2.253 (618) New Mutants vol 1 #100 ...

Back in the olden days, as in the 80s and 90s, when I was collecting comics as they were coming out, rather than TPB and softcopies, when a series was slowly dying thanks to diminishing sales, usually the hype was just that - hype. They would give us average stories and change artists to maybe newcomers who need time to hone their skills and I would be left wondering how the F are they supposed to turn it around. Of course, as we grew up and with hindsight, we realized that there is always the possibility that the publishers had some commitments and while they know the series is due to cancellation, they moved the better talents to booming properties and simply use cheaper talents to fill the commitments. Basically we were used - the readers and buyers! It doesn't sound nice but it is the truth

Hence, once in a while, it is nice to see a reversal in trend. The New Mutants did strongly in its early years and especially when Bill S was onboard. After that, it was still good with Claremont on stories and Guice on art. Unfortunately for me and I do believe a fair bit of others, Bret wasn't the right choice of artist. That and the strange storylines with that spyder like character and whatever was going on before and after the big mutant crossover of Inferno drove sales downward

Thus the arrival of Rob Liefeld was a saving grace. Of course, now that I am older and reading this book once more, I can see the other side of the artwork - the part where critics like to hammer him but like I said in my first paragraph, in Rob's case, he put in a lot of energy and spark into the New Mutants transforming them from teenagers with angst into young people who actually have huge responsibilities thrust on them and the challenges that they faced were more grim and gritty though no less worse than the threats before

If there is one thing Rob is good at, it's energy. Look at that cover. It just rocks! While the interior artwork has its moments, we can feel the rushness of the artwork where the artist has to just churn out to meet the deadlines and with a double sized issue? Well, we can understand some of the panels are less than impressive but visually it connects and in fact, I believe if they have a better colorist (or perhaps the challenge is with production quality?),  it would be better

Anyway, story wise, this is the final issue of New Mutants as the team is largely changed in terms of new faces, departure of old faces and the relaunch of X-Force. So here on the final issue SPOILER ALERT we are introduced to even more characters. First up, Lady Domino was just with us a couple of issues ago and last issue was bye bye Sunspot....

So naturally in terms of character development, a lot of chit chat is going on between Cable and Domino and then Cannonball and Boom Boom about changes and moving on and whether who should stay and who should go and what-not

But then in the midst of this we are introduced to Shatterstar who just pops in and is running and fighting everyone he meets. Naturally in terms of visual he is so awesome but Cable pops him easily hahahaha. And where there is new guy who is a hero, we found out that his villains are chasing after him to Earth from Planet Mojo

Now if that wasn't enough, the sneaky person in shadows from earlier is revealed as none other than a new claw person now that old claw person Wolfsbane is no longer with the team and she comes with her own set of problems in the form of Masque of the Morlocks!

And so there you have it ... new members with new problems but that's not all. O no. We end with an awesome epilogue where the Mutant Liberation Front's mystery leader is finally revealed as Stryfe who removes his helmet and ... gasp ... looks exactly as Cable!

What's going on? Well way back then when this came out it certainly left a lot of us hankering for X-Force 1

Ratings: 8/10

2.237 (602) Fallen Angels #1 ...

Honestly we have no idea what was the purpose of this entire mini-series. Seriously ... average artwork to average story (some issues are actually boring) ... issued during a time when mini-series were still not the norm ... one would expect this to be huge but it was not

Anyway, Prof X has files on mutants including students and one of his files was on Sunspot and the potential for him to be a bad guy some day simply because he is headstrong and comes from a moneyed background and his daddy is some sort of industrialist while his mom is some of professor type that goes all Indiana Jones

So to make a long story short, as the cover shows, Sunspot lost his cool and smacks Cannonball aka Sam aka his best friend down. Shocked more than anything made Sunspot panicked and he fled along with a few others

And that's what this is about

Sunspot left with a few of the other Mutants going to the streets trying to find their purpose in life and whether they should move on, just exist or go back. There are some pluses here. We got some new people introduced during this series. And we get to see some characters from the Marvel U who hasn't been seen in a while

And that's just about it ... a ho-hum kinda effort that didn't make me feel like continuing to buy this when it first came out

Ratings: 3/10

2.236 (601) Factor X #1 ...

