Category: X-Men

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X-Men – Battle of the Atom


By Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Stuart Immonen, Frank Cho, Chris Bachalo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound mutant telepath Charles Xavier. Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington III, Jean Grey and Henry McCoy were taken under the wing of the enigmatic Professor X as he enacted his dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was noble, inspirational and worth dying for, and over the years many mutants battling under the X-banner did just that. The struggle to integrate mutants into society seemed to inevitably result in conflict, compromise and tragedy.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their formers associates.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm and stayed true to Xavier’s dream. Opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids whilst honouring Xavier’s Dream, they are continuing his methods at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning under the direction of new Head Professor Kitty Pryde…

Things got really complicated after Hank McCoy discovered he was dying. Obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity, the Beast used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war. By bringing the five youngsters back to the future he hoped to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops and fix everything before his impending death…

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than shocking Scott back to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve. Moreover, even after the younger McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Scott was stopped…

The elder Cyclops and his “Extinction Team” face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, and her to Cyclops. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been repeatedly targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

All these tales were detailed in X-titles which resulted from the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking the various mutant bands in strange new directions.

Scripted primarily by Brian Michael Bendis, this chronal chronicle collects all the issues in a crossover affecting those niche X-titles through September and October 2013 – specifically All-New X-Men #16-17, Uncanny X-Men #12-13, X-Men #5-6 and Wolverine & the X-Men #36-37, bracketed by the bookend miniseries X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1-2; a plot-light but action-packed, tension-drenched time-travel drama which sets up the next year’s worth of mutant mayhem…

It all begins with X-Men – Battle of the Atom #1, illustrated by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen & Wade Von Grawbadger, wherein Magik, using her teleportational ability to traverse time and space, travels into the future to see what tomorrow holds for her kind. The answer seems to be Sentinels, increased human hatred and never-ending conflict…

Back in the now, Professor Pryde is continuing the First Class kids’ on-the-job training against an emergent and very ticked off mutant when more of the mystery sentinels attack. Like evil cavalry the Extermination team materialise and the ideological opponents pitch in together, but in the melee young Cyclops is killed by a stray blast and his older self blinks out of existence. Thankfully even as the entire area begins to shake and fall apart, mutant healer Triage is able to resurrect the dying X-Man. The disruptions cease, but the near-disaster reopens the old argument: the Original Five X-Men are endangering all of existence by being in their own future…

Resolute Kitty overrules young Jean Grey and orders the Beast to send them back, but when he activates the time-cube a strange yet familiar band of X-Men tumble out of it…

The tale resumes in All-New X-Men #16 (Immonen & Von Grawbadger) as the Extinction team (which now includes Jean Grey School defectors Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced young Angel) review the attack and consider the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. might be behind the new Sentinels. Meanwhile at the Grey School the intruders (an elderly Kitty Pride, the grandson of Charles Xavier, an Iceman-Hulk, Deadpool, a further mutated Beast, adult Molly Hayes from the Runaways and mystery telepath Xorn) are demanding that the Original 5 be sent back to their own time immediately…

Or else…

Naturally a huge fight breaks out and in the confusion the traumatised Scott and Jean steal a plane, running away to make sense of all the pressure and acrimony. Most importantly, although the future X-Men’s minds were psi-screened, young Marvel Girl had picked up something indefinable and threatening with her new telepathic abilities…

In the aftermath, as tempers cool Xorn removes her mask and reveals herself as the fugitive girl’s bitter, wiser, fiercely determined older self…

X-Men #5 (art by Davis Lopez) picks up the pace as the now tentatively combined teams set off after the kids. Storm, however, gives her all-female squad different instructions: Rogue and Psylocke join the main party whilst Pryde, Rachel Grey (the confusingly alternate Earth daughter of a different Cyclops and Jean Grey) and vampiric-mutant Jubilee are tasked with guarding the remaining Originals, little Henry McCoy and Bobby Drake…

Never good at obeying orders, they instead follow Scott and Jean themselves, provoking another all-X confrontation and allowing the runaways to bolt for ruined mutant sanctuary Utopia… where the Extinction team are already waiting…

Uncanny X-Men #12 (Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Al Vey) ramps up the tension as the “mutant terrorists” learn of the future X-Men and their mission. It is then that Magik reveals her own time-travel jaunt and (some) of what she’s been keeping to herself…

In the light of these events the Extinction-ers are split: Cyclops wanting to help the youngsters whilst Emma rebels and announces that she’ll be helping Xorn and her crew send all the early X-Men back where they belong…

That resolution only lasts as long s it takes to meet their descendents and legacies. Wolverine & the X-Men #36 (Giuseppe Camuncoli & Andrew Currie) quickly finds all three generations of mutants in brutal intercine combat which only ends when young Jean at last acquiesces to the constant pressure and promises to take her team back where they came from…

Then all hell breaks loose as the real Future X-Men show up…

Thanks to Magik, the true defenders of Xavier’s dream have travelled back to Now, following the instigators of an assassination atrocity committed at the crowning moment of mutant/human cooperation. Colossus, Wiccan, Ice Master, Wolverine (AKA Jubilee), Quentin “Phoenix” Quire, Kymera and Sentinel-X  plan to ensure the madness will end before it begins…

No more spoilers from me then except to say that Cam Smith & Terry Pallot help with inks on X-Men #6 and the concluding X-Men: Battle of the Atom #2 is written by Jason Aaron with portentous ‘Epilogues‘ by Bendis & Brian Wood, illustrated by Esad Ribic, Camuncoli, Currie, Tom Palmer & Kristopher Anka.

In that stunning, ever-escalating blockbuster clash the various iterations of Once-and-Future mutant champions switch sides and back again, fight, quip, discover which presumed ally is behind the new Sentinels and in some cases give their lives to preserve everything good before it all turns out OK – at least for the moment…

When the smoke clears a new chapter will begin with the Original kids willing but now unable to return to their time, the JeanGreySchool forever changed, friendships and alliances destroyed and Cyclops’ Extinction team immeasurably stronger…

Unfortunately, the most psychotic and potentially lethal monster from the future never made it back to the future and might possibly be stalking the heroes of today, and the time-disruptions caused by the assorted chronally-misplaced persons bodes badly for the continuance of existence…

X-Men: Battle of the Atom also includes many pinups and a huge cover-&-variants gallery by Art Adams, Simone Bianchi & Frank Martin, Frazer Irving, Ed McGuiness & Dexter Vines, Marte Gacia, Lopez, Phil Noto, Stefano Casselli & Andres Mossa, Frank Cho, Shane Davis, Nick Bradshaw, Stephanie Hans, Adi Granov, Immonen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Leonel Castellani, Bachalo, Anka, Milo Manara and Esad Ribic.

™ & © 2013 and 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.

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X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain


By Fred Van Lente & Dennis Calero (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4437-3

When fictional heroes and villains become really popular – to the point where fans celebrate their births and deaths and dress up like them at the slightest opportunity or provocation – eventually a tendency develops to explore other potential character facets that the regular, cash-cow continuity might normally prohibit.

