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

2.2 (367) Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #199 ... Marvel ...

And after inspecting the issue that came after 200, we go backwards to one issue before 200 to see if this issue is equally as good as ... naturally for me it IS a huge RESOUNDING YES. I have read this several times including enjoying that awesome, awesome cover of Rachel as Phoenix arising!

Yes, in this issue, Rachel, not Jean or her clones, is Phoenix

What's really important here is that of the quieter moments. Sure we see Magneto and the rest of the regular X-team helter-skelter running around and preparing to be in Europe for the trial and having challenges from bitch Mystique and Freedom Force

But what's important here is when we see Rachel coming to finally finding peace within her as she goes to Jean's parents house ... and finding the sphere that contains the remembrances (and perhaps a little essence?) of Jean ... and finally ... finally accepting the fact that she may be from a divergent timeline or universe but without doubt, she has the powers and the force that is the Phoenix!

Awesome!

Ratings: 8/10

356. Secret Invasion #1 to 8 ... Marvel ...

And now for something totally different, we are going to review the entire series of a limited series instead of issue by issue ... so over the past decade, both Marvel and DC have decided on 1 big major yearly event that has implications (almost) line wide and at the end of each series, the so-called universe will have a new setting to play on ... until next year's big event. In the cast of Marvel, sometimes if the event is not so all encompassing, then there will be several like one for the mutant books, one for the cosmic books and one for the remainder of the Marvel U ...

But this series encompasses all the titles!

It continues from where Civil War left off and ends by giving us Dark Reign ...

What's it about? Basically Marvel awesome scribe, Bendis decides that years ago, after the nonsense with the Skrull war and intervention by earthlings, they wanted to get even and established a long term plan that studied how to come and invade earth without being detected by magic, science and telepathy ... all the while having other conflicts in space ... this came to a head as their empire fell apart and so they decided to officially adopt earth as their new home

What made this a pain for the heroes and serve as the tension point?

Who do you trust?

When word came out at first, each hero began to question friends around them especially since the first confirmed Skrull was when Elektra was killed and before then, Elektra was everywhere including SHIELD, Avengers, and even DD's world ... with that happening, what else can be wrong?

And then when the Skrulls unveiled their hand, the entire world was taken completely unawares! From even non super powered beings and family, the Skrulls have put plans in motion. And they provided for contingencies like Stark tech, Maria Hill, Shield and even Sword!

So it's a long scramble as the disparate parties try to run away, find a breathing space, recuperate and hopefully find a way to turn around the invasion

It's a decent read BUT ... the biggest letdown for me are 2 things:

1. The end is one slugfest between heroes of earth and skrulls with powers? I mean, that's it? You are an alien race, advanced, years in the planning and your intention is to slug it out with earth's heroes and decided to do it in USA where the most heroes are?

2. Yu's artwork - sorry but it is too scratchy for my taste

Don't believe me? Look at back issue prices online. Of all the past decade's worth of crossovers, this is by far the cheapest to buy still

Ratings: 6/10 (would have been 7 if not for Yu)

279. Ultimate War #1 to 4 ... Marvel ...

When Ultimate-verse started, it was very self-contained and didn't explode with a ton of series. There were only a few like Spider-Man and X-Men and subsequently we have Fantastic Four and the Ultimates (Avengers) ... so each series came out on their own basis with the occasional guest stars only but the writers and artists? Excellent!

So when the first official cross over limited series came, Ult verse decided to do it in a big way as well and what bigger way than to have all out fight fest between the X-Men and the Ultimates and that's what this series is all about and who better to be the artist than superstar Chris Bach?

In this series, Chris showed what he is truly capable of and yet editors manage to contain his style so that it doesn't get overly convoluted with all sorts of details and clutter (mind you I am a big fan of the Bach!)

Anyhow, what's this about?

Magneto!

Apparently he opened up the series with a HUGE attack on the human population destroying public facilities and human lives and under TV glare! And what happens next? Well naturally the so-called human response is to go after him but pissed off because they all thought Mags is gone ... dead ... and surprised to find that Prof X used his powers to cloud all of their minds. Naturally they call in the Ult to handle both X and Mags!

And as for the X people? Well they are in a mess themselves because this is Mags and they are wondering how they can also salvage their PR with the humans

While the art is good and the promise is a lot, the pay off, the big battle fell waaaaay short! You read the first three issues and there are action ... just not the big fight that you expected and then the final issue? A let down. That is the biggest disappointment here. No real war or even a small skirmish! Sigh!

Ratings: 7/10

268. X-Factor vol 1 #24 to 26 ... Marvel ...

This is it! The big one! Celebrating the second year of X-Factor and also the big 25th issue double-sized extravaganza and and and wait for it a tie in to Fall of the Mutants storyline. So what's with this Fall of Mutants storyline? Well, basically, as the header indicates, the mutant titles are going to be hit hard by events that will cause significant changes to their current line-up

Here's a summary - X Men had a huge fight with a cosmic entity, New Mutants went rescuing one of their new friends only to result in a loss of life and innocence and finally there is X-Factor. So as you can see, while all three titles are interconnected, yet each of them have their own tale i.e you do not need to read another title to get the full story and that works just fine

Ever since his introduction in the first few issues of X-Factor, Apocalypse has been lurking in the background planning for something big and we finally see it as Angel makes a come back after losing his organic wings to be replaced by a pair of tech wings that screams and shoots blades! And he looks so much cooler even if it is through the hands of Apo

As for the rest of X-Factor, well, they were caught with their pants down more or less because they kept running into obstacle after obstacle not counting their own internal problems including Beast who is getting stronger but each time he pushes his physical prowess, he loses his grey cells (sorry but that's the storyline) while Iceman needs a belt harness to control his powers otherwise he goes ballistic freezing everything and everyone including himself!

And with all that going on, Apo launches his Horsemen led by Angel now called Death and soon to be called Arcangel (hey that's the fan of reviewing books from years and decades ago!)

It's a great thrill of a ride

Lots of action, lots of big bang and a huge discovery about the base that is being used by Apo - all in all, a definite must read!

Ratings: 8/10