So, What comics did you buy this week?

[jjreason]

Tom King is going to write wonder woman. I'm neither here nor there about that, but today I got around to reading saga 66. The second new arc is over on a fairly good issue featuring supporting characters.

See you next year, saga.

[Tom Foolery]

Not gonna be a regular thing, but also for posterity, today I got

Avengers 5
Avengers Annual 1
Batman/Catwoman:Gotham War:Red Hood oneshot
Batman:Brave and the Bold 5
Blade 3
Flash 1
Invincible Iron Man 10
Jean Grey 2
Marvel Unleashed 2
Moon Knight:City of the Dead 3
Ms Marvel:New Mutant 2
Penguin 2
Power Girl 1
Realm of X 2
Sonic the Hedgehog:Amy’s 30th Anniversary oneshot
Spider-Man:India 4
SW Doctor Aphra 38
SW Mandalorian (season two) 4
Storm 5
Immortal Thor 2
Ultimate Invasion 4
Death of the Venomverse 5
Void Rivals 4
X-Force 44
X-Men:Days of Future Past Doomsday 3

[Tom Foolery]

Starting the X-Books. It will be interesting reading them, knowing the impending downfall of the Krakoa era in Fall of X and beyond.

X-Cellent 1-5 and X-Cellent 1-5. Peter Milligan and the Allreds returned to do more X-Statix stuff. Original member Zeitgeist returns from the dead and steals a page from Dr Strange’s book of Vishanti in order to attain godhood. He forms his own team, the X-Cellent, to start commiting random acts of crime to gain followers on social media. Mr. Sensitive(aka Orphan) re-forms X-Statix to stop Zeitgeist and they begin a war of attrition claiming each other’s followers and going thru new members like tissue paper. Although I have both the original runs of X-Force and X-Statix, I still haven’t read them yet. It’s clear Milligan is doing a satire of putting fame and celebrity over actual heroics, where the optics of their actions are more important than the consequences. I’m not sure it was quite my style, but I didn’t hate it.

X-Corps 1-5. In the wake of Krakoa going public, X-Corp is revived. Angel and Monet begin looking for mutants to serve on their board of directors, and fending off a rival corporation in the telecommunications field. Honestly, the series lost me once they started flinging around terms about UN resolutions and international law. I mean, good for Tini Howard for being thorough, I guess? But…yawn. Eventually, the X-Corp just forces a leveraged buyout of the other company, and the CEO and the Strucker twins assault X-Corp’s HQ. I think this was supposed to be an ongoing that got canned almost immediately. I can see why.

X-Factor 9,10. The final two issues. They finish the arc where the Morrigan is possessing Siryn, and then in the final issue everybody attends the Hellfire Gala and on the last page, they find the murdered body of Wanda Maximoff. Which led into the Trial of Magneto miniseries.

After Hickman’s final three issues of his run on X-Men, there was

Planet Sized X-Men 1. At the end of the Hellfire Gala, Krakoa turned everyone’s attention to the sky. Where they then terraformed Mars into a habitable world and renamed it Arrako, the mutant homeworld.

X-Men:The Trial of Magneto 1-5. This series was egregiously misnamed. Even though in the first issue they put much effort into making it look like Magneto is the murderer of Wanda, there’s never an actual trial and he is barely accused of the crime. Later on, he confesses to it, but by then it’s clear something else is going on. The Avengers guest star when they come to collect Wanda’s body and there’s a bunch of gratuitous fighting between the two teams. But the twist is Wanda planned her own murder, so she could be resurrected on Krakoa. She then uses that energy to cast a spell with the help of Proteus and Legion, to re-create resurrection protocols for EVERY mutant who ever died, including the ones before they started backing everyone’s memories up. In the end, the bring back John Proudstar.

X-Men:The Onslaught Revelation oneshot. I thought this was a mini, but it was just a oneshot that spun off the Way of X series. Onslaught has returned and threaded himself into every mutant who has been resurrected. Nightcrawler and Legion, with the help of others, tricks and banishes him to a pocket dimension inside Legion’s mind and sets up another ongoing, Legion of X.

Inferno 1-4. Hickman’s finale. All the secrets that Charles, Magneto, and Moira have been keeping since the beginning blow up in their faces. Mystique gets the Five to resurrect Destiny and then manipulates the Quiet Council into voting Irene into Apocalypse’s empty chair. This forces Charles, Erik, and Moira into opening their plans up to Emma. Emma, instead, is pissed they kept everything from her and gives Mystique and Destiny the means to shut down Moira and depower her with Forge’s unforgivable weapon. Charles and Magneto try to rescue Moira from Orchis, only to fall into a trap layed by Omega Sentinel and Nimrod, who are revealed to be the time-traveling AIs behind the formation of Orchis. Charles and Magneto die in the battle, and when they are brought back, Emma lets them know she let EVERYBODY on the Quiet Council know their secrets, so now the entire leadership of Krakoa is burdened with having to perpetuate the lie to keep paradise intact. It’s a fantastic story with a heavy downer ending because you can see where it’s headed.

Next up is X-Force and Duggan’s X-Men run, as well as the Immortal X-Men and X-Men Red series that spun out of Inferno.

But I may do another catch up session of V thru W books that have recently come out.

[Tom Foolery]

Catching up on the stuff I’m trying to keep current on.

