but I’ll touch on it again. The first few pages of this story feel like it should have fit in the last storyline instead of being included in Nova Roma, but there isn’t a way to break up the issues in the middle of a book – so in my mind the first few pages of this story take place right before the X-Men go to Japan for Logan and Mariko’s non wedding and the rest of the Nova Roma arch takes place before the Scott/Madelyne wedding. The story itself gives us the first appearances of a mercenary mutant by the name of Axe and Roberto’s mother Nina (and his butler Simon.) The main story has the New Mutants off with Roberto’s mother as they prepare to go on an expedition, but not before they first experience Carnival. Roberto’s mother gets kidnapped by Axe who is working with the Hellfire Club to stop Nina’s work all the while Sebastian Shaw is courting Roberto’s father for membership in the Inner Circle. This was a pretty good start to the story, but it felt like filler. There were a few things that I wish they had expanded on though – what’s with all these telepathic attacks that Charles is experiencing, what happened with attacks Xi’an had right before she died? Are they connected, is what Charles is feeling at all connected to the attacks that he has been experiencing in The Uncanny X-Men? It is hard to judge this though since it is the very first chapter in the story so it does need some time to build.

The New Mutants #8 – The Road to… Rome?

The New Mutants #9 – Arena!

The next chapter of this story gives us the first appearances of Amara Aquilla and her father Lucius who is a senator of Nova Roma and just so happens to be in a political battle with another senator Marcus Domitius Gallio and his wife Selene (oh yes, that Selene.) Sebastian Shaw is still courting Roberto’s father for membership in the Inner Circle and they both plan to use Nova Roma as a way to gain more wealth and power. Lucius disguised his daughter and her servants and sent them out into the jungle to protect them from becoming victims of the Black Priestess; naturally that’s when Amara runs into the New Mutants who are betrayed by Castro and the crew of the boat they are on. It turns out that Castro and his men have been given orders by Roberto’s father to keep the group from entering Nova Roma. After surviving the sabotage the New Mutants and Amara are taken into Nova Roma and the girls are forced/drugged into being slaves and Roberto and Sam are made to battle in the arena where the survivor will also become a slave. When Roberto and Sam use their mutant powers in the arena the crowd turns against them assuming that they are demons who have been sent by the Black Priestess to destroy them all, everyone is against them until Rahne transforms into a wolf and Senator Gallio announces that the girl was sent by the Gods and that her and her friends must be honored. They did touch on something here that I almost wish that they didn’t; evidentially Rahne has somewhat of a healing ability that goes along with her powers. There’s nothing wrong with this idea but there are a few mutants already who can heal or can’t be hurt out there already. It doesn’t have to be that every mutant with feral powers can rapidly self heal, but it’s even worse that they introduce this idea with Rahne and then slowly phase it out.

The New Mutants #10 – Betrayal!

The New Mutants #11 – Magma

Well we get quite a few big reveals here. We learn that Roberto’s mother Nina didn’t die in the boat crash, that she’s being held prisoner by Senator Gallio who has learned of what Castro was sent to do and wants to arrange a partnership between himself and the Inner Circle. Another big reveal comes when Dani sneaks out of the palace once everyone starts to get uncomfortable with their settings and is attacked and taken to an underground temple where she finds an unconscious Amara and another random girl. The three of them are set to be sacrificed to the Black Priestess and her cult. While Dani and Amara are fighting for their lives Sam, Roberto and Rahne are almost killed by Castro and the three of them learn that the whole thing has been set up by Gallio and that Amara’s father is really the one they should have been helping out the whole time. While the New Mutants take a stand and find their place in Nova Roma’s civil war the Black Priestess reveals herself to be none other than Selene. After that everything happens pretty quickly Selene creates a blood bond with Dani and plans on turning her into a younger version of herself, Amara’s father kills Gallio, Selene attempts to sacrifice Amara like she did the unnamed girl, only to have the process trigger Amara’s latent mutant powers – control over molten lava, and the Earth’s magma. The team finally reunites and Roberto is forced to kill Selene and bury her in the rubble of her temple. Amara’s father decides that the best place for her is with the New Mutants and at Xavier’s school so she can learn to control her powers as well as learn the ways of the world. Nina decides to stay behind to help prepare Nova Roma for what the outside world is like and to teach them a way to defend and protect their city if her husband and the Inner Circle ever decide to try to take the city.