DC invented a whole company sub-strand of “Imaginary Stories” and Marvel asked “What If…?” sharing glimpses of alternate realities. Even television series got into the act with shows like Star Trek, Roswell and Stargate SG-1 offering coolly jarring, different takes on their established stars and scenarios.

The little dark gem of alternate continuity on offer today comes from an intriguing experiment in 2009 wherein Marvel took many of their biggest stars and reconfigured them for a universe drenched in the tone, lore and ephemera of pulp fiction and Film Noir: a dark land where shiny gleaming super-powered heroes were replaced by bleakly paranoid, deeply flawed and self-serving individuals just trying to get by as best they could…

X-Men Noir: the Mark of Cain is actually a sequel to the initial foray and benefits from not having to explain or differentiate the so-similar seeming stars from the bastions of the regular continuity. It ran as a 4-issue miniseries from February-May 2010 offering a moody glimpse of a world with no heroes, only shades of villainy. Nevertheless it still provides a satisfying slice of suspenseful entertainment for Fights ‘n’ Tights fans in search of something genuinely edgier than their regular fare. After all, the big draw for the jaded is that these folks might actually die and stay that way…

What You Need to Know: situated in the 1930s, these X-Men are not mutants with incredible, science-defying powers but rather a gang of mentally disturbed juvenile delinquents. They had been lab rats for rogue psychiatrist Charles Xavier in his School for Gifted Youngsters, where he strove to exacerbate rather than cure their various anti-social behaviours.

The batty boffin believed that sociopathy was the next stage in human behavioural development and spent his days training and refining the criminal talents and tendencies of his disturbed charges – until he was exposed and thrown in jail on Riker’s Island Prison.

The truth came out after the body of one of his “students” was washed up on the shore, covered in odd, three bladed knife slashes…

There is one costumed mystery man on the scene during these parlous times. Nosy, troublesome reporter Tom Halloway is not-so-secretly also a violent vigilante dubbed The Angel and the hunt for him preoccupied many familiarly different characters such as corrupt Chief of Detectives Eric “Magnus” Magnisky, his troubled children Peter and Wanda, casino owner Remy LeBeau, mobster Unus the Untouchable and drug runner Sean Cassidy…

This sequel volume opens with a public scandal as the government’s secret prison camp at Genosha Bay is exposed. Charges of torture and Applied Eugenics are levelled against the operators but despite rising protests the prison still carries on its inhumane treatments on the legion of sociopaths held there without Due Process or Representation.

In other news: due to lack of evidence, “Professor of Crime” Xavier is freed from Riker’s, arrogantly swearing to track down the killer of his recently assassinate “friend” Magnus…

A continent and ocean away, some of his former successes are cutting their way through the jungles of Madripoor and hordes of berserk headhunters as they try to find the lost temple of Cyttorak and retrieve a fabulous gem.

Sharpshooter Scott “Cyclops” Summers and unpredictable seagoing brawler Captain Logan are temporarily with the Angel, following a map provided by bootlegger and mercenary Cain Marko. They don’t give much credence to the native legends of vengeance inflicted on transgressors by Cyttorak’s “Juggernaut” but that soon changes when Marko is found in the no-man’s land around GenoshaBay, crushed to pulp. Of the enormous jewel there is no trace…

Peppered with evocative flashbacks, the story and trail leads Angel – who learned most of his nasty bag of tricks from Cain – to the USA’s extraterritorial prison and the shocking revelation that Xavier is secretly in charge…

Despite being captured and subjected to the Professor X’s methods of persuasion – administered by the warped woman Warden Frost – Halloway soon breaks free and begins pursuing the how and the who of Marko’s murder.

Fighting his way past the Professor of Crime’s newest protégés, a big burly Russian and an exotic black woman with a white Mohawk haircut, he is recaptured before he can reach Logan’s boat and sometime allies Cyclops and Eugene “Puck” Judd.

Undergoing more of Xavier’s “treatments”, the Angel is then confronted with the scientist’s secret weapon: his own thoroughly crazy – sociopathic – twin brother Robert Halloway…

The period drama and sinister suspense kick into compelling overdrive as the various parties hunting the Gem clash when the action shifts from noir detective to pulp sci-fi and the Professor’s true plan emerges. With the government’s covert connections exposed, and all surviving participants trapped aboard a huge flying battleship, the real value of the Gem of Cyttorak is revealed and, amidst flying fists, double- and triple-crosses abound.

As the agendas of all interested parties crash together thousands of feet above Manhattan, only antisocial violence works and at last a kind of justice is won…

Bleak, cynical and trenchantly effective, this excellent thriller by scripter Fred Van Lente and illustrator Dennis Calero provides a huge helping of thrills and chills that would work equally well even if you had never heard of Marvel’s mighty mutants.

This pocketbook sized collection also includes a covers and variants gallery by Calero as well as a dozen original art pages shot prior to the digital colouring stage.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: Primer


By Brian Wood, Olivier Coipel, David Lopez, with Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-553-6

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear. The dream was worth fighting for, and over the years a small army of mutants battled under the X-banner, but the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy.

These included Jean’s death (twice), Warren’s mutilation (and murder), Hank’s uncontrollable progressive mutations and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation following his possession by the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix force.

During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones.

Those tales were detailed in a number of titles which sprang out of the MarvelNOW! publishing event: a jumping-on point which reshaped the whole company continuity, taking various X-iterations in truly bizarre new directions.

This particular chronicle collects issues #1-4 of the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men (from May to August 2013) and also includes a pertinent classic yarn from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 circa May 1989.

Over the decades the many and various X- titles have been notable for the number of strong female characters created, and this new iteration from scripter Brian Wood & artist Olivier Coipel finally takes the logical step of drafting an all-girl squad to save the world from an appalling primal threat…

Inked by Mark Morales, the action begins with a little backstory and reveals how, when the world was still brand new, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the start. They fought and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed on Earth and developed…

Billions of years later, former X-Man Jubilation Lee takes a commercial flight out of Bulgaria, looking for help from her old friends. She’s inherited a baby with a few problems and is being followed by possibly the most dangerous man on Earth…

At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, tutors Storm, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke and Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) are having trouble getting through to some of the more intransigent mutant students. When they get a call from Jubilee, the X-Men drop everything and dash off to intercept her as she heads for the only home and family she has ever really known…

When the man on her trail is revealed to be John Sublime – current body of an ancient sentient bacterial life form which has lived on Earth since life began and no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior – the X-Men expect the worst, but are astounded when he comes to the School and promptly surrenders without a fight…

Sublime survives by possessing organisms and he’s come to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology – has returned to the planet, looking for revenge on him and control of everything else in existence…

Meanwhile, escorting Jubilee and her baby, Storm, Rogue and Kitty get first-hand experience of the threat as the train they’re on is derailed by an unknown force. Barely escaping, they unwittingly bring the menace into the school where Arkea slips into the dormant form of Karima Shapandar: a human friend infected with Omega Sentinel systems and designed to be the ultimate mutant eradicator…

