Comic Book Herald

Incoming is Marvel’s 2019 year-end spectacular, simultaneously summarizing much of the publisher’s 2019 while building suspense for storylines and comics to come in 2020. 

Spoilers for Incoming #1 Follow!

Today I’ll answer:

Big picture, Incoming #1 could just as easily be called Marvel Universe (2019) #1 (and I’d argue that’s exactly what it should be called and that there should be one of these every year to onboard new readers!). The issue bounces between Marvels top creators contributing short stories for the characters or teams they write at Marvel. So you have Kelly Thompson writing Jessica Jones and Captain Marvel, Chip Zdarsky writing Daredevil, Jonathan Hickman reuniting with RB Silva and Marte Gracia for a Powers of X style Mister Sinister story, and so on.

Impressively these short stories all intertwine, ultimately connecting to tell one murder mystery. Now there was some hand wringing, myself included, over a teaser promo Marvel released for this issue which suggested the murder mystery might be an Identity Crisis or Heroes in Crisis style death of a known character. Any comic book event that is strongly centered around “which character that you love will die!” in this day and age sends off a LOT of warning bells. 

Fortunately, the brilliant Al Ewing is in charge of the mystery’s framing, and he continues his work from Marvel Comics #1000 developing the Masked Rider into a centerpiece of the Marvel Universe fabric. The murder the Rider uncovers is a locked room mystery of an unknown player, and without the usual untimely death of a beloved figure, it’s easier to just enjoy the suspense of the hunt. 

The truly impressive trick to Incoming #1 is that the murder mystery is used as pretense to bounce around every corner of the Marvel Universe and it actually makes sense. We get a feel for what’s been happening in a wide variety of titles this year in both ways large (the Sampson and Joe Fixit interview very broadly summarizing Immortal Hulk) and small (Tini Howard continuing her story of Billy and Teddy’s romance from Death’s Head four issue mini). 

It’s a remarkably smart way to deliver a sampler platter issue, something Marvel has struggled with over the course of this decade. It’s no secret that genuine on-ramps into Marvel Comics are one of the publisher’s biggest struggles (there’s a reason Comic Book Herald’s guides on where to start reading Marvel books are perpetually among my site’s most popular). This is the closest I’ve seen Marvel come to an approach I’ve been recommending for years, though, with an authentic “state of the universe” address that functions on its own as a story.

For my money, the two biggest criticisms against Incoming #1 are as follows. First, $9.99 is a terrible price point for your “new-reader” catch-up initiative. I get why Marvel prices this comic 60% higher than their standard release (there’s a ton of story and creative talent on display!), but just once I’d like to see Marvel bet on themselves with an excessively affordable on-ramp. The immediate comparison that comes to mind is DC’s .25 cents Free Comic Book Day teaser where the publisher teased out upcoming initiatives like the (now ill-fated) Batman and Catwoman wedding. I love the “we’ll give this one away” approach, but at most even saying “it’s 3.99 just like our other books but with way more in it!” is a win.

The other criticism to me is that Incoming #1 is quite effective at building towards what’s coming in 2020, but doesn’t do a ton to really build your knowledge of what’s come before (or even where you can find that information). Sure, Elektra training Daredevil in his Netflix season one duds, or Nova referencing Annihilation Scourge makes sense to me, but I’ve read all those comics throughout 2019. For those who have not, there’s a real “here’s the situation, let’s roll!” vibe that can be extremely challenging for a lot of new readers.

Apart from Ewing’s work reaching back to Marvel’s relatively untouched Golden Age, the most fascinating callback is the murder mystery leading our Marvel heroes to Raksor and Bel-Dann, Skrull and Kree warriors previously seen as interplanetary monitors during the X-Men’s “Dark Phoenix Saga” (Uncanny #137 to be specific) and later during another John Byrne story in Fantastic Four Annual #18.

This builds to the issue’s biggest tease for next year, the April 2020 Empyre, with Teddy of Young Avengers fame apparently take Emperor Teddy status among an allied Kree and Skrull armada. For those less familiar with Teddy Altman and his time with the Young Avengers his given name is Dorrek VIII, son of both Kree and Skrull royal heritage. Historically he’s been resistent to this calling, and his romance with Earth-bound Billy/Wiccan has typically kept him “pro-human,” but we’ll see what may have changed in Empyre.

