More Recent Marvel Now! Pick-Ups...

There is an enormous amount of reading going on here at the Super-DuperToyBox lately, so much that I haven't had time to talk about it all. In addition to Indestructible Hulk and Iron Man, I bit the bullet a couple weekends ago on some other Marvel Now! titles that have piqued my interest. I'm unsure how long I will continue each title due to the expense involved, but it's been hella fun so far. As I explained previously, Marvel NOW! is a 2012 relaunch of several ongoing comic books published by Marvel Comics following the conclusion of the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline (which I also want to read at some point). To attract new readers, publishing changes include new creative teams for each of the titles, new character designs and new storylines.

*Marvel Now! Thunderbolts
The cover art sucked me in on this, I admit it. Originally, the Thunderbolts were the Masters of Evil led by Baron Zemo in disguise, a successful marketing stunt that sold big time in 1997, after the Avengers were thought dead following the Onslaught Saga. A later incarnation was government sponsored, and led by Luke Cage. I was unfamiliar with all of this however, drawn in by this dangerous looking roster of Red Hulk, Deadpool, Elektra, Punisher, and Venom. Red Hulk assembles his incarnation of the Thunderbolts to be a strike team that is clandestine in nature, similar to X-Force, the members "conditions" incurable. I'm interested in the Red Hulk more lately, (General "Thunderbolt" Ross, the classic green Hulk antagonist), and have seen more of this paramilitary  version of Venom around lately.

*Marvel Now! Thor: God of Thunder
I kept hearing this was a must, and I have not been disappointed! There's been a God Butcher on the loose throughout Thor's life, and we get glimpses into his life across the millenia at points when this phantom from his past has reared it's head. Really different! Esad Ribic's art is outstanding, like a modern age N.C. Wyeth in it's illustrative beauty. Excellence, I say!

*Marvel Now! Cable and X-Force 

I'm a huge Cable/X-Force fan so I had to give this a go. Starts off with a bang, an immediate conflict with the Avengers. Cable's makes his obligatory, mysterious reappearance, followed by a hidden agenda, his obtuse lack of explanations to all involved, and of course he dying. And breaking his daughter Hope's heart. We'll see how it goes. Art is fantastic, dark & moody...

*Marvel Now! Captain America

I am crazy for John Romita Jr's art- it reminds me a lot of Frank Miller's sketchy line in The Dark Knight Returns, an influence I'm sure Romita would claim. I haven't picked up a great deal of Captain America, during my youth or my 2 year-old return to comics as an adult, but again, that cover pulled me in. Marvel is pressing a lot of the right buttons for me on these Marvel Now! titles. The story gets cosmically bizarre in a Jack Kirby kind of way, pulling Cap onto Dimension Z to protect a child from Arnim Zola and the murderous inhabitants of his desolate world. This has been fun...

*Marvel Now! FF
This book featuring Mike Allred's cool artwork is what originally brought the Marvel Now! titles to my attention! I loved the X-Force books I read recently, and his guest pencilling on Wolverine & the X-Men #17 was hilarious! She-Hulk, Ant-Man, Medusa, and Johnny Storm's rock star girlfriend Darla Deering in a Thing suit take the F.F. Mantle over for Reed Richards while he looks for a cure to his "condition" in another dimension. The Fantastic Four was only supposed to be gone for four minutes, but as expected, something else happens. This is turning out a lot of fun  :D

*Marvel Now! Fantastic Four

I'm a Fantastic Four fan I'd say, and in spite of the criticism I've heard about the title recently, I wanted to see the other side of the group's journey as it pertains to the Marvel Now! FF title. I just couldn't let it go. More fleshing out of the transfer of power, the temporary replacements, and Reed's condition are given in the first two issues. I'm glad to be reading them, and I think they do and will tie in well with the title above, but I'd imagine you could enjoy Marvel Now! FF without reading this.

