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

2.233 (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

2.230 (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

2.227 (592) New Mutants vol 1 #36 ...

As comics come out once a month and it is not exactly cheap, you cannot expect too much downtime from one issue to the next not if you want to keep your fans coming back each month and so without further ado, after last issue's supposedly fresh start for the Mutants when they come back to their school, we see them land smack in the middle of Secret Wars 2

SPOILER ALERT

For those newer readers to this world, SW2 is when the Beyonder from SW1 decided to come to Earth to learn what it is like to be finite and to have physical appearances

In this issue, as per the cover, we see Shadowcat of the X-Men suddenly coming into possession of the Soulsword. The Sword is mystical in nature and is connected to her supposed best friend, Ilyanna. So if it comes to Kitty, it means something bad has happened to Magik aka Illyanna

And that means also for the Mutants

So Kitty goes on an adventure trying to find out if what she is seeing is really happening or not and learning the hard way that the Beyonder may not be necessarily cruel but he does hurt people all the same, intentionally or not

Not for the casual reader as it is too dense

Ratings: 6/10

365 ONE YEAR OF REVIEWS Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #200 ... Marvel ...

Woooooowiiieee this is our 365th review and this means we have a year's worth of issues ... well the actual time period is slightly more than a year ... as in the past, we were not regular but now we would post a bunch of review in batch format ... and merely set it forward on a daily basis kind of like how real magazines are done and the dates are usually in the future! Hehehe!

And for this 365th we have to choose a comic that is not only special for its time but for us. X-Men 200th was great on several reasons and here are the reasons:

1. It's a celebration issue with double sized story telling. I remembered the ads and reviews saying that to get the location and all that correct, some of the Marvel crew even travelled to Paris!

2. It's a celebration issue that the young me managed to snag from the newsagent instead of via back issue bins similar to Hulk 300. So it's a big deal

3. At that time, X-Men had been consistently on top of the comic charts beating out current champs the Avengers and perennial competitors DC

And with all that, penciller JR JR is coming into his own with his stylized lines although I have to admit that it didn't work that well here because the scenes are usually in bright broad daylight. So nothing much for JR to lay his lines on

Anyway, as the story indicates, by this time, Magneto was on his first big reform as a good guy (current readers will think this is no big deal) ... because at that time, Magneto had never been a good guy until after the Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars where he returned and stayed with the X-Men helping out with the NMutants though not many will agree to his presence

Here, finally, the good guys in the form of Freedom Force (ex-Brotherhood of Mutants) caught up with him (and he surrendered) ... and he decided he wanted to be shown another side of him ... he wanted to be able to have a good platform for his voice and reasoning to be heard. So the court case will be moved to Paris with an international panel of jury to hear him out. Naturally being such a high profile case, the court room and outside are full of tension ...

And in the midst of all these, as Magneto and those within make their grand speeches to which we as readers are privy too ... outside to ensure we have a chance for some action we get to see new villains Fenris, pair of twins, coming making their plans to attack the court case

SPOILER ALERT

Though we are given the motives of the twins' attack, it never sounded convincing. Their subsequent appearance in the mutant world is much better and showed us just how callous and nasty these 2 can be but here ... feels flat

SPOILER ALERT

The ending is touching when all came tumbling down and that final speech between Xavier and Magnus? Solid!

Ratings: 8/10 (could be higher with different artist)