All in all Incoming is a fascinating idea, and shockingly well executed. I can understand if the price tag is off putting, but the content is something I’d love to see Marvel continue annually.

The post Previously On #95: Marvel Incoming! #1 Review – What’s to Come in 2020 appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Marvel comics of 1979. Frank Miller on Daredevil! Black Cat debuts! We skip the debut of Alpha Flight!

On this episode we cover the following issues (all available via Marvel Unlimited):

Up Next:

My Marvelous Year – Marvel Year Eighteen: 1979 Pt. 2 —

You can find more Marvel Comics guides on Comic Book Herald at:

mymarvelousyear.com

https://www.comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/

Music for My Marvelous Year is credited to Disasterpeace. Support for My Marvelous Year comes via Patreon backers, for as little as $1 a month.

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The post Marvel Year Eighteen: 1979 Pt. 1 appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

With East of West wrapping up its seven year journey into the Apocalypse, John and I are taking a look back at the Jonathan Hickman, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, and Rus Wooten series from Image Comics!

In addition to the CBH Deep Dive podcast, I’ve also included our “Journals From Armageddon,” an email conversation John and I had prior to this conversation. Check out part one here covering East of West #1 to #29 (the first two in-universe years of the Apocalypse), and we’ll be back in January 2020 with part two covering East of West #30 to #45, the final year of the Apocalypse!

For previous Deep Dives:

For more, check out the full guides on Comic Book Herald:

Best of Jonathan Hickman

Dave’s Faves: The Best Comics of All Time!

Comics discussed include:

Dave:

Hey John,

I thought for this month’s deep dives we could start a back and forth about thoughts and questions we have as we read/re-read East of West. Think of this as a completely optional series of thought starters and possible dialogue to run as a companion on CBH once we’ve recorded our episode on part one.

Now, part one is going to focus on the first two years of the Apocalypse (up to around issue #30 in the series), but obviously big picture questions and thoughts are fair game. I haven’t read the most recent issue in the big East of West finale, but otherwise there aren’t really any spoilers I’m worried about.

Let’s go!

Line one, panel one: “The dream is over.”

Ok, I won’t be breaking down this book on a line by line basis (#EastofPedantic) but this is the only line of dialogue for nearly three pages while Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, and Rus Wooten’s art do the work. I can’t read this line and think of anything other than John Lennon’s broken crooning on “God” from his first post-Beatles solo album.

It’s a pretty famous song for a number of reasons, not least of which is that “The dream is over” sequence is the most deliberately Lennon addresses the end of the Beatles. It’s the build to that moment which feels more relevant to Hickman’s thematic opening statement here, as Lennon delivers an impassioned series of “I don’t believe in…” statements culminating in “I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That’s reality.” It’s about as direct a “kill your idols” song as a flippin’ Beatle could deliver, and that’s literally what we see the three horsemen discussing in this opening sequence.

Another band of four, the horsemen just broke up too! Death is missing from their crew, and the remaining three horsemen are ready to set the world on fire if he won’t rejoin.

Even the Apocalypse isn’t going according to plan. The dream is over.

From there we get our first all white text transition with “The things that divide us are stronger than the things that bring us together.” The combination of these statements quite quickly builds a unified pessimism at the hear of this world. The trick will be filling it with purpose and life.

John: 

“Holy” Trinities support the story…

Dave:

Me: Hey, ya ever listen to solo Lennon?

Clearly, I’ll need to bring my A game.

One of the more intriguing components of the Apocalypse in East of West is that this is round two. It’s not just the certainty the devout have towards The Message so much as the fact that we know the Horsemen already tried and failed to deliver. The question becomes less “Is Armageddon on the horizon?” and instead “Will it take this time?” We’re made aware of the horsemen’s previous existence in this world through efficient flashbacks, primarily centered on the forbidden romance between Death and Xiaolion Mao but so many big picture questions remain early on.

The horsemen are fully developed in these flashbacks, but have lost their Death. What were they trying to accomplish? What did they accomplish? What happened exactly to reduce them to children in our narrative?

And perhaps more importantly for the belief in The Message and the inevitably of Apocalypse – was their presence made known far and wide? Certainly the Chosen operate with a degree of secrecy, but what does this world know?