Right - I am surprised I have never reviewed a single issue of this four issue series so let's get to it. Basically this happened during the mid-90s in the original Age of Apocalypse run where all the mutant titles got canned and for four months, we get alternate versions of these titles. So Factor X is X-Factor ... more or less ... perhaps more less if you get what I mean

Here in this opening issue, we see that Cyclops is Mr Prim and Proper to a certain extent in the sense that he carries out his master/ boss wishes to the point that he actually loses one eye. And in this universe, as he is a mutant he is one of the master race and his own master is none other than Sinister

During this time, he was in-charge of slave pens where humans etc are being caged for uses including experimentation and being menial labour... serving alongside him is his younger brother Alex aka Havok who has a bit of an inferiority complex except in this universe, that inferiority has developed into full blown jealousy and potentially hatred. So what can happen if this is left unchecked eh? Well you won't get it in this one issue but if you are patient enough you will find out and it can be shocking!

Speaking of shocking, as the cover shows, we also get the Dark Beast who has many of the same traits as our regular Beast except that here he has not the ability to relate to anyone on a humane level. Thus to him the science is all and his passion is to experiment on anyone and everyone. Hence his awesome love of the slave pens

With that out of the way, the story progresses and we see a Scott struggling with his inner self trying to justify what he is doing on a daily basis while surrounded by those who actually loved the stage of ruin and despair and carnage all around him. You just know that it will not be long before all goes BOOM

Ratings: 6/10 (o yeah  artist is Steve Epting before he became awesome on Captain A)

2.233 (598) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #206 ...

The first question that comes to mind when reading this is how much longer can writer Claremont keep up with this greatness? He has been churning out issue after issue of tense, continuous laden goodies for fans, be it new or those following for years and each issue there are always either new plot developments or he progresses on existing sub plot threads slowly nurturing them to the fore for a future primary storyline

In this issue, we see the culmination of subplots from before the big 200

Mystique in her wheeling and dealing finally got approval and pardon for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in return for them performing services for the government. While the concept is not new but the oddity here is that there is no attempt to even clean their image or at the very least new uniforms to confuse the general public before releasing them out into the wilds so to speak

Anyway, in view of what happened in 200 where the trial of Magneto was Hung, SPOILER ALERT, amongst many other issues, it has been decided that the X-Men is not on the side of the angels anymore or at least their status is more a shade of grey

So when the opportunity arises, as the cover indicates, Mystique launches Freedom Force and the moment they come across the X-Men, her ego got the better of her and it's all out fighting!

Awesome!

Ratings: 7/10

2.232 (597) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #205 ...

We were going to stop and change to a different title but this issue is so freaking awesome that we just had to do a review. After 204's breather with Nightcrawler, Marvel continued to do a "told in one" issue and this time with Wolverine ... and to ensure that the tale packs a huge PUNCH, they brought in artist superstar, Barry Windsor Smith

And boy did Mr Smith delivered! Big time!

Right from the very first page, we knew it was going to be different from the art style to the darker colours and the moody shadows

This comic started with the full introduction of then new villain the Reavers and Lady Deathstrike. We also get to see a Spiral who has plans and intentions of her own that goes beyond Mojoworld and Mojo ... or is she merely carrying out her mistress' plans?

But whatever her plans might be, the truth remains and that is that she was the one who called into being the transformation of Lady Yuriko into Lady Deathstrike

And with that covered in the first few panels we get to see how the story goes into even higher gear as our reavers started hunting Wolverine. Naturally, as everyone knows, a cornered animal can be ... you know what ... and Wolverine when cornered, gives back every bit as good as he got. In short, it's a close quarters fight ... on the one hand you have the cyborgs Reavers with their weapons versus Wolvie's claws and on the other, the reborn Deathstrike and her claws versus Wolvie DAMN!

This is good no great comics

Ratings: 9/ 10

2.231 (596) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #204 ...

