Monday, July 29, 2013

Mutant X Monday: Mutant X 1999 Annual

The Goblin Queen has taken control of New York and the President of the United States.  She controls a hybrid Sentinel/Demon army and wants to rule the Universe.  Of course her dimensionally switched husband Havok stands in her way.  He was falling and remembers dying, but this time he remains in this alternate Universe and is pulled out of the Hudson River by the Avenger Stingray.  That was cool enough for me.  I always liked that underused character.  We have a female Yellow Jacket and that rounds out the Avengers that we know are surviving under the Goblin Queen's rule.  At least as independently thinking people.

This is an action issue that serves to accelerate a story that will drag on a bit in the monthly installments.  Havok will team up with three Avengers, Doc Sampson being included) to track down the reason that Doctor Strange is missing and the Goblin Queen wants a parcel of land in Louisiana.  The battle there reveals some cool things about this Marvel Universe.  Doctor Strange has a BIG secret that revolves around the Man-Thing and the Nexus of all Realities.  Havok will be really interested in that secret.  Nick Fury and his crazy army is under the command of the Goblin Queen.  We get some great fighting.  Just cool.

A side story is the introduction of a character called Vendetta.  Before we here a name one would think that this is the alternate version of Daredevil.  Not so as the version of Firestar lets us know his name.  They team up and end up in Washington D.C.  Vendetta uses some mind powers on the Prez and we end up with a cliffhanger of Reed Richards being the new President of the United States.  That guy is rotten and in the monthly issue that follows the story along we see that played out.

There is a statement that the foursome of Doctor Strange, Yellow Jacket, Stingray, and the green Doc Savage will become The Defenders of this Marvel Alternate Reality.  It really is a cool Annual.

BDS  

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Back from Camp

I dropped the ball on getting a Mutant X Monday posted yesterday.  I had just gotten back from Summer Camp with the Youth at Church and decided to go see Pacific Rim last night.  It was awesome by the way.  A great popcorn action movie for the summer.  Anyway, I just am a bit sick as well.  The change in climates caused my sinuses to revolt and now I have a scratchy throat.  I do hope to get back on schedule with Flashback Fridays at the end of the week.

I did receive a request to join my old review partner at his newly relaunched site.  It would be as a columnist.  I am pondering the idea.  I am sorta happy just being in my little box here on my Blog.  I always wanted to create a place where someone could check out sequential runs of a comic series.  That is why I have had Mantra and Mutant X Mondays.  The idea that small review type comments and a cover could be found for a comic appeals to me.  I wanted my reviewing to be like that when we were doing it.  That was why even when I was behind on being able to buy the books for a fresh and current review I still wrote a post.  I wanted a string of each series I was reviewing.  That is gone now thanks to the machinations of a few people that used my hobby as a weapon of attack.

Still, I plan on having the run of the current books and then a post that has the list of each post.  On the side bar I will place a link to that page and away one can go.  That is the plan at least.  The one thing that would stop my writing a column is my desire to write my stories and get a book written.  That is foremost.  I want to just see if I can do that and accomplish that type of thing in my life.

BDS

Friday, July 12, 2013

Flashback Friday: Foxfire #1 (Ultra Gold Limited Edition)

Foxfire #1 Ultra Gold Limited Edition
This was a pleasant surprise when I purchased a four package discount groupings of comics.  The reason was that it contained a DC Flashpoint Batman issue that came in at a cost of $1.  Inside hidden from view was this souped up variant of Malibu Comics Foxfire #1.  Those that follow this blog know I have been buying the old Malibu Comics since starting with Mantra and now adding The Strangers and The Solution.  Finding this was just a neat addition.

Some comments on the book as a product to start this post.  It is from after the purchasing of Malibu Comics by Marvel Comics.  This was a time when Marvel was buying properties like Malibu and the different trading card companies.  They were becoming a giant on a hunger binge that would soon overextend them as a business.  Right off the bat I know that there will not be many of these issues around.  The other noticeable aspect is the muscular body presented on the cover.  It is eye catching, but thankfully she looks tamer inside the pages that has a story and is not just cheesecake.  The souped up cover was just a factor of that time period in comics.  Books were made glittery and shiny for the speculator market that snatched up bunches of books for over-priced resale.

As a story this is a nice start.  We get a cool opening with our heroine.  She tells a cop one part of her background while we see the complete images as background art.  It leads right into her powering up and slowly revealing powers.  There is a sewer expedition that has a fight scene and a guest star in the form of one of the First Ultraverse characters, Sludge.  It ends with a cliffhanger promising Ultraforce (Malibu's super team) including the crossed-over Black Knight from Marvel's Avengers.

It is sad to read this issue knowing that it will fall to an abrupt end as Marvel just let the Ultraverse stop and become consigned to Limbo.  It is one thing you have to give credit to DC for in how they handled mergers and buyouts.  DC has worked to incorporate the characters of the many companies they ate into the modern era.  Marvel ate a company and then the characters just disappeared.  Foxfire will be one of these.  She is short lived, but this first issue showed much promise.

BDS

Monday, July 8, 2013

Mutant X Monday: Mutant X #8

Mutant X Mondays are back.  I am sticking with Mutant X over Mantra right now because I am missing only one issue and two annuals in completing the entire run.  I want to do this entire run look at books on here and really have the goal I always wanted when reviewing, being a place someone could look up and find out about comicbook series.

