X-Men – Page 14 – Now Read This!

November 4, 2014November 4, 2014

Inhumanity

By Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Warren Ellis, Samuel Humphries, Matt Kindt, Christos N. Gage, Jonathan Hickman, Olivier Coipel, Nick Bradshaw, Todd Nauck, Matteo Buffagni, AndrÃ© Lima AraÃºjo, Paul Davidson, Stephanie Hans, Simone Bianchi & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-614-4

During earlier mega-crossover blockbuster Infinity, mad Titan Thanos invaded Earth and clashed with the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill. As a last resort the embattled Inhuman king crashed the flying city of Attilan onto New York and into the Hudson River, simultaneously releasing the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the atmosphere where it triggered mutation in millions, proving that Human and Inhuman were not necessarily different racesâ€¦

Collecting assorted incidents of Terrigen exposure – specifically Inhumanity #1-2, Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH, #24-25, Avengers A.I. #7, Inhumanity: The Awakening #1-2, Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 and New Avengers #13.INH (spanning December 2013 to May 2014) – this epic chronicle of a game-changing publishing event takes a look at the fallout of that colossal catastrophe wherein a vast portion of the planet discovers everything they believed about themselves was wrong whilst coping with the shock of developing new and scary unnatural abilitiesâ€¦

The drama begins with Inhumanity #1, by Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales and Laura Martin (with flashback sequences illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, Gerardo Alanguilan, Dustin Weaver & Israel Silva), as in the immediate aftermath of the cataclysm the Inhuman called Karnak is arrested by the Avengers.

His incomparable ability has been to infallibly detect the flaw and weakness of anything – object, person, even concept – but as he wearily describes the history of his people to his captors/hosts he reaches a startling fresh conclusionâ€¦

The Inhumans came into existence 25,000 years ago, after Imperial Kree explorers landed on Earth and tampered with the genetics of a tribe of primitives, just as they had on hundreds of other worlds.

Millennia later Randac, one of the rulers of the intellectual super-race that subsequently developed, took that meddling to its ultimate end by devising the Terrigen Mist process, enabling citizens to mutate into infinitely unique individuals of astounding power.

The measure originally met with much opposition and many citizens of Attilan quit the city forever, setting up their own diasporic enclaves and increasingly interbreeding with their unevolved cousins. As the Inhumans retreated further into myth, isolation and dogma, their alien-altered genetic heritage was slowly spreading and disseminating throughout baseline humankind.

Now the clash with Thanos has unleashed a Terrigen cloud that will slowly pass over the entire planet, activating all those dormant genes and metamorphosing possibly millions into new lives via body-altering cocoonsâ€¦

The diminutive warrior also speaks of the last moments of the city, the final official use of Terrigen and how his people evacuated the doomed city: passing through the chimerical living teleport door Eldrac; scattered to the place the living portal deemed they â€œmost needed to beâ€â€¦

As Karnak continues his ruminations, his cousin Queen Medusa arrives. Believing herself widowed and facing the shattering burden of saving her people without the aid of her messianic man Black Bolt, she is further shaken when her logic-driven kinsman continues his evaluation and arrives at an inescapable conclusion he simply will not abideâ€¦

Inhumanity #2, with art by Nick Bradshaw & Todd Nauck (augmented by Scott Hanna, Tom Palmer, Antonio Fabela & Andres Motta), follows Medusa as she copes with a fresh tragedy, the aching responsibility of repairing New York and the horrific tidings that a variety of human villains and scientists are stealing and experimenting on the cocoons of the newest and most vulnerable Inhumansâ€¦

As the Avengers’ top brains try to assess the scale of transformations, evil men are murderously hijacking her freshly revealed fellows whilst some full-blooded Inhumans – such as exiled former king The Unspoken – have organised into militias to reclaim the transformative pods and slaughter the sub-Inhuman transgressors who took them.

Worst of all, most inhabitants of fallen Attilan remain missing, included cousin Triton and all of the city’s childrenâ€¦

With such pressures engulfing her it’s almost a relief to learn of an A.I.M. science citadel where the technological terrorists are vivisecting confiscated cocoons and furiously lead a vengeful squad or outraged Inhumans against itâ€¦

The story shifts to a more personal mode with Avengers Assemble #21.INH to 23.INH and #24-25, written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Warren Ellis with art by Matteo Buffagni, Paco Diaz& Nolan Woodward. Here the focus is on novice super-hero Anya CorazÃ³n – the latest Spider-Girl – as she strives to rescue someone close to herâ€¦

With Terrigen pods now a highly valuable commodity, rogue genetic researcher Dr. June Covington – AKA The Toxic Doxie – takes delivery of one and barely escapes a lethal booby trap which kills her favourite assistant.

Covington’s MO includes assimilating genetic discoveries and improvement into her own body and taking vicious, excruciating vengeance on those who cross her, so the failed ploy by A.I.M. agents quickly takes up all the outraged mad scientist’s attentionâ€¦

Meanwhile at Avengers Tower the big guns are being swamped by the Inhuman pandemic and haven’t time to listen to the junior arachnid as she demands some help to recover two stolen pods, one of which contains her Social Studies teacher Mr. Schlickeisenâ€¦

Finally, after plenty of sniping and her explosive tantrum, Captain America orders Spider-Woman Jessica Drew and Black Widow to assist and the trio quickly track down an errant A.I.M. cell run by wicked whacko Kashmir Vennema. Sadly the spider squad is promptly overwhelmed whilst learning that Schlickeisen is already dead, just as elsewhere Toxic Doxie takes over a rogue science lab to begin her mission of research and retributionâ€¦

Breaking free, the Arachnoid Avengers escape and return to base but Anya is unsatisfied and wants to go back, declaring that her teacher deserves a decent burial. This time grizzled warrior Wolverine and scary scientist Bruce Banner tag along and soon extract information out of a severely rattled Vennema.

Mr. Schlickeisen was gimmicked up and sold to Covington and now Spider-Girl has a fresh target to huntâ€¦

Whilst Toxic Doxie completes her Terrigen-assisted biological improvements, Wolverine takes Anya aside for a little private tuition and technological upgrading before they hit the trail for the maniac’s last known whereabouts. They’re too late but the battle against her abandoned and crazed associates yields more useful intel, such as the fact that Schlickeisen is still aliveâ€¦

Iron Man then assumes the role of on-the-job trainer, teaching Spider-Girl the value of research and preparation whilst deducing where the body-in-question is stashed. After rescuing the still comatose New Inhuman they have a solid idea of what new enhancements Covington has added to her body arsenal and that’s she’s readying an attack on the A.I.M. faction that set her upâ€¦

With the victim safe and a target location provided, Anya then gets the promotion of a lifetime, leading a team of veteran Avengers in a blistering raid to wrap up all the bad guys in her own web of justiceâ€¦

This fast-paced and deliciously light-hearted action romp gives way to a far more emotive and evocative tale in Avengers A.I. #7.INH (Samuel Humphries, AndrÃ© Lima AraÃºjo & Frank G. D’Armata) which examines the experiences of a recently transformed New Inhuman.

As Hank Pym‘s quirky cybernetic team encounter Daredevil and a lonely old lady mutated into a nauseating monster, the shock of her fate seems likely to drive poor Doris over the edge until a most unlikely robotic saviour talks her downâ€¦

Inhumanity: The Awakening #1and 2 by Matt Kindt & Paul Davidson then traces the efforts of a combined group of teen heroes from the X-Men’s Jean Grey School and Avengers Academy as they respond to the desperate social media cry for help of young Fiona who hatched out of a pod as a bird girl and was immediately targeted by online trolls and High School bullies.

The young thugs posted what they did to her on the web, but that proved to be very unwise as her angry little brother also mutatedâ€¦ and his power-set was far from benign or inconsequentialâ€¦

Sharp, witty and painfully relevant, the solutions proffered and accommodations reached in this no-easy-answers yarn are remarkably astute and optimistically hopefulâ€¦

Inhumanity: Superior Spider-Man #1 by Christos N. Gage & Stephanie Hans offers more emotional insight as arch-villain Doctor Octopus – currently inhabiting the body of the Wondrous Wallcrawler (see Superior Spider-Man: My Own Worst Enemy) – battles a tragic human victim of circumstance determined to exploit a Terrigen transformee. The original motive might have been cruel and ultimately selfish but a misconceived battle soon teaches everyone something about true power and responsibilityâ€¦

The portentous wrap-up provides a dark glimpse of horrors yet to come when The Illuminati clash over the Terrigen crisis in New Avengers #13.INH.

