Marvel Comics Archives - Breaking it all Down

Posted on September 13, 2026September 7, 2026 by Alexander Case

Comic Review: Psylocke: Ninja

More than a few people in some of the comics fandom circles I follow raised an eyebrow when Psylocke: Ninja was announced. It was described as a series set within Chris Clairmont’s run, after Logan and Jubilee had rescued Betsy Braddock, now transformed from a white woman into the body of a Japanese woman named Kwannon (though that identity hadn’t been introduced at this point on the original comics) by Mojo and Spiral messing with the process of the Siege Perilous, from The Hand. This was problematic when it occurred originally in the story, and that was a question on why to do this team-up now. Well, I can’t say if the reason is ultimately good, but I do appreciate it for what it is.

Posted on September 12, 2026August 28, 2026 by Alexander Case

Comic Review: Rogue (2026)

What is redemption? What is forgiveness? What does that mean when you’re a former Supervillain? This is a question that has come up in Marvel multiple times, with the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, with Hawkeye and Black Widow, with Magneto, and with Rogue and Gambit. But there’s the question of what the people you’ve hurt in the past think about what you’ve done and if your changes are really enough. That’s what Rogue’s solo book from this year is all about. There will be spoilers below the cut.

Posted on September 6, 2026August 25, 2026 by Alexander Case

Comics Review: Ultimate Wolverine (2024)

If Ultimate X-Men was a good stand-alone series within the new Ultimate Universe which felt free of some of the larger baggage of the meta-series, Ultimate Wolverine isn’t outright fettered by that baggage, but does have it hanging about it. It’s neither quite a clean break from the core continuity, nor entirely its own thing.

Posted on September 5, 2026August 25, 2026 by Alexander Case

Comics Review: Ultimate X-Men (2024)

It’s interesting going into the X-Men related comics of the limited Ultimate Universe relaunch without reading the larger meta-series. On the one hand, I’m not going in with any larger knowledge of how The Maker brought this universe to pass, and how things are playing out in most of the rest of the world. On the other hand, this puts me in a position to see how these stories hold up as stand alone works. Do they tell complete stories that don’t require me to be reading a bunch of other series? The good news is, at least for Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men, the answer is yes.

Posted on June 3, 2026May 20, 2026 by Alexander Case

Comics Vlog Review: My Thoughts on Age of Revelation

I talked about the Krakoa era while back – now it’s time to talk about the event that came after.

‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

Donation Links…

To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights

Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays

Posted on June 16, 2024June 2, 2024 by Alexander Case

Comics: Thoughts on the end of the Krakoa Era

As of this writing, the end of the Krakoa Era of X-Men comics has concluded. I’ve read this whole era as it was coming out from beginning to end, and I have some thoughts on its conclusion, and some of my high points of this period of the comic, and things which I wish had been explored further.

Posted on February 3, 2024February 1, 2024 by Alexander Case

Video Game Review: Marvel’s Midnight Suns

When I put out my list of New Year’s Resolutions for games (in addition to Anime), I expected some of these to take a while, even the ones that were joined in progress. What I did not anticipate was getting iced in for a week during Awesome Games Done Quick, so I decided to spend some of that time (since I wasn’t working on work), playing a turn-based game on the side, so I could split my attention – and over a week I ended up plowing through what I had left of Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Now, that was about 8 hours a day for 7 days, or about 56 hours, and I was at Act 2, so I still had a ways to go. However, this does give me some high hopes for meeting my Resolutions for the year.

Posted on March 2, 2022January 30, 2022 by Alexander Case

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Video Game Video Review

Haven’t done a video review of a video game outside of Nintendo Power Retrospectives in a while, so It’s time to give my thoughts on something *very* recent – Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

Posted on January 22, 2022January 1, 2022 by Alexander Case

Guardians of the Galaxy (2021): Video Game Review

Square’s last game using the Marvel license, Marvel’s Avengers, was a live-service game that did not fare well. Last year, however, they put out a different video game take on some of Marvel’s characters – The Guardians of the Galaxy – which focuses on the spacefaring team of heroes, and it pulls of the concept much, much better.

Posted on June 26, 2021June 13, 2021 by Alexander Case

Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire Comic Recap

In the midst of this massive Batman line-wide event, we also have an inter-company crossover.

Posted on April 18, 2021April 1, 2021 by Alexander Case

Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Video Game Review

Last year, I played through and reviewed Marvel’s Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4. It was a fun game that played very well, but had some narrative issues – some of which were iffy at the time of the game’s initial release, and had aged even worse by the time George Floyd had been murdered by a police officer. So, we now have a new expansion for the game, focusing on Miles Morales, who had developed his powers at the end of the last game, and centering him in the story. The question is, can it also address some of the main game’s narrative hiccups?

Posted on January 24, 2021January 18, 2021 by Alexander Case

X of Swords: Comic Review

X-Men comic events tend to not be small, and also tend to shake up the whole line to very dramatic degrees. Fall of the Mutants set up the Australia Arc and ultimately lead to that team going through the Siege Perilous. Inferno killed off Madeline Pryor, de-aged Illyana Rasputin, and sent Nathan Summers into the future to become Cable. X-ecutioner’s Song unleashed the Legacy Virus. And the most recent one of these has been X of Swords.