Ultimate Invasion 1-4. Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch are ambitiously trying to restart the Ultimate line. The Maker(the evil Reed Richards from the original Ult-verse, Earth 1610) escapes the 616 universe and hijacks Earth 6160. The original conceit of the Ultimate universe was to streamline and simplify the main Marvel continuty. Hickman is just creating an entirely new concept here that vaguely resembles elements of Marvel. But who is this non-reboot aimed at? It’s Hickman, so I’ll stick around for awhile, but they shouldn’t call it Ultimate. Just give it a different name.

Venom 25. Eddie hijacks Dr Doom’s time platform and sends them both randomly hurtling thru time. After jaunts to the jurassic era, WWII, and to a time right after Peter got bit by the spider, Doom takes Eddie to the far future. There they fight Kang and some of his duplicates before Kang lets Eddie borrow the vintage Rosebud II timesled to head back to the Garden to confront Meridius. But then Doom gets salty about Eddie’s temerity of attacking him in his own castle, and returns to WWII to leave a booby trap in the Flexo robot/symbiote to turn on Eddie in the present.

Venom Annual 1. Part of the Contest of Chaos event running thru all the Annuals this summer. Agatha Harkness is making heroes fight each other. This is the sixth chapter where Dylan-Venom fights Deadpool in an abandoned amusement park. Having not read the first five chapters, not sure what’s going on.

Death of the Venom-verse 1-5. Haven’t been following Carnage’s story, but apparently he/it doesn’t need a host anymore. And Carnage has decided to go thru the multiverse and kill all the Venoms he can. As he does, he absorbs their powers, eventually going to an alt universe and fighting Knull there. I laughed because in the end, Carnage wins and decimates the Venoms who gathered together during the Edge of Venom-verse series.

Void Rivals 1-4. The two opposing aliens who are secretly the same species, and one of them has a robot hand that’s 50% exposition and 50% dues ex machina return to their home planet to spread the word that they’re the same species and they get thrown in jail together. Also, Transformers keep randomly showing up in the book. Jetfire, a Quintesson, and Shockwave have all made appearances so far.

The Vigil 1-6. DC created several new series showcasing Asian heroes. For some reason, I thought this one was set in Gotham, but it isn’t. It’s a privately funded black ops team of super powered being operating in India. Interesting characters and story.

Werewolf By Night 1. Oneshot. Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone team up to fight some third rate eurotrash sorcerer who resurrects an netherworld demon. Russell is drawn in black and white, and Elsa is in color, presumably as a reference to the new Disney+ oneoff.

What If…? Dark: Carnage. Carnage escapes his cell in Ravencroft and comes across the remains of his ancestor Courtland Kasady in the sub basement. Courtland was a worshiper of Dormammu and both he and Cletus get thrust into the past during the puritan witch hunts. Eventually Cletus gets back to the present, and the guards’ names in Ravencroft have changed. Eh.

Wolverine 36 and 37. 36 was a crossover with Ghost Rider and I haven’t read the other parts. 37 begins the post Hellfire Gala/Fall of X where all the surviving mutants are on the run. Wolverine reluctantly teams up with Bruce Banner to track down the the three Logan clones Beast let loose and kill them.

Predator vs Wolverine 1. Predator comes to Earth and hunts Logan in different eras, starting in the early 1900’s. $8 for the first issue. Cash grab!

Wonder Woman 1. Tom King begins his run. When an Amazon winds up killing 19 men in a bar in Montana, US-Themysciran relations go south. When all Themyscirans get ejected from America, one of them gets killed in the process, further escalating tensions. Diana confronts Sgt Steel and a unit of soldiers sent to arrest her and we discover the villain behind the plot, a man called The Sovereign who has secretly been the King of America this entire time thanks to his Lasso of Lies. Cool start to the series.

World’s Finest 19. The conclusion of Batman and Superman’s first team up. Jax-Ur has escaped the Phantom Zone and is trapping people in his place, including Batman. Bats and Supes team up and trick Jax-Ur into returning to the Phantom Zone after luring him to the fortress of solitude.

And now, back to X-Force and X-Men stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

My original plan was to just read X-Force up to the current issue, but I realized stuff was happening in all the X-titles affecting all the other books, so I switched strategies and started alternating reading X-Force and Duggan’s X-MenThen I realized that wasn’t sufficient, so I picked a common event(Judgment Day crossover) and read all four books up to that point. Here’s the four titles in progress.

X-Force 19. Quentin confronts his XENO created clone on the psychic plane with the help of Phoebe Cuckoo and Jean Grey. And destroys it. And also grows as a person.
20. X-Force provides security at the inaugural Hellfire Gala. The delegation from Terra Verde begin changing after their telefloronic brainwashing by Beast gets hacked. Continues in a Wolverine issue I already read.
21-22. XENO is using a Man-Thing strain to turn innocent people into sleeper assassins. X-Force teams up with Man-Slaughter, the Weapon Plus version of Man-Thing(he was in an obscure oneshot a few years ago) to stop an incursion of infected mutant worshippers on Krakoa.
23-24. The Peacock guy, leader of XENO forms an alliance with Mikhail Rasputin, the leader of the Russian Mutant conclave. Beast enlists Black Tom’s help in expunging a tiny militant virus from Hank’s body. And Mikhail uses a mutant with the power to write things into becoming reality to fuck with Colossus and make him leave his peaceful existence as a farmer. Then Xavier shows up and recruits Piotr to join the Quiet Council in the wake of the events of Inferno.
25-26. A team of surfers with nefarious intent brave an impenetrable shoreline on Krakoa and steal some mutant infants. X-Force goes after them and recovers two of the babies, but the third ends up in the hands of XENO for nefarious purposes. Phoebe breaks up with Quentin.
27-29. Due to the psychic overload from both Jean and Xavier during Logan’s romp thru time during the X Lives/Deaths of Wolverine minis, one of the Cerebro helmets becomes sentient. It attacks and kills Forge and uses his body as a host to start killing other mutants and stealing their powers. Sage recruits a reluctant Omega Red onto the team after he’s been screwed over by them twice already(once during the vampire thing, and once during the double cross by Mikhail Rasputin during the X-Lives of Wolverine series). X-Force attacks the Cerebro-monster and Quentin manages to psychically blow it to smithereens, but it erases Quentin and all his cradles back-ups from existence. Everyone is sad.