The New Mutants #12 – Sunstroke

So now that Gallio and Selene have been defeated the New Mutants (including Amara) head off to Brazil where Roberto confronts his father and the rest of the team enjoys a much needed vacation from their recent vacation. Roberto confronting his father doesn’t go over too well, Emmanuel ends up cutting off his son and uses it as the final push he needed to join the Inner Circle. Amara doesn’t end up much better either. A mixture of culture shock as well as not being used to the different climate causes her to panic and trigger her powers and she’s so lost in her own little world that she can’t shut off her own powers. The team ends up tracking down Amara and saving herslf and Brazil from Magma’s unintentional wrath. One thing that kind of bothered me was the fact that Dani used her powers for the exact same thing only a few issues ago, in this same storyline no less. Dani has such a cool power, but to reduce it to nothing more than basically keeping her teammates from getting sweaty is a waste of her potential.

The New Mutants #13 – School Dayze

So we get the first appearance of Doug Ramsey but I’m getting ahead of myself here. The issue starts with the team finally returning to the mansion where Amara meets Charles Xavier and she joins the team. Amara is given the codename Magma – which should have been pretty obvious why. It makes sense that Amara struggles to adjust to her new surroundings and after how she had been drugged and controlled by Selene it would make sense that she wouldn’t take to well to the idea of Charles being able to enter her mind. It turns out that kitty has been using her friendship with Doug so he can help her monitor what Sebastian Shaw has been up to. After moving on from manipulating Roberto’s father he’s gone back to working with Henry Peter Gyrich on Project Widewake. Valerie Cooper has also joined the project in an attempt to track down mutants to create a governmentally sponsored mutant team. It appears that she is currently unaware of the fact that Henry plans on killing or imprisoning all mutants, and both Valerie and Henry are unaware of the fact that Sebastian Shaw is a mutant and is planning on using the project to protect the Inner Circle and target all the other mutants. The whole thing I find odd about this issue is the fact that Kitty is sort of manipulating Doug – that’s not in character for her at all, and it gets even more weird when it begins to appear that Charles has no idea that Kitty is doing this. There is a mistake when Charles says he wishes Amara had a ‘confidence’ like Kitty does Illyana – it’s obvious he meant ‘confidant.’ It was a good issue, but I don’t think it was smart to close out the arch with it. The story would have been stronger if it ended last issue. But all in all it was good.

The New Mutants #7 – Flying Down To Rio!: B

The New Mutants #8 – The Road to… Rome?: B

The New Mutants #9 – Arena!: A

The New Mutants #10 – Betrayal!: A

The New Mutants #11 – Magma: A

The New Mutants #12 – Sunstroke: B

The New Mutants #13 – School Dayze: B

Chronological X-Men - Wolverine Part 1 Review

Wolverine! (Also a little bit of 'whose wedding is it anyway?)

Wolverine #1 – I’m Wolverine

Wolverine #2 – Debts and Obligations

Wolverine #3 – Loss

Wolverine #4 – Honor

This particular mini-series shows us what Logan has been up to since he left the X-Men. It starts off with Logan tracking an illegal hunter in Canada and eventually traveling to Japan to see Mariko after she refuses to speak with him or return any of his attempts to contact him. It turns out that the reason why she has cut off all contact with him is because when Mariko’s father Lord Shingen returns and basically forces Mariko into an arranged marriage with Noburu-Hideki. Logan doesn’t take it too well when he finds out that Mariko is physically abused by her husband but Logan doesn’t have much time to deal with it because he is quickly attacked by members of The Hand – it turns out that they are working for Shingen who has gotten the Clan Yashida involved with the Yakuza because he is heavily involved in illegal activity. After being rejected by Mariko Logan meets up with Yukio (her first appearance at all) who is basically the female version of himself. However all is not as it seems, it turns out that Yukio is working with Lord Shingen to kill Logan – unfortunately for her she has fallen in love with him. Once Logan learns that Shingen is behind the attacks from The Hand he confronts him and on their second duel he ends up killing Shingen in front of Mariko – who felt honor bound to kill her father herself if Logan hadn’t. So in the end Mariko ends up leaving her abusive husband and she and Logan become engaged leaving the series to end with the X-Men getting an invitation to Logan and Mariko’s wedding, and Yukio roaming around Japan a woman scorned. I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting a lot going into this mini-series. Wolverine isn’t really the type of character that can carry off a plot that doesn’t revolve around nothing but fights but this was a nice mixture of plot and action so it felt very even. There were a few things that didn’t really make any sense Logan mentions that he knows who his father is which is odd considering he isn’t supposed to have any memories of his life prior to working as a secret agent for the Canadian government. When the X-Men get the wedding invitation Scott is present – yet in The Uncanny X-Men he is currently in Alaska becoming involved with Madelyne Pryor. There’s all this turmoil with the Clan Yashida yet Shiro (Sunfire) is no where to be seen and he is Mariko’s cousin.