In addition to these new titles by Marvel, I'm getting into Brian Bendis & John Romita Jr's run on Avengers: The Heroic Age from 2010, a stack of Future Foundation issues for that title just before it relaunched under the Marvel Now! banner recently, and John Romita Jr's run on the Mighty Thor with Dan Jurgens from the 90's. I'm also still reading DC's New 52 Earth-2 and World's Finest: Huntress & Power Girl as they are tied into the same universe, the latter of which I'm loosing my enthusiasm for somewhat. I'll try to touch on those as time permits. 2013 is starting out pretty busy!

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Milligan & Allred's X-Force

X-Force: New Beginnings (Marvel, 2001)

I'd been eyeing these books for some time now, drawn to the unusual cast of characters gracing their covers, colorfully rendered in artist Mike Allred's unique, graphic style. The art reminded me of Batman: Year One  and  DC: New Frontier, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli and Darwyn Cooke respectively- well drawn, but not fussy on detail, with a certain retro feel to it. I picked up the New Beginnings TPB (X-Force #116-120) up for $9.99 at V-Stock, then hit the Fantasy Shop for The Final Chapter (X-Force #121-129). A radical departure at the end of the title's first volume that started with Liefeld's original 90's lineup, I was blown away at how great, how smart this short run of  Milligan & Allred's X-Force was.

From Wikipedia;
In early 2001, X-Force was completely reimagined by writer Peter Milligan and artist Mike Allred, who replaced the existing incarnation of the team with an entirely different group of mutants using the X-Force name. In X-Force, vol. 1 #115, Bedlam, Cannonball, Meltdown, and Warpath all appeared to die in an explosion, though all subsequently returned. The next issue, #116, saw the introduction of a new, sardonically toned X-Force consisting of colorfully dressed and emotionally immature young mutants put together and marketed to be media superstars. X-Force was canceled with #129 in late 2002 and replaced with the retitled X-Statix series in late 2002.

X-Force: The Final Chapter (Marvel, 2002)

 

Our heroes are a flawed, often troubled group of young mutants with particularly tortured, miserable existences. Several members are horribly dispatched early on in the series with a sense of finality not usually present in the imaginary world of comics, where death is often a temporary state. It was full of betrayal, mortal bond, violence, unusual coupling and heartache. It's cynicism was tempered with both a graphic and situational sense of tragic comedy, bringing a sense of depth in the characters that made me laugh at them one page and pity them the next. And while a lot of other comics from this period surrounding the terrorist attacks on the United States have been compared in context of the uncertain times in which they were written, this run of X-Force is a particularly interesting and deeply psychological.

It may not be among the considered among the greatest literature of our times in a conventional sense, but I was impressed. Milligan & Allred didn't just make a comic book, they made a contemporary work of art a little ahead of it's time, in a manner similar to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns or Alan Moore's Watchmen in the 80's. I enjoyed it as much as I did the Volume 3 work I read awhile back, the 2008-2010 run of the title by writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost and artist Clayton Crain. Milligan & Allred's X-Force is worthy of any X-Book enthusiast's attention. A+

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Labor Day Weekend Haul

Some finds from around town during Labor Day weekend  :)   More assorted issues of X-Factor, both 80's and 90's team. Buy one, get one free from the dollar comics bins at V-Stock and one 64-page Annual from '89...

... and more graphic novels...

X-Force books 2 & 3, buy one get one free, $5.99, and X-Force: Sex & Violence hardback $11.99. Not the same team as the early 90's, a new version of X-Force was formed in 2007-2008 that had Wolverine leading a more militaristic black ops branch of the X-Men, Cylops delivering the assignments. These are pretty gritty, but the art and story in these art good- I enjoyed the first book, and the second was no disappointment. While on the subject of X-Force, I also found a double-sized 50th issue Special of Cable (Jan. 1998). I have a few issues of Cable from this period- the art is entertaining and I'm a huge fan of the character...