As is the wont in Marvel's merry days, after a series of issues that has way too much doom n gloom, Marvel will take an issue for a breather. This breather may be in the form of a stock comic or something in continuity

In issue 204, after all the drama with Prof X being yanked into outer space and Magneto now part of the X-Men (a first of sorts way back then) and the Secret Wars saga with Rachel/ Phoenix having the ability to wipe out the Earth, Marvel decided to spotlight this issue on a character that has always had some popularity and that is the blue coloured Nightcrawler

During those days, Nightcrawler besides his ability to teleport looked like the slimmer version of Beast. He is even agile and comes with a tail and can stick to rough surfaces almost like Spidey. Night fancies himself to be in the mold of an olden day's world sword fighter, a swashbuckler ... sort of a pirates like Johnny Depp before Pirates of the Caribbean

And as the cover clearly indicates, this is a light hearted romp through various scenes as he goes about getting involved in rescuing damsels in distress ...

And that's all there is to it. Nothing monumental happens. Nothing that will change Night's life one bit but it's all in good fun and reading this comic was indeed fun

Ratings: 6/10

2.230 (595) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #203 ...

Check out this cover! For some reason, anything cosmic just makes me wanna buy them all. So naturally I bought this one. Hehehe! And as the cover suggests, this is another crossover with Secret Wars 2 SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

After the latest tussle between Earth's heroes and the Beyonder, everyone went back to their respective hidey holes to either lick their wounds or prepare for the next encounter with the Beyonder and in Rachel's case, she ponders upon the fact that the Beyonder made her an offer of granting her a portion of his power and never taking it back. So does she have enough power now to take him down? Or kill him outright?

For Rachel is not Jean and she is actually more like Wolverine having killed during her own era in one of Earth's alternate realities. While she is busy thinking this through, the rest of the X-team members are unaware until it is too late ... by the time they wanna interfere, she has already made up her own mind and she issued the Beyonder a challenge ... and he accepted

What transpires is obviously a wee bit wordy as both hero and villain exchanged words thanks to Mr Claremont. However, while we may call it intellectual BS, it still is awesome to read. Seriously. And the artwork just makes us go WOW ...

We do not need to tell you how it ends because any new comic reader knows how it ends. The excitement is in how it came to its conclusion ...

Ratings: 7/10

2.229 (594) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #202 ...

Okay. Enough with the New Mutants eh? Now we switch on to the main team - Uncanny X-Men and what a ride this series has been for the past 100 issues. Chris Claremont really gets the characters and here he shows that he can start a new tale in the midst of impending crossover time (Secret Wars 2) and still managed to make it standalone so well

As the cover indicates (and what a lovely lovely cover it is), the Sentinels are back. And you all know what it means! Mutant hunting time ... yup for those not in the know SPOILER ALERT ... Sentinels are basically created to hunt down and exterminate mutants and here, that's what they do

So our team, still licking their wounds after their past few issues of hectic over the top stress and tension, are ill equipped to face the robotic death traps. However, in this instance, it is not a case of lacking raw power but rather focus

Still with Rachel, baby Phoenix on their side, they cannot lose, eh?

What you need to know is buy this comic and just read it and enjoy it. The art and colours work so well here with the tale

Ratings: 7/10

2.226 (591) New Mutants vol 1 #35 ...

[Seat belts in everyone and prepare to be jetted through some of the early issues of the New Mutants. Why NM? Because we are huge, huge fans of volume 1, that's why so there!]


Thirty five as the cover indicates is sort of a turning point in both Xavier's school as well as the life of the younger mutants. You see, this story kind of takes place, if memory serves correctly after Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #200 the trial of Magneto where Prof X finally succumbs to his injuries that have been mounting and is yanked away to be with his beloved to rest and recuperate ... SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT ... and in his place in comes Magneto whose trial did not end conclusively one way or another. And therein lies the hokum of comics ... villains that have killed can be given second chances by heroes as heroes are judge and jury in that world hahahahah!

So naturally at first with no one around to explain things in a rational way, the New Mutants act out by trying to be rebellious ... or at least some of them did ...

And the Mutants themselves have been having a tough time too because recently they came through a tough time where Dani Moonstar ended up a Valkyrie while Karma an original founding member possessed them and caused havoc ... when they discovered that she is now crimelord and blubbo of some seedy underworld gang ...