Marvel Team-Up Annual #6 – The Hunters and the Hunted!

Well now we have Spider-Man who is trying to track down Cloak and Dagger and help them bring the people who killed a bunch of teens to justice. Through a random series of events Cannonball, Psyche, Sunspot and Wolfsbane all become involved which results in Roberto and Rahne getting kidnapped by the drug dealers who are trying to use their drugs on mutants to create a counter part that will help protect them from Cloak and Dagger. There really isn’t much to say about this particular story it was good but I would much rather have had the writer switch out Dani with Xi’an. It would have been a perfect way to play up her history that surrounded around child exploitation and they could have had Spider-Man or cannonball pull her back from going over the edge once Rahne and Roberto where augmented and turned into mindless beasts by the drug dealers.

The New Mutants #5 – Heroes

The New Mutants #6 – Road Warriors!

Well the New Mutants go to the local Fair as a reward for everything that they had been through recently and they encounter Team America – a group of stunt riders that Roberto looks at as heroes; so much so that he even creates a fictional sister just so he can get Team America’s autographs for ‘her.’ The fair is quickly crashed by The Silver Samurai (first time he appears in an X-book) and Viper (I’m pretty sure that this also her first appearance in an X-book) who plan on using Team America to steal a crystal from AIM’s ‘Project Matrix’ unfortunately Dani gets kidnapped by the evil dup and Viper adjusts her plan telling everyone that unless they bring her the crystal she will kill Dani. Charles and Lilandra work with Team America to obtain the crystal while Xi’an, Sam, Rahne and Roberto try to locate Dani. Charles looses contact with everyone when he is struck down with a telepathic blow (that also effects Lilandra and Karma) so he has no idea what’s going on with Xi’an’s team. Unfortunately she has taken the team to meet with her uncle to try to get him to give her information that will help her locate Dani. Finding herself unable to kill her uncle she ends up agreeing to a deal – if he reveals the location of Viper’s headquarters she will work for him no questions asked for a year. Ultimately Charles is able to regain telepathic contact with The New Mutants and shortly after that Xi’an is tormented by a voice only she can hear unfortunately before anyone can do anything about it The Silver Samurai sets off a series of bombs that blow up the island. My only problem with this is that given the current storyline it feels odd that suddenly Charles and Lilandra are in Japan for Logan and Mariko's wedding and that Storm knows the outcome of this particular battle yet there's a whole other storyline that continues in the next issue of the New Mutants that goes on for a few issues actually but the start of it happens just before the rest of this particular overall plot line (Logan and Mariko's wedding) so you could almost read like the first 2-3 pages of the next issue of New Mutants and then jump back to this story and finish it up. It's an odd little thing and it doesn't bug me much which is surprising but oh well.

