3.35 (2.400)(1.765) Amazing Spider-Man vol 1 #531 ... #Spider-Man ... #Marvel ....

[If we had followed daily, this would have been year 2 or volume 2's 400th review]

And now we turned our attention to yet another Marvel title that is huge but has received little to no love from us and that is the Amazing Spider-Man! This issue is interesting because it is truly a prelude to one of Marvel's popular mega-sized crossovers, the original Civil War

And here regardless of the cover what you need to know SPOILER ALERT that at this juncture, Peter is married to Mary Jane and Aunt May knows his secret identity. In addition, he is now doing business with Stark and being buddies in the Avengers. Stark being Stark has asked Peter to be his right hand man, his confidante and what-not

We admit that when we read CW in floppies all those years ago, it was easy choosing sides with Captain America. Having said that, if we had read this before, it would have at least put us on the fence because this issue and the previous two shows clearly that Stark was trying his best to be diplomatic before the Senate's private hearing, trying to delay the bill on Superhuman Registration and hoping that with time, like all other things, it will go away because politicians come and go

While all this is happening, we also see how he buys Peter's loyalty by upgrading his suit

Unfortunately Stark is Stark and he is never being 100% honest and upfront. At the start of this issue, there is a continuing fight between Peter and the Titanium Man who is hired to eliminate Stark right in Washington DC and naturally because Peter has the new suit, it can record conversation between him and Titanium and used by Stark in the hearing. How convenient right? And this is even noted by the Committee but of course they have no prove to show Stark orchestrate anything ... even Peter asked him and he denied it

Of course we the readers get the truth almost at the end when Iron Man shows up to pay the Titanium Man!

And then this issue ended with Peter falling asleep in front of the telly just as live reports were coming in on an incident involving Speedball ... the incident that would put everything back on Superhuman Registration ... well all things considered at least it shows the level of planning Marvel actually did to tie one book to another, eh?

A good read

Ratings: 7/10

3.34 (764) X-Factor vol 1 #87 ... #X-Factor ... #Mutants ... #Marvel ...

[We are posting this review live - finally!]

This is an X-Factor issue that we picked up as it came out. X-Factor is a very odd series for us because it will have its great run with good story and artwork then fell into a slump and then back again to another spurt. This for us was the fourth spurt after the first opening two arcs, then 25th issue, then the killer Whilce Portacio run and the surprise is this with Quesada and team doing an unbelievable show

For this, what is cool SPOILER ALERT is that this is the Doc Samson exploring the mindset and thoughts and emotions of the team. So we do not get an all out villain slugfest but personal time and thanks to writer Peter David, it is engrossing as we see the team take turns to hang out with Samson

Example: the scene with Guido who used to be this huge oddly sized bodyguard of Lila Cheney interstellar (literally) rock star cum thief who joins them and turns out to be able to issue a quip or two. And we found out that he is actually in constant pain because of his power where in the past he absorbed kinetic energy without proper release thus making him misshapen

Other highlights would include Quicksilver finally letting everyone know why he is so short tempered. It is because he has to literally slowdown just to keep pace with the rest of the world. And Polaris from her long tenure under the influence of psychic entity Malice has a fear of being manipulated and mind-controlled. And on and on ... so you get the picture ...

If you just want another gigantic villain plot and slambang, skip this but if you want a character interaction and discovery journey especially if you have ever read anything by X-Factor and you like it ... then this is for you

Ratings: 8/10

3.33 (763) New Mutants vol 1 #39 ... #mutants ... #marvel ... #marvel.com

[This is posted on 26th Nov 2017]

And our reviews on the New Mutants continue as this arc goes on to show how seamless the New Mutants general storyline has been focusing more on personal issues and development rather than supervillain of the day

The cover is awesome and very clear that the Mutants SPOILER ALERT has ben sent to the Hellions' Academy as Magneto runs out of options on how to heal his students. So he calls in the only other telepath he knows - Emma Frost, the white queen because during this time of the story, Magneto is White King of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle while Frost is his opposite number. Obviously we know in the comics later on she becomes Cyclops main gal! Hahahaha!

Dani aka Mirage gave a hissy fit of sorts screaming and shouting at Magneto for giving up on the Mutants simply because she herself could recover and why not the others?!?!?! But she knew, in her heart of hearts that she is not certain and merely lashing out and as such ... perhaps as she could not help the rest too, she may as well take a sabbatical home ...

And while all that is going on, we see the Queen happy that Magneto has caved in but at the same time hoping that she could genuinely do her magic on them ... and that she did. But will she add a little something in her favour or not?

Ratings: 7/10

3.32. (762) New Mutants vol 1 #38 ... #mutants ...