And as the cover also clearly indicates ... Magneto made the smart move by giving them a chance to vent their mounting pent up frustration on him in the then Danger Room.

Very cluttered and clunky artwork though the facial expressions do come through sufficiently well to convey the emotions running in this issue. While this issue is sort of a downtime in between major storylines that has crossover impact, it is also a welcome breather to let us know the protagonists much better

Ratings: 6/10

2.223 (588) Sabretooth Open Season TPB

Sabretooth in the comics world is one big meanie and he is not always dumb like in the movies. In fact, the movies sort of makes him out to be nothing but a hired dumb hick of a thug. But in the comics, he might have started out as a sadistic assassin for hire who also somehow seemed cannibalistic ... however, over the years, he has become more and more of a schemer, a multi-faceted sort of character

So here in this TPB ... unfortunately while it is a tale of many chapters, thanks to the uninspired artwork within, not the cover, it sort of made the entire tale become draggy. All you need to know is that there are some people living up north in the cold and there are some egghead types doing some stuff there or some such thanks to their odd uniforms. One thing led to another and before you know it, because Sabretooth is all tooth and nail we have Sasquatch of Alpha Flight popping by

And is that enough? Or do we need one more so-called truly nasty villain?

You can tell by the second paragraph I am so not enamoured with this book, eh? I hope so

Ratings: 2/10

2.106(471) Wolverine Weapon X #1 ... Marvel ... #x-men

There was originally a title called Weapon X that explores the mysterious ongoings of this project facility where Wolverine was subjected to in his younger days ... a process that laced adamantium to his bones and making him even more savage

Now you may be wondering why less than a few months have passed before we are talking about Wolverine again. Well, the reason is that while this particular spin off title is obviously trying to cash in on his popularity, what this does (in less than 2 years) is give us a Wolverine who is actually savage and shows us him killing others i.e. happening here and not off panel which is brilliant

Unfortunately the artwork by Ron Garney who has his own following is not to my taste

The title for this arc is adamantium men and you know writer Jason Aaron is just going to rock this like no other. In fact, it is such a great opener that the first pages without Logan making an appearance is fine as we get introduced to a scene in the jungles where the villains met an even worse group of villains

And where is our star character? Well if you wade through a bit further, he is sleeping off a drunken bout in a train. How cool is that?

Naturally it will not be long before he is summoned and dragged down into the mess that is the Weapon X program only to discover that someone has yet again activated the program and this time as the title suggests SPOILER ALERT there is potentially more than one chap besides him running around with adamantium within or a variation thereof!

Ratings: 7/10 (would have been higher if not for the art)

2.88 (453) Ultimate X-Men vol 1 #7 ... Marvel ...

When one arc ends, another begins and the title of this is Return to Weapon X. With that kind of a header, you will expect this to feature Marvel's most popular hero, Wolvie so why's the Night man on the cover?

Well, the Ultimate take on the Weapon X program certainly has a few surprises in store for us and indeed we open with Nightcrawler being pursued and this is one vicious Nightcrawler who can actually fight and not just stay cute and teleport with a gentle Bamf-ing sound only. Hehehehe!

But unfortunately, after this one great opening chase sequence, the entire issue goes downhill with lots of talking, reflections and some mumbo jumbo about Wolverine and what he remembers of the program. In fact, all this chit chat takes up more than 2/3 of the issue and then ... it ends ... asking us to follow them on the next issue. My answer to this is ... yeah, sure ... let's flick through a few pages first of the next issue before we actually buy it, eh?

Sorry Mr Mark Millar ... too much time spent on setting up

Ratings: 4/10

2.87 (452) Ultimate X-Men vol 1 #6 ... Marvel ...

And from one Ultimate title, we moved to another i.e. the world of the mutants simply because it seems that the powers that be in Hollywood seemed to deem that the world of movies can do with yet another movie coming next year on this particular corner of the comic-verse and so here we are at the end of the first arc in the Ult X - verse

While the first 5 chapters have some really wow angle moment scenes in terms of artwork and that unique palette of colours but all has been building towards this final issue and alas in terms of artwork, there is not a single scene that makes you go WHOA it's good don't get us wrong ... just nothing special for this wonderful ending to a great first arc

We see here the different of the mutant factions that as of last issue were spread across the globe ... broken and disheartened and we were wondering how they are going to cope when Magnus finally comes a calling ... and come he did with the entire Sentinel arsenal at his disposal ... think of the last X movie and you will know what we mean ... so perhaps that movie took a few pages of hints from this particular comic, eh?

