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Shadow King Reading Order!

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Created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Shadow King is a psychic entity that feeds on fear and rage. It needs hosts to survive outside the astral plane; the most well-known is Amahl Farouk, the first person it ever possessed, but a lot of other characters had their bodies used by it, like Psylocke, Karma, Moira, Legion, and even Black Panther.

It first met Professor X before the X-Men were even created. After that encounter, Shadow King swore revenge against him. While Professor’s dream is to live peacefully with others, the evil entity known as the Shadow King feeds on hatred and the shadows in people’s souls. Their confrontations are always interesting to see because of that. But the evil entity also has interesting face-offs with other characters, like Storm and the New Mutants.

Now, Farouk is living in Krakoa with most other mutants. Vita Ayala wrote a great arc centered around him in the current New Mutants run. His future isn’t certain yet, but I’m sure we can expect exciting things. [Read more…] about Shadow King Reading Order!

Sensational She-Hulk: Breaking the Fourth Wall Collection Review!

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The early days of the “Sensational” era of She-Hulk – originally debuting in 1989, the beginning of which is collected in She-Hulk Epic Collection: Breaking the Fourth Wall – are a case study in inconsistent tone. On one hand, you have The Sensational She-Hulk: Ceremony, an ultra-serious two-issue mini-series published at the beginning of 1989 that centers on She-Hulk’s relationship with Wyatt Wingfoot and her concerns about her biological clock. On the other hand is the eponymous Sensational She-Hulk series launched a few months later by writer/artist John Byrne, which is full to the brim with hijinks, the absolute Z-est-list villains and guest stars, and the aforementioned fourth-wall-breaking that is the hallmark of the run. Character reinterpretations go hand in hand with superhero comics of course, but I find myself hard-pressed to think of a more jarring shift in characterization in a similarly short amount of time. [Read more…] about Sensational She-Hulk: Breaking the Fourth Wall Collection Review!

Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Steve Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 Review!

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Have you read Part One yet? Like Criminal, you don’t have to read anything earlier to enjoy what’s here. But, also like Criminal, you’ll be missing out if you don’t. All set? Because today we’re going over the second Criminal Deluxe Edition, with the continuing stories of Center City, and the people who live there.

Collected here, we have “Bad Night,” where we get to know Jake, an ex-counterfeiter and current cartoonist. In “The Sinners” we check in on Tracy Lawless who, against his wishes, has stuck around Center City. Finally, in “The Last of the Innocent” we meet Riley Richards, a character who is definitely and absolutely nothing like Archie Andrews, unhappily married to somebody that bears no resemblance whatsoever to Veronica Lodge. This second collection continues the quality that Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips showed in the first. Their first collection was notable for stylistic choices, and playing with the norms of the crime genre. Here they ratchet those choices up to eleven, managing to do so without any loss of story or effect.

[Read more…] about Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Steve Phillips: Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 Review!

Casual Krakoa: FCBD X-Men ’22 and X-Men #11

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On my weekly livestream, Casual Krakoa Live, I review the week’s X-Men comics, and answer big questions about what’s going on with Marvel’s merry mutants! You can listen or watch below:

* Spoilers Follow *

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“I’m the consequence” – Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird

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[cover by Ken Lashley and Juan Fernandez]

In the action-packed but deeply thoughtful Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird one-shot creators Nyla Rose* and David Cutler (both indigenous and, in Rose’s case, Africa-American), with Steve Orlando (Marauders, Midnighter), prove that John Proudstar can go home again—and even if life there is never less than tough and uncertain, when you have good people who have your back, there’s no better place to belong to. But Thunderbird is also beginning to realize that he can as proudly identify as mutant as he does Apache, though while he’ll relish protecting both with his fists and his attitude, he has no interest in being Krakoan. Even still, we see here no resentment or regret directed toward his younger brother James (Warpath) for sticking with Krakoa and those who raised him from adolescence following John’s death in 1975’s X-Men #95, in a scene that’s still shocking for its frenzied fatalism. (For James’ reaction to