I feel a refresher might be in order to remind readers about this book.  Havok, of the main 616 Marvel Universe has fallen from seeming death into an alternate reality where he has replaced the Havok of that world.  This is a book that would be the love child of DC's Elseworlds and Marvel's What If?  that can explain how it reads.  People and things are different from what we know as continuity of the Marvel Universe.  One thing is that Havok was apparently a real jerk.  He leads the world's foremost team of heroes, The Six.  They are The Fallen (Warren Worthington or Angel), The Brute (Beast, kinda), Iceman, Bloodstorm (Storm as a Vampire), Havok's wife Madelyne Pryor rounded out by our misplaced mutant.  He has a child named Scotty and that catches things up.

When last we discussed the book Madelyne had become the Goblin Queen and begun taking over things.  She had usurped the Six and Havok grabbed Scotty and his nanny Electra and high-tailed it away from them.  They go to the X-Mansion and we meet Cerebro.  In this world Cerebro is an artificial A.I. and helps Havok find out how far the Goblin Queen has gone.  She has the White House for one thing.  She also has perverted the Sentinels and they are a mix of magic and science now.  oh, she has taken over New York as well.

Havok of course confronts her after sneaking and being discovered in New York.  He fights the Six and the Goblin Queen is his to kill.  Can he?  Well, he ends this issue like he started the series, remembering that he is falling.  It becomes a standard plot device to end the story or create tension in the series.

One big stand out here is the art of Cary Nord.  He had a great run on Mutant X.  You might know his current work on X-O Manowar.

BDS

Friday, July 5, 2013

Flashback Friday: Gen 13 #44 (vol. 2)

This has to have been one of the oddest comicbooks I have ever read.  I felt like I was in a Philosophy class by the end and completely befuddled.  This basically is a Caitlin Fairchild story that appeals to her intellect and less on the fact that almost throughout any incarnation of Gen 13 she always seems to lose her clothes.  Instead of cheesecake we have a story of an ear worm that has infected pop culture.  You know, those songs that get stuck in your head and are really just a few words strung together over and over again.

Caitlin has discovered that this song has some odd abilities and really she is just going mad trying to avoid it.  We get a cool throw down between her and Majestic as she confronts the young woman that is at the center of the song.  Turns out she is a viral meme that is doing an experiment and this is where the already crazy trains leaves the rails and jumps a shark and then lands a movie deal.  The last few pages are just so over the top with philosophical and technological babble it can make your head hurt.

Don't get me wrong, this is a funny read and a unique comic.  The thing is that when I want to grab something for light reading it will not be this book.  This is a time when I wish there was a way to have commentary on a comicbook.  I would love to know the origin and just plain history of this story.  It is different type of book that throws the Gen 13 formula on its head.

BDS

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

MAN OF STEEL (SPOILER ALERT) Comments

SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT  SPOILER ALERT There, you should be duly warned.  I want to speak openly about what I liked about this movie and to do that I have to say things about the movie.  So if you have not seen it and you read this and I spoil it for you, THEN why on earth did you read it after I warned you?  Now on to my delayed comments about MAN OF STEEL.  Had a bit of kidney stone issues and felt ooky so I did not get my Saturday comments posted as I wanted.

The first thing I liked was Amy Adams as Lois Lane.  She really made the character her own.  I liked the cute Lois that was still a no-nonsense daredevil reporter.  She held her own in this film with some strong male actors that she had to basically faced down as Lois.  The fact that she tracks down Clark as the mysterious man from her adventure in an alien ship was a great way to refresh this well known story.  It gave her not only smarts, but when the aliens attack and the FBI is wanting to know who the mystery guy is she shows her character by not revealing the info.  Her other big moment comes at the end when Superman kills Zod.  To see Superman kill was a powerful thing, but the aftermath where he is screaming because he has taken a life was perfection.  That perfection was capped off by having Lois appear and cradle the vulnerable man we all know she has come to love.  That was one of the best moments.

I also liked the small flashbacks used in a way to tell the origin without losing the action of the current time.  Each one gave Clark a depth of spirit that endured through Henry Cavill's portrayal.  He looked like the most recent incarnation of Clark Kent (Tom Welling in Smallville) without seeming like a clone.  I loved the way he carried humor in the most simple of ways.  That understated humor allowed for the movie to remain dramatic.  His not being Clark Kent the reporter until the end was just a great way to setup the franchise I am hoping for.  He was a great casting choice.

Letting the action build was a big plus.  It was a problem in SUPERMAN RETURNS.  Here we get the action in two separate ending sequences that both are high powered.  A battle against a Terra-forming device and then the battle royal with Zod.  All this after small action build ups.  It really was a cool movie to just enjoy for the action alone.

My one gripe is with the media who want to always make Superman out to be Messianic in nature.  I never have understood the need they have to try and make every film have the character be Jesus.  Clark shows the fact that he is not by breaking from the chant of Jor-El and going to his Pastor in Smallville to seek advice on what to do when Zod has asked he be delivered or dire consequences will ensue.  I know that there was a big play up on how he was the hope for Krypton, but that does not translate to the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth.  It is more a showing of how a person can be called upon to follow the teachings of Jesus.

This film made me love seeing Superman on the big screen.  Even in that terrible looking suit.  I loved it.

BDS