But as fate or rather a good writer could manage it, everything turns at the right time. So when Magneto makes his move, each faction of the X-Men team come together at just the right moment to give Magneto shock after unexpected shock that left him literally scarred and reeling ... the ending is great ... not what we hoped for but acceptable and good fun

What more can you ask for, eh?

Ratings: 6/10

2.77 (442) Wolverine Origins vol 1 #15 ... Marvel ...

And so it ends this saga of ours but what an ending it is!

Throughout this entire arc, though Wolverine has been savage, he has also shown to be a man who has honour and knows when to kill and when not to. However, here, he goes one step beyond and actually plays a surprising card letting the baddie thinks the latter is ahead. Heh! Good one!

Basically, at the end of this arc, the tale has not yet finished as Wolverine and Daken still hasn't settled their father-son animosity issues and the mysterious guy scheming behind is yet to be fully confronted. It does, however, give us closure of a sorts with psycho, Cyber

NO SPOILER ALERT

Other than that, you can expect some awesome action sequences but that's it. I cannot reveal more ... except to say what a bummer the ending is ... no Quesada cover

Ratings: 5/10

2.73 (438) Wolverine Origins vol 1 #11 ...

[Short note ... from next review onwards, we will be publishing on an alternate day basis as we are running short on staff ... and still churning out our movie and novel reviews as well ... hope you bear with us ... thanks for reading!]

I cannot believe this. After 400 over reviews, I did a check and found that I have only ever reviewed issue 1 of this series when it boasts in its early run AWESOME QUESADA covers and by awesome, I meant it. I am not a fan of Quesada interiors but his covers are just WOW

In this issue, we start a new story arc and once again with Dillon delivering on the interiors, it was a roaring kick off as we see Wolvie realizing he is being surrounded and has the option of slashing through SHIELD agents or using his brains. Nice to see him reigning in his killer urge here. At this point, he has no idea who is really jerking his chains only that he is obsessed with finding Daken, his estranged son and see if anything can be done to calm the kid down as the kid is infinitely worse than him!

On the flipside, we see Daken playing his usual games of debauchery and killing anyone who he feels like it while realizing that as much as he considers himself a player, he is nothing more than a pawn

And as all good Marvel of ole knows, a Marvel comic must have threads hanging for the future and in this issue, we see not the body but the eerie and foreboding voice of ... Cyber ... in a farmyard where a kid has mutated to giant size with super strength!

Ratings: 6/10

2.72 (437) X-Factor vol 1 #63 ... Marvel ...

Well, well, well after that crossover I was happy to drop X-Factor once more except that this issue introduce me to an artist whose style finally came to the fore and this artist is none artist that Whilce Portacio. Whilce is simply awesome. I became a fan and have generally followed his career until today!

Anyway in this issue we see a 2-parter of sorts where young Bobby Drake aka the Iceman is finally getting full spotlight as we see him going out with his girlfriend who is Japanese

Predictably her family didn't approve of him ... kinda similar to Bobby's problems all the time

However, to add some spice to the tale, on the flipside we found out that the girlfriend's brother is supposed a master assassin who has a whole heard of wanebe heroes and that's them on this cover. So they are cybernetic soldiers

Good work, decide storyline if ableit too cliché but of course the ending is good as we are guarant
eed with more action and sound effect noises to come

Ratings: 8/10

2.71 (436) X-Factor vol 1 #61 ... Marvel ...