All they want to do is share old stories and coo over Jubilee’s baby, but with Arkea in control and determined to supersede life on Earth, the girls are drawn into a terrifying war on two fronts. The sinister sister takes control of the Danger Room and locks down the entire school before transmitting herself to Budapest where Jubilee first acquired the mysterious baby she’s named Shogo…

Leaving Kitty and the students to save the school and themselves from a deadly time-bomb, Storm, Psylocke, Marvel Girl, Rogue and Jubilee head for Eastern Europe and track Arkea to a medical complex where humans augmented with medical implants and technology provide Arkea with hundreds of suitable meat-vehicles. As the final battles surges to a crescendo, the warrior women are terrified that the only way to stop the cyber-parasite is to kill her numerous hosts…

When that conundrum is satisfactorily solved, David Lopez, Cam Smith & Norman Lee step in to illustrate an epilogue chapter guest-starring Wolverine who recaps old times with Jubilee as the female X-team sort out their agendas and chain of command whilst trying to stop a passenger jet crashing to destruction…

To supplement the advent of this new grouping, this all-action outing also includes the comedic adventure ‘Ladies Night’ by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri & Dan Green (from Uncanny X-Men volume 1 #244 May 1989) which saw the first appearance of Jubilee.

When off-duty X-gals Storm, Rogue, Psylocke and Dazzler head for an undercover dose of downtime they encounter a streetwise, “Mall Rat” runaway with mutant powers, just as the emporium’s management hire a hapless squad of mutant hunters to clear up their Homo Superior problem…

Fast-paced, whimsical and owing a huge debt to the movie Ghostbusters, the riotous romp closes this Fights ‘n’ Tights fest on a rare and welcome light note, but of course there’s still more bang for your buck…

X-Men: Primer also includes a vast and beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Coipel, Amanda Connor, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Silvestri & Green, Joe Madureira, Mark Brooks, J. Scott Campbell, Arthur Suydam, Mike Deodato Jr., Milo Manara, Ed McGuiness, Humberto Ramos, Kevin Wada, Skottie Young, Kris Anka & Sara Pichelli plus the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to many story bonuses providing you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 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.

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Uncanny X-Men volume 2: Broken


By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Fraser Irving, Kris Anka, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Mark Irwin & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-555-0

Following many poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted mutant heroes over the last few years, and spinning off from the events of Avengers versus X-Men, the MarvelNOW! event reshaped the entire continuity, pushing the various factors of X-iterations in truly innovative directions.

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, a very special bunch of kids were singled out by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Insular Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, wealthy Adonis Warren Worthington III, insecure Jean Grey and bookish anthropoidal Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a driven man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the youngsters – dubbed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – as heroes, ambassadors and living symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation and murder, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation.

The formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader eventually killed Xavier before eventually joining with old (demon-possessed) ally Magik and former foes Magneto and White Queen Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving the mutant race at the cost, if necessary, of the human one.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s dream, opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

Furthermore when McCoy discovered he was dying, he became obsessed with the idea that the naive First Class of X-Men might be able to sway Mutant Enemy terrorist No. 1 back from his current path of doctrinaire madness and ideological race war insanity.

To that end Beast used time-travel tech in his last-ditch attempt to prevent a species war: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing the five youngsters back to the future to reason with the debased, potentially deranged Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than restoring Scott’s to his senses, the confrontation simply hardened his renegade heart and strengthened his warped resolve.

Moreover, after the boy McCoy impossibly cured his older self, young Henry and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Cyclops was stopped…

All that occurred in All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday but there was a flipside and that story was told in Uncanny X-Men: Revolution.

This slim second chronicle, collecting Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #6-11, (July-October 2013) and again scripted by Brian Michael Bendis furthers the counter-argument as the outlaw mutants continue their struggle to save their endangered species.

Cyclops and his Extinction Team face many problems. Magneto is playing a double (or is it a treble?) game; betraying the terrorists to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, but also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her. Moreover as they travel the world gathering up freshly activated Homo Superior kids, the Extinction-ers have been targeted by a new mysterious next generation of robotic hunter/killer Sentinels.

Most worryingly of all , since their possession by the Phoenix Force (Avengers versus X-Men) the natural gifts of Summers, ex-lover Frost, Magik and Magneto are no longer reliable, flaring from overload to ineffectuality, leaving the mutant leaders “Broken” in both powers and spirit…

On the other hand, however, new mutants are appearing in increasing numbers all over, with more impressive talents than ever before and, by carefully avoiding unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ crew are winning the media war: gaining the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious, the young…

The terrorists have begun training youngsters in their alternative institution – the Charles Xavier School for Mutants – and even poached some kids from the Jean Grey School. Raw recruits Eva “Tempus” Bell, shape-shifting Benjamin Deeds, healer Christopher Muse – AKA Triage – and the golden sphere-projecting Fabio Medina – have been joined by the psychically conjoined, socially-challenged Stepford Sisters Celeste, Mindee & Phoebe as well as the time-displaced teenager Warren “The Angel” Worthington…

Fraser Irving illustrates the first story arc here as demon-tainted llyana Nikolievna Rasputina – better known as Magik – resumes her struggle against dark god Dread Dormammu. That malign tyrant had been absorbing the hellish realm of Limbo which she rules as The Darkchylde and which fuels her mutant teleporting power…

In Atlanta another young man finds his mutant power activating, just as Dormammu shanghais Cyclops’ entire team. Trapped in hell, teachers and students alike are thrown into soul-rending, life-or-death combat with one of the vilest monsters in creation.

At the same time, Mara Hill, acknowledging S.H.I.E.L.D. is losing the PR battle, recruits former X-Man Alison Blair – Dazzler – to be the Government’s public face on Mutant Affairs…

Ilyana’s powers encompass both time and space and she now adroitly uses the faculty to become a student of magician Doctor Strange in the past, allowing her to learn what she needs to frustrate Dormammu, but in the subsequent clash Cyclops becomes painfully aware of how much he and his adult comrades have lost in terms of their vital powers and abilities…

With Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend assuming the art chores, the saga resumes in more prosaic territory. Although surviving the harrowing confrontation unscathed, Fabio is so freaked out that he quits school. Frantic to regain some sense, safety and normality in his life he asks to be taken home to his parents. Unfortunately, when the completely understanding Extinction Squad take him back to San Diego, S.H.I.E.L.D. is watching and waiting. No sooner have the mutants blinked out than the spooks move in…

In AtlantaDavid Bond is innocently testing his new power when police arrive and shoot him. They barely escape with their own lives after an Extinction team led by Emma arrives. Young Celeste is especially keen on making the trigger-happy humans suffer for their prejudice…

Triage has promptly healed David and the new guy’s awesome ability to telekinetically move and interface with machinery impresses everybody – even though Cyclops and Magneto are clearly distracted. The mutant figureheads are increasingly combative regarding their powers crisis situation, but remain united in the conviction of coming mutant extinction at human hands.