Scripted by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Simone Bianchi, the response of the world’s most powerful and important individuals (Black Bolt, Namor, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank McCoy, Dr. Strange and Black Panther) is framed against a background of an even greater disaster – the ongoing collapse of the multiverse as alternate Earths randomly smash into each other.

On Earth-23099, a subtly different Illuminati conclave convenes to combat the threat of a Terrigen Bomb detonated by Maximus the Mad as another world hurtles towards them. From this malign Earth come unstoppable Black Priests who destroy everything and everybody. With their grim harvest completed the cosmic clerics then turn their gaze to our worldâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With cover-&-variants by Coipel, Dean White, Bradshaw, Skottie Young, Mike Deodato Jr., David Marquez, Davidson, Hans, Bianchi and Jorge Molina, this comprehensive exploration of a strange new phase for troubled planet Earth offers suspense, drama, explosive action, wry humour and a potent metaphorical message as it describes the reunification of two deliberately distant branches of mankind, and comes fully equipped with the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet,

October 30, 2014October 29, 2014

Wolverine and the X-Men: Tomorrow Never Learns

By Jason Latour, Mahmud Asrar, Mateo Lolli, Pepe Larraz, David Messina, Massimiliano Veltri, Marc Deering & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-610-6

Wolverine is all things to most people and in his long life has worn many hats; Avenger, Teacher, Protector, Punisher.

As leader of covert black ops (and frequently wetworks) unit X-Force he was responsible for executing many maverick mutants but experiences misplaced guilt and shared responsibility for sparing reborn mutant nemesis Apocalypse when he should by all rights have put down his kind’s ultimate foeâ€¦

Now that confused child of terrifying potential resides at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning where even his fellow students find it hard to believe that love and a good education can overcome the legacy of death latent within the boy now called Evanâ€¦

Collecting issues #1-6 of Wolverine and the X-Men volume 2 (May – September 2014), this fast and furious saga finds the diminished mutant everyman abandoning his preferred role as trainer of the next generation in ‘Tomorrow Never Learns’ to drag old X-Force comrade Fantomex back from a self-imposed exile of torture and unending combatâ€¦

While he’s gone many of the latest class of students are undergoing a wave of communal angst prompted not just by Evan’s proximity and existence. Also adding to the tension is the chilling realisation that former fellow student Quentin â€œKid Omegaâ€ Quire has been revealed (by a batch of X-Men from the future) to be the destined host of supernal cosmic ravager the Phoenix and by the simple, sobering fact that being an X-Man is tantamount to receiving a death sentenceâ€¦

As Logan returns with Fantomex the next crisis commences in ‘Storm Chasers’ as a global ad campaign co-opting the image of the Phoenix lures Quentin into a devious trap. The mind behind the Phoenix Corporation has employed time-displaced warrior Faithful John to psychically destabilise the already troubled Omega mutant and even the late arriving Storm and Wolverine are unable to overcome the Tomorrow Soldier’s mental assaults and sheer physical prowessâ€¦

In ‘True Believers’, as John escapes the adult heroes and turns to attacking their school, Quentin is hotly debating his possible future with disciple of destruction Edan Younge who worships the Phoenix and only wants to help the true host live up to his cataclysmic, universe-rending potentialâ€¦

Happily Quentin’s feisty not-girlfriend Oya is made of sterner stuff. With Wolverine out of action and whilst Quire brutally rebuffs Younge, she leads a squad of classmates against rampaging zealot John despite a wave psychic strikes which decimate the youthful defenders.

Kid Omega uses the opportunity to run for unlikely help ‘In the Land of the Blindâ€¦’, recruiting ideological opponents Cyclops and his Extinction Team to the battle, but even as Younge gloatingly discloses his ancient connections to the Phoenix to a dying Wolverine and hints of a hand guiding his own, Evan and the still traumatised Fantomex make their own off-kilter move on Faithful John in ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ before the shocking revelation of mastermind behind everything exposes the actual motivation behind the attacks in ‘A Fate Far Worse’â€¦

Non-stop visceral action, smart characterisation, hilarious interplay and shocking suspense propel this explosive yarn from high-octane start to explosive finish and the frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights School Daze delights is complimented by a beautiful gallery of covers and variants by Asrar, Marte Gracia, Mark Brooks, Jenny Parks, Art Adams, Jorge Molina and Michael Del Mundo.

Also upping the entertainment ante are added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

October 20, 2014

Magneto: Infamous

By Cullen Bunn, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Javier Fernandez & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-618-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid, Mature Superhero Storytellingâ€¦ 8/10

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott â€œSlimâ€ Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III – codenamed Angel – and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

These teens were very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

That first issue also introduced their murderous and utterly evil arch nemesis Magneto: a terrifying and supremely powerful radical menace determined to seize the world for mutantkind and enslave or destroy humanity. The master of magnetism quickly became one of the early Marvel Universe’s A-List villains.

Over the years, however, a wealth of transformations, introspective investigations and personal re-evaluations turned the monster into a too-often misunderstood freedom fighter for his own kind and increasingly an ally of the ever-evolving X-Men.

Then, during the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved father-figure Xavier and in the devastating aftermath united with former comrade Magik and occasional enemies Emma Frost and Magneto in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protÃ©gÃ©s.

The quartet instituted their own training academy – The New Charles Xavier School – and began drilling a new generation of mutants in the tactics of survival in a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them.

The tutors, whose powers had all been radically curtailed in the battle against the Phoenix, also began a public campaign to win a place in the world for mutants, operated under the guise of terrorist group The Extinction Team.

Throughout his time with the group the war-weary elder continued to pay a deep game and, as this volume (collecting issues #1-6 of Magneto volume 3, March-July 2014) commences, he has left them and returned to old ways and his primary purposeâ€¦

Written by Cullen Bunn and grittily illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Javier Fernandez, the tripwire-taut suspense begins in Missouri as witnesses describe a baroque and grotesque execution carried out by a man who could manipulate metal and who accused his victim of â€œcrimes against evolution and genetic genocideâ€â€¦

Magneto has used many names since his powers first manifested in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, but now, with his once planet-wrecking potentialities reduced to merely moving around objects no heavier than a man could lift with flesh, bone and muscle, his priorities have changed. Now he is a creature of terror again, dealing final judgement to those who would eradicate mutants like some stain or mistake of natureâ€¦

Subject of a global manhunt by S.H.IE.L.D. – and lesser law-enforcement agencies – Magneto is restlessly travelling from region to region acting as a Homo Superior Punisher, protecting and avenging his people when human authorities can’t or won’t.

Now his travels have brought him to Mountain Air, California where a guilt-stricken vagrant has turned himself in after murdering three mutants. The magnetic menace is not prepared to leave such a killer to indifferent human justiceâ€¦

However when he blasts into the Courthouse to administer his sentence the helpless, terrified indigent suddenly morphs into an Omega Sentinel and attacks him.

Quickly dispatching the cyborg mutant-hunter, the magnetic avenger is horrified to realise that the scared and totally bewildered human had no idea of the mechanical monster lurking withinâ€¦

Whilst S.H.I.E.L.D Special Agents Rodriguez and Haines dog his heels, the master of magnetism backtracks the vagrant’s trail to a huge shanty-town where hundreds of dispossessed families cluster together, economic victims eking out a communal existence until they can break back into the society that abandoned them.

Welcomed as just another victim/loser to the spartan community of Down Acres, the punisher discovers that the tent city provokes long-buried memories of the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto little Max Eisenhardt grew up in. The aged undercover vigilante realises that the same type of unfeeling monsters are at work here; kidnapping unwitting humans for raw materials and rebuilding them as stealth sentinels to hunt down mutants.

When the pressgang turns up to take more human fodder, Magneto is waitingâ€¦

By the time Haines and Rodriguez arrive, he is gone, following the Sentinel makers’ trail to a factory facility he will not allow to exist for one moment longer. However with his might so severely curtailed, the death and destruction he envisages has to be carried out at close quarters and preferably face-to-faceâ€¦

His gory task concluded, Magneto travels to the Adirondack Mountains to destroy a secret base where religious fundamentalist sect The Purifiers experiment on mutant children before turning his angry attention to the constantly re-cloned mutant team known as The Maraudersâ€¦

Human Briar Raleigh had been stalking Magneto for years. A survivor of one of his earlier rampages, the enigmatic manipulator offers her services to him as a skilled information-gatherer, providing data on the latest incarnation of Marauders for her own unspecified reasons.

The Marauders are all mutants, servants of genetic zealot Mr. Sinister, tasked with eradicating the crazed biologist’s failed experiments and anybody he considers a threat or valueless. The number of their own people they have callously slaughtered is incalculable and Magneto dearly wants to find these too-long unchecked race-traitors.