I think your analysis of “End Times” is extremely astute, and goes a long way to explain the evergreen nature of the themes driving Hickman and Dragotta’s success with this book. Armageddon stories are always appealing. In Patton Oswalt’s memoirish autiobiography he posits that creatives all inevitably fixate on either zombies, spaceships, or wastelands. It’s genuinely difficult to break free from these categories, and East of West falls neatly into the “Wasteland” archetype. Voracious consumers of fiction are predisposed to consider tales from the wastelands, the trick is imbuing the collapsing world with enough detail to separate the fallout from the mushroom cloud.

As you note, though, the actual end of the world is almost background noise. It’s the world we read (with open eyes) but it’s not why I’ve come back multiple times. When I try to articulate why I keep coming back to East of West it’s Dragotta’s cityscapes and spiderhorse mounts, and Hickman’s cryptic quotables from every character’s lips, but more than anything it’s the politics! The regions and leaders of this not so hard to imagine America 2069 are fascinating. I’m as invested in conversations between Chamberlain and Bel Solomon, or the mystery of the Endless Nation as I am in anything War, Famine, and Conquest could conjure up for our pale white rider.

To your first question regarding the connection between The Western and the Apocalypse, I am no scholar of the genre, but there’s quite clearly something to this. Look at the Fallout video game franchise where post-annihilation survivors pick life up where Clint Eastwood left it in the 60’s/early 70’s (particularly in “New Vegas”). Even modern wasteland staples like Mad Max: Fury Road are all desserts and mob justice.

You know, it’s less likely to get lumped in as part of the same genre, but if you look at The Walking Dead through the same lens, you can see a lot of the same ingredients too. The protagonist is a small town sheriff just trying to protect his family and do what’s right!

To answer another of your questions, we also saw the “Hell” of the Western wasteland utilized in The Immortal Hulk, where the fresh Green hell is John Wayne era Americana. This feels like an increasingly modern take on “hell” (they don’t even have working outlets here!) but I think it’s primarily about the removal of societal standards due to some cataclysm.

For my money, East of West transcends some of these connections by blending western tropes with fantastic machinery and societal structure. It may be Armageddon but The World still seems very much able to run as a segmented whole. It’s a Western where the cowboy walks into a futuristic White Tower to assassinate the daggum president of the Union!

Oh, and yes, I’ll be coming back to Secret Wars. Always. And forever.

A few stray thoughts and questions:

I find East of West very re-readable, in part because I’ve been reading it over the course of seven years and can barely remember what happened in comics I read last week. What do you think makes the book re-readable, or do you disagree?

I mentioned above, but I find the politics of this world fascinating, and perhaps a bit ahead of their time. As political discourse has become even more divisive since the book launched, do you find these elements more or less compelling?

The introduction of Babylon is a game-changing moment for the book. What do you make of Hickman’s vision of “The Beast”?

Ok another big picture thought: What was about this time period that helped titles like East of West lead to a modern golden age of Image Comics?

I’ve written about this recently in response to this idea that Image’s incredible output from 2012 through 2015 is almost inimitably great, and they’ve been declining ever since. East of West in particular fits into an astonishing class of 2013, alongside four other series that I still have/had on my pull list (in some form) in 2019.

Image’s ability to churn out “hits” like this has faded considerably. I was reminded of this during the week listening to Contest of Challengers, the podcast of Challengers Comics in Chicago. East of West ending is yet another death knell for an era of loyal fandom, at least as it concerns Image.

So while the big picture market questions intrigue me (what precisely was in the water during this stretch?! Or, how much of this trend is Comixology Unlimited, Hoopla Digital, _Insert Easy Pirate Scan Here_ related?), for our purposes I wonder:

How does East of West compare to the rest of the Image renaissance?

East of West is (allegedly) going to make it to TV – How does it compare to its peers in terms of potential success?

Is East of West actually Hickman’s best creator-owned work?

——————————————————————————————————-

Music for Best Comics Ever by Anthony Weis. Check out more music at anthonyweis.com.

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The post Deep Dives #5: Journals From Armageddon – East of West Review Pt. 1 (#1 to #29) appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Zack & Dave talk about all our 2019 favorites, including MMY comics we read this year, in this holiday special!

