There are different themes and moods associated with each season that, aside from the weather, make them remarkably different from one another. Summer in particular is associated with vitality, energy, and joy, while winter, in contrast, is most linked to death, lethargy, and hopelessness. These seasonal moods extend to all aspects of pop culture like …
Director Bryan Singer helms a sprawling epic that’s merely cobbled together from familiar plot points and franchise curtain calls.
The X-Men franchise is actually the oldest one still active in the superhero movie genre, having first debuted on screen all the way back in 2000. In 16 years on screen, the franchise has gone through a number of changes, and in more ways than one you can chart a history of many of the …
A look at the X-Men crossover never happened featuring the mutant villains The Upstarts.
Essentially, Fox has nothing to lose by playing it safe, but apparently they don’t have much to lose by backing the ugly underdog, either. The best case scenario? The improbable success of Deadpool gives Fox a mandate to make superhero media weirder, smarter, and more subversive. Worst case: we get another Avengers clone with more sex and blood. Both scenarios make Fox a boatload of box-office money, so why not get a little weird?
With comic book adaptations coming out at a rapid pace, fans will meet many new characters with extensive backstories. We’re here to introduce these characters to help lessen the learning curve. Although the titular character is the real breakout from Deadpool, there’s another big one worth talking about. Colossus has appeared on the silver screen three …
Marvel’s merry band of mutants have been noticeably less merry since the All-New, All-Different Marvel Now launched in October. Extraordinary X-Men was criticized for being reductive in its storytelling, pitting the mutants against the threat of extinction yet again, and if that idea put you off of the book then issue 7 definitely won’t bring you back.
It’s just such a shame that Apocalypse hasn’t been seen in 10 years. There’s a lot more to be done with a character who fancies himself a god; instead readers have to put up with whiny teenage clones, and manic depressive successors to his throne.
With comic book adaptations on almost every channel and streaming service, fans will meet many new characters with extensive backstories. We’re here to introduce these characters to help lessen the learning curve. He’s big, he’s blue, and he’s here to shepherd mutantkind to its place as the dominant species. Apocalypse will no longer be confined …
Uncanny X-Men #600 Written by Brian Michael Bendis Pencils by Sara Pichelli, Mahmud Asrar, Stuart Immonen, Kris Anka, Chris Bachalo, David Marquez, Frazer Irving Inks by Wade Von Grawbadger, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin Colors by Marte Garcia, Jason Keith, Chris Bachalo, Frazer Irving Letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna Published by Marvel Comics Here it is, …
Extraordinary X-Men #1 will probably be seen as energetically drawn and colored sacrilege by both long time X-Men fans and ones, who jumped on with Bendis’ work. And for new fans, it’s darkness for darkness’ sake as the X-Men’s outsider metaphor is drowned out by the Inhumans and turned into yet another post-apocalyptic story. Lemire also makes a few stumbles in his plotting, like having characters tell about an upcoming mystery involving Cyclops and a cure for mutant disease instead of seeding compelling visual clues or starting to build arcs for characters. And his final page cliffhanger, which was probably meant to be the triumphant return of a “dead” X-Men, falls flat because it already happened in a Secret Wars tie-in. This is one is probably on editorial though. Even though Humberto Ramos’ manga influenced, yet wide-screen art adds some pep to the X-Men’s powers and fight scenes to go along with Edgar Delgado’s bold color palette, Extraordinary X-Men #1 is a misstep for the franchise in plotting, themes, and characterization.
The X-Men’s future appears murky, but the franchise’s history could save its future.
The recent revelation that Inhuman Terrigen mist is lethal to mutants, reeks of an editorial mandate and adds further fuel to the fire regarding Marvel’s recent distaste for the X-Men franchise. This act of segregation, due to the fact that the world is now (literally) deadly to mutants not only is a blatant attempt to sequester the franchise and put it into an isolated corner of the Marvel Universe, but it also spits in the face of everything the franchise is supposed to stand for. Very few comic books have ever managed to reflect our culture, or make such poignant social commentary as the X-Men franchise has. After all, the ethos of the franchise is that of change and acceptance. For decades, mutants were used as a sort of universal metaphor for anyone or any group of people who were abused, discriminated against, or persecuted by society. With this recent wave of social justice movements sweeping through our society at such a torrid pace, it’s clear that the X-Men are just as relevant and necessary as they’ve ever been. But instead of continuing the fight for justice and equality, Marvel would rather have the X-Men cut their losses and throw in the towel. It just goes to show that art doesn’t always imitate real life…even when it should.