Two UNBELIEVABLE finds:  DC Direct Blackest Night Series 3 Arisia I got for about ten bucks after the sale markdown at V-Stock, and Green Lantern Series Batman as Green Lantern for $14.99 at Slackers! Both of these are hard to find at a reasonable price, going for upwards of sixty dollars or more on the secondary market. I have been obsessed over the Batman as Green Lantern for awhile, never having seen him in the wild until Saturday. So great!

Finding any of the last two or so waves of Marvel Universe around here has been a challenge! I found Psylocke about three months ago, and have been waiting to find Jubilee and Blastaar among others, but no dice until I wandered into Jennifer here at Wal-Mart. I love She-Hulk and was thrilled when she made the Hasbro 3 3/4" roster- awesome! That included "collectible comic shot" was a cheapass move though, Hasbro- where's my figure base?? They cost more now as well, which makes it additionally insulting *sigh* At any rate, I was happy to find her- she was the cherry on top of an already good three-day weekend  :)

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X-Force Annual #2, Vol.1, 1993

Gosh I love comic annuals- they are usually double issues, and often a story you don't need knowledge of running continuity within a title to enjoy. I found this X-Force Annual #2, Vol.1 from '93 in the dollar comics some time ago, poly-bagged with a Subway sample sticker on it- you'd think a fast food restaurant would give away a lesser title like X-Men Adventures or something, but instead we get a 64 page annual of a hot title, introducing a new character as well. Fabian Nicieza wrote the story, and  Antonio Daniel did a dynamic job penciling the  issue.

Cable & Co. take on fellow mutie X-Treme, whose loyalty belongs to Martin Henry Strong, yet another self-loathing mutant bent on curing all of their genetic "defect". With Strong's promise of a cure and in search of his unknown past, X-Treme topples X-Force when they intervene his attack on Neurotap (Michelle Balters, making her first appearance along with X-Treme and Strong in this issue).  Romantically involved with X-Treme, she betrays X-Treme to win help with her comatose parents from Strong.

 

Using his Shi'ar blades to cut his enemies and thus oxygenate their blood, X-Treme used his unique ability to ignite the electrolytes present, burning his victims from the inside out.  Sounds unpleasant, no?

 

Neurotap eventually leads X-Force to Martin Strong, X-Treme seeing the error of his judgement and helping defeat him.  X-Treme, later known as Adam-X, is even offered to run with X-Force, but soldier's on in search of his past. It won't be the last we see of him though, as Adam X returns in X-Force #30 to battle Shatterstar again-but that's a story for another time  :)   Like a lot of those X-Men related titles from the 90's, this one came with a character card, and features the new character X-Treme. Everything was poly-bagged, collector's edition, foil/alternate cover back then- all in an effort to appeal to the sudden glut/boom in sales driven by market speculators, crashing the market and nearly destroying the industry only a few years later.

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Marvel MiniMates X-Force 2-Packs

It's no secret I love 90's comics- last fall I started reading Rob Liefeld's X-Force, and was surprisingly quite entertained. So much so that I hunted down nearly all the first 40 issues, along with several crossover issues, in order to read more about the group. I'd only bought a couple 2-packs of MiniMates to date, but seeing these X-Force sets further cemented my obsession over these tiny action figures.

Cannonball & Shatterstar were perhaps the most important characters from the 90's X-Force, and Diamond Select knocked it out of the park here. The folds/puckers in their headgear and Shatterstar's belt are wonderful, as is the hair sculpt in both these. Though somewhat limited to the overall MiniMates design, the right elements that make these characters unique were executed perfectly within. These guys received color treatment referencing their initial appearance in X-Force, the blond hair, leather headgear, and white in their outfits, making them a great pair visually. There's definitely a 90's influence in the sartorial expression of these two fierce warriors that amuses me  :D

The accessories rock here as well: Shatterstar gets his trademark double-bladed swords with spiked hand guards, which fit into slots on his back when not in use. Very cool! A slave from the planet Mojoworld, one hundred years in the future, Shatterstar was genetically engineered to have the enhanced strength and abilities of an arena gladiator. Sent back in time to Earth in search of the X-Men's assistance in defeating and overthrowing Mojo, he instead found Cable and the New Mutants, and the weirdness began!