Topics discussed include:

You can find more Marvel Comics guides on Comic Book Herald at:

mymarvelousyear.com

https://www.comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/

Music for My Marvelous Year is credited to Disasterpeace. Support for My Marvelous Year comes via Patreon backers, for as little as $1 a month.

Make sure to subscribe now in order to get every reading list for every year of Marvel Comics! Subscribe to the Podcast! — iTunes, Google Play, Pod Feed

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The post My Marvelous Christmas: Our 2019 Favorites! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

I definitely would not have predicted Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli’s Marauders would be my favorite “Dawn of X” X-Men comic in 2019 – particularly ahead of two Jonathan Hickman written series with X-Men and New Mutants, but it very much has held steady as the comic most clearly filled with purpose, humor, and vision. Marauders feels like a book that knows where it wants to go, and how it wants to utilize the new status quo of Krakoa and House of X for a successful long run.

Today I’ll answer:

+ What the last two issues tell us about Marauders vision

+ Who the heck is Shinobi Shaw

+ Who the heck are those kids claiming to be ex Hellfire Club!

The clearest direction for Marauders so far is that Duggan, Lolli and company are most interested in the Hellfire Club politics and power dynamics than the ostensibly teased hook of a mutant pirate vessel led by Kate Pryde.

The pirating is very much in play, but it’s secondary to the machinations of wealthy, powerful, scheming former villains, and that’s actually fascinating!

As a result, the pirate crew is given short spurts of focus over the past few issues, allowing displays of power (in the case of Storm) and displays of idiot humor (Pyro offering beer to refugee kids).

Whereas issue #3 is all about Sebastian Shaw’s power schemes – more on those in a moment – Marauders #4 blends Kate and Bishop solving eastern mysteries with unexpected Hellfire twists and turns. Even during their investigation into the “disappearance” of an individual being used to foster anti-mutant hostility Kate remains on Bishop’s case about accepting her offer to join her Hellfire squad as her – very on the repeatedly broken nose – Red Bishop.

So yes, there’s action and exploration of the world outside Krakoa – such as kate and Bishop’s discovery of the “Lady Deathstrike maid service” – but the real hook here is the Krakoan power struggles and what it means for the status of the X-nation.

Who the heck is Shinobi Shaw

Marauders #3 dives into these power plays with Sebastian Shaw’s efforts to resurrect his son Shinobi Shaw – dead by his own hand prior to House of X – as his Black Bishop. As the Hellfire power players put together their loyal supporters, it’s interesting to note that both Emma and Sebastian have chosen family with their first announced picks. Neither are particularly known for their deep familial ties, although this is doubly true in Sebastian’s case, where his relationship with his son is rooted firmly in a neverending quest to subjugate and kill the other!

Since he’s a lesser known X-character I’ll also take a moment to talk about Shinobi Shaw.

Shinobi debuts in X-Factor #67 and right out of the gates is seen draining his father’s wealth, trying to use his mutant ability to control his own density (think Vision but only the body-density bits) to give his dad a heart attack, and then blowing up the Shaw estate. Happy Father’s Day!

Shinobi has played at Black King of the Hellfire Club although more often than not his clearest rival is in fact the return of his father. There’s a particularly strange family dynamic between the two where they simultaneously want to kill the other, but are also proud of the strength in their family name that they would be able to succeed. With dad’s like this who needs enemies?

The big issue ending is Sebastian’s attempts to manipulate Shinobi for his own ends.

This feels destined to blow up in Sebastian’s face, especially considering we’ve already seen Shinobi is beholden to some mysterious outside entity, but for the time being he’s trying to use Shinobi’s anger against Emma and Kate Pryde.

Who the heck are those kids claiming to be ex Hellfire Club!

Marauders #4 ends with an even more surprising entry into the Hellfire legacy sweepstakes, with the reemergence of Kade Kilgore and the Homines Verendi (which from what I can tell translates to something like “The Feared Ones”).

During Jason Aaron’s run writing Wolverine and the X-Men, he introduced a new youthful Hellfire Club led by Kade Kilgore. Kilgore and this new Hellfire Club is part of Marvel’s comics tradition of making genius intellect pre-teens, like Valeria Richards, although of course in this case they are pure evil. The other members seen here are Maximillion Frankenstein, Manuel Enduque, and Wilhelmina Kensington.