Their differences on how to head off the encroaching holocaust are shelved once they learn of Dazzler’s attempt to take Fabio in for “questioning” which had resulted in a very public escalation in tension and a superpower firefight…

The Extinction team move to rescue Fabio from custody aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and depart with a minimum of fuss, utterly unaware that the Alison they verbally sparred with is in fact a deadly shape-shifting infiltrator with an agenda all her own…

Irving returns to illustrate issues #10-11 (with additional art by Kris Anka) as the kids’ training reveals a new aspect to Eva’s time-powers. Maria Hill in the interim has demanded Magneto capture and hand over Cyclops…

The team leader is currently preoccupied by a human protest march in Michigan, where college students have come together en masse in support of Mutant Rights.

Sadly, when he decides the team should join the campus event, it offers a perfect opportunity for a new super-Sentinel determined to kill mutants no matter how many innocent humans get in the way…

Dark, cynically astute and utterly compelling, this alternative X-outing mixes staggering action, paranoiac suspense and slowly-mounting tension with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom to deliver a marvellously enjoyable continuation of the nihilistic end of the once directionless mutant franchise.

Even so, there’s still room for some effectively trenchant humour and this series offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike – as long as you also read the companion All-New X-Men volumes…

Broken includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Irving, Bachalo Ronnie Del Carmen, J. Scott Campbell & Neal Adams and the now standard 21st century add-on of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) giving access to story bonuses once you download the code – gratis – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2013 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.

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Uncanny Avengers volume 3: The Apocalypse Twins


By Rick Remender, Gerard Gorman Duggan, Daniel Acuña & Adam Kubert (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-564-2

In the aftermath of the Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! repositioned and recast the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android hero 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 not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As years passed her loss slowly drove Wanda mad, and when she finally slipped completely over the edge the resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avengers team-mates. The effects of her actions subsequently reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in climactic reboot Avengers Disassembled.

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 or “sapiens” were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every champion on Earth and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (another colossal crossover – House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her quest for redemption during the aforementioned Avengers versus X-Men with the World’s Mightiest Heroes striving against the remaining mutants for control of Hope Summers: a girl born to be mortal host to the 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.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before, inevitably, the selfish appetites of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

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 disciple…

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers but, in the days following the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and liberated mankind again fell into its old habits: intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outrages…

When undying über-Nazi the 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 hostility…

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-hatred, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by continuing 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,and the squad’s bloody baptism of fire saw them stop the Skull’s freakish army of bio-engineered S-Men and seemingly prove the promise of the premise.

However at a very public press conference inducting two new members – Wonder Man and the Wasp – they were attacked by ancient enemy Grim Reaper. The clash ended when mutant Rogue slaughtered the psychopath in full view of the horrified watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wasted…

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #6-11 (cover-dated June to October 2013), and the spin-off Uncanny Avenger AU #8 (July), this astounding celebration of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction kicks everything into time-busting cosmic overdrive as the harried heroes fall prey to the bewildering machinations of arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his most potent pawns The Apocalypse Twins…

It all begins in Scandinavia in 1013AD where/when a young, cocky and rebellious Thor is attacked by En Sabah Nur, immortal mutant Apocalypse and agent of the all-powerful Space Gods dubbed Celestials. The grotesque creature believes he is safeguarding the future by promoting the triumph of only the very strongest mutants, but all the petulant Thunderer knows is that he has been shamed and thrashed by a freak with an unfair advantage – star-forged armour…

Apocalypse is guided in his seemingly random attacks by former enemy Pharaoh Rama-Tut who advocates pre-emptive attacks on certain beings: those whose descendents would one day unite to resist the mutant advocate of Survival of the Fittest: the ancestors of a group called Avengers…

In Asgard Thor learns that his father Odin is subject a non-aggression pact with the Celestials but is too headstrong and angry to put aside his grievance. When sternly told to drop the matter, the furious godling finds suspiciously handy help from his malevolent half-brother Loki who shows him a spell which can enchant Thor’s battle-axe JarnBjorn into a weapon capable of rending even Celestial armour…

Delighted with his new unstoppable blade, Thor goes looking for a rematch and does not see that a stranger has been masquerading as his brother…

The Storm Lord arrives in primitive London just as Apocalypse attacks the next name on Rama-Tut’s list; a warrior named Folkbern Logan…

The Pagan soldier has been attacked by Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen and Thor is the answer to his prayers, wielding JarnBjorn with devastating effect. Saving Logan, destroying the servants and grievously wounding Apocalypse he returns to Asgard only to be severely admonished by Odin, even as elsewhen Apocalypse realises he has been played for a fool by Rama-Tut. The real winner is Kang who quietly takes his intended prize – a weapon even Space Gods cannot endure…

In our present, Apocalypse has been recently killed and many deadly creatures vie for the dubious honour of assuming his mantle and role as mutant messiah/exterminator of humanity. Thus on solar-orbiting Starcore Station his appalling son Genocide petitions the Celestials to accept him as their new agent…

The Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos, their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. However when the enigmatic Apocalypse Twins materialise, they exercise their claim as true heirs by using JarnBjorn to achieve the impossible: executing the omnipotent Celestial Gardener and thereby endangering the very fabric of existence…

On Earth Havok has just successfully defended Rogue from murder charges at a S.H.I.E.L.D. hearing and attempts to keep her busy and out of sight by sending her after Magneto when news arrives that Earth’s alien early warning satellite The Peak is under attack.

Wanda meanwhile is trying to talk with WonderMan. Their relationship has been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him and the traumatised energy being is undergoing a few confusing life-changes. For one thing he’s now become a pacifist. He will help the team in every way possible… except by fighting…

Despite all efforts the Avengers are unable to save The Peak from the Twins, who use the fallen Celestial’s vehicle to send the station crashing down on Rio de Janeiro. Although Thor and Sunfire are able to save the city from obliteration the rest of the team are more concerned with a secret they have just uncovered: Wolverine’s hidden role in the death of the Twin’s birth-father – the former X-Man Warren Worthington, AKA Archangel…

Whilst all this is occurring Captain America is fighting for his life in war-torn South Sudan and manoeuvred into uncovering a message from a mysterious ally purporting to know what is actually going on.

The Twins are also aware of layers of deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation Eimin and Uriel are beginning to suspect their patron’s motives and each other’s dedication. These qualms do not prevent them from detonating an atomic blast just as the rest of the Avengers arrive to supplement Thor and Sunfire…

The Marvel Universe is a busy place and whilst this saga was unfolding another major event was simultaneously unfolding in the pages of Age of Ultron. There, a time-warping event created an alternate Earth where the malign mechanoid took over the world from a point in Earth’s future. The epic spawned a plethora of “extra” issues – such as Uncanny Avengers #8AU – wherein the characters from the alternate timeline spawned by the temporal tribulations offered decidedly different tales of our most famed champions.

In this chronal digression – written by Gerard Gorman Duggan and illustrated by Adam Kubert – we glimpse the formative years of the Apocalypse Twins as Kang temporarily frees his twisted children from his private concentration camp in 4145AD. The Lord of Time had been raising them in such harsh conditions to temper them for future roles, but now seeks to test his charges with a first mission of assassination.