X-Men 1-2. Gerry Duggan begins his run. The newly elected X-Men team show off their new HQ, a literal giant treehouse the size of a skyscraper in downtown NYC. Then they have to protect the Earth from an alien invasion instigated by Cordyceps Jones, the gamesmaster on a planet sized casino who is taking bets on Earth’s destruction. Meanwhile, Ben Urich may have discovered the Krakoan’s new ability to cheat death, thanks to a tip from Orchis scientist Dr. Stasis, who himself is hiding a secret.
3. The High Evolutionary visits the X-Men after they have terrafomed their new homeworld. It devolves into a fight. A prominent businessman named Feilong had a decades long plan in place to colonize Mars. The Krakoans ruined all that overnight, so Orchis recruits him to get revenge. Urich continues his investigation.
4. Nightmare attacks the X-Men’s dreams. Jean Grey is waiting for him.
5. The X-Men fight the new and improved Reavers and Polaris helps prevent a nuclear meltdown. Ben Urich confronts Cyclops about resurrection and gives him a day’s notice to go on the record.
6-7. An augmented Feilong lands on Phobos, Mars’ moon, and claims it for humanity(and secretly establishes a gateway staging ground for Orchis) after being confronted by Sunfire and some Arrakii mutants. Meanwhile, Cyclops public death forces them to come up with a fake identity for him to continue serving with the X-Men. Meet Captain Krakoa! Scott’s demise it turns out was manipulated by Dr. Stasis, who is up to something. And someone has erased Ben Urich’s memories about the story he was about to write.
8. MODOK experiments on a cruiseship full of passengers, turning them into raging kill machines. The X-Men stop him and save everyone. Synch comes clean to Scott about wiping Urich’s mind.
9. In the wake of Inferno, Destiny is now on the Quiet Council and power is shifting away from Xavier and Magneto’s control, as the Council votes against extreme prejudice action towards Orchis. Rogue and Gambit are following up on leads to find Cordyceps Jones. Storm, as the new Regent of Arrako shifts the balance from war to peace on the new Mutant homeworld(told in greater detail in the new ongoing X-Men Red series).
10. Laura rescues Lady Deathstrike from the hands of Feilong on Phobos, Gambit calls his old pal Rocket Raccoon to help the X-Men track down Cordyceps.
11-12. The women of the team head to GameWorld and shut it down and put Cordyceps Jones in a cell. Cyclops and Synch track down Dr. Stasis only him to reveal himself as…Mr.Sinister. But not. He’s got a club sign on his forehead where Sinister has a diamond. Both Essexes think they are the real one, and the others are clones. Synch and Cyclops also return to Ben Urich and tell him everything. Mutant resurrection, his mindwipe, everything. The Daily Bugle breaks the story the next day. The secret is out. Immortal X-Men.

Immortal X-Men 1-4. In the shakeup of Inferno, the Quiet Council makes power plays against one another. Magneto steps down, and Selene makes a play for his seat, but Hope argues that the Five should have a voice at the table since they are the ones actually bringing everyone back. Destiny discovers that Sinister has Moira clones that he uses to predict the future and repeatedly kills when the timeline becomes unfavorable to him(I have no idea how that even works. It makes no sense to me) and Destiny can’t tell anyone or Essex will just kill Moira and reset everything. But then Cyclops brings the news that Dr Stasis and Sinister are the same and Sinister is forced to run, or he’s abducted, it’s hard to say.

X-Men Red 1-4. After Storm voted for peace, Abigail Brand(who I know is secretly Orchis, but I haven’t read that issue yet) suggests Storm should form an X-Men team to ‘protect’ Arrako. Storm senses Brand’s manipulations and forms a ‘Brotherhood’ with Sunspot and the newly retired Magneto instead. Brand goads Vulcan into Challenging Tarn for his spot on the Arrakii council. After Tarn kills Vulcan, Magneto steps up to challenge Tarn and kills him in turn. The scene where Sunspot ‘wagers’ on Tarn’s victory and thus manipulates Isca the Unbeaten’s powers was fucking fantastic. It was one of those ‘Oh shit!’ moments that I love reading comics for. With two Krakoans(Storm and Magneto) now on the Arrakii council, Ororo and Erik decide to destroy their Krakoan back-ups, so they will be ‘mortal’ in accordance with the Arrakii beliefs.

I’m not gonna read Judgment Day just yet, but all the books tie-in for the next couple issues, then it’s like a dozen or so issues from each title and I’ll be caught up and current. Although I suspect in the near future there will be a whole new batch of First Issues as the Krakoa era draws to a close.