[Posted on 25th Nov 2017]

If the last issue had them all murdered by the Beyonder, literally, everyone died, then in order for this series to continue, you know that there must be a resurrection. It's a given and the resurrection part unfortunately is dealt with in the main Secret Wars issue. Basically, the Beyonder has decided to assume mortality in its entirety with one exception - he is a mortal but has access to powers like mutants or the Molecule Man (his inspiration)

So while he is constructing the machine using his immeasurable knowledge and powers (not sure why he cannot just make it happen after all it is not as if he is going through childhood but straight within seconds to adulthood in a machine!), he decided to resurrect the mutants by summoning whatever remainder memories and atoms and reconstruct them ... to send them against the approaching heroes to delay them so that he, the Beyonder can finish his work

This issue shows the effects where the mutants are now back in the mansion, not zombies but may as well be because they are going through the motions with literally no feelings whatsoever. If asked to do something, they do. And then they are content to just hang around standing or seating or whatever ...

So new headmaster Magneto is obviously in a bit of a difficult situation feeling like he is in way over his head. Since his power is Magnetism and not like Xavier, he knows that there is only one solution ...

While he is making his decision, Dani aka Mirage is the first to find her own feelings returning and her senses as well

The question then is whether Magneto can afford to wait or will he seek outside help?

Ratings: 7/10 (awesome cover)

3.31 (761) New Mutants vol 1 #37 ... #NewMutants ... @NewMutants ...

[Posted on 23 Nov 2017]

This is such good news for us because of the announcement of a forthcoming motion picture aka movie! Hehehe! After all the X-Men and spin off finally they come to this and we are seriously hoping they do a better job than some of the X-Men movie. Why? Because it is with this series that we started off in the X-world waaaaaaaaay back in the 80s and we followed it from 17 off and on right up to its end in 100 (although we had stopped in the late 60s owing to closure of many comic book shops and newsstands but wherever we went, if there are comics we would be hunting these issues and happy to share that we have all from 1 to 100 inc Graphic Novel and Annuals and the awesome Special Edition!)

Anyway this issue truly marks the end of the first round of the Mutants. SPOILER ALERT

As the cover indicates, this issue is a crossover with the Beyonder from Secret Wars (original first and second series) where a being (at that time) who is the entire universe achieved consciousness and after the first Secret Wars decided to come to our universe and our planet and the USA to learn what it is about mortals and desires

In this issue of the mutants, a disappointed Beyonder who cleansed Illyana aka Magik of her dark soul persona and gave her the ability to bring about a "savior" kind of relationship comes to collect. His life is a mess and he is pissed off that she failed too. When he arrives, the Mutants themselves were in a bit of a disarray and still adjusting to Magneto being headmaster

So when there is no Magneto, the Beyonder comes. While some challenges him and tries to fight, others knew that no matter their effort, the outcome is certain for they were only mortals regardless of abilities while the Beyonder encompass an entire Universe (whatever that concept may mean in this context) like he is literally the space even of that Universe and when he comes to our world, his Universe ceases to exist (do not try to wrap your head around that)

It is very touching/ heart-rending to see the Mutants die one by one from Cannonball to finally Dani aka Mirage especially her as she got on her horse and rode away into the sunset knowing full well he will atomize her!

Violence? Yes! But more than that, a tale where every single person dies! Sigh!

Ratings: 7/10

30. (760) Power Pack vol 1 #1 ... #powerpack

[The last time we did a real life review was on 15th Jan 2017 and we backdated the entry to 7th Jul 2016. So as you can see, it has been a while and honestly while life has been tough this year, it is no excuse, right? So suffice to say, we will attempt to fill up the holes via back reviews and basically a review will be dated every Monday and Thursday. Sorry for those who follow us]

This is the first issue of the first volume where Marvel at the height of is 80s strength and with forthcoming Star Line comics decided to do a full regular Marvel Universe comics based on children and it was successful to the extent that it spawned very loyal fan base that has its own newsletters many of which continued years after the official comic's demise. If it had been in today's world, there would be online fan fiction and perhaps it could have survived even longer

But we are not here to discuss fan fiction or why the comic demise ...

Here we get to see a regular American family (or so we assume as we are not Americans) ... father is a smarty professor lecturing ... mom is an artist painting covers for books ... and four kids evenly spread with 2 boys and 2 girls ... eldest is a boy named Alex followed by serious and bookish Julie then Jack the adventurous one and finally Katie the youngest ... the good thing is the art did make them look like kids with imperfections and all that ... and personality wise, they all share one common trait inspite of individuality and that is to be goody-goody ...