Each member represents powerful wealthy bloodlines, in a new even more bloodthirsty model. Importantly they’re also all human and either hate mutants, or enjoy profiting off anti-mutant weapons manufacturing. The difference seems negligible.

Why is this all so compelling?

At the heart of these storytelling choices, there’s a throughline connecting Krakoa and the Worlldd of X to money power and shaping the globe. It’s in the way Jonathan Hickman writes Sebastian Shaw speechifying like a character out of Black Monday Murders, in the way X-Force #4 includes a data page with the shell corporations of Professor Charles Xavier, and of course in the way the main players in Marauders see the world.

One of the aspects I find most interesting about Marauders is this is very much not how Kate Pryde sees the world. She’s been dragged into these games of finance and backstabbing because she ran into a Krakoan brick wall. I’m very curious to see how shrewdly she’ll be able to play in these spaces that Sebastian and Emma have lived in.

The post Krakin’ Krakoa #26: My Favorite 2019 X-Men Dawn of X Comic! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Zack & Dave cover your questions, poll results, and recap the Marvel Comics of 1978!

Topics discussed include:

Up Next:

My Marvelous Year – Marvel Year Seventeen: 1979 Pt. 1 —

You can find more Marvel Comics guides on Comic Book Herald at:

mymarvelousyear.com

https://www.comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/

Music for My Marvelous Year is credited to Disasterpeace. Support for My Marvelous Year comes via Patreon backers, for as little as $1 a month.

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The post Marvel Year Seventeen: 1978 Variant Cover! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

The third issue of New Mutants is the first solely written by Ed Brisson with art by Flaviano, and it’s a trip back from space to Krakoa and a whole new gang of youthful mutants.

I’ve gathered the shift from the Hickman-driven classic New Mutants in space story is relatively divisive for some readers, but I honestly enjoyed the return to Krakoa with a new crop of youngsters.

Today I’ll answer:

+ Who these (New) New Mutants even are!

+ How New Mutants *could* function more like an X-Men anthology than expected

+ Whether or not Glob Herman is the single strangest reading order request I’ve ever gotten on Comic Book Herald (spoiler: he’s not, but I do have one!)

Whereas issues #1 and #2 deal almost exclusively with mutants debuting during the Chris Claremont written New Mutants circa 1982 (save Chamber and Mondo), New Mutants #3 is a disparate collection of mutants who’ve debuted everywhere from Claremont/Byrne on Uncanny X-Men to Whedon/Cassaday on Astonishing X-Men to the late 2018 Extermination mini-event by Ed Brisson and Pepe Larraz!

Armor is the clear leader throughout New Mutants #3, asking about bringing more of her mutant friends along to Krakoa. I quite like this angle as I’ve been asking the same thing about Mutants not yet on Krakoa. There’s still a lot of open-ended residency across Marvel’s merry mutantdom, as there are plenty of mutants we haven’t yet seen on the island. Just last week we saw that Rictor has apparently had issues controlling his powers enough to make it to Krakoa, and over the course of this issue Armor identifies a similar challenge facing Angel and Beak.

Hisako Ichiki first appeared in Astonishing X-Men #4, in the must-read “Gifted” story arc by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. As her name suggests she can generate a virtually indestructible psionic armor around her body, which gives her enhanced physical abilities. Throughout Astonishing she takes on a role similar to Kitty Pryde in the 80’s or Jubilee in the 90’s, the tenacious up and coming young woman who bonds with Wolverine.

For my money, Astonishing is the best series to read to get a feel for Armor, and because I enjoy her in that series so much, I’m excited to see her leading a New Mutants squad here. This is a mutant who has plenty of experience, and has fought alongside the likes of Cyclops, Emma Frost, and of course Wolverine.

Glob has transformed significantly since his debut in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men where the big pink blob with his eyes and bones hanging out was… kind of a menace? Glob takes to Quentin Quire’s punk riot at Xavier’s, lighting himself on fire and, uh, I think Glob tried to kill a guy (actually several humans!)

Glob’s softened significantly since, with roles everywhere from Wolverine and the X-Men to Age of X-Man.

Notably, Ed Brisson has taken on the mantle of head-Globitecht, writing him into compelling stories in the pages of Old Man Logan and even an X-Men Christmas special.