Entering into a cautious alliance with Briar, Magneto meticulously and permanently deals with Scalphunter, Prism, Scrambler, Arclight, Harpoon, Riptide and Blockbuster but simply executing the oft-cloned killers is not his ultimate goal. By finding where the next generation are maturing and deftly reprogramming them, the mutant avenger expects to add to his own growing arsenal of resourcesâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Non-stop visceral action, shocking suspense and a roaring sense of social injustice underpin this excessively grim and noir-tinted saga, exploring a savage genetic realpolitik that will astound and engage readers from bleak start to explosive finish.

This compulsive read also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Paolo Rivera, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson, Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire, John Cassaday, Michael Del Mundo, Gurihiru Studios, Skott Young, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks and Stephanie Hans plus added extras provided by AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

October 14, 2014October 13, 2014

X-Men: Bloodline

By Brian Wood, Matteo Buffagni, Phil Briones, Clay Mann, Gerardo Sandoval,Seth Mann, Paco Diaz & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-622-9

Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters, so when the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men launched it was no real surprise to see that the leading line-up comprised exclusively women warriors.

This third collected chronicle, scripted by Brian Wood, re-presents issues #13-17 (from April to July 2014) – a spectacular, all-action five-part thriller ‘Bloodlines’ lavishly illustrated by Matteo Buffagni, Clay & Seth Mann, Gerardo Sandoval and Paco Diaz.

In recent times vampire mutant Jubilation Lee turned up at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning as a devoted new mother to mystery baby Shogo.

A littler later, in a clash with mutants from the future, Storm’s teenaged daughter appeared, apparently deeply involved with a grown-up Shogo and after the time-bending clash concluded, Kymera opted to stay in our time-period for unspecified reasons of her own.

Now a few of that wonder baby’s secrets are revealed when, in a distant land, the most dangerous man on Earth slaughters his way out of an inescapable jail and heads for America, determined at all costs to reclaim his baby boyâ€¦

At the Jean Grey School Jubilee is attending her baby’s latest check-up with resident mutant medical savant Henry McCoy. The Beast has good news about Shogo but is concerned over the foster mother’s state of mindâ€¦

The quiet times then end suddenly when one of the students playing in the school grounds is shot by a sniperâ€¦

As the facility goes into immediate lock-down and McCoy begins operating to save Primal‘s life, another student – Sprite – is suddenly struck down by a mystery toxin and Jubilee receives a text message threatening death for everyone unless she surrenders Shogo. It is signed â€œThe Futureâ€â€¦

The first three issues also contained a supplementary back-up tale illustrated by Wood & Phil Briones.

Eager to help, a band of older boys head for the Danger Room to prove to combat tutor Psylocke that they are ready to graduate to the big leagues and front lines during this current crisis. However, the ‘Bromo-Superior’ squad of Hellion, Rockslide, Broo and Anole find they may have bitten off more than they can chew against an army of orcs and monsters after Psylocke turns off all the safeguards and makes the test â€œpass or dieâ€â€¦

Back at the main event wonder woman Monet St. Croix and Marvel Girl Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey) have tracked down and captured the shooter even as The Beast, out of safe options, opts to use denatured genetic material from ancient alien meteor-borne infection and Ã¼ber-predator Arkea (see X-Men: Primer) to repair the damage done to Sprite and Primal.

It is not a decision he makes lightlyâ€¦

In a quiet alcove Storm presses the stranger who will be her daughter for information and learns that the threat of The Future is the reason she stayed in this fluid time before her birth. Knowing what the child-obsessed assassin will do, she has gambled everything on changing the past – even if it means committing murder and suicide.

As Kymera’s plan begins, however, the school shudders to a wave of cataclysmic explosionsâ€¦

In the wake of the destruction the girl from tomorrow briefs Storm and her team on the exact nature of what she’s resolved to prevent and fateful plans are laid to end that fate, whatever the costâ€¦

Unfortunately it all seems futile as, when the seemingly unbeatable assassin makes his move, he cuts through the defenders like a scythe through ripe wheat and casually makes off with Jubilee: a perfect hostage to trade for his boy…

With their testing over, the battered but unbowed Bromo-Superior squad break the fully recovered Primal and Sprite out of the infirmary and – with Psylocke surprisingly backing them – convince Storm to let them all join the pursuit team. The undisputed leader of this latest band of mutant warriors is determined that the future she has heard described will never occur, and if that means blooding the next generation under full combat conditions, then that’s what has to happenâ€¦

The trail leads deep into the Adirondack Mountains where The Future and his slavish cult of killers have initiated a deadly prototype techno-organic defence-system. â€œBloodlineâ€ uses the maniac’s own ichor to animate and turn the environment into a savagely hostile geological attack-dog which psychically renders most of the mutants helpless, but when the fanatical father demands his â€œpropertyâ€ back in return for Jubilee, Kymera uses little Shogo to pull a supremely risky masterstrokeâ€¦

With a gallery of covers by Terry & Rachel Dodson, Briones and Paul Renaud, this fast and furious adventure offers clever characterisation, wry laughs, taut tension and a colossal amount of comicbook carnage in a no-nonsense rollercoaster romp of Fights ‘n’ Tights fun mutant mavens and Costumed Drama addicts will adore.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

October 11, 2014October 10, 2014

Uncanny X-Men Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D.

By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Tim Townsend, Al Vey & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-628-1

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Scott â€œCyclopsâ€ Summers – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved mentor and father-figure Professor Charles Xavier.

In the aftermath Summers united with former comrades Magik, Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This attitude appalled many of his friends and associates, creating a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s legion of protÃ©gÃ©s. Discarding Scott, his surviving â€œFirst Classâ€ team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train future X-generations of mutant kids through traditional methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Westchester, New York.

The opposing sides of the mutant question frequently clashed as the world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.

Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the youngâ€¦

When Xavier’s teenaged First Class of X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Grey School but following the events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank â€œBeastâ€ McCoy, Bobby â€œIcemanâ€ Drake, Warren â€œthe Angelâ€ Worthington, fiercely idealistic young Scott, Jean Grey, as well as teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura â€œX-23â€ Kinney and even Grey School Head Professor Kitty Pryde shockingly defected to the mutant terrorist band they were summoned to counteract.

After a very public humiliation of Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine conflict had already heated up when the elder Cyclops – utterly convinced of his species’ imminent and inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s student wishing to join his own academy, the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on themâ€¦

With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #19.NOW and #20-24 (May-October 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend (and additional inkers Jamie Mendoza, Mark Irwin, Victor Olazaba, Wayne Fauch & Jon Holdredge) rake the coals as a long-brewing plot pot boils over and the answers to a few long-running questions shake both mutant and human antagonistsâ€¦

The eponymous 4-part drama opens in Atlanta where recently expelled Extinction student David Bond – AKA Hijack – is â€œdetainedâ€ by a squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. heavies personally led by Director Maria Hill demanding to know the location of Scott Summers.

Almost from the start Magneto had been playing a double (or even treble) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to Hill whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he was doing for her.

He then went missing after visiting the island of Madripoor where he found shapeshifter Mystique had created her own mutant utopia from the former rogue state. This exactly coincided with Alison Blaire, S.H.I.E.L.D. Mutant Liaison code-named Dazzler, being replaced by the chameleonic mutant Machiavelli â€¦

Now the ongoing duel between the planet’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping force and the Extinction faction is swiftly coming to a head.

The situation has been tensely escalating for months. The Extinction leaders had all suffered inexplicable major alterations to their powers after Xavier’s death and their public appearances usually resulted in attacks by robotic super-Sentinels which S.H.I.E.L.D. denied all knowledge of.

It was as if some undetected third force was in playâ€¦

In Madripoor the real Dazzler is in a coma, her body used to produce the highly addictive drug Mutant Growth Hormone. However when reprehensible Fred (The Blob) Dukes uncovers the secret it’s not long before his old boss Magneto knows tooâ€¦

Meanwhile in Canada, Summers and time-bending student Eva Bell have used super computer Cerebro to hone in on a new mutant in Chicago and led the team into an ambush. The Sentinels awaiting their arrival possess the ability to disrupt their powers but happily are completely unable to withstand Magik’s demonic giftsâ€¦

Then in the catastrophic aftermath of the clash Cyclops sees common humanity again turning against his kind and declares war on S.H.I.E.L.Dâ€¦.

In Atlanta, Hill has gleaned only one useful titbit of information from Hijack. She now knows Summers is convinced S.H.I.E.L.D. is behind the Sentinel attacks but as she moves her team out to Chicago in the awesome and formidable Helicarrier she is psychically invaded by the mutants who probe her mind for confirmation.