In the world of comic books, sometimes ideas that at first seem really controversial or asinine turn out to be great ideas that push the series in exciting and new directions. Despite all the death threats that they received for it, giving Spider-Man the black symbiote suit was probably the second best idea that ever …
In a sentence, Ultimatum is the superhero comic that will make you hate superhero comics and will have you reading nothing but Harvey Pekar, R. Crumb, and Daniel Clowes for the rest of your comics reading career. (My apologies to Fantagraphics.) Jeph Loeb really should have apologized to Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis for destroying their carefully crafted, simultaneously optimistic and nihilistic universe with all the skill of a child knocking over sand castles and then pulling its pants down to take a piss on the wretched ruins.
There’s a certain trend in most stories where the characters go through some sort of change or growth by the end of the story; they’re no longer the same or in the same position as they were in the beginning. After all, this is the point of a story. “Messiah War”, the Cable/X-Force crossover, completely ignores this crucial aspect of storytelling and winds up being the crossover where nothing happens. “Messiah War” is a seven part crossover that never needed to happen, starring Cable the babysitter and the worst X-Force roster ever assembled.[1] Although it’s not the worst X-Over of all time, “Messiah War” has very little working in its favor. The characters are generically bland, the plot is way too simple to justify a seven issue crossover, and there’s no real resolution because as previously stated, this is a crossover where NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!
With a dose of political satire, some soaring team-up action grounded in character moments (Storm struggling with her power; Quicksilver’s daddy issues; Wolverine the reformed assassin), and a robust arc for Cyclops, Ultimate X-Men #4-6 is definitely an improvement over the preceding three issues. The “death” of Beast is a cheap storytelling ploy, and I am still skeezed out from Wolverine’s sexual liaison with Jean Grey, but Millar and the Kuberts end this first arc on a triumphant, if dark note albeit with some skeletons in the closet waiting to be brought out for the following “Return to Weapon X” storyline.
E Is For Extinction #2, without any real revelatory character work or struggles, ends up being one giant fight comic. Villalobos and colorist Ian Herring choreograph a brutal fight, no matter whether the fight is verbal or physical. The pettiness of both the good and bad guys makes this comic just a fight about egos which seems exciting but ends up being a bit empty because for all of the bluster, it’s not really fighting for anything other than being just another tie-in to an event that has a massive amount of tie-ins.
Mark Millar and Adam Kubert’s work on Ultimate X-Men #1-3 really is the blockbuster action take on the X-Men, but there is enough flashes of characterization, pretty layouts (Not so much those ugly leather costumes.), and clever twists like Wolverine being a bona fide villain and Colossus’ old crime boss supplying Magneto with a nuke. It’s not a particularly deep comic and scratches the surface of the idea of “post-humanism”, but Ultimate X-Men #1-3 is adequate popcorn entertainment, which led to it selling like hotcakes. (Ultimate X-Men #1 was the number one book in December 2000 with 117,085 copies, and issues 2 and 3 stayed in the top 3 with numbers around the 90,000 range.)
Uncanny X-Men #210″Mutant Massacre”, a storyline running through various issues of Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants (as well as Thor, Power Pack and one loosely-connected issue of Daredevil) in the fall of 1986 is superhero comics’ first crossover event storyline, a style of storytelling that, following the success of “Mutant Massacre”, became a recurring device used by Marvel and DC, so much so that nowadays, these events are annual occurrences, with the entire lines of superhero comics from both companies impacted by their narrative gravity. Thus, “Mutant Massacre” represents not only a significant occurrence in the narrative of the X-Men, but for superhero comics as a whole.
This time last year we got word that Magic Mike himself, AKA Channing Tatum, would take up the role of a particularly fan-favorite mutant within the X-Men franchise: the bayou-native gambler Gambit. Since then, his standalone film has been gestating without a director, but Deadline now reports that Rupert Wyatt has boarded the superhero franchise. …
Imagine a world where Hank McCoy is a sadistic geneticist, or where Cyclops is the right hand man of Mr. Sinister, or where Mystique is not nearly as neglectful of a mother, or where Magneto leads the X-Men. This reality was presented in The Age of Apocalypse, the most ambitious and sprawling of any X-Over, where Charles Xavier is dead, Magneto is the planet’s last hope, and Apocalypse has reshaped half the world to suit his own hellish designs. As far as crossovers and event comics go, The Age of Apocalypse is the summer blockbuster of all crossovers. Whereas Onslaught was like The Matrix Reloaded, a complete and utter failure that did its best to murder a franchise, The Age of Apocalypse was akin to Jurassic Park, a mile-a-minute thrill ride laced with breathtaking visuals and an intriguing central concept.
With Hugh Jackman’s tenure as Wolverine coming to a close, and both Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse planned for 2016, Deadline exclusively reported today that a new X-Men spinoff movie is in the works: The New Mutants. Josh Boone, director of the blockbuster The Fault in Our Stars, will take up directing duties. Boone will also co-write with …