[Tom Foolery]

I’ve slowly been reading X-Force, but I’ve been sidetracked by Assassin’s Creed:Mirage for the past couple weeks.

But here’s what I got read.

X-Force 30-33 Judegment Day “tie-in” but not really. Kraven the Hunter finds out Mutants have solved “death” which in his mind makes them the apex predators on the planet, and thus has to bag one. He kidnaps Beast and uses him as bait to lure Wolverine to the Savage Land.

34-35. Sevyr Blackmoor, the Arraki Space Pirate is stealing black market Krakoan drugs out in space. He gets stopped by Maverick and some hired mercs and gets put in a space prison where Beast is doing illegal experiments on the prisoners. X-Force finds out Beast is a piece of shit and they’re not happy.

36-38. The mysterious Man with Peacock Tattoo, the leader of XENO, who have been the main antagonists for the these first 37 issues, is revealed to be a damaged clone of the original Genosha Genegineer. He’s molding the infant mutant he kidnapped back in issue 25 to be his protégé/successor, but the kid sees thru his bullshit and kills him. Kinda lackluster end after three years of build up.

39. After the fallout of Beast’s descent into evil over in Wolverine’s book, the Quiet Council votes on whether to punish him in absentia. The team is completely revamped. Deadpool, Omega Red, and Domino are joined by Laura who’s replacing Logan, and Colossus as a liason to the council(even though nobody knows he’s brainwashed and under the control of his brother Mikhail) with Sage as the new leader.

40-42. An elderly Old Man Quentin Quire shows up and we find out he’s been surfing the timestream trying to stop a future evil Beast who has bonded with a Nimrod and enslaved all of Earth in the future. Quentin deleted his own memory backups so he wouldn’t be resurrected while he was time jumping. After they jump into the future, Mikhail’s control on Piotr is severed and he tries to tell Domino before they return to the present, but fails.

The last few issues are post- Fall of X, so I’m gonna read all four books at once and be caught up. Hopefully the other three books don’t take as long to get thru. X-Men, Immortal X-Men, and X-Men Red coming up!

[Tom Foolery]

Caught up(mostly) on the current X-Men book. Only took a week. I think Percy’s writing on X-Force just wasn't that interesting.

X-Men 13. An AXE Judgment Day tie-in. The Eternals attempt a full blown invasion of Krakoa. The X-Men stop them. I haven’t read the Judgment Day event so I didn’t realize some of the Eternals are helping the X-Men.
14. Was also a Judgment Day tie-in, but not really. Some aliens are still trying to “win” the wager Cordyceps Jones placed on Earth being destroyed and fire a flare inducer into the sun, leaving Iceman and the X-Men eight minutes to save the world.
15-17. Forge places a containment unit around the Vault so the Children think they escaped and took over the world, but it’s only an illusion. Then they go in to rescue Darwin who got left behind. Since it’s been tens of thousands of years, Darwin has evolved past being a living organism and is just sentient code at this point, and elects to stay in the Vault and observe the Children’s continual evolution. But the big kicker is that Laura’s original body is in stasis. She’s wasn’t dead like Synch thought, so a 500 year old Laura is rescued. Now we have TWO Wolverines!

18. The two Lauras meet and help the newest team of X-Terminators deal with a vampire problem. They set some ground rules and both agree that they are not friends and will do their best to avoid each other. The original Vault version decides to use the codename Talon.

19-21. Corsair gets impregnated with a Brood and calls Scott for help. Since the Brood are all supposed to be under the hivemind control of Broo, the King of the Brood, Jean and Magik seek him out. It turns out he’s been co-opted by Nightmare who is still salty about Jean kicking his astral ass back in issue 4, and he’s letting Brood packs loose while Broo is asleep. When Cyclops calls for the genocide of all Brood, it strains his relationship with Jean. The compromise is that Broo takes the Brood still under his control and isolates on the abandoned Celestial head Knowhwere, that Forge and Monet recovered from the black holenit got sucked into way back in the King in Black event. And the rest of the Brood get eradicated.

22-24. Orchis is masterminding the fall of Krakoa. MODOK has secretly laced all the Krakoan medicine with a sleeper failsafe that can be triggered by a certain frequency, making people kill themselves or set off in rage harming others. And Feilong has orchestrated a hostile takeover of Stark Unlimited(did this happen in Iron Man’s book I’m assuming?) and has built StarkTech sentinels that are “helping” police and fire depts. And giving bad PR to the X-Men when they attack the Sentinels “unprovoked”. And a third Essex clone, this one of his deceased wife Rebecca, shows up. She’s got a heart on her forehead and calls herself Mother Righteous. She confronts Dr. Stasis about who’s the “real” Essex and who’s clone. Lastly, Kid Cable timejumps in to prevent the disaster at the third Hellfire Gala and is incapcitated by Moira X, Nimrod, and Omega Sentinel. Destiny warns Rogue of the impending disaster, but says they have to let it play out because the alternative is even worse…

Next up, the rest of Immortal X-Men and X-Men Red, then back for the most recent issues of all four books, after the Hellfire Gala/Fall of X.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the last of Immortal and Red before the Fall of X.