For my money Boom Boom is one of the stranger inclusions with this young group of relatively obscure mutants because Boom Boom has been around! Tabitha Smith debuted all the way back in 1985 (in Secret Wars II believe it or not – it’s in issue #5 of that clunker so you’d be forgiven for never making it that far into the event).

Boom Boom’s bounced around the X-Men universe since then most famously as a member of X-Force and in the all-time great Nextwave. Here’s writer Warren Ellis on why he included Boom Boom in Nextwave:

“I wanted a character who could blow things up.”

There’s more to the quote, but you get it.

When we meet Boom-Boom in New Mutants #3 she is clearly restless and willing to accept even Armor’s mission to Nebraska in order to get off Krakoa and do something. Her role is yet to be revealed in full, although I think it’s fair to imagine she might be the help the other New Mutants need at the end of this issue.

Given their recent introduction, twins Maxime and Manon are the least instantly recognizable of this group. In the pages of the Brisson written Extermination Maxime and Manon are manipulated by Ahab, the mutant-hunter from the Days of Future Past timeline into turning various X-Men into his hounds (ala Rachel Summers). Ultimately, Ahab is defeated, and in doing so, Maxime and Manon are given a chance to be free of his influence with the X-Men.

In terms of powerset, Manon can control memory, and Maxime can manipulate emotions.

Both characters debut early in the Grant Morrison written New X-Men and eventually develop a romance together. As you can tell from reading New Mutants #3 that romance leads to a LOT of children. Beak’s real name is Barnell Bohusk, and Angel’s is, well, Angel Salvadore. Beak is more obvious but both characters are good examples of Morrison’s interest in the less savory side of mutation, more focused on uncomfortable physical transformation than any sort of powersets.

Strangely, the duo joined up with the early 2010’s New Warriors with Beak operating as the hero Blackwing and Angel operating as the hero Tempest. Even at this time though, their powers are more technology based than much to do with their mutations.

Structurally there’s this strange thing going on where New Mutants is written by two authors with disparate visions. I actually kind of enjoy it, but if you’re into one and not the other, it’s a strange split.

There’s honestly a fascinating structure this *could* lead to, which came to mind after viewing the data page explaining how Krakoan inhabitants of the Akademos Sextant are housed according to X-Men class (or more meta literally, according to series title they’re most commonly associated with!).

I’m very into the idea of the non-Hickman written originals in space arcs alternating between Class Generation X, Class Frost Academy, and so on, interweaving and interlocking stories of mutant youth. This would be an atypical structure, but I’d also be into the idea of this same approach leading to alternating creative rotations woven in between Brisson and Flaviano issues. So when Hickman and Reis transition off, how about Leah Williams and Jen Bartel with a “The Five “ story? And on down the line.

The post Krakin’ Krakoa #25: New Mutants #3 Review – Who Are The (New) New Mutants? appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Through three issues X-Force continues to improve and build on the promise of House of X. It’s one of my favorite Dawn of X titles, and issue three by Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassarra did not disappoint!

Today on Krakin’ Krakoa #24 I’ll answer:

For all Comic Book Herald X-Men videos!

For the full Dawn of X reading order:

Issue 3 follows in the wake of the Reavers attack on Krakoa, and their successful assassination of Professor X (and destruction of his Cerebro headgear). Last issue also saw Wolverine and Quentin Quire discover the facility where the Reavers where horrifically holding a skinned and tortured Domino, using her mutant DNA in order to infiltrate the nation of Krakoa.

We now know this faction of anti-mutant terrorists is capturing and experimenting on a variety of mutants in order to implant themselves with cybernetic upgrades, which is very much in line with the Reavers we know and, well, hate.

I also have to call out the remarkably effective opening 9 panels in X-Force #3 where the creative team alternates close-ups of Domino’s torture and mission statement monologuing by “The Man with the Peacock Tattoo,” which for the record, is way less intimidating sounding than a Dragon Tattoo.

As Wolverine and Quentin are rescuing Domino from this horrific fate, the process of reviving the assassinated Professor is underway, primarily driven by Jean Grey and Beast.

Here we get Beast asking the question about the value of death in conversation with Jean Grey.