Posted on September 2, 2020August 9, 2020 by Alexander Case

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Video Game Review

This week I’m continuing with the video game reviews with Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Posted on August 8, 2020July 13, 2020 by Alexander Case

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Film Review

When I saw The Lego Movie, I was impressed with how the film gave me a false impression of stop motion with 3D animation, and I enjoyed the comedy of the film. While I felt that Lord & Miller’s particular flavor off comedy wouldn’t work for Solo, but when I learned they were doing a Spider-Man movie, my interest was piqued, but I didn’t get around to watching Into The Spider-Verse until Covid-19.

Posted on June 20, 2020June 12, 2020 by Alexander Case

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Video Game Review

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a game that I recall getting a lot of extremely positive reviews when it came out, and made it into contention for Game of the Year at a lot of places. On the other hand, the depiction of Peter Parker’s close relationship with the NYPD was consider somewhat problematic at the time – and time has not been kind to that aspect of the story.

Posted on February 9, 2020January 29, 2020 by Alexander Case

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: Video Game Review

The first two Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, and their predecessors in the X-Men Legends series, felt like love letters to Marvel Comics. They had a wide variety of characters who you could team up in different ways – with special modifiers based on characters shared history, and a variety of costumes and side missions that played off with that history. With Team Ninja developing MUA3, I had a hope that they would keep with that experience, and combine it with Team Ninja’s background with presenting stylish action. Instead, they just did the bare minimum.

Posted on December 22, 2019December 22, 2019 by Alexander Case

House of X/Powers of X: Comic Review

A while back I gave some thoughts on my concerns about the upcoming X-Men series House of X and Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman, and where the X-Line was going to go from there. Well, Hickman’s first two series – House of X and Powers of X – are now out and I’ve read them, and now it’s time to re-assess some of my analysis, as we’ve gotten into the series coming out of those series.

Posted on August 25, 2019August 15, 2019 by Alexander Case

Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5: Comic Review

Age of X-Man was a very interesting event, which played with dystopia in a manner that the X-Books hadn’t really done before. However, leading into it and running parallel to it was Uncanny X-Men Volume 5 which, frankly, was something of a slog.

Posted on August 24, 2019August 14, 2019 by Alexander Case

Age of X-Man: Comic Review

One of the first X-men comics I read was a collection of the first few issues of Age of Apocalypse, back when I was in middle school. While I have still yet to read the entire story, the bits I’ve read left something of an impression on me. When the Age of X-Man event began, I was interested in seeing X-Men writers take on a dystopia that’s different from many of the standard “Pile of Skulls” X-Men dystopia.

Posted on August 17, 2019August 6, 2019 by Alexander Case

Domino: Hotshots – Comic Review

Gail Simone is one of the writers in comics where, after reading several of her runs on other books, I’m strongly considering telling my local comic shop to put all her future stuff on my pull list, and Domino: Hotshots is a great example of why.

Posted on August 10, 2019August 3, 2019 by Alexander Case

Mr. & Mrs. X: Comic Review

There is running theory in stories with romances that the chase is better than the catch – that once characters in a romance get together, there is no motivation to continue the story. These are people who never watched Hart to Hart nor are familiar with Nick & Nora Charles. In the X-Books, probably the biggest of these romances, almost as much if not more so than Scott Summers and Jean Grey, was Gambit and Rogue. However, during the planned wedding of Kitty Pryde and Piotr Rasputin, things ended up not happening, leading to Rogue and Gambit basically deciding to take advantage of the opportunity and the two X-Men who could never tie the other down decided to get hitched.

Posted on July 6, 2019June 23, 2019 by Alexander Case

Wolverine: The Long Night – Comic Review

A while back, Marvel partnered with Stitcher to do their first Podcast audio drama (Podeo drama?) titled Wolverine: The Long Night. The podcast was originally exclusive to Stitcher subscribers before they later went on to adapt it to a comic mini-series, which picked up as it came out.

Posted on June 30, 2019June 23, 2019 by Alexander Case

X-23 (Vol. 3): Comic Review

This past year, when Marvel comics brought back Logan, someone else had already taken on the mantle of Wolverine – Laura Kinney, formerly known as X-23, complete with having her own book branded as All-New Wolverine. Marvel editorial decided that rather than letting Laura keep the code name (as they’ve done with the multiple Hawkeyes), Laura would renounce the code-name, and her book would re-launch and re-brand. Unfortunately, it causes this book to be something of a step back from All-New Wolverine in multiple respects.

Posted on June 16, 2019June 15, 2019 by Alexander Case

Savage Sword of Conan #1-5: Comic Review

There aren’t a lot of fantasy comics out there, and the ones we get in the US are generally licensed from another property, whether Games like D&D or Pathfinder, or literary works like Game of Thrones, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Conan the Barbarian. So, when Marvel got the license to Conan comics again, I was interested, and when they re-launched their classic Conan titles – Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan, I added those books to my pull list.