In an act of bravado she opens her mind and shows that she knows nothing of the mechanical monsters. What she cannot prove – even to herself – is that some other faction of the Byzantine organisation is responsible, so she contacts her mutant expert Special Agent Dazzlerâ€¦

And elsewhere the true power behind attacks gloats as his endgame approachesâ€¦

Back at base Summers finally deduces how their unknown foe has been targeting them with Sentinels and closes down Cerebro, whilst in Atlanta Hijack decides to strike out on his own, blithely unaware that he is being followed.

A brilliant, unconventional tactician, Cyclops makes a move nobody expects and pays a call on the Jean Grey School and enlists the aid of the elder Hank McCoy: his former comrade and a man who now despises him and everything he stands forâ€¦

However as he tries to question the Beast, his malfunctioning optic power goes wild and destruction rains down on the School just as, in the skies above, Hill arrives in the Helicarrier and Dazzler issues S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ultimatumâ€¦

Meanwhile in Madripoor the outraged Magneto has freed the real Alison, but as they make their way back to America the crisis is already peaking. On the grounds of the decimated school Hill and Summers face off but, even with suspicions at fever pitch on both sides, talk rather than action seems to be winning through.

Seeing all his schemes unravelling the mystery mastermind is forced into precipitate action, overriding the Helicarrier’s weaponry controls and raining down death and destruction on mutants and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery alike.

When Magneto and Dazzler arrives at the hidden Extinction Base he picks up the impatiently waiting students and fellow tutors before heading for Westchester to confront Mystique-as-Dazzler, unaware of the shattering clash already underway and utterly ignorant of the fact that the expelled and angry Hijack is also racing thereâ€¦

At the Grey School the dreaded Mutant Extinction looks to be in full swing as the co-opted Helicarrier is reinforced by an army of Sentinels, driving outlaw Homo Superior, officially sanctioned X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiery into a desperate allianceâ€¦

Bombastic and spectacular, all the plot threads and devious twists are drawn together and the true villains thoroughly dealt with in a classic and staggering resolution which will delight fans of mutant mayhem and Fights ‘n’ Tights furoreâ€¦ but this superb action-fest doesn’t end here.

Kris Anka steps in to render the last two issues – a shocking chapter in the then-ongoing Mortal Sins Crossover Event which begins when the sensational She-Hulk turns up at the battered Jean Grey School. She has a distressing and disturbing function to execute in her role as metahuman lawyer Jen Walters: the reading of ‘The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier’â€¦

The first onerous and almost impossible task is to gather all the aggrieved, bereaved and estranged students of the pioneering mutant messiah in one roomâ€¦

In the secret Canadian fortress that houses the Extinction Team and students of the New Xavier School Alison Blaire is considering what Mystique did to her. She is not coping wellâ€¦

And in South Carolina a young man named Matthew feels the first stirrings of unrelenting power within his body. Soon he will be the only survivor of a catastrophic detonation and the target of all S.H.I.E.L.D.’s deadly anti-mutant technologies and capabilitiesâ€¦

Eventually Cyclops is convinced to attend the reading, much to the dismay and disgust of his former team-mates.

Everybody knows that Xavier considered Scott his son and believes the first X-Man will be the main beneficiary despite also being the Professor’s murderer. Tension is high as this thought simmers in every mind even though Cyclops has already declared that he won’t accept any bequestâ€¦

However when the recorded video message finally plays what the great saviour reveals is no dispensing of gifts and chattels but a disclosure of Charles Xavier’s greatest, darkest secretâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka, Alexander Lozano, J. Scott Campbell, Adi Granov and Terry & Rachel Dodson as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Combining incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a colossal amount of comicbook carnage, this is a wonderfully cathartic conclusion and restart which no Costumed Drama addict could possibly resist.

September 23, 2014September 22, 2014

All-New X-Men: One Down

By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger and many and& various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-626-7

When bestial mutant Henry McCoy learned he was dying, he indulged in a spot of time-travel in a last-ditch attempt to give his life meaning. Seeking to prevent a species war, he brought the young, naive X-Men of his own youth into the future to reason with his radicalised former comrade Scott Summers, praying the still idealistic and hopeful teens could reason with Mutant Enemy Terrorist No. 1 and divert him from a path of doctrinaire madnessâ€¦

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Cyclops back to his senses, the confrontation hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy miraculously cured his older self, boy-Henry and the rest of the X-Kids were trapped in their own future and began gradually defecting to the radicalised teamâ€¦

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, this stellar saga collects All-New X-Men #25-29 (published from June to August 2014), taking the time-displaced teens to the ends of the universe and even further into uncharted temporal territoryâ€¦

The mind-shattering rematch commences in All-New X-Men #25 (illustrated by Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger and a host of guest-artists) and follows a dramatic change in young Jean Grey’s status as the team catches their collective breath after being shanghaied to the ends of the universe by Gladiator and the Shi’ar who sought to exterminate the timelost telepotent before she could become a host vessel for the Phoenixâ€¦

Already the teen quintet have been reduced to four as the younger Cyclops elected to remain in space with Corsair of the Starjammers– the father he believed dead and gone for most of his young lifeâ€¦

The future-locked Angel, Iceman, Beast, and Jean are stretched to their emotional breaking point. Since an attack by Evil Mutants masquerading as X-Men from the future (X-Men: Children of the Atom) they have faced the very real prospect of never returning to their own time; risking destroying all reality with every moment they aren’t back there and, worst of all, watching Jean go slowly crazy trying not to become the impossibly perfect superwoman everybody keeps talking about in such hushed tonesâ€¦

The celebratory 25^th issue is something of a visual tour de force as the elder Beast has a dreamlike visitation showing him the alternate futures and realities that have been eradicated because of his precipitate act of bringing the teen heroes into todayâ€¦

Short on plot but fascinating fans with tantalising glimpses of rosters both familiar and fantastic, what follows is a feast of vignettes, scary, dramatic and even funny, illustrated by David Marquez, Bruce Timm, Arthur Adams, David Mack, Robbi Rodriguez, Lee Bermejo, Kent Williams, J.G. Jones, Maris Wicks, Jason Shiga, Dan Hipp, Jill Thompson, Paul M. Smith, Skottie Young, Ronnie del Carmen, J. Scott Campbell, Max Wittert, Jake Parker and Bob Wiacek; some of which, I’m sure, we’ll be seeing again one dayâ€¦

The narrative resumes with Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger at the artistic helm again with #26 and Jean’s own nightmares regarding the change in her power-set brought on by the Shi’ar confrontation and her brush with the Phoenix force. She finds a measure of solace in the unsuspected solicitude of the older Cyclopsâ€¦

Meanwhile outside in the Canadian wilderness surrounding the fortress-like New Charles Xavier School, Angel is trying to explain to X-23 (a teenage female clone of Wolverine) that young Scott has dumped her for a life of adventure with his dad. When she storms off she is ambushed by the last person she expected to seeâ€¦

Later, when Professor Kitty Pryde sends out search parties, they find her near-dead form and rush her back to safety inside the citadelâ€¦ but it isn’t herâ€¦

The duplicity is the first gambit in a second attack by the future Brotherhood – hulking monster Ice-Thing, Deadpool, a Hank McCoy somehow consecrated to evil, psychotic shapeshifter Raze, super-strong Molly Hayes (from the Runaways) and Marvel Girl’s psionic remnant Xorn – led by the son of Charles Xavierâ€¦

Chapter three reveals the uncanny origins of the wicked Xavier and his crusade to destroy his father’s legacy. As the invaders storm the facility, Xorn turns the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe – into a telepathic torture engine to torment and take out the studentsâ€¦

In the melee one casualty discovers a new superpower and the tables turn when the real X-23 bursts in, eager to pay back her recent murder in kindâ€¦

Xavier’s objective is Jean and, as he psychically engages her, his insane true motivations are revealed for the first time, as is a fortuitous secret – not all of his team are volunteersâ€¦

He is also completely unaware of and unprepared for the changes wrought by her ordeal in outer space and soon the battle goes catastrophically against him. The one good thing about time travel, however, is that that you can try, try, try againâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Dark, moody, chronally complex, convoluted and explosively cathartic, One Down blends brooding tension and sinister suspense with staggering all-out action and comes with a stunning 10 covers-&-variants gallery by Immonen, Von Grawbadger, Rafael Grampa, Frank Cho, Alex Ross and Matthieu Forichon as well as AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) for access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smartphone or Android-enabled tablet.
â„¢ and Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 22, 2014September 19, 2014

Uncanny Avengers: Avenge the Earth

By Rick Remender, Daniel AcuÃ±a & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-627-4

If you haven’t read the Avengers for a while then you’ve got lots of catching up to do.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant hero Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android warrior The Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape Reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her beloved sons were mere magical constructs which subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

Years passed and the loss drove Wanda mad. When she finally slipped over the edge her resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avenger comrades. The effects of her actions spread to reshape the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in the team’s dissolution and climactic reboot (Avengers Disassembled and New Avengers: Breakout).