Jean answers everyone’s fears about taking the stakes out of X-Men comics:

“What I’m saying is without death life is less about me and more about us. The long game of mutantkind. That’s the dream of Krakoa.“

This is honestly the closest I’ve seen any of these – save a few hints here and there in the Hickman written issues – get to referencing the futures we’ve seen referenced in the pages of Powers of X and available to us via Moira’s lifelines.

The end result is the apparent resurrection and public announcement of Professor X’s return.

I say “apparent” because this all happens fairly quickly throughout the issue given the significance of the Professor’s role in making resurrection protocols and Cerebro backups tick. As Beast says “he’s all of us.”

So Professor X is back, but there’s a fair amount of doubt we see expressed implicitly and explicitly in this issue.

I appreciate Quentin challenging the “Kill No Humans” law of Krakoa – You have all these “villains” playing nice with X-Men but it’s down to Quentin to call out Professor X on still playing too nice.

Calling out Professor X’s mistakes seems especially relevant this issue, in both his return as if nothing went wrong (he even gets a cool sword from Magneto as a memento), and another glimpse into all the threats that remain to mutantkind, perhaps even from within Krakoa.

After a very effective and monstrous opener, the newly named XENO (all caps, all on-the-nose) has been relatively patient and clearly has nothing good planned.

The idea that XENO might have a sleeper agent on Krakoa should be terrifying to X-Men fans.

There’s also the possibility that all the awful bigots are effectively teaming up here given the language like “The shadows have gathered here” and “We are one and we are many.” I wonder if this is a combination of the likes of Reavers, Friends of Humanity, Purifiers ,etc.

All in all, I’m enjoying X-Force a great deal, and consider it the heart of Dawn of X!

———————————————————————————

Music for Best Comics Ever by Anthony Weis. Check out more music at anthonyweis.com.

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The post Krakin’ Krakoa #24: X-Force #3 Review – The Lives & Deaths of Professor X appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Marvel comics of 1978. Magneto triumphant! Jane Foster, the Mighty Thor! Peter Parker graduates college!

On this episode we cover the following issues (all available via Marvel Unlimited):

Up Next:

My Marvelous Year – Marvel Year Eighteen: 1979 Pt. 1 —

You can find more Marvel Comics guides on Comic Book Herald at:

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November 27 2019 – the day before Thanksgiving – was the first new comic book day in approximately 4 months with at least three new X-Men comics released on the same day.

Appropriately, my varying reactions to the releases are a healthy reminder that more is not always better, and that one of House of X and Dawn of X’s greatest strengths has been a healthy sense of curation (Marvel as a whole is otherwise comically overproducing books these days). Big picture, New Mutants is a book I expected to enjoy, and lo and behold, nothing has changed, whereas X-Force had a make-or-break second issue actually sell me on many of the comic’s bolder first issue choices.

And then there’s Fallen Angels #2, which I’m increasingly convinced is the only absolute dud of the Dawn of X.

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For the full Dawn of X reading order:

Two issues into Fallen Angels and I have no doubt that Fallen Angels is a let down, and the only real dud of the Dawn of X. This book will of course have fans – many of them have chimed in on the Comic Book Herald Youtube channel, and I’ll encourage them to continue to do so! I’m genuinely interested in other perspectives and why people enjoy work that isn’t working for me – so it’s important to me to go beyond simply “comic=bad” and explore specific elements that I find objectionable.

Starting big picture, I respect the hell out of Hill and Kudranski’s pitch for a book about Kwannon reclaiming the Psylocke “shell” as she refers to it as truly her own. There’s conceptually a bold meditation on identity and the X-Men’s history of racial body swapping (it’s more than just Betsy & Kwannon, just ask the New Mutants “Demon Bear” saga), somewhere in the idea of Fallen Angels.

As far as I can tell though, all of this is secondary to a substantially less interesting exploration of the role of violence in a utopia. This is particularly less interesting alongside a lineup including X-Force, where the concept of peaceful Utopia is so feverishly upended. The premise doesn’t match the reality *already* and we’re only two issues into Dawn of X!

Just as messily, Fallen Angels is also sprinting headfirst into the surest way to mediocrity: It’s a ninja Hand book without a compelling leader of the Hand. It’s not like mutant-kind don’t have a history with Madripoor and the Hand – obviously this is especially true if we’re talking about Betsy Braddock and Kwannon – but to me this feels like another instance where the focal point doesn’t really tie with the rest of Dawn of X and the development of Krakoa.