The target is veteran Red, White and Blue Sentinel of Justice Colonel America but the operation does not go according to plan…

Returning with #9 to the regularly scheduled tale Ragnarok Now! displays the deepening rift in the Unity team as the resurgent adult Apocalypse Twins continue their campaign for mutant ascendancy by constituting their own squad of Horsemen to winnow humanity and its heroes. These heralds of Mutant Rapture and human disaster are not the bio-engineered creatures their true father preferred however.

The children of En Sabah Nur instead opt for a quartet of dead horrors to pave their way to triumph…

In Sudan meanwhile, Captain America digests information received from the godlike Immortus – another “master of time” and purportedly Kang’s reformed future self. The decidedly untrustworthy savant has entrusted the Star Spangled Avenger with the actual nature of reality and revealed why the Twins must be stopped as well as the ghastly consequences should they win the ongoing war to control all times, spaces and realities…

When Cap then learns of Wolverine’s murderous past actions the team splits over philosophy and pragmatism. Havok is hard-pressed to keep the heroes united before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper: all deadly killers with deep emotional ties to the heroes and all of whom died at the hands of Avengers…

As the Unity squad splits up to tackle the Apocalypse agents, the calamitous clashes only mask the Twins’ secret agenda: they have seemingly seduced the reality-shredding Scarlet Witch to their cause, convincing her to use her world-warping curse to bring about their long-desired ascendancy as instigators of the Mutant Rapture…

To Be Continued…

Scripted by Rick Remender and illustrated by Daniel Acuña, this rather confused and somewhat convoluted, but exceedingly spectacular, complex and ambitious epic may be a bit daunting for casual readers but dedicated followers of mutant mayhem will no doubt adore the fantastic premise and blockbusting scope of events.

Also provoking much applause and approbation are a gallery of covers and variants by John Cassaday & Laura Martin, Milo Manara and Jim Cheung, whilst the selection of 21st century extra content in the form of AR icon sections includes trailers, character bios, creator commentaries and oodles more. The Marvel Augmented Reality App pages grant access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet. So you should do that too, right?
™ & © 2013 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.

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Uncanny X-Men: Lovelorn


By Matt Fraction, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Mitch Breitweiser, Daniel Acuña & Justin Ponsor (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2999-8

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise and even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particular jumping-on tome, so let’s just plunge in as our hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

At this particularly juncture, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Superior is at its lowest ebb. This follows the House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein Wanda Maximoff, former Avenger Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with a three simple words…

Most of those genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to relocate to San FranciscoBay, but of course, trouble is always happy to make house calls…

This sleek, slim tome re-presents Uncanny X-Men #504-507 and Uncanny X-Men Annual volume 2, #2, cover-dated January-May 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing the assorted mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer in a publishing event dubbed Manifest Destiny.

This compelling compilation commences with the 4-part ‘Lovelorn: Every Little Bit Hurts’, scripted by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson with colourist Justin Ponsor, beginning as Russian expatriate Piotr Rasputin languishes in remorse and agonises over the recent fate which took his beloved Kitty Pryde from him.

Colossus‘ moping is beginning to affect every survivor at the newly occupied Greymalkin Facility on the Marin Headlands so leader Scott “Cyclops” Summers and Emma Frost, ex-White Queen of the Hellfire Club resort to tough love, ordering him to get his head together.

The uncrowned rulers of the mutant enclave are going through a tense patch in their own rocky relationship. The telepathic Frost is chafing over the fact that Scott is keeping one small section of his mind permanently closed to her probes and her resentment is growing daily…

As Piotr wanders through San Francisco’s Russian quarter in the Richmond District he stops for a snack in a diner and finds the owners being harassed by mobsters from the old country. Against his better judgement he agrees not to interfere, but then realises the gang leader is a mutant… one he recognises from his childhood…

Founding X-Men Angel and the Beast are in Argentina trying to recruit one of Earth’s oldest mutants for a unique “think tank”. In the 1930s abrasive and obnoxious super-genius James Bradley worked with Phineas Horton to create the android Human Torch before becoming the masked vigilante Doctor Nemesis. Now, preternaturally spry, he spends his days hunting down those Nazi war criminals he didn’t finish off during WWII.

He has no interest in helping the X-Men undo the effects of the Scarlet Witch’s spell – but none of that matters to the high-tech neo-Nazi supermen hunting Nemesis in turn…

Suddenly the world changes again as reports of a massacre leak out of Alaska. Terrorists have razed remote Cooperstown to burning rubble, apparently because a mutant baby was born there…

Already anti-mutant activist Simon Trask is stirring the flames of panic and prejudice as a Press Statement from his Humanity Now Coalition asks if this is true “what happens when one is born in your town?”

With anti-mutant hysteria growing and Trask actively lobbying in Washington, Cyclops, Beast and Emma visit the San Francisco Mayor. However, even with most of the feared and despised genetic outcasts now housed in her city and the entire population potentially at risk from fanatics and mutant-hunters, Sadie Sinclair stands firm on her offer of sanctuary.

She does however eventually suggest that they relocate the community to an uninhabited, more fortifiable island in the Bay…

Colossus is hunting. The thug in the diner was the same tattooed mutant monster who had terrorised and blackmailed his family in Russia long before the X-Men were formed. Now that he has spread his web to America and Piotr has found the reasons he needed to resume the role of hero…

As what passes for normality returns to the X-enclave Scott broods on his daughter Hope, first mutant born after “the Decimation” and currently lost in future with his son Nathan AKA Cable. Emma broods because she still can’t read her man’s mind and, in the Yukon, mutant tech-morph Madison Jeffries broods on his impending demise at the clamps, claws, grippers and wires of the autonomous mechanical life forms he’s just created.

His certain doom is deferred when Beast, Angel and Dr. Nemesis arrive to offer him a position in their “X-Club”…

In San Francisco Piotr has decided on a long game and joined the mutant racketeer’s gang, and Emma’s fretting has turned to nights filled with bad dreams. As Trask’s hate-message spreads, an increasing number of former mutants and their parents begin to arrive begging for sanctuary and Colossus only adds to the influx crisis when he rescues a cargo of trafficked Russians and brings them the relative safety of the X-enclave.

After dealing with the mech-things, the ever-expanding science team has travelled to Japan to recruit atomic mutation expert Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi where the reclusive paranoid has a slight problem.