The team had barely recovered from that catastrophe before she overwrote Reality again, altering recent Earth history such that mutants ruled over a society where humans were an evolutionary dead-end, living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took a legion of champions and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (see House of M), but in the aftermath less only 198 mutants existed on Earthâ€¦

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her quest for redemption during Avengers versus X-Men where the World’s Mightiest Heroes strove against the remaining mutants for control of Hope Summers: a girl born to be the mortal host of implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them by manifesting their dream of making Earth a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior and hell for humanity.

At the height of the clash mankind was briefly enslaved by resurgent mutants before the appetites of the omnipotent Phoenix Force caused those possessed by it to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable â€œDark Phoenixâ€.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the aspiration of peaceful mutant/human co-existence, returned – only to be killed by his most devoted discipleâ€¦

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers in a joint effort which overthrew the cosmic avatar but, in the days following the departure of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with fresh resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and it wasn’t long before mankind fell into its old habits of intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outragesâ€¦

When undying Ã¼ber-Nazi Red Skull stole Xavier’s brain and appropriated the deceased mutant’s awesome telepathic abilities, his terrorist outrages were halted by a new team of Avengers: one formed by Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the rising tide of inter-species hostilityâ€¦

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-wars, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – when not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by publicly adopting Xavier’s utopian vision. To that end he convened the high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising human and mutant heroes working together.

The quintessential Avenger chose former government agent Havok (Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers) to lead the team, which consisted of himself, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wolverine, Sunfire, Wonder Man and the Wasp.

Later, at a press conference inducting the latter two, the group was ambushed by the Grim Reaper and the clash ended with Rogue killing the psychopath in full view of the watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wastedâ€¦

Still reeling from that setback the Unity Division were then blasted into universal overdrive as the eternal rivalry between arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his elder self Immortus resurfaced with the attack of future-reared mutant Dark Messiahs The Apocalypse Twinsâ€¦

Through temporal manipulation they appropriated mystic Asgardian war-axe JarnBjorn – a weapon capable of killing even space god Celestials – and set about reordering our present where all-powerful scourge Apocalypse had recently been killed.

Many attempted to replace him as mutant messiah and exterminator of humanity. On solar-orbiting Starcore Station his son Genocide petitioned the terrifying Celestials to accept him as their new agent.

Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos; their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. The Apocalypse Twins exercised their claim by using JarnBjorn to murder the supposedly-omnipotent Celestial Gardener: framing humanity for the blasphemy and thereby endangering the very fabric of existenceâ€¦

The Scarlet Witch’s relationship with Wonder Man had been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him, and the traumatised energy being had reacted in many odd ways. For one thing he became a pacifist, willing to help the Avengers in every way possible – except by fighting – and eventually declared himself Wanda’s devoted loverâ€¦

The Avengers could not stop the Twins crashing the space-station on Rio de Janeiro, although Thor and Sunfire did save the city from utter obliteration.

The Twins were reacting to years of cruel deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation in a private concentration camp in 4145AD, Eimin and Uriel eventually deduced their patron’s motives were self-serving and resolved only to trust each other whilst saving their own embattled speciesâ€¦

To that end they constituted their own squad of Four Horsemen of Apocalypse to winnow humanity and its heroes. These latest heralds of mutant Rapture and human Armageddon were not the bio-engineered living creatures their predecessor preferred, though. Instead Eimin and Uriel opted for a quartet of dead apostles – Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper – to pave their way to mutant ascendancyâ€¦

When Immortus informed Captain America of the plot and the ghastly consequences should the Twins win the war to control all times, spaces and realities, he also included undisclosed details of Wolverine’s murderous past, and the Unity team split over issues of philosophy and pragmatismâ€¦

Thus Havok was hard-pressed to keep the Avengers focused before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, and their attack failedâ€¦

The Twins were actually enacting a secret agenda: tricking Wanda and her lover into using her world-warping powers to bring about the long-desired Mutant Raptureâ€¦

Despite destroying Uriel, the Uncanny Avengers could not stop Eimin from altering the timeline. Earth was obliterated by Celestial Executioner Exitar and Planet X became the homeworld of the entire mutant race.

Six years later, Havok, his wife The Wasp and time-travel expert The Beast work as a resistance cell, trying to unmake the new history and restore a reality they feel to be the right oneâ€¦

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #18-22 (published May-September 2014), this time-rending confection kicks everything into chaotic overload as Alex Summers battles old mutant foes and even former friends on a world which is a literal paradise for Homo Superior. Despite the best efforts of Magneto and his fanatical followers they eventually succeed but reality does not immediately revert.

Instead Kang appears with an army of the multiverse’s greatest villains – and even a few future heroes – with some bad newsâ€¦

Although the Dam is down, this reality will persist unless Havoc can gather the survivors of the Uncanny Avengers and send their consciousnesses back in time to prevent the key events from ever transpiring.

To ensure Alex complies, Kang then steals his daughter Katie, promising to keep her safe from all the necessary time-alterations, but the grizzled mutant knows a veiled threat and extortion when he sees themâ€¦

Eimin is also aware of the temporal manipulations and rouses the mutant defenders of Planet X to stop Havok, Wasp and Beast. Amongst the hit-squad sent to foil them are their oldest friends and even Alex’s brother Cyclops.

Amidst the spectacular clashes, another scheme is being played out and the resistors’ hopeless cause is successful due to a last-minute switching of allegiances by a mutant high in the hierarchy of power of the X-Worldâ€¦

Soon the minds of Alex, Wasp, Sunfire, Wolverine and Thor are back in their younger bodies just as Earth is facing its final moments. Some heroes warn Wanda and Wonder Man that they are being tricked by Eimin whilst others intercept Tony Stark and the Vision as they obliviously prepare to lead a coalition of Avengers, Doctor Doom plus an army of metahumans – good and evil – against the planet-sized Exitar: the outraged Celestials’ official executioner and sentient Extinction Event.

Forearmed with future knowledge, the humans destroy the lethal Celestial, but this only leaves the duplicitous and Machiavellian Kang and his Chronos Corp in control of the miraculously saved and restored world. The entire campaign has been orchestrated by the Conqueror to place him in ultimate control of the universeâ€¦

Kang, however, has not reckoned on the determination and outrage of grieving father Havok, nor the last ditch heroics of his ultimate rival Immortus and a hastily convened Infinity Watch of cosmic champions including The Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, Nova, the Phoenix, Starfox and Universal Protector Captain Mar-Vellâ€¦

In the shattering aftermath of that final all-out confrontation, most – but not all – Avengers are restored to life, and many who have been resurrected will never be the same, physically or emotionally.

And the thought occursâ€¦ what will the Celestials do when they learn of their punishing agent’s death?

Scripted by Rick Remender, gloriously illustrated by Daniel AcuÃ±a, and offering a covers-&-variants by AcuÃ±a, Greg Land, Frank D’Armata, Lee Weeks, Paul Mounts, Katie Cook, In-Hyuk Lee, Agustin Alessio, Rob Guillory and John Tyler Christopher, here is pure superhero adventure at its most apocalyptic.

This bombastic, bewildering, breathtaking, utterly compulsive and convoluted saga may be a bit daunting for casual readers, but dedicated followers of high-octane Costumed Dramas will no doubt adore the fantastic premise, incredible action and staggering scope of events.
â„¢ & Â© 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

September 6, 2014September 4, 2014

X-Factor volume 8: Overtime

By Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Andrew Hennessey, Pat Davidson & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3837-2

Since its debut in 1982, X-Factor has been a splendidly effective umbrella title for many uniquely off-kilter iterations of Marvel’s mutant phenomena. Undoubtedly the most impressive and enduring assemblage was created by writer Peter David in 2006; mixing starkly violent suspense with cool detective mystery, laugh-out-loud comedy and fantastic Fights ‘n’ Tights action – and even slyly addressing social issues in a regular riot of superbly adult Costumed Drama.

The premise saw Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man – veteran of a formerly government-sponsored (and controlled) team – appropriating the name for his own specialist metahuman private detective agency: X-Factor Investigations.

Setting up shop in the wake of â€œThe Decimationâ€, which had reduced the world’s mutant population to a couple of hundred empowered individuals and millions of distressingly humanised (ex) Homo Superior, he and a perpetually fluctuating team set out to discover why and how it had happenedâ€¦

What Happened Was: crossover event House of M saw reality overwritten when mutant Avenger Scarlet Witch had a mental breakdown, changing history and reality so that mutantkind out-competed base-line humans, driving â€œsapiensâ€ to the brink of extinction.