In every other title we can at least see ways the book contributes to the new world. Fallen Angels is still extremely unclear.

Perhaps this is all because Fallen Angels didn’t need to be a team book. The comic Hill and Kudranski appear interested in writing is just called Psylocke. And that’s a fine, if bold choice for an X-book to launch – I mean it’s not like that would have been any less marketable than a comic book title connected to an off the wall late 80’s miniseries?

Not only do I think Fallen Angels didn’t need to be a team book, it didn’t need to be a book with *this* team. This is probably the aspect of Fallen Angels that irks the comic fan in me the most – Teen Cable and X-23 do *not* make sense for this book, and the work is not doing anything to convince me otherwise.

Bryan Edward Hill is at odds with other writers on many of the characters he’s writing. From Hickman’s off-the-rails comedic Mr. Sinister to Hickman’s goofball meathead Teen Cable, to Tom Taylor’s years of character work on X-23 (more on this in a moment), Hill’s writing them all muted and reduced to ominous talk of war and violence. Forget which version is even preferred – it’s blatantly inconsistent. This is far from the first time two writers have had different takes on their caretaking of Marvel’s property, but it’s happening in concert during a Dawn of X that is otherwise cohesive and wholly connected. It’s an approach incongruous with Dawn of X, and so is the comic book.

In order to more specifically discuss the regressive nature of Fallen Angels, I think it helps in particular to define Laura Kinney’s regression.

X-23 is a clone of Wolverine, created in a lab, born and bred in violence. When she speaks aloud the following it’s not just a return to her early 2000’s identity, it’s a nonsensical attempt to ignore the fact that literally no one understands her better than Logan, aka Wolverine: “There is an anger in me. A rage. I gave up any hope that someone could possibly understand it.” She has clones like Gabby and Wolverine, but only Psylocke can understand her rage now? Since when?!

Another piece of Fallen Angels that bugs me is the lack of a plan for all mutants on Krakoa. Like, the planners *know* Kwannon’s deal, and X-23’s. Look at X-23’s last series, she has clear missions and assignments using her skills. But on Krakoa she’s expected to just sit by the same campfire? It makes the planners look dumb and short-sighted!

Now there’s no question that historically X-23 has a lot of rage and trauma to overcome. Again, she is a young girl born and bred in violence, for no other purpose than killing at the behest of her cruel masters. What is so frustrating about this particular take though is that it immediately follows years of work to give Laura something else.

I’m referencing a particularly goofy example, but in All-New Wolverine written by Tom Taylor, Laura proves she’s more than X-23, more than the weapon, and develops a life with her sister Gabby, and yes Jonathan the Wolverine. She is angry, still, and it’s not like you just get over being made to murder, but Laura at least develops into a person with real empathy and connection to others.

There’s definitely blame to throw Marvel’s way as well, for forcing the regression to begin with. Following All-New Wolverine and X-Men Red (both Tom Taylor written productions), Laura moving back to an X-23 series is inherently regressive, taking the clone name.

So, no, I don’t put this all at Hill’s feet because Marvel as a whole clearly saw the return of OG Wolverine as a mandate to restore Laura to her late 2000’s/early 2010’s days on X-Force.

As a real fan of what Laura Kinney was becoming, though, it feels a lot like one of the worst parts of superhero comics, a blatant and unconvincing character regression in order to maintain a perceived status quo. It’s every time Spider-Man’s relationships fall apart, or every time Daredevil’s identity goes back under wraps, or every time Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man return to lead the Avengers. Progress is often on a clock lest boundaries get pushed too far.

It’s really not that different than ignoring the decades of character work that have made Wolverine the character fans know and love today. In 2019, Logan’s been an X-Man, a husband, a father, a teacher, an Avenger, and a man in grieving more times than we can count. If you strip that away and return to his late 70’s ferocity and rage, it’s just not the same character. The work that’s been done is an asset, not an albatross, and should be treated as such.

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Music for Best Comics Ever by Anthony Weis. Check out more music at anthonyweis.com.

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The post Krakin’ Krakoa #23: Fallen Angels #2 Review – The Regression of Laura Kinney By The Coward Fallen Angels appeared first on Comic Book Herald.