Immortal X-Men 5-7 were Judgment Day tie-ins. 5 was an Exodus centric book that concisely recaps his origin while he battles a big Eternal dragon. 6 focuses on Sebastian Shaw wheeling and dealing an armistice with the Eternals. 7 focuses on Nightcrawler as he keeps resurrecting in real time in order to fight thru Orchis forces in order to get Moira to help them defeat the Celestial preparing to judge Earth.
8. Was a flashback tale from late 19th century when Mystique and Destiny met Nathaniel Essex for the first time. Also sets up the next arc.
9-12. Each issue focuses on a different character, but the overall arc is that Sinister has seeded his own DNA into the resurrection protocols and compromises several of the Quiet Council. This spin off into a mini event called Sins of Sinister that had a few short minis and a couple bookend issues. But afterwards, Xavier, Exodus, Hope and Emma are compromised and stripped of their votes. This allows Shaw to propose Selene as a member. Since Nightcrawler has left and proxied his vote to Storm, and her duties are split between Krakoa and Arrako, she proxies both her and Kurt’s votes to Poitr. But nobody knows Piotr has been compromised by Mikhail.
13. Everything comes to a head and Doug, as the voice of Krakoa, suggests the Quiet Council has outlived its original purpose. Having been corrupted he submits the council disband. They don’t object, realizing they all fucked it up.

X-Men Red 5-7. Judgment Day tie-in. The most direct of the tie-ins. Uranos the Eternal attacks Arrako and has one hour to destroy it. The Arraki and their allies, like Nova, defend it and ultimately are victorious, but Magneto dies in the process and there is a very sad bonding as Storm holds him as he dies.
8-10. Cable and Wiz-Kid stumble upon Abigail Brand’s secret betrayal plans after she is resurrected. She has secretly corrupted Vulcan into trying to reclaim his throne as the ruler of the Shi’Ar Empire by assassinating Empress Xandra. She was trying to play Orchis and Krakoa against each other, But she is outsmarted by Bobby DaCosta and Storm. Also Orbis Stellaris is revealed to be the fourth and final Sinister clone with the Spade on his forehead.
12-13. John Ironfire, the last survivor of White Sword’s 100 arrives with the Purity sword to warn the Arraki that Genesis has the Annihilation staff and is on her way to Arrako after forming an alliance with Orchis. Genesis shows up and tries to claim and empty council seat and challenges Storm which sets off a split in the council.

I like that all four books were focused on different weaknesses in Krakoa and watching them all come together is heartbreaking. I was going to read the last four issues of all four books, but I think there are a bunch of oneshots leading up to Fall of X, including the Hellfire Gala issue where all the shit goes down. So I’m gonna dig those out and read them, then come back and finish the ongoings.

[Tom Foolery]

X-Men: Hellfire Gala 1. The first Gala was just an issue of X-Men. This second Gala got its own issue, immediately following Cyclops reveal to Ben Urich that Krakoa had solved death. Emma finds out that Charles and Xavier had mindfucked Reed Richards during the X4 miniseries, and Reed has since told other heroes like Tony Stark. She shared this with Cyclops who in turn shared that Dr. Stasis was another Sinister clone. The next team of X-Men is psychically voted on; Iceman, Firestar, Magic, Forge, Havok, Synch, Jean and Cyclops. And Moira X infiltrated the Gala by brainwashing MaryJane Watson. After gathering info the issue concludes with her going to the Eternals and revealing the names of the Five, setting up Judgment Day.

Then there were four Before the Fall oneshots.

Sons of X 1. Apparently there’s an entire Legion of X ongoing that I need to read, but Orchis has kidnapped Nightcrawler and others and experimented on them. Legion needs Mother Righteous’ help to rescue them, but not without cost. Nightcrawler is wanted for several murders and steps away from the Council and Krakoa. It was hard to follow not having read that entire series.

Mutant First Strike 1. Orchis orchestrates an attack on a small New Hampshire town designed to look like a mutant attack. The X-Men send a team to repair the damage and deal with some Watchdog bigots. The town is grateful, but the greater damage is done as the media keeps spreading anti-mutant propaganda.

Heralds of Apocalypse 1. Apocalypse is retired in the other dimension of Arrako and his wife Genesis still under the influence of the Annihilation Staff plans to invade Mars/Arrako. They battle, he lets her go, but realizes he’s going to have to return to Earth and step in.

Sinister Four 1. Dr. Stasis and Mother Righteous meet up and discuss their relationship and the other two Essex Clones, Sinister and Orbis Stelaris and how their plans for world domination align and where they conflict.

And finally, the second Hellfire Gala oneshot. Ms Marvel is resurrected as a mutant. As the gala begins, the Avengers get a false flag that Washington is being attacked and all leave. Cyclops gets drawn to NYC and is sabotaged at the treehouse. Marvel had an online poll to let fans pick the next team; Cannonball, Jubilee, Dazzler, Frenzy, and Juggernaut. Then immediately murdered the team when Nimrod attacks the Gala. He follows that up by destroying Iceman. Orchis announces all the krakoan medicine is compromised and sends the Starktech Sentinels to attack. Moira stabs Jean with a blightswill poisoned blade from Otherworld. As she dies, she psychically plants Firestar as a mole inside Orchis making Stasis think he had recruited her, but all the other mutants will think she’s a traitor. Then Moira forces Xavier to direct all the Krakoans thru the gates or they’ll trigger the tainted meds and kill millions of humans. If any mutant is resurrected they will start killing humans. Xavier surrenders and concedes. A small handful of X-Men resist his telepathic order thanks to the “Red Triangle” technique against psychic manipulation, but everyone else goes thru the gates only to discover they gates didn’t return to Krakoa. Orchis had compromised the gates also and Xavier just ordered a quarter million mutants to their deaths….