It took every hero on Earth, a huge helping of luck and a strange little girl named Layla Miller to correct that situation, but in the aftermath, the abhorred inheritor species had been winnowed to less than 200 super-powered souls â€¦

Madrox later expanded his brief to specialise in strange cases and metahuman mysteries, but spent an awful lot of unprofitable time dealing with the machinations of insidious menaces like the Karma Project and scheming immortal Damian Trypâ€¦

This temporally-twisted tome collects X-Factor volume 3 #46-50 and X-Factor Special: Layla Miller (September 2009-December 2009), wrapping up a few long-running plot threads whilst answering some pertinent questions about the team’s most enigmatic member.

Madrox and Co. had relocated to scenic Detroit to avoid interference from old boss and Office of National Emergency bureaucrat Valerie Cooper but she and her Federal flunkies had pursued, and continued with attempts to put the team under government control.

Following the tragic loss of Madrox and TheresaRourke Cassidy‘s (AKA Siryn) baby, the multiple man went off the deep end and on a monolithic bender which might have ended in his suicide or murder, if not for somehow fully-grown Layla Miller who suddenly popped up to drag him into a furious future where humans and mutants were engaged in a vicious struggle for survival dubbed The Summers Rebellion.

The detective had been summoned by the formidable Ruby Summers and her elderly but still scary dad Cyclops to find out why key members of their mutant army kept winking out of existence, but for Madrox it just felt like being abused and exploited by a different bunch of supposed friendsâ€¦

Abandoned in the present, Theresa took charge at X-Factor Investigations, assigning de-powered Julio Richter (AKA Rictor) and astoundingly attractive Longshot as bodyguards for frightened former-mutant Lenore Wilkinson who was having problems with a stalker.

However, as Guido â€œStrong Guyâ€ Carosella, super-woman Monet St. Croix – AKA â€œMâ€ – Armando â€œDarwinâ€ MuÃ±oz and Shatterstar are subsequently called in to help protect the perpetually endangered Lenore, a new menace surfaces.

Psychic assassin Cortex is capable of dominating and warping even the most determined minds and before long the teammates are battling each other to the death even as, eighty years up-time, the nature of physical existence is failing and the embattled mutants are forced to consult a big brain to save everything else before they can save their species.

With few choices available Layla takes Madrox and Ruby to aged, senile Victor Von Doom who already knows quite a lot about their recurring reality problems, whilst in the past crafty, craven Cortex overextends himself trying to simultaneously mentally manipulate Shatterstar and Monet into killing their comrades.

Despite his diminished condition Doom knows the cause of the disappearances and tantalises his visitors with possible solutions to the a time-crisis, even as elsewhere, Future America’s Presidential Special Advisor Dr. Anthony Falcone ponders the expense of sending Cortex back to eradicate the ancestors of current Summers Rebellion mutants.

Somehow that simple covert task has morphed into pre-emptively dealing with X-Factor and the inexplicably pivotal Madroxâ€¦

Falcone’s ill timed and ill-advised intervention distracts his technologically-augmented chronal killer just as he is completing the mission, giving Shatterstar an opportunity to shrug off Cortex’s mind-lock and save the dayâ€¦

Scripted throughout by David and illustrated by Valentine De Landro & Pat Davidson, the adventure continues with ‘X-It Strategies’ as the President loses confidence in Falcone’s plan to end America’s Mutant problem and tries to remove his now-unnecessary stooge.

The anti-mutant fanatic has been long-prepared for such a move and activates a contingency plan, taking personal control of the nation’s vast army of Sentinels, whilst in The Now Cortex regains the advantage, using his psychic slave Monet to press his attack.

In the future Doom discloses how he built the device used to alter history and gave it to Falcone, also letting slip that he has had a decades-long relationship with Layla, but the revelation is quickly sidelined when a trio of Omeganoid Sentinels blast inâ€¦

Cortex/M’s assault founders in old Detroit when Siryn arrives, but the spirited resistance falters when Sentinels materialise and – as per their programming – attack all the mutants in front of themâ€¦

In the future Madrox is experiencing relief and horror in equal amounts. They have just been saved by Ruby’s boyfriend Trevor Fitzroy whose portal-power has sent the trio of murderous mechanoids who knows where. Until this moment the Multiple Man only knew the charmingly cocky teen as a malevolent and rapacious – adult – evil mutant vampire who tried to destroy the X-Men numerous timesâ€¦

Whilst Falcone uses battalions of Sentinel to secure his own ascension, in the past three that he no longer controls are blasting every mutant in sight. Unable to complete his mission in the growing chaos, Cortex is jumped by the miraculously lucky Longshot and their battle gives Monet the chance to forever throw off his technoid infection and influenceâ€¦

Enraged beyond endurance she smashes into the killer and discovers he’s Madrox in a hoodieâ€¦

With the fabric of time unravelling ‘The Cortex Equation’ reveals a few secrets as the old enemy behind so many of Jamie’s problems is shown to be the power behind Falcone even as demented old Doom has a surprising confrontation with Cyclops.

In the present Siryn and Monet are still battling the apparently unbeatable Cortex who is exposed as one of Jamie’s â€œdupesâ€.

Madrox’s duplicates are autonomous facsimiles of him. Often displaying one particular aspect of his emotional makeup they can live their own lives for years until he touches them and they are reabsorbed – whether he or they want to. Being self-aware, some abscond, never wanting to come back and â€œdieâ€. This one went to the future and fell into the hand of a truly evil geniusâ€¦

Beaten but seemingly unkillable, Cortex teleports away from the furious women and goes after original target Lenore, but is interrupted by Darwin and the late arriving Guido, Rictor and Shatterstar who have just experienced a most elucidating (and sophisticatedly hilarious) road trip which encompassed angry priests, love-sick suicides, and some frank revelations about gender – and species – orientations.

After such a journey, they’re in the mood for some palate-cleansing violenceâ€¦

Eighty years from then in Philadelphia, Falcone’s Sentinel brigade is ravaging the population – mutant and otherwise. When the Summers’ Army counterattack they are greeted as heroes by humanity.

However, even decrepit and out of his mind Doom is still Doom, and he betrays the alliance, plucking Cortex back to the future, overriding his command systems and ordering him to â€œkill all the mutantsâ€â€¦

X-Factor #50 (with additional art by Craig Yeung) spectacularly wraps up everything as Falcone and his sinister sponsor track Cortex and despatch Sentinels to wipe out the despised Homo Superior. They might not have time, though, as Doom’s new puppet is wreaking havoc amongst the mutant warriors.

First to die is Fitzroy, and the situation worsens when Doom takes control of Cyclops tooâ€¦

Cortex meanwhile is stalking the apparently ineffectual Layla, but she takes off when Jamie appears for a final confrontation with his rogue appendageâ€¦

Distraught Ruby pleads with Layla to use her real power, and after much deliberation – and to save the time line – she finally acquiesces.

Although everyone thinks she’s some kind of prescient or precog, Miller’s actual mutant power is to raise the dead. It doesn’t matter much when she reanimates cats or butterflies, since nobody really notices when they come back without soul or conscience, but when someone like Fitzroy is resurrected as a being of selfish evil all humanity might sufferâ€¦

At that moment the Sentinels arrive and terrifyingly merge into one colossal unit designed to carry out Falcone’s long-planned mutant extinction. With everybody dying Fitzroy fatally drains Cortex and uses the stolen energies to open a portal sending the amalgamated Armageddon-Sentinel to where it can do the most harmâ€¦

In the shell-shocked aftermath Madrox and Layla use Doom’s time machine to rejoin X-Factor in the present, sensibly leaving the future to fend for itself.

A little later she tracks down her younger self and reveals just how the enigmatic young lady learned how to â€œknow stuffâ€, starting the cycle again, for the first timeâ€¦

Although intricate, action-packed, beguiling, cathartic and immensely enjoyable, X-Factor: Overtime is utterly impenetrable on its own and if you read it (and you really should) make sure it’s in conjunction with its immediate predecessor X-Factor: Time and a Half.

This supremely entertaining Fights ‘n’ Tights delight also includes the chillingly effective X-Factor Special: Layla Miller, which covers the beginning of the Summers Rebellion in that turbulent tomorrow, where a mute girl named Layla escapes from a mutant â€œContainment Centreâ€ to link up with fugitive Homo Superior and begin the toppling of an oppressive totalitarian American in the powerfully evocative ‘Stuff Happens’ by David, De Landro, Andrew Hennessy & Davidson.

