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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Recently Marvel announced that, as part of Jonathan Hickman’s upcoming run on the X-Men books, the X-Line would be contracted to just two books – House of X and Powers of X, each with a 6-issue run. According to an interview with ComicBook.com, the decision was pitched by Hickman essentially to create a jumping on point for the line for new readers.
The argument makes sense – two books are cheaper than 10 and require less effort to keep track of a story across those books. However, the fundamental idea of the Mutant Metaphor – of Mutants being representative of multiple discriminated minority populations – requires representation not only in the form of the characters on the page but also in the form of the people writing stories with those characters.
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With the release of Deadpool 2 this past year, a whole new range of audiences were introduced to Wade Wilson’s grumpy-Gus soldier from the future buddy, Nathan Christopher Askani Summers, aka Cable. Consequently, Marvel also put out a new Cable book, with a mid-volume shift in the numbering to line up with Cable Vol. 1’s numbering. However, what it was not was a buddy-book with Deadpool, Cable was at the fore of this story. So, the question is, what kind of story does the book tell?
I’ve been reading X-Men Red since it started. I appreciate having a team lead by Jean Grey The Elder (particularly since, as of this writing, they’ve killed off Jean the Younger in X-Men Blue), along with having a team with Wolverine II/Laura Kenny (soon to be X-23 again) and Honey Badger/Gabby. However, I do have a problem with the opening villain, Cassandra Nova. Read more
While Marvel’s X-Line has generally revolved around some iteration of the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning and the various Mutant super-teams based out of it, what it normally hasn’t done is spent some time on the actual students attending the school, with some exceptions (like with part of Grant Morrison’s run back in the 2000s). Generation X by Christina Strain puts the focus back on the school side of things, instead of the adventuring super-team side of things – but without going into “Saved By The Bell” with superpowers. Read more
One of the plot elements to come out of Brian Michael Bendis’ last X-Men run was the revelation that Bobby “Iceman” Drake was gay, and firmly in the closet – this revelation coming in connection with the time-displaced Original 5 X-Men coming into the present. This lead to plenty of story opportunities with Bobby The Younger adjusting to the present day, when being gay is (relatively) more socially acceptable than it was in the past he came from. The older Iceman, on the other hand, by all accounts didn’t have that much time to get into that aspect of the story – especially with the major crossover events that came after, leading up to the death of Cyclops. Read more
Over the course of late 2017 and into this year, Jean Grey, for the first time, got her first solo ongoing, not in the form of her adult self (who was, until recently, deceased), but in the form of her time-displaced teenage self, brought into the present day (it’s complicated) – which lead into the return of Adult Jean Grey. As the series recently wrapped up, I figured I might as well give my thoughts. Read more