Holy fuck. Fall of X indeed.

Gonna read the last four issues of each series, which will get me current with all the X-Books.

[Tom Foolery]

And here they are, the most recent issues of the four ongoing X titles.
X-Force 43-46. Domino heads to the Savage Land and figures out Colossus is compromised, but warns X-Force too late as he sends them thru a gate into an ambush by Mikhail. Sage and Domino try to figure out where the team is being held while Laura, Omega Red and Quentin are tortured. Mikhail wants the Chronicler to pivot to compromising Orchis and they kidnap a mid level Orchis agent to corrupt, leaving Piotr with a window to regain his freedom. Chronicler double crosses Mikhail and after a big fight, Piotr reluctantly kills his brother by ripping his heart out. The team escapes and Colossus surrenders to whatever punishment his team decides on.

X-Men 25-28. Kitty resumes her Shadowkat persona and becomes a badass assassin decimating Orchis forces as she is now the only mutant that can use the Krakoan gates. She heads to Orchis to kill the traitor Firestar, but Angelica convinces Kitty she’s a mole Jean planted. They find a captured Scott and Juggernaut and Firestar eventually frees Cain while trying to keep her cover. The remaining mutants are keeping up a guerrilla resistance and go to Reed Richards to recreate the gene-masking tech Xavier had wiped from his mind. Then they head to Latveria…

Immortal X-Men 14-17. Xavier is the last citizen of Krakoa, protecting its shores from Orchis troops invading, as well as Sebastian Shaw and Selene trying to exploit what’s left of the island. He discovers that the dormant Sinister DNA is still inside him, making him kill invaders at night while he sleeps. Meanwhile, Exodus, Hope, Destiny and scores of mutants find themselves transported to a mysterious desert. Mother Righteous arrives and leads them to the Atlantic island, but eventually they realize they are in the White Room, the mutant psychic afterlife…

X-Men Red 14-17. Genesis and her armies are devastating Arrako in a planet wide civil war. Storm and her allies are on the brink of defeat until Apocalypse shows up.

All caught up. There’s a bunch of U thru W books I need to read to keep current and then it’s back to a bunch of ancillary X-stuff, various miniseries and stuff to finish off the box.

[Tom Foolery]

Catching up.

Ultimate Universe oneshot. After Ultimate Invasion, this sets up the new Ultimate ongoings. Iron Lad and Dr. Doom break into Asgard and get Thor out under warden Sif’s watch. Then they ponder de-icing Capt America. Again, this is not simplifying and streamlining the Marvel continuity, just radically reinterpreting it. Hickman is great, just don’t call it Ultimate.

Venom 26, 27. The rogue organization known as Noname kidnaps and kills a little kid on live TV to get Alchemax to admit they are trafficking deadly chemicals. Then they kidnap Bren Waters after separating him from the Toxin symbiote to do something similar. Dylan and Black Widow, who is now bonded to her own symbiote, team up to find Bren and stop Noname.

Void Rivals 5, 6. Flim and Flam(I don’t remember their actual names) are both in prison and an underground resistance(conveniently)breaks them both out and gets them to the border. The Flam leader sends some guy to stop them.

What If…? Dark: Tomb of Dracula. What if Dracula had fully turned Blade into a Vampire. Well, he does, but Blade pretty much acts the same and kills a bunch of vampires anyway, then has his associates blow up Dracula’s castle with both Drac and Blade inside. Dark? Not really.

White Widow 1. Yelena moves into a small New Hampshire town and starts investigating a large corporation that buys out her favorite coffee shop and tries to buy her neighbor’s candy store. Meh.

Wolverine 38, 39. Logan teams up with Capt America to recover a bunch of Krakoan artifacts that were stolen by Orchis, then hijacked by the Legacy House for auction. Then he teams up with Black Panther to stop Orchis from trying to acquire vibranium from Wakanda.

Predator vs Wolverine 2. Predators fight Team X.

Wonder Woman 2, 3. Diana kicks the entire ass of the US Armed Forces by herself. Then goes and visits Sarge Steel at his office. “I have an Invisible Jet.” was such a badass two page spread. Loved it. Tom King is rockin’ as usual.
There’s also a cute backup story with Jon and Damian babysitting little Lizzie.

World’s Finest 20, 21. Mark Waid returns to the Kingdom Come universe when Bat and Supes travel to Earth-22 looking for Thunderboy, and meet their counterparts.

World’s Finest:Teen Titans 4, 5. After an embarrassing defeat by the Terror Titans, the team is falling apart so Dick reveals his secret identity to restore trust with the team.

All caught up. That’s gonna get harder as I work backwards thru the boxes. I’m definitely buying more books every week than I get read. This weekend was an exception because I plowed thru so many X books.

[Tom Foolery]

Some more X-stuff; oneshots, minis, etc

X-Force:Killshot oneshot. For X-Force’s 30th anniversary, Liefeld returns to write/draw(but not script) a story where Cable recruits several current and former members from across the multiverse to stop Stryfe and his MLF’s latest attempt at…whatever. Completely forgettable.

X-23:Deadly Regenesis 1-5. Set during the X-Men’s Utopia period, Laura is traveling thru Minnesota and gets recaptured by the Facility and Kimura. She’s coerced into missions while the facility holds comatose patients as hostages. The Kingpin ends up being behind the whole thing. Not very memorable.