Augmented by a covers-&-variants gallery by David Yardin, Nathan Fairbairn, Paolo Raimondi, Brian Reber and Boo Cook, this volume is complex, compelling, compulsive and supremely funny in a way most adult comics just aren’t. X-Factor is a splendid example of mature Costume Dramas for everyone who needs wit to underpin their superhero soap opera shenanigans.
Â© 2008, 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

August 6, 2014August 5, 2014

Ultimate Annuals volume 1

By Mark Millar, Brian K. Vaughn, Brian Michael Bendis, Jae Lee, Tom Raney, Mark Brooks, Jaime Mendoza Steve Dillon,& various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2035-3

After Marvel’s financial problems and creative impasse in the late 1990s, the company took stock, braced itself and came back swinging. A critical new concept was the remodelling and modernising of their core characters for the new youth culture.

The Ultimate imprint abandoned monumental long-grown continuity – which had always been Marvel’s greatest asset – to re-imagine major characters in their own self-sufficient universe, offering varying degrees of radical makeover to appeal to the contemporary 21st century audience and offer them a chance to get in on the ground floor.

Creepy vigilante Spider-Man Parker was not-so-secretly a high-school geek, brilliant but bullied by his physical superiors whilst mutants were a dangerous, oppressed ethnic minority scaring the pants off the ordinary Americans they frequently hid amongst.

The Fantastic Four were two science nerds and their dim pals transformed into monsters, and global peacekeeping force S.H.I.E.L.D. kept them all under control with their own metahuman taskforce humbly designated The Ultimatesâ€¦

The revived series all sported fresh and fashionable, modernistic, scientifically feasible rationales for all those insane super-abilities and freaks manifesting everywhereâ€¦

The experiment began in 2000 with a post-modern take on Ultimate Spider-Man. Ultimate X-Men followed in 2001, and the Mighty Avengers were reworked into The Ultimates in 2002 with Ultimate Fantastic Four joining the party in 2004.

The stories, design and even tone of the heroes were retooled for the perceived-as-different tastes of a new readership: those tired of or unwilling to stick with precepts originated by inspirational founding fathers Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, or (hopefully) new consumers unprepared or unwilling to deal with five decades (seven if you include Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of interconnected story baggage.

The new universe quickly prospered and soon filled up with more refashioned, morally ambiguous heroes and villains but eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor.

Eventually, in 2008, an imprint-wide decluttering exercise â€œUltimatumâ€ culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of superhumans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan, courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

Long before that, however, Marvel’s original keystone concepts were awarded their own celebratory summer specials and this stellar volume collects Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual#1, Ultimate X-Men Annual#1, Ultimate Spider-Man Annual#1 and The Ultimates Annual#1 (all from October 2005): a selection of relatively stand-alone sagas displaying the daringly different tone of the alternate yet chillingly familiar world.

The compilation kicks off with ‘Enter the Inhumans’ by Marl Millar, Jae Lee and colourist June Chung from Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual#1 wherein dim but pretty party boy Johnny Storm gets involved with a runaway princess bride.

The ethereally beautiful girl is named Crystal and she is fleeing from an arranged marriage to her creepy, crazy cousin Maximus. The match was decreed by her sister Medusa and King Black Bolt, rulers of a hidden race of super-powered parahumans who have concealed their existence from humanity for ten thousand years.

Even after the Human Torch almost dies defending her, Crystal is successfully abducted, compelling Reed, Sue, Ben and recuperating Johnny to go after her into the heart of hidden city Attilan, thanks to the teleporting talents of the princess’ faithful giant bulldog Lockjawâ€¦

The subsequent confrontation with the lethally powerful Inhuman Royal Family leads to an inconclusive resolution but a shattering end to the lost cityâ€¦

Romance plays a part in the next tale too. ‘Ultimate Sacrifice’ by Brian K. Vaughn, Tom Raney, Scott Hanna & Gina Going (Ultimate X-Men Annual#1) finds Nick Fury warning Charles Xavier that the unstoppable Juggernaut has escaped and is hunting the mutant girl he holds responsible for all his recent woesâ€¦

Unfortunately for everyone, Rogue has absconded to Las Vegas in the company of sexy bad-boy thief Gambit, where the rampaging monster maniac finally corners the duplicitous duo. Tragically Juggernaut completely underestimates his former squeeze’s lethal powers and the self-sacrificing ingenuity of the besotted Cajunâ€¦

The most significant change to Stan, Jack and Steve’s breakthrough concepts was a rather telling one: all the heroes were conceived as being far, far younger than their mainstream antecedents. This even affected the sensational Spider-Man tales wherein – after decades of comicbook stardom – the perennially youthful Peter Parker was at last portrayed as a proper High School kid rather than a stodgy 40-year old geek trapped in a teen’s bodyâ€¦

In ‘More than you Bargained For’ by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Brooks, Jaime Mendoza, Scott Hanna & Dave Stewart – from Ultimate Spider-Man Annual#1 – the guilt-driven lad’s constant round of villain thrashing is derailed when cute but shy mutant Kitty Pryde makes the first tentative moves in her painfully adorable bid to make the mysterious hero her boyfriendâ€¦

That sweet, silly and utterly charming yarn is followed by a far darker and cunningly convoluted tale focusing on S.H.I.E.L.D. supremo Nick Fury and his long-term plan to mass produce an army of metahumans in ‘The Reserves’ by Millar, Steve Dillon & Paul Mounts.

Rather than highlighting stars like Iron Man and Captain America, the story follows the far from smooth development of a legion of Rocketmen, Goliaths, weather based warriors â€œThe Four Seasonsâ€ and the short, tragic career of heroic hopeful super-soldier Lieberman. Of course the one-eyed master strategist has no time for regrets as he’s busy trying to avoid becoming the latest successful contract of infallible hitman Mister Nixâ€¦

Rocket-paced, razor sharp and blisteringly action-packed, this riotous romp is also liberally dosed with teen-oriented humour for the era of the acceptable nerd and go-getting geek, offering a smart and beguiling entrÃ©e into of Marvel’s other Universe that will impress open-minded old fans of the medium just as much as the newcomers they were ostensibly aiming for.
Â© 2005, 2006 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

July 29, 2014August 16, 2014

Marvel Platinum: the Definitive X-Men

By Stan Lee, Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Grant Morrison, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Brent Eric Anderson, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Frank Quitely & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-599-4

Here’s another addition to the sterling Marvel Platinum/Definitive Edition series: a long-awaited treasury of tales reprinting certified landmarks from Uncanny X-Men #1, 141-142 and 281, Giant Size X-Men #1, Marvel Graphic Novel #5, X-Men volume 2, #1 and New X-Men #114-116 thereby providing a prodigious primer containing an immense amount of marvellously mythological mutagenic madness and Fights ‘n’ Tights fun.

Moreover, this mammoth tome offers a cover gallery by Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky, Gil Kane & Cockrum, John Byrne & Terry Austin, Brent Anderson, Whilce Portacio & Art Thibert, Jim Lee & Scott Williams and Frank Quitely, an informative Foreword from editor Brady Webb, a vast text feature detailing the complex and convoluted history of the veritable army of heroes to have worn and Mike Conroy’s scholarly trawl through comicbook mythology in ‘The True Origin of the X-Men.

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott â€œSlimâ€ Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III codenamed Angel, and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

Scripted by Stan Lee ‘X-Men’ opens with the boisterous students welcoming their newest classmateâ€¦ Jean Grey (promptly dubbed Marvel Girl) – a beautiful young woman possessing the ability to move objects with her mind.

Whilst the Professor is explaining the team goals and mission in life an actual Evil Mutant, Magneto, is single-handedly taking over American missile-base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unassailable threat, the master of magnetism is nonetheless valiantly driven off by the young heroes on their first outing in under 15 minutesâ€¦

It doesn’t sound like much, but the gritty, dynamic power of Kirby’s art, solidly inked by veteran Paul Reinman, imparted a raw aggressive energy to the tale which carried the bi-monthly book irresistibly forward.

As the decade proceeded the team was occasionally supplemented by magnetic minx Polaris and cosmic powerhouse Havok – although they were usually referred to respectively if not respectfully as Lorna Dane and Scott’s brother Alex.

After nearly a decade of eccentric, mind-blowing adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 as mystery and supernatural horror themes once again gripped the world’s entertainment fields, consequently causing a sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Their title was cancelled then revived at the end of the year as a modest reprint vehicle: the missing mutants reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel universe. The Beast was made over into a monster to fit the fashion of the times.

Then in the summer of 1975, at the behest of Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Dave Cockrum revived and refashioned the mutant mystique with a brand new team in Giant Size X-Men #1.