One fine day or rather one fine night they saw/ heard something ... and rushed to find a space ship and alien (horse like) ... and before you know it, they are imbued with special gifts. Where the alien possesses all four abilities, it was spread out amongst the kids with Alex having limited control over gravity (Gee), Julie can fly fast leaving rainbow trail (Lightspeed though she is nowhere near sound speed), Jack can turn his body into a cloud or shrink into dense form (Mass Master) and finally Katie who can absorb items to power herself up and shoot bolts of energy from her chest (Energizer) ...

Naturally with powers comes ... alien enemies ... and that's where the fun takes off ... this issue will continue into the next until the first arc ends in #4 ... 4 was a bit of a nostalgia moment for us because it was our first issue bought before all the back issue hunting ... hehehe!

Ratings: 7/10

3.29 (759) Iron Man vol 1 #94 ... #IronMan

[Posted on 29th Nov 2017]

In the olden days of comics, while a major story line may be taking the highlights, many subplots continue to be embedded in each comic book being nurtured until it is their turn to be the stars and this comic is no exception

While it is the second and final part of the Kraken fight, simultaneously, it has been a long non-stop journey for Tony Stark wherein he seems to be besieged by problem after problem with almost no stop gap in between challenges that he doesn't have time to even fix his armour properly and in this issue, he even realizes and acknowledges this but first things first

And the first is that he has to go rescue his friends from the mad commander Kraken who plans to take over the world. He is smart but unhinged. He manages to figure out that Iron Man is Stark. However, he is stupid enough to drop Stark off his ship and tells Stark to wait it out until contacted again. So naturally Tony goes all out to discover Kraken's lair using a bit of brain work and a whole lot of lark before he infiltrates said lair

And as luck would have it, he manages to breach the lair undetected even when he rammed right through a wall ... we guess either there is a challenge in the plot lines itself or perhaps the author intended this way to show that mind controlling your stooges is not the best way to go forward in being a master villain. Either way, the story moves rather fast with no panels wasted on prolonged fights and before we know it, there is a breach in the walls SPOILER ALERT and the water rushes in to destroy everything

However, we are privileged to see the final page and the final panel where it is obvious Kraken somehow managed to escape like a horror movie ...

Ratings: 6/10

2.28 (758) West Coat Avengers vol 1 Ongoing #30 ... #WCA ... #Avengers ...

[This is posted on 30th Nov 2017]

This is another fill in issue between major story arcs but once again, in the WCA this filler is done well. But this filler is done very recently because the characters are exactly the same as the regular storyline. So first up is Simon Williams who is not only back from the date but finally settled down into his persona as Wonder Man the Avenger and the movie star wannabe and here he is, having a moment to visit the Vision and Scarlet Witch in their suburban home ... and their two little twin boys (at that time the Witch and Vision have kids ... yes, confusing but it's comics so just chill and go with the flow)

Next up we see him getting whisked away aka alien abduction and we are introduced to a new bunch of aliens never seen before in the Marvel U of that time

Apparently this race of aliens are like the Skrulls and Kree and other war faring type of aliens wanting to fight and conquer. They have heard whispers of a powerful people and before they come to our sector of the universe, they want to try and study first and of all people they captured the WCA

So each member of the WCA is released from statis to fight against a robot that when defeated can reassemble and grow more powerful to combat the next opponent. Unfortunately for the robot, the sequence of assailants made it lose for whatever reasons although the reasons were quite logical

It started with Wonder Man, the strongest and most invulnerable and went through Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Tigra, etc until the final is Moon Knight who initially was at a loss until he looked around and saw .... well we leave you to read it and discover for yourself.

So this is a one-shot story and it is very enjoyable!

Ratings: 7/10

3.27 (757) Alpha Flight vol 1 #8 ... #Marvel ...

[This is reviewed on 30th Nov 2017]

As the cover shows, this is a continuing part of Northstar and Aurora's own adventure in the main story while we are provided with a backup tale of how Mac and Heather went searching for Shaman and through him, they met Snowbird. The backup stories are actually very entertaining as it feels more "slice of life" and thus make the characters resonate more with the readers kind of like what Stephen King is doing with his books once he gets to be successful ... more pages, more background information ...

Anyway, Aurora is investigating the strange long life of St Ives when Northstar barges in. At this juncture in their history, they are still potentially mutants or whatever ... because with time, they became part elves or mystical and back to mutants and whatever they are these days and then Northstar became gay and got hitched to an ugly bloke ... sigh ...

What is shocking to Aurora is that St Ives survives the decades simply because he rejected death at his own point of death and was granted immortality as long as he keeps on touching another human being and sucking the life force out of them (just by touch) ... however, he had not counted on revenge for the lady in red with her full mask on has a mysterious blade that can slice through anything and while we are given many panels of superheroes in their costumes, there is none of that confrontational drag out fight here. And inspite of that this comic is still such a great read. All testament to the awesomeness of Byrne as both writer and artist!

Ratings: 6/10