Once more we skipped forward a couple of years to the next big event in the Mutant verse and this time around, it's called the X-tinction Agenda and it involves the entire Mutant family as apparently in small island nation Genosha, the humans have managed to enslave the entire country and using mutants to do a lot of menial and special tasks

When we talk about mutants here, it is not just regular but special or activated mutants. Of course, some are brainwashed to even become magistrates. Magistrates are like police special forces armed with high-tech weaponry

In this ongoing chapter, we see as the cover shows, a battle between Cable who is in deep shit over his team going out to take a strike against a Cameron Hodge ... the latter of whom is now more machine than man but his hatred remains. On a slightly more dramatic yet sentimental mode, we have Jean caring for Wolvie

The one let down here is the artwork for me. I mean at this time, we have artists like Jim Lee on Uncanny producing the other chapters to this crossover and after reading a Lee issue to come to this rushed looking work? UGH!

Ratings: 6/10

2.70 (435) X-Factor vol 1 #31 ... Marvel ...

The last time we did an X-Factor was in the 200++ review so it's high time we jump back into this particular corner of the Marvel Mutant-verse and this issue is part of an ongoing chapter in the crossover of that era - Inferno

And that is one heck of an awesome crossover where the various individual titles have threads and characters from over the years slowly being pulled back together into one major storyline. It felt natural not forced upon. Example: We have Magik from the New Mutants who powers have come to fruition as the Dark Childe and of course Magik originally encountered demons like N'astirh from Uncanny X-Men and here in this side for X-Factor is Cyclops' wife

She was missing and suspected in deep depression etc after Scott left her for the returning Jean Grey. However, she is unfortunate as we soon found out that she may be a clone of Jean and hence the physical resemblance

What is not clearly explained (or at least not to this reviewer) is how an ordinary human woman didn't do much but can suddenly be transformed into a magical being who is so powerful. Here in this particular issue is where she finally accepted her darker side entirely willing to sacrifice all in order to open the gate for all the demons to pour onto our plane of existence

How awesome is that?!?!?!

Ratings: 7/10

2.66 (431) X-Force vol 1 #19 ... Marvel ...

Okay we were going to stop on X-Force after that last review but what the heck? When we saw this, we just had to do it because X-Force from day 1 has been about grim and gritty, teeth bared and posing in impossible poses while supposedly jumping into the thick of battle. So this issue is a HUGE switch of pace

Here we see the epilogue after a 3-issues mutant crossover of that era called Executioner's Song wherein the mysterious new bad guy named Stryfe finally goes all out against the entire world only to finally be stopped by the entire X-teams combined along with some other villains. Now in the aftermath of all that nonsense, we see that misunderstanding and mistrust runs rampant between X-Force and the rest of the mutant teams

And in de facto field leader, Cannonball who was always the insecure one in New Mutants and later on, the lame one in X-Men ... well here not only did he fight for the philosophy of the X-force team and his mates ... but he ultimately became a man and a hero here when he dared challenge the Professor's dream and philosophy ... between the open hand (prof x) and the closed fist (cannonball) ...

You have to read this to understand what I meant by the last sentence. Worth your time

Ratings: 7/10

2.64 (429) X-force vol 2 #1 ... Marvel ...

Just when you thought comics couldn't get any darker, here comes a relaunched X-Force but I have to admit, this version is just awesome because here we get to see, no holds barred, the darker side of what the mutants especially Wolverine titles have been promising for years. In short, you get blood and gore and every issue is filled with such "fun"

About the only challenge here is actually the artwork. I like Crain and his digital works just fine but dude it is still artwork regardless of medium or tools used. Here everything is too dark and muddy. It feels like a cheap copy of a B-grade horror movie if you know what I mean

However, the storyline is just plain awesome

We open up with Cyclops telling Wolverine he has finally decided that there is a need for the kind of shitstorm that Wolverine always talked about and this took Wolvie by surprise (love the banter). However, Wolverine is not too keen on who has been assembled. So why the change in style for Cyclops?

Because the so-called humans have upped their game plan with something larger in mind and is now busy even killing other humans to get at some sort of ultimate weapon. So NO SPOILER ALERT here because it is that awesome a storyline but who are the bad guys?

Well we have all the various factions of humans against mutants including Bastion, Magus, Donald Pierce, Graydon Creed, Cameron Hodge, William Stryker and Matthew Risman ... is that enough for you?

When you reached the final page, all I can say is that this issue sure isn't padded!

Ratings: 8/10 (would have rate higher if not for the artwork inside)