Giant Size X-Men 1 Fascimile. Reprint of the classic first appearance of the “new” X-Men.

X-Men:Curse of the Man-Thing 1. Third Man-Thing oneshot, after Avengers and Spider-Man, so dropped into the end of the story. Apparently, Ted Sallis made a deal with Belasco a long time ago.

X-Men Legends. A short ongoing that invited older creators to come back and write new stories dropped into continuity in older series’ runs.

1-2. Nicieza returns to definitively answer the question of whether Adam-X is a Summers brother. He is…sorta. He’s a genetic creation of shi’ar emperor D’Ken and Katherine Summers before she died. Corsair, Cyclops, and Havok meet their newest family member, team up to defeat a plot to overthrow Lilandra, and then everybody gets their minds wiped and Adam goes and lives on a farm in Nebraska.

3-4. The Simonsons return for an X-Factor story where Apocalypse sends a newly resurrected Cameron Hodge in a robot body to attack X-Factor aboard their sentient Ship HQ. A completely unnecessary sorta prequel to the Judgment Day arc in X-Factor 43-50.

5-6. Peter David returned to his X-Factor run. A team of dissident Latverian mutants attacks the Latverian Embassy and Havok and his govt run Mutant team have to stop them with the help of Dr. Doom. David is always good for an entertaining story.

7-9. Larry Hama returned for a Wolverine tale when he and Jubilee were running around Asia. Two pre-teen mutant sisters have been kidnapped by some evil lady with the help of Lady Deathstrike and the Hand to by sold to Omega Red and the Russians. Sabretooth and Birdie also show up in a pretty fun story.

10. Nicieza does a one off where Sinister has cloned Xavier, Moira, Beast, and Magneto to help him brainstorm ideas for unlocking genetic evolution. The twist is that Sinister is also a clone and they all deteriorate at the end.
11. The Simonsons return to New Mutants. Caliban and the remaining Horsemen head down into the Morlock tunnels to recruit for Apocalypse’s cause and fight the New Mutants. Set after Inferno, but before Cable showed up and revamped the team.
There was a 12th issue I somehow didn't get that focused on Nightcrawler and Kitty just before they formed Excalibur.

Dark X-Men 1-4. Currently coming out. In the wake of the Hellfire Massacre, Madeline Pryor has been saving stray mutants in her Limbo Embassy(Limbo has an embassy?? I’ve missed something somewhere) and her makeshift team of X-Men including Havok, Azazel, Emplate, Gambit and Zero are saving mutants from Orchis. But Orchis has an alt universe version of Maddie and they use her to break into the Embassy and kill everyone inside. There’s one issue left.

Almost done with the box. There’s a few more X-minis and then a bunch of Fortnite related books called ZeroPoint, but I think I’m gonna skip those for now because they are still sealed in bags and I have very little interest in Fortnite.

[Tom Foolery]

A little less reading the past couple weeks because I was working on the Lego project, but I finished the rest of the ‘X’ box.

X-Men Legends. After the 12 issue series, they followed it up with a six issue mini. Issue 1-2 were a story by Roy Thomas set after Hulk 181 but before GSX-Men 1. Mesmero has brainwashed Hank McCoy(disguised as a new villain; Wildlife) and Canada sends Wolverine and obscure villain Jack o’Diamonds to Washington DC to stop(?) them. There was also some connection to an old Captain America issue and it acted as an epilogue to Beast’s Amazing Adventures series. Lot going on. At the end, Logan “borrows” Wildlife’s damaged face mask which just so happens to be his new recognizable Wolverine mask that was slightly different from his Hulk version. Ha, all of that just to No-Prize the mask change. Good one, Roy.
3-4. Ann Nocenti wrote a follow up to Longshot’s original six issue mini where Wolverine and Kitty Pryde get sucked into the Mojoverse and Longshot has to free them. Javier Pina has a nice art style and the story was okay.
5-6. Whilce Portacio returns to tell the tragic backstory of Bishop’s two teammates Malcolm and Randall before they immediately died in their first appearance.

X-Men Unlimited. Unlimited is a digital only series, that they occasionally do print copies of certain issues.
XMU:Latitude 1. Hickman writes a single issue where AIM kidnaps some mutants off the SWORD space station and Logan goes after them. Just a fun issue of Hickman showcasing what makes Logan Logan.
XMU: X-Men Green 1-2. When Nature Girl finds a Dead Sea turtle with a plastic bag in its throat, she decides to become an eco-terrorist and wreaking retribution as Earth’s defender to the point where the Quiet Council has to send Wolverine to stop her murder spree. Surprisingly good.

X-Treme X-Men 1-5. Claremont returns to his early 2000s era team(set in that era) where Ogun’s psyche has imbedded itself in Kitty Pryde and her fellow X-Men come to stop him during an anti-mutant Purity rally in Chicago. Claremont has still got it in small doses.

X-Men:Days of Future Past:Doomsday 1-4. Guggenheim expands the DoFP backstory into a full fledged series. Remember the infamous cover of wanted posters where everyone is either slain or apprehended? You get to see all those slayings and apprehensions. Decent read actually. Guggenheim did a good job of taking backstory from the original UXM run, a Wolverine:DoFP mini from the 90s, and various Excalibur issues and threading them into a cohesive definitive story.

X-Men’92 House of XCII 1-5. Set in the animated series universe, it’s their version of the Krakoa story arc where Jubilee has a secondary mutation and is the stand in for Moira X. As I was never a fan of the cartoon, I only read the first few pages and then flipped thru the last issue to get the gist.