The Uncanny X-Men #172 – Scarlet in Glory

The Uncanny X-Men #173 – To Have and Have Not

The X-Men (including their newest member Rogue) arrive in Japan for Logan and Mariko’s wedding. Unknown to Logan Yukio is still ‘looking out for’ Logan and encounters The Silver Samurai who has returned to Japan after his recent battle with The New Mutants in an attempt to stop the wedding and take back control of the Clan Yashida (since he is Mariko’s half brother.) Viper manages to poison all of the X-Men except for Rogue, Logan and Storm which causes Logan to try to get revenge on Viper and Keniuchio with Rogue’s help. He doesn’t want anything to do with Rogue at first but she more than proves herself when she risks her life to save Mariko. Storm continues to struggle with her sense of self and lose control of her powers – thankfully she meets up with Yukio and sort of models this new way she’s thinking and behaving after Yukio’s train of thought ‘you only die once.’ Speaking of only dying once… after a heated battle where Ororo loses control of her powers and is flung into the water to keep from burning herself to death she sees a giant flaming Phoenix rising out of the sky. Ororo continues her metamorphosis and ends up shaving her head leaving only a mohawk and donning a brand new all leather outfit. Meanwhile before traveling to Japan with Alex, Lorna, Corsair and Madelyne; Alex catches Scott going through the records of their grandparents business specifically looking at Madelyne’s file because he believes her to be the reincarnation of Phoenix. In Japan though Madelyne’s presence doesn’t go over too well at first, Lilandra tries to kill her, everyone else is shocked to see her and Kitty (possibly on purpose) scares her by making her watch Lockheed. At the wedding Mariko refuses to marry Logan stating that he isn’t, and never will be worthy of him and as she walks away we see a cropped image of Mastermind. Obviously he had gone after her and used his powers, but it remains to be seen how he dug his way out of his mind from his past encounter with Phoenix, why he targeted Mystique, and if he has any thing to do with the recent attack Charles suffered or if he had anything to do with the voices Karma heard before she died (oh yeah, there’s a little error here and it is revealed that Storm knows that Xi’an did in the explosion – there’s a bit of a timeline error her since the next main story Nova Roma takes place after Logan and Mariko’s non-wedding yet Xi’an’s death isn’t revealed until that story, and Charles and Lilandra are still dealing with the New Mutants with Ororo’s help in New Mutants #7 yet they’re over in Japan now – it’s a minor error that I can over look so it’s not too bad) or the giant Phoenix that Ororo and Yukio saw. There is one little change – a cosmetic one that isn’t really explained (but it doesn’t need to be either, I just find it odd) up until this point Rogue has had her white streaks on the side of her head and now it’s suddenly just one streak in the front. You know it’s a pretty good story if all I can nitpick about is someone’s hair.

What If? #43 – What If… Wolverine Had Married Mariko?

Okay much like with almost every single What If… that I’ve read so far this story teaches us that no matter what is different everyone dies and I’m kind of sick of it really, there’s a way to have an alternate reality story that doesn’t involve killing most of the characters involved. In this particular story Logan does indeed marry Mariko and the two of them stay in Japan (which is a major cause of disappointment for Kitty) to regain the honor of Clan Yoshida and dissolve any and all involvement with the Yakuza. Eventually Mariko’s half brother The Silver Samurai betrays the person he is working for claiming he wants to regain his own personal honor and become a member of Clan Yoshida once again. Logan learns that the leader of the Yakuza is none other than Wilson Fisk… the Kingpin. After a series of battles Logan and Mariko almost die but are saved by her cousin Shiro (Sunfire) and he joins up in the battle as well. Logan agrees to a duel to the death with Kingpin and manages to defeat Kingpin and then it is revealed that Silver Samurai has been working as a double agent for Fisk and kills Mariko. Logan goes crazy and ends up killing The Silver Samurai by extending his claws into the man’s head. Fisk takes off vowing that he will one day seize control of the Clan Yoshida, Logan refuses to stay in Japan and returns to the X-Men after turning over Clan Yoshida to Mariko’s cousin Shiro. Like I said before, I don’t like the idea of alternate realities where one thing is different and it leads to many deaths. There is a way to do an alternate story that doesn’t kill most people off and I’d rather see stories like that instead of the usual – one thing different, everyone dies, this teaches us that if something different happens everyone dies….

Wolverine #1 – I’m Wolverine: B

Wolverine #2 – Debts and Obligations: B

Wolverine #3 – Loss: A

Wolverine #4 – Honor: A

Marvel Team-Up Annual #6 – The Hunters and the Hunted!: B

The New Mutants #5 – Heroes: A

The New Mutants #6 – Road Warriors!: A

The Uncanny X-Men #172 – Scarlet in Glory: A

The Uncanny X-Men #173 – To Have and Have Not: A

What If? #43 – What If… Wolverine Had Married Mariko?: C