He’s trapped on a remote island by the giant monsters he created to protect him from being abducted by the Soviets and the travellers only survive the Brobdingnagian assaults after Angel is forced to reveal his own deadly transformative secret to his astounded and horrified colleagues…

Back in San Francisco, Colossus ends his infiltration of Tattoo’s mob in decisive manner when Emma – never a big fan of men who abuse girls – invites herself along for the ride…

Later the reassembled and victorious mutants enjoy a moment of relative calm but are blithely unaware of the distant reawakening of an old and dreaded foe…

This engaging Costumed Drama then concludes with a lengthy examination of the history and motives of Emma Frost in ‘White Queen, Dark Reign’ from Uncanny X-Men Annual #2, illustrated by Mitch Breitweiser on modern-day chapters with Daniel Acuña handling the scenes from her sordid serried past…

When she was young and a villainous consort of Hellfire Club ruler Sebastian Shaw, the precocious telepath was “expected” to get cosy with Atlantean monarch and public enemy Prince Namor of Atlantis. Now the new US Metahuman Security Supremo Norman Osborn (see Dark Avengers volume 1: Assemble) has invited both Emma and Namor to join his covert cabal of criminal masterminds and global outlaws, the conniving Frost sees an opportunity to pay a few old and still-painful debts…

Exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining, this stirring, supremely sensuous Fights ‘n’ Tights tome is treasure trove of treats for fans of sexy superheroes and combat connoisseurs and also includes a selection of cover reproductions and variants by Mr. & Mrs. Dodson, Greg Land & Michael Golden

© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.

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Rogue Touch


By Christine Woodward (Hyperion)
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1102-5

It seems that the signature genre of comics – the superhero – has at last gained some degree of literary legitimacy. Even if you ignore the collected pulp exploits of Doc Savage or The Shadow, or the assorted novelisations and prose forays from funnybook publishers capitalising on the early success of series like Wild Cards with their own key brands, the timbre of modern times has allowed costumed do-gooders and crazed masterminds to finally break into “real” publishing.

Now even proper book companies have many titles that blend crime, horror, science fiction and the peculiarly comicbook cult of the Over-Man into their mainstream fare.

With that in mind here’s something a little different and probably more in tune with the tastes of female readers, Young Adults and those fans possessing only a passing familiarity with X-Men continuity.

LET ME BE SPECIFIC. THIS IS A NOVEL. THERE ARE NO PICTURES INSIDE.

In the Marvel Universe Rogue was first seen as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants: a disturbed young girl cursed with a power that stole abilities and memories from anybody who touched her skin-to-skin.

It was an ability she could not control or turn off, and any overlong fleshy contact resulted in the victim falling into a coma with their entire history and essence drained into her. Rogue then became a reluctant jailer with stolen powers and personalities locked in her head forever.

Played as a “bad-girl” and mystery woman for years, Rogue grew to become one of the most popular characters in the excessively large X-cast, winning her own miniseries where it was first revealed that as a young girl her powers manifested just as she was kissing her first love Cody Robbins…

With the boy she wanted imprisoned in her head whilst his body permanently shut down, the girl knew she was a freak and monster who must never again experience human contact…

This novel picks up a little later and never mentions any aspect of the Marvel Universe as it begins the story of 20-year old Anna Marie: a reluctant recluse working a dead-end night job at a small bakery in Jackson, Mississippi.

Always wrapped head-to-toe in many layers, the odd night owl one night sees a weird lurking man almost waiting for her. She takes steps to avoid him, the way she avoids everybody who might accidentally touch her and suffer the horrific consequences…

However the non-incident rattles her and gives boss Wendy Lee an excuse to fire her…

All but unemployable and strapped for cash, Anna Marie is forced to apply for food stamps, but waiting in line she sees the same creepy, good-looking guy. However when she challenges him she inadvertently calls attention to the fact that he’s pulling some kind of scam and security guards chase him from the building.

She sees her stalker again on the streets and realises that even in the Mississippi heat the guy is cold and really, really hungry. Without really knowing why, she gives him some of her food stamps…

Over the next few days they keep meeting and become friendlier, but James is a strange and cagy man with an accent she can’t place and the weirdest gaps in his knowledge of everyday life.

Her prospects don’t improve and one night, reduced to desperation, Anna Marie breaks into the bakery, intent on taking food to the value of the severance check she didn’t get. Tragically, Wendy Lee discovers her and in the scuffle makes contact…

Now with a young boy and an old lady stuck in her head, the horrified, guilt-ridden girl realises she has to steal a car and get out of town as soon as possible …and that’s when James drives up, offering her a ride to anywhere she wants…

Thus begins an epic and immensely engaging rollercoaster ride across America as the mismatched loners discover each other and the incredible secrets both are concealing. He prefers to be called “Touch” rather than James and has impossible gifts too. As she slowly allows herself to love the boy, “Rogue” – as he insists on calling her – is forced to accept just how much of a stranger he is… especially once the super-scientific pursuers and monster animals chasing him start to close in on her too.

He also knows far more about her than he at first let on…

Draped in the eternal allure of two kids in love and on the run, and designed to attract readers raised on Roswell High, Sookie Stackhouse, Twilight and generations of road-buddy movies, in Rogue Touch Christine Woodward successfully translates the X-Men’s memory-&-power-leeching Southern Belle into a compelling, alienated but ultimately powerful, self-reliant and triumphant woman in an increasingly fantastic and dangerous world.

Immensely readable and engaging, this is a supremely cunning and clever confection: easily affixable to Marvel’s mutant mythology should you be so inclined, but also a completely self-contained science fiction/young romance thriller that will delight the aficionados of all those so-successful alienated teen prose franchises. There’s even room and scope for a sequel or two…

™ & © 2013 Marvel and Subs. All Rights Reserved.

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All-New X-Men volume 3: Out of Their Depth


By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, David Lafuente & Wade Von Grawbadger (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-561-1

Following the poor choices and horrendous paths taken by assorted mutant heroes over the last few years, and following the events of Avengers versus X-Men, MarvelNOW! reshaped the continuity, taking various factors of X-iterations in truly bizarre directions.

At the dawn of the Marvel Age, some very special kids were chosen by wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier. Gloomy Scott Summers, ebullient Bobby Drake, trust fund brat Warren Worthington III, insular Jean Grey and simian genius Henry McCoy were gathered up by the enigmatic Professor X – a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between massed humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants, no matter what the cost.

To achieve his dream he educated and trained the five youngsters – codenamed Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and The Beast – for unique roles as heroes, ambassadors and symbols in an effort to counter the growing tide of human prejudice and fear.

Over years the struggle to integrate mutants into society resulted in constant conflict, compromise and tragedy, including Jean’s death, Warren’s mutilation, Hank’s further mutation and eventually Cyclops’ radicalisation.

The formerly idealistic, steadfast and trustworthy team-leader Cyclops was even killed Xavier before eventually joining with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones.

Abandoning Scott, his surviving team-mates and newer X-Men Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde stayed true to Xavier’s dream, opting to protect and train the next mutant generation at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

When The Beast realised he was dying, he became obsessed with the notion that the still starry-eyed First Class of X-Men could bring Scott back from his doctrinaire madness and ideological race war obsession. To that end McCoy used time-travel tech in a last-ditch attempt to fix everything: risking the entire space/time continuum by bringing those valiant, callow youngsters back to the future to reason with debased, possibly deranged Cyclops.

The gamble paid off in all the wrong ways. Rather than restoring Scott to reason, the confrontation simply hardened the renegade’s heart and strengthened his resolve.