Equally cool is Cannonball's blast-off accessory base made of translucent plastic. I mean how do you think he got a name like Cannonball?? Killer! Sam Guthrie was a founding member of the X-Men's junior team the New Mutants and their later incarnation X-Force, serving as first lieutenant) under Cable.

Sam's ski jacket is removable, comprised of a softer plastic with slits down the sides. He has a little paint slop, a yellow dot of paint on the back of his headgear, but at least it's on back.

The Boomer/Rictor 2-pack was no disappointment either, sporting the neon side of the 90's with some really wild coloring. Boomer is particularly outrageous in her pink and yellow outfit acquired in issue #19 of X-Force, when she dressed the whole team to look even more like the Village People!  Hilarious!  :D  The details are great on Boomer, from her detailed shoulder and utility gear to her name printed upside her left leg. She has two translucent orange blast accessories which fit snugly over her fists. What a rocker! If C.C. DeVille lost his job in Poison, Boomer would be perfect- she looks like a freak and can't play guitar either  :D  Tabitha Smith Tabitha develops a relationship with Cannonball while the New Mutants are transitioning into X-Force, rechristening herself as Boomer before battling the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with her teammates. 

Rictor has wild getup to compliment teammate Boomer in this great 2-pack.  With enough bandannas & shoulder pads to rival anything on MTV at the time, Rictor also has hair that Richard Marx would be proud of. And his goalie shin pads fit right in with Cable's dress code, making him a great mate to Boomer! Julio Esteban Richter was introduced in in X-Factor during the late 80s, was later part of the New Mutants, and rejoined them later as X-Force. The team was captured by the X-Men and X-Factor, who sought Cable for the attempted murder of Professor X during the X-Cutioner's Song, a ruse by Cable's evil doppelganger Stryfe, whom young Julio was forced to watch kill his arms merchant father. I sense a little angst!  He's basically a walking earthquake, so I guess an accessory was tough to come up with.

So yeah, I'm totally hooked on MiniMates now, these of particular interest as I only recently first read about them. There are a lot of people outwardly resentful toward this era of comics, but it gives me a certain nostalgia for that period- a more carefree time that was kinda... zany! Bill Clinton, anyone?  :D

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X-Cutioner's Song: Epilogue Part 2

Continuing from my last post on the epilogue to the "X-Cutioner's Song" crossover event from 1992-93, X-Force #19 finds Cannonball & Co. under house arrest at Xavier's School for Gifted Students, and growing more restless by the day. Feral, Shatterstar and Rictor blow off steam in the Danger Room, but Siryn tags along with Warpath  in the computer room, where he seeks to obtain information from the X-Men covertly for use in the event they are detained.

Professor Xavier had been telepathically eavesdropping on Siryn & Warpath prior to Sam dropping by his office with the ultimatum, "We are not children and we demand to be released". Though Cable is dead, Sam heatedly argues that he can continue to lead the group. Meanwhile, Boomer has been playing "House of Style" with the Shi'ar clothes synthesizer, inviting Sam to join her and Warpath in cementing X-Force's place as the most ridiculously costumed group of the 90's! James Proudstar looks particularly disco in his new Warpath outfit- see ya at the YMCA, Bro   :D

G.W. Bridge gets summoned to the S.H.E.I.L.D. helicarrier by Henry Gyrich and General Clarke to answer for the cost & damage caused by his using Weapon: Prime to pursue Cable. When they claim it a total loss, Bridge quits on the spot...

Gathering the members of X-Force to leave, Sam wishes Professor Xavier best of luck in dealing with the Val Cooper & the government concerning their departure. Assuring Sam he can deal with them, he expresses concern that Sam can deal with X-Force, and the choice between violence or salvation, the "closed hand or the open fist".