Secret X-Men oneshot. After the Hellfire Gala picked the newest X-Men team, several unpicked X-Men get recruited by the Shi’ar to find their missing Empress Xandra.

Giant Size X-Men:Thunderbird oneshot. John Proudstar is resurrected after all these years. He gets a new uniform and heads back to his reservation, only to get embroiled in a fracas where some bad guys are trying to kidnap Native American mutants.

X-Men Unforgiven 1. This was the middle of three oneshots featuring a team of “good” vampires that have had like 4 appearances total. I started and stopped this like five times and couldn’t get into it. Continues in a Capt America oneshot, so I’ll “finish” the story in like three years.

X-Terminators 1-5. When Dazzler’s boyfriend cheats on her, she dumps him and asks besties Jubilee and BoomBoom to hang out. They are eventually joined by Laura Kinney and What follows is a sassy, funny adventure involving vampires, the Collector kidnapping inhabitants from Otherworld and hilarious girl banter about Dazzler’s juicy dumper among other things. I had no idea what to expect, but it was not what I read. I would read the hell out of a sequel.

The only thing left in the box are a couple Fortnite minis I’m in no rush to read because I don’t play Fortnite.
So I’m headed backwards; gonna start with Strange Academy, and go thru the Superman stuff, then the ‘T’s like Thor and Transformers.

[Tom Foolery]

The ‘S’s.

Storm 1-5. Ann Nocenti and a couple of not very good artists tell a story set after the events of Uncanny 176 where Storm defeated Callisto, became leader of the Morlocks, and embraced her new punk rock look. It’s Ororo’s name on the book, but it’s very much a straight up X-Men storyline, with Kitty and Rogue getting story time as much as Storm. Nocenti tries to do her best Claremont impression with the writing. The story itself is unremarkable. Ororo meets some tech-nerd guy who turns out to be an interdimensional alien or something. And her change in appearance and demeanor is causing a rift with her teammates, especially the young, impressionable Kitty. I did get the Artgerm variant of issue one.

Strange Academy. Picking up where I left off reading before. I kinda had to refresh myself on all the new characters.
SA 10. The kids take a field trip to Asgard and we find out the Asgardians twins’ mother is The Enchantress. Doyle and Emily share their first kiss.
SA 11-12. When Toth, the son of Man-Thing and a Crystal princess from Weirdworld, is shattered, PI Howard the Duck is brought in to find out whodunit. It turns out it was Calvin. Or rather, it was Calvin’s magical leather trenchcoat who is in fact the evil entity Mister Misery in disguise. Dessy eats the coat and Toth forgives Calvin since he was possessed by Misery at it wasn’t his fault.
SA:Death of Dr Strange oneshot. The Asgardian twins, Iric and Alfi, return to Asgard and get into a situation where they have to team up with their estranged mother to stop a curse put upon them. And there’s a bunch 1-2 page vignettes of the other students to get readers caught up with all the main students.
SA Zoe Laveau, the zombie girl, retells her origin to her classmates. Emily finds another prisoner in the basement of the Academy and starts questioning the motives of the teachers. And Calvin is missing his magical coat, turns to the wish granting Gaslamp for help.
14. After a time-travel lesson goes awry, Doyle and Emily discover that one of them is destined to destroy the Academy, and one is destined to save it; but they don’t know which is which. It tends to put a dent in their budding romance. And Calvin starts peddling wishes for Gaslamp so he can stay in school.
15-16. Calvin’s new found magic skills are raising eyebrows and irking his classmates. Emily and Doyle are getting closer, but her disillusionment with the Academy is growing. It comes to a head, when Calvin is expelled for dealing wishes and Emily ditches Doyle at the school dance to comfort Calvin.
17-18. The first series comes to a conclusion as Emily stages a walkout of all the students and they hide out in the abandoned Sanctum Sanctorum while the faculty looks for them. A schism forms between the students and some advocate returning to the school. But most join Emilynas she opens a door to the Dark Dimension.

Strange Academy Finals 1-6. The follow up series has the students loyal to the Academy led by Doyle, and the dissenters led by Emily on a collision course to fulfill the prophecy they both saw. Doyle realizes the ring he gave Emily to save her life has infected her, taking her down a dark path. One by one, her team realizes she’s getting more and more evil and switch back. In the end, Iric sacrifices himself to save Doyle, and he reabsorbs the dark energy from Emily before she can destroy the school. She escapes, but the rest of the class graduates their first year.

SA:Solve for X. Three oneshots; Miles Morales, Moon Knight, and Spider-Man. An interdimensional math competition goes awry when a villain uses mathematics to “solve” Magic and the students and the titular heroes have to stop him. Carlos Hernandez takes over writing from creator Skottie Young and does a fair job with the characters.

Overall, I enjoyed the entire series. The concept seemed derivative but I liked Humberto Ramos’ character designs and art and most of the characters were fun. Hope they bring them back at some point.

Next up, more ‘S’ stuff. Some random Suicide Squad issues, and a bunch of Superman stuff.

[Ran]

I was at the flea market this weekend. One booth had a hardcover Star Wars book with Boba Fett on it. There was also a small Marvel logo on the bottom of the cover. I take a closer look and realize it is a compilation of the early Marvel Star Wars run. It starts with #45 from March 1981 and goes to #78. The guy sold it to me for $30. It was printed 2015 and originally sold for $125.