Moreover, even though McCoy’s younger self cured his older iteration, young Hank and the rest of the X-Kids refused to go home until “bad” Cyclops was stopped…

The modern world changes extremely rapidly. New mutants are now appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before. Worse still, through careful orchestration and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction Squad are winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised and rebellious, the young…

Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heats up when Cyclops and his allies visit the Jean Grey School with a chilling proposition. Convinced of inevitable extinction at human hands, Scott proffers a place to any student wishing to join his own academy: one dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than wait for mankind to turn on them…

The psychically conjoined, socially-challenged and ruthless Stepford Sisters (Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe) readily accept but nobody is more shocked than the elder Cyclops when teenaged Angel also agrees to ditch his former classmates and switch sides…

Scripted by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Stuart Immonen with Wade Von Grawbadger, Out of Their Depth – re-presenting All-New X-Men #11-15 from May to August 2013 – picks up mere moments later as Warren’s incredible decision provokes a massive row amongst adults and students alike.

Her newly-awakened psionic abilities in overdrive and unable to filter out the thoughts and emotions boiling round her, Jean lashes out, taking control of Angel’s mind. Her arbitrary actions are countered by the Cuckoo triplets and a bloody battle looks certain to erupt between the factions until teen Scott dramatically brings them all to their senses.

With nothing resolved, the Extinction team simply teleport out with their new recruits as, a continent away, a third faction makes its move…

Shapeshifter Mystique had already attempted to seduce the naïve 16-year old Scott, but when that failed she simply moved ahead with her own scheme. Now she, feral berserker Sabretooth and illusion-projector Lady Mastermind embark on spectacular robberies, amassing a literal mountain of cash, whilst leaving “proof” that Wolverine and the time-lost X-Kids are responsible…

Back at School Jean has an educational heart-to-heart with Professor Kitty about controlling her new abilities and the ethics of using them before Wolverine leads them all after Mystique.

They don’t get far before being intercepted in ‘All-New X-Men VS Uncanny Avengers’…

The combined human/mutant team is lead by Scott’s younger brother Alex – now more than a decade older than his sibling. The search for answers and explanations is difficult: none of Cyclops’ classmates even knew he had a brother at this stage of their lives and the confrontation between the adults is fraught with tension.

Suddenly Jean’s telepathy scans the Scarlet Witch‘s thoughts and the mind-reader goes ballistic.

Wanda‘s greatest shame is the period of madness when she murdered many of her Avenger allies and used her probability magic to eradicate millions of mutants with a wish. The inadvertent revelations burn into Jean’s brain and she responds with a storm of unleashed psionic fury…

As the situation escalates, in London The Bank of England is pillaged by “The X-Men” and Captain America grudgingly allows sometime-Avenger Wolverine a chance to handle matters himself…

The torturous trail leads to a warehouse where Madame Hydra, Silver Samurai and a small army of Hydra stormtroopers are engaged in cautious, dangerous negotiations with Mystique.

The mutant’s incredibly audacious plan – and the need for untold billions in cash – is revealed, only to have the dickering disrupted by Kitty and Wolverine ambitiously ambushing everybody.

They had previously ordered the kids to stay back and keep safe but the quartet are just teenagers and thus biologically unable to follow adult instructions…

The frantic melee seesaws on a knife edge until in the midst of the chaos Jean seemingly transforms into the dreaded Dark Phoenix, and by the time the Avengers arrive the battle is over and the kids triumphant.

This is an action-packed collection of clashes and capers but is also wonderfully heavy on the light-hearted humour and hi-jinks which so distinguished the original mid-1960s run: filled with smart, plausible characterisation, delicious extrapolation plus hilarious one-liners and childish stunts…

The final tale herein, illustrated by David Lafuente, opens a whole new world of possibilities when Jean’s still-erratic telepathy leads her to discover that one of her dutiful classmates has loved her from afar for decades…

Since she arrived all she has dwelt upon is her star-crossed lovers’ destiny with Scott Summers – and how she will die.

Is it any wonder then that she takes the lead with her silently suffering young admirer? Scott too is rebelling against his future… only his response is to play hooky with the other junior X-Man and head for New York City to meet girls and have the kind of fun he never believed his powers would permit…

To Be Continued…

Out of Their Depth also includes a beautiful cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Leinil Francis Yu & Nick Bradshaw and the now standard 21st century add-on of 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.
™ & © 2013 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.

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X-Men: Alterniverse Visions


By Anne Nocenti, Simon Furman, Mariano Nicieza, Kurt Busiek & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-0194-9

Although now commonplace in regular fiction media, once upon a time parallel worlds and alternate Earths were almost unilaterally the province of comicbooks, offering tantalising glimpses of intriguingly different yet profoundly familiar characters.

DC pretty much owned the shtick in the early 1960s but kept it separate from their other exploratory narrative strand “Imaginary Stories”, but over at up-and-coming Marvel Comics, Roy Thomas in particular had a notion to marry the twain…

To be clear: Alternate Earths are part of the overarching shared continuity and Imaginary Stories are just that – fanciful riffs and chimeras using established characters and scenarios, but never part of the nuts-&-bolts universe.

Thus, despite such surrogate Earthers as Thundra, Arkon, Mahkizmo, Gaard and the Squadron Supreme cropping up in regular Fantastic Four and Avengers issues, the House of Ideas followed their competitor’s lead until the launch of What If?

This was an anthological series wherein cosmic voyeur The Watcher offered peeks into a myriad of other universes where key “real” continuity stories were replayed with vastly different outcomes – the same basic idea as Imaginary Stories but with a back-handed acknowledgement that somewhere these epics were “real”…

The first volume (48 issues from February 1977 to June 1988) posed such intriguing questions as ‘What If… Loki had Found the Hammer of Thor?’, ‘the Fantastic Four had not gained Their Powers?’ or ‘Spider-Man’s Clone had Lived?’ and when the title relaunched in 1989 for another 115 issues including ‘What If Wolverine was Lord of the Vampires?’ and ‘What if Captain Marvel had not Died?’, the tales were all back-written into an over-arching continuity and began to be catalogued as variant but equally viable Earths/universes and alternate timelines.

There have been seven more volumes since and a series of “Alterniverse” tales…

In case you’re wondering, those gritty Ultimate Marvel sagas all occur on Earth-1610, the Age of Apocalypse happened on Earth-295, everybody got eaten in the Zombieverse of Earth-2149, the Squadron Supreme originally hailed from Earth-712 and mainstream Marvel tales take place on Earth-616, whilst we readers all dwell on the dull, dreary Earth-1218…

Keep calm then, but never forget that Reality is just a plethora of differing dimensions, and if things go awry in one it can have a cumulative and ultimately catastrophic effect on all of them…

Soon after designating this publishing idiom an Alterniverse, a selection of relatively recent What If? (all from volume 2) yarns starring a selection of X-Men were collected into a trade paperback which, despite then being closely dependent on familiarity with Marvel mainstream, might now – in the wake of all those various movies – be a little more accessible to a general readership…

The extra-dimensional dramas kick off with ‘What If… Wolverine Led Alpha Flight?’ (originally published in #59, March 1994, as ‘What If Wolverine Had Remained a Captive of Alpha Flight?’) by Simon Furman, Bryan Hitch & Joe Rubenstein, wherein the Feral Mutant was imprisoned by the Canadian Government after events in X-Men #119-120.