Sam uses a twist on Xavier's analogy of the open hand/closed fist to plead his case for carrying on Cable's way of running X-Force: "Here's my closed fist, Professor! It can be used the way Cable taught us -- ta hit -- ta pound -- ways you say you don't agree with, right? But it can also be used ta warm... ta support... ta protect! As for the peaceful approach of the open hand -- well, that can be used ta hurt as well!"

Before Sam steps into Lila's portal, Xavier discloses that one of his team has stolen something from the X-Men, and to consider the second guessing & moral compromise inherent in associating oneself with such people. 

Again, I've really enjoyed the "X-Cutioner's Song" crossover event- I'd recommend the trade paperback or the individual issues to any X-Force/X-Men or 90's comics fan. It was a great story full of fun characters, and Greg Capullo's pencilling throughout this series and the surrounding issues of X-Force was a particular joy to me.

*Read more about this issue at Marvel.Wikia!

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X-Cutioner's Song

I meant to post about this three weeks ago, but I'm reading more than I really have time to write about lately, plus it's crunch-time for a big art show, involving 22 new canvases I've been working on since June. Really busy!

  

"X-Cutioner's Song" was a crossover storyline published by Marvel Comics in twelve parts from late 1992 to early 1993, involving the Uncanny X-Men, X-Men (vol. 2), X-Factor, and X-Force titles. It was heavily hyped and priced higher than the other titles at the zenith of both the X-Men franchise and comics popularity, in general. A few of the issues I picked up were still polybagged with a special trading card, as the issues of this crossover were originally released, all part of the heavily hyped event that warranted a $.25 hike in price!

I'm not going to give you a plot summary or anything like that; good or bad, it's all been discussed.  But in a nutshell, Cable's nemesis (and clone) Stryfe, shoots Professor Xavier with a techno-organic virus. X-Factor & the X-men are out to bring Cable down, while X-Force try to find their framed leader & get to the bottom of what really happened. It is thought that Apocalypse might be behind the assassination attempt, who is awakened from his regenerative sleep to be informed of the situation. Mr. Sinister is then thought to be the mastermind behind Xavier's assassination attempt & the kidnapping of Cylops & Jean Grey, but he is merely a pawn in Stryfe's endgame: revenge on his (or Cable's?) parents for leaving him. In the end Cable must sacrifice himself to take out Stryfe, but we now know of course that Cable will return!

Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, & Whilce Portacio, the popular artist's of these books who had rocketed Marvel & it's X-books to the top only a year before, suddenly left to form their own company prior to the crossover event, leaving editor Bob Harras to scramble a new team together. I liked Greg Capullo's art in X-Force, as I did Andy Kubert, Jae Lee, & Brandon Peterson's penciling on X-Men, X-Force, & Uncanny X-Men respectively.

I've been reading X-Factor from issue #1 here in the last couple months or so, digging up the individual issues in the dollar comics bin, uncovering nearly every issue up to # 40. I missed all this back in the early 90's, so it was all new to me. 90's comics have a somewhat bad reputation for a reason: they're  over-the-top in every way,  filled with some of the ugliest costumes, most desperate marketing tactics, and worst, most melodramatic story ideas. But isn't that really describing comics history in general, has any one decade not suffered from the same at certain points? I'd be lying  if I said I haven't enjoyed most of what I've read. My enthusiasm is partly due to having just got back into comics in the last 15 months or so, certainly, but Cable & X-Force have been fun reading, action packed, with plot twists often enough to keep me interested throughout. Topless Robot justifiably claimed "X-Cutioner's Song" to be one of the 11 Most Essential X-Men trades only this past July, and while I'm somewhat of a newbie, I agree it was pretty great.

As stated above, I found at least two of these still polybagged with trading cards included. I mentioned before the comics boom of the 90's and the following crash crippling the industry as speculators tried to unload the extra copies & special editions that prosperous times had afforded.  The aftermath of this glut is still visible twenty years later, brand new copies like these so plentiful they can be bought for one dollar- fifty cents less than they were sold for on the date of publication...

A couple of the cards I received, the designs for which aren't that great, though I'm glad I got Stryfe & Apocalypse...

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