The big, big blockbuster details how the original team was lost in action, forcing the distraught Professor X to scour Earth for replacementsâ€¦

Recruiting already-established old foes-turned-friends Banshee and Sunfire – plus recent Hulk foe and Canadian secret agent Wolverine – most of Xavier’s time and attention was invested in unexploited and hidden new mutants scattered around the globe.

One such was Kurt Wagner, a demonic-looking German teleporter who would be codenamed Nightcrawler, whom Xavier saved from a religious lynch mob. Another was young Russian farm worker Peter Rasputin who could transform into a living steel Colossus and a third embittered, disillusioned Apache superman John Proudstar who was cajoled and pressured into joining the makeshift squad as Thunderbird.

The final replacement was Ororo Monroe, a young woman who comported herself as an African weather goddess and would be known as Storm. These raw replacements were all introduced in the stirring opening chapter ‘Second Genesis’â€¦

‘â€¦And When There Was One!’ found wounded team-captain Cyclops swiftly drilling the far from willing or eager association before leading them into primordial danger against the monolithic threat of ‘Krakoaâ€¦ the Island That Walks Like a Man!’

Overcoming the phenomenal terror of a sentient mutant eco-system and rescuing the original team should have led to another Special, but so great was the groundswell of support that the follow-up adventure was reworked into a 2-parter for the rapidly reconfigured reprint monthly which became a bimonthly home to the team and began the mutant madness we’re still experiencing todayâ€¦

The revision was an unstoppable hit and soon grew to become the company’s most popular and high quality title. In time Cockrum was succeeded by John Byrne and as the team roster shifted and changed the series rose to even greater heights, culminating in the landmark â€œDark Phoenixâ€ storyline which saw the death of arguably the book’s most beloved and imaginative character.

In the aftermath team leader Cyclops left and a naive teenaged girl named Kitty Pryde signed upâ€¦

Next in this compilation comes a brace of supremely impressive and influential issues. Uncanny X-Men #141-142 (January & February 1980) perfectly encapsulate everything that made the outrageous outcasts such an unalloyed triumph and touchstone of youthful alienation.

‘Days of Future Past’ by Claremont, Byrne & Austin depicts an imminently approaching dystopian apocalypse wherein mutants, paranormals and superheroes will have been eradicated by Federally-controlled Sentinel robots, who would then rule a shattered world on the edge of utter annihilation. New York will be a charnel pit with most surviving mutants kept in concentration camps and only a precious few free to fight a doomed and futile war of resistance.

The middle-aged Kitty is the lynchpin of a desperate plan to unmake history. With the aid of telepath named Rachel (eventually to escape that time-line and become the second Phoenix) Pryde swaps consciousness with her younger self in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the pivotal event which created the bleak, black tomorrow where all her remaining friends and comrades are being pitilessly exterminated one by valiant oneâ€¦

‘Mind Out of Time’ sees the mature Pryde in our era, inhabiting her juvenile body and leading her disbelieving X-Men team-mates on a frantic mission to foil the assassination of US senator David Kelly on prime-time TV by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – super-powered terrorists determined to make a very public example of the human politician attacking the cause of Mutant Rightsâ€¦

Fast-paced, action-packed, spectacularly multi-layered, bitterly tragic and tensely inconclusive – as all such time-travel tales should be – this cunning, compact yarn is indubitably one of the best individual stories of the Claremont/Byrne era and set the mood, tone and agenda for the next decade of mutant mayhemâ€¦

The series went from strength to strength and the franchise inexorably expanded. In 1982 a fresh generation of students enrolled in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Following hard on the heels of that X-line expansion with The New Mutants, Marvel capitalised on the buzz a year later by releasing a hard-hitting original Marvel Graphic Novel (#5) which emphasised the harsher aspects of alienation and bigotry which underpinned relations between Homo Sapiens and Superior in a stunningly effective modern parable starring the misunderstood mutants in a landmark tale truly worthy of the company’s hot new format.

‘God Loves, Man Kills’ is a grim cautionary tale: one of the most disturbingly true-to-life in the entire canon and opens with the murder of two children. The â€œPurifierâ€ zealots responsible then proudly display the bodies in the playground where they died with the placard â€œmutiesâ€ around their necks.

When mutant terrorist/freedom fighter Magneto finds the bodies the stage is set for one of the X-Men’s darkest casesâ€¦

Fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker is the demagogue of the hour: his evangelical crusade against unholy, ungodly mutants has made him rich and powerful whilst his sinister secret death-squads have enabled him to undertake the latest stage of his mission in the full, controversial glare of the public eye. He even has powerful friends and allies within the Governmentâ€¦

Stryker’s divinely-inspired mission is to incite a race-war and eradicate the entire emergent sub-species, using not only his television ministries to whip up public fear and hatred, but with a private army of merciless mutant-hating racist killers.

His next step involves taking out the X-Men and begins when Professor Xavier, Cyclops and Storm are seemingly assassinated after participating in a TV debate.

When news of their deaths reaches the test of the team, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler track down the assailants and discover that their friends are captives of Stryker’s Purifiers, just as old enemy Magneto appears, proposing a temporary truceâ€¦

Meanwhile Colossus’s sister Illyana and Kitty Pryde have stumbled upon the captives’ fate and been attacked too. Kitty escapes and goes on the run with murderous Purifiers hot on her trailâ€¦

Stryker has been busy: whilst happily torturing his captives he has devised a way to use Xavier’s telepathic abilities to destroy mutants and all those with latent mutant genes at one genocidal stroke.

As the hate-peddler’s plans enter the final stage Magneto and the remaining X-Men prepare for their most important battle, but the showdown on live TV from Madison Square Gardens offers many surprises and reversals of fortune as Stryker, in his paranoid hubris, overestimates the power of blind prejudice and the underestimates the basic humanity of the common man â€¦

This tale is perhaps the most plainspoken and shocking example of mutants as metaphors for racial abuse in society and the stark message herein, savagely delivered by author Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson at the very top of their game, made explicit the power of bigotry and the ghastly repercussions of allowing it to bloom uncontestedâ€¦

Moving, scary and immensely influential, God Loves, Man Kills is the X-Men at their most effective and movie-going readers will recognise much of the tale since it formed the basis for the X-Men film sequel X2.

This moving epic is followed by the first tantalising snippet of another landmark extended saga. The team had grown in popularity and was split into Blue and Gold teams by Xavier; the division engendering the launch of another X-title.

In Uncanny X-Men #281 (October 1991) ‘Fresh Upstart’ by Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio & Art Thibert over a Byrne script saw new villains The Upstarts – led by Shinobi Shaw and Trevor Fitzroy – murderously target the Hellfire Club elite such as cyborg Donald Pierce and White Queen Emma Frost and her young protÃ©gÃ©s The Hellions, with Storm’s Gold team Archangel, Colossus, Iceman and Jean Grey unable to stop the slaughter.

The same monthClaremont, Jim Lee & Scott Williamsscored monumental sales with X-Men volume 2, #1 wherein Magneto is drawn out of self-imposed exile in ‘Rubicon’.

The weary freedom fighter had distanced himself from Earthly affairs but is gulled by ambitious, devious mutant firebrand Fabian Cortez and his band of Acolytes into renewing his defence of oppressed mutants by attacking Earth and stealing nuclear missiles.

Xavier and Cyclops’ Blue team – Beast, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue and Psylocke â€“ were able to thwart his attempt but only pushed the master of magnetism further into the clutches of the murderously Machiavellian Acolytesâ€¦

New X-Men #114-116 (July to September 2001) wraps up this spectacular comics collection of comicbook X-cellence with a 3-part saga that changed the landscape of Marvel continuity and introduced psychic apex mutant predator Cassandra Nova in a globe-girdling yarn of primal terror.

‘E is for Extinction’ by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely – with Tim Townsend, Dan Green & Mark Morales – saw the creepy old lady gorily secure the DNA of the last surviving Trask (the troubled family which had first invented Sentinels) and cause the robotic nemeses to undergo uncontrolled mechanical evolution before eradicating more than eleven million mutants on their safe haven island state Genosha.

She then turned her attention to the Xavier school and met her match in Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Wolverine and Emma Frost – who was undergoing her own starling secondary metamorphosis.

In the aftermath Professor X made a personal decision which would change the nature of human/mutant relations foreverâ€¦

Despite the minor quibble that the â€œUpstartsâ€ story is unsatisfactorily incomplete, I can’t deny that what’s on offer here is of great quality and indisputably excellent examples of the mighty mutants at their most memorable and entertaining.

Most importantly this is another perfectly-designed literary device to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnations too. Filled with non-stop tension and blockbuster action, this the ideal tool to make film-goers into funnybook fans and another solid sampling to entice and charm even the most jaded lapsed reader to return.

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