Once the X-Men are killed trying to get him back and depressed former berserker is left to lead a Canadian team against the Hellfire Club and their Dark Phoenix…

Next up is ‘What If… Storm Had Remained a Thief?’, courtesy of #40, August 1992 and first seen as ‘What if Storm of the X-Men Had Remained a Thief?’

This is a lovely and rare happily-ending tale by Anne Nocenti and Kirkwood Studios – AKA Steve Carr, Deryl Skelton & Rubenstein – which describes how instead of becoming a pickpocket in Cairo and weather goddess in equatorial Africa, the orphan Ororo Munroe is taken under the wing of benign grifter Herman Hassel. Years later when she meets the X-Men it is not as a friend…

‘What If… Rogue Possessed the Power of Thor?’ (#66, August 1994, by Furman, John Royle & Bambos Georgiou) takes a sharp left from a critical point in Avengers Annual #10 wherein the power-leeching mutant battled the team and Spider-Woman.

This time/space, however, Rogue doesn’t let go until the Thunder God is dead and drained and soon finds herself cursed with his might but still a pawn in a cosmic war between eternal Asgard and Loki‘s forces of Ragnarok…

From #69 (January 1995, by Mariano Nicieza, J.R. Justiniano & Roy Richardson) ‘What If… Stryfe Killed the X-Men?’ does what it promises and shows the catastrophic outcome after Professor X dies and his hapless students are left to face the homicidal future-clone of Cable as well as the mutant leveller Apocalypse, after which these walks on the wild side end with a visceral, dark thriller from Kurt Busiek, Ron Randall & Art Nichols who ask ‘What If… Wolverine Battled Weapon-X?’

From #62, June 1994, the grim chronicle details how the rogue Canadian science team that inflicted an Adamantium skeleton and experimental behaviour modification on secret agent Logan missed their mark in this universe and had to settle for a second-best human lab rat.

When their Weapon-X escaped to carve a swathe of slaughter through the country and wiped out neophyte superteam Alpha Flight, the grizzled veteran knew what he had to do, and to whom…

Action-packed, cathartic and just plain fun, these different strokes offer old-fashioned fun in vast amounts, and now that a wider world is filmically conversant with a (if not “the ”) Marvel Universe, perhaps it’s time to raid the vaults again and release similar collections starring Spider-Man, Thor, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and/or the Avengers…

© 1995Marvel Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.
A British edition by published by Boxtree is also available.

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X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires


By Chuck Kim, Simon Spurrier, Duane Swierczynski, Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5229-3

All major comics publishing events have satellite specials these days and the X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – which ran from July 2010 to May 2011 in selected Marvel titles – was no exception. Thus, this supplementary volume, gathering the One-shots Storm & Gambit, Smoke & Blood and Blade, plus the contents of the anthologized miniseries X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires, makes for a handy and beguiling adjunct to the main feature.

The sinister suspense begins with X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Storm & Gambit (by Chuck Kim, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Wayne Faucher, Al Vey, Victor Olazaba & Mark Irwin) as the mutant’s professional thieves are dispatched to the Mediterranean to steal Dracula’s headless corpse from an island infested with vampires.

When the stealthy duo are detected and their craft shot down, Storm quickly realises that they have an unseen ally on the island of blood. This proves crucial as they battle through legions of lychs to ultimate success – but the price of his aid might well be her soul…

Simon Spurrier & Gabriel Hernandez Walta then focus on the frustrations of super-genius Doctor Nemesis (and his X-Club associates Kavita Rao and Madison Jeffries) in X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Smoke & Blood.

Refusing to acknowledge something as stupid and primitive as the supernatural, Nemesis and his team furiously experiment on a captured vampire warrior, also seeking a cure for the infected victims slowly turning into evil blood-suckers in the drastically overstretched laboratories.

His efforts are constantly, inexplicably frustrated until the monster breaks free and the entire research station goes into lethal lockdown – with the doctor and his colleagues on the wrong side of the hermetically sealed walls…

Men: Curse of the Mutants – Blade follows as writer Duane Swierczynski and artist Tim Green provide a revelatory prequel. ‘The Light at the End’ finds the demi-human hero uncovering a covert campaign to eradicate all vampire hunters and drawn into a trap where day-walking undead slaughter all his allies. Barely escaping the net of Xarus, the badly rattled sole survivor heads towards San Francisco and an unlikely alliance…

The two issues of X-Men: Curse of the Mutants – Mutants vs. Vampires comprise a selection of short yarns starring many of the huge mutant cast in solo action, opening with ‘From Husk Til Dawn’ by James Asmus & Tom Raney, wherein the hard-body shapeshifter sets herself up as a walking honey – or is that blood? – trap to take vampires off the streets of San Francisco, one fanger at a time.

Christopher Sequeira & Sana Takeda then go all disco nostalgic as Dazzler meets a band of vampires who have all been grooving and chilling since they died during the glitter-balled, star-spangled Seventies in ‘I’m Gonna Stake You, Sucka’…

Peter David & Mick Bertilorenzi continue in darkly comedic vein with ‘Rue Blood’ as Rogue confronts a somehow familiar bloodsucker and experiences an unsuspected karmic connection with the tragic, beautiful blood-beast, after which Rob Williams & Doug Braithwaite reveal a grim secret and lost comrade from Magneto’s past in ‘Survivors’…

From issue #2 ‘Flesh, Fangs and Burnt Rubber’ by Mike Benson & Mark Texeira pits Gambit against a marauding gang of undead biker chicks from Hell, whilst in ‘Call Me Santo’ by Spurrier & Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Rockslide and Armor face the largest vampire ever turned whilst transporting food and supplies to Utopia.

Next Howard Chaykin goes ‘Skin Deep’ to reveal how Vietnamese mutant Karma uncovers a cunning fanged predator who had discovered how to hunt safely and with her victims’ tacit consent…

The last story, by Mike W. Barr & Agustin Padilla, stars The Angel in ‘Voices’ wherein the winged wonder hunts down a once-human beast who satisfies his drive to kill by only consuming murderers. As Angel constantly struggles against the dark desires programmed into him by the mutant horror Apocalypse, he can only wonder just who is the greatest monster here?

Following pencilled pages, sketches and roughs from Mico Suayan and Bachalo, plus character designs by Hernandez Walta, the story portion concludes with ‘Night Screams!’ by Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz & Bob Wiacek (from Uncanny X-Men #159, July 1982) relating the mutant heroes’ first encounter with the lord of vampires.

After Dracula ambushes Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine must race the dawn to confront her assailant and effect a cure before the Windrider becomes undead forever…

With covers and variants by Suayan, Bachalo, Townsend, Christina Strain, Clayton Crain, Dave Wilkins, Nick Bradshaw, Jim Charalampidis and Sienkiewicz, this is a splendidly dark selection of Costumed Dramas which will delight both dedicated fans and casual readers alike. Just finish it before the sun sets…
© 1982, 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.