A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
The back-to-back classic Avengers stories, “The Bride of Ultron” (#160-162) and “Nefaria’s Lethal Legion” (#164-166), are available in both a smaller trade edition and a much bigger Epic Collection.
[Read more…] about When the Avengers Ruled, Part 2 (continued): Power Drama, Avengers #164-166
It is often said that Watchmen
[covers by Mike Del Mundo and Dave Gibbons, respectively]
In X-Men: Legacy #9 by Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat, there’s an obvious homage to Watchmen #9 and then there’s a rather subtler homage to Watchmen‘s mystery villain, revealed in the 11th hour, quite literally in the frame of Moore’s narrative, to be an erstwhile superhero, Ozymandias, world’s smartest man. Let’s look at the Watchmen #9 homage first. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Si Spurrier’s Brief Homage in X-Men: Legacy
[cover by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson]
The literally biggest X-Men book of the year so far has arrived! And it’s…mostly decent.
X-Men series writer Gerry Duggan is juggling a lot of material here, and while it doesn’t entirely gel, he’s probably done the best that could be done given the demands of this special yearly issue, a kind of annual for the whole X line, sort of.
[Read more…] about X-Men: Hellfire Gala in Review! The Secret Is Out
[cover by Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer and Frank Martin Jr.]
Here it is, folks—the finale of one of the most provocative Marvel titles in recent years. But does it fully deliver on the promise of its narrative? We’ll get to that below.
Needless to say, though, the artistry of Leonard Kirk and Rain Beredo deliver with crisp, beautiful storytelling.
Per usual with these Destiny of X reviews: Spoilers ahoy!
[Read more…] about Sabretooth Finale in Review! All Hell Breaks Loose?
[covers by Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer and Frank Martin Jr.]
Horror novelist Victor LaValle’s 5-issue Sabretooth miniseries continues to be a surprisingly deep meditation on the ruthlessness of the carceral state and character study of not just the title character but the five mutants who are his fellow inmates, four of whom have been generally overlooked (like Nekra) or not well served (Oya); Third Eye, on the other hand, is a fascinating LaValle creation, whose backstory starts to clarify with just a few evocative details in issue #4. I say the quality of this story is surprising, given Sabretooth’s nature as a two-dimensional psycho killer whose history of racialized sexual predation Marvel of course doesn’t really want to deal with. That he is now simply to be depicted as a stone-cold murderer from a childhood of trauma and nothing more problematic, author LaValle is doing top-shelf work that speaks to the modern moment, but in a way that won’t become dated – as it’s only our contemporary culture that’s finally waking up to the crimes of its forebears and the continued structural brutalities the mainstream has largely been blind to or just willfully denied.
This is not your crusty uncle’s ’90s Sabretooth title that’s just about cheap shocks and sex that puts women in the shadow of Marvel’s creepiest yet bizarrely widely beloved sexual predator.
[Read more…] about Sabretooth #3-4 in Review! Laying Down the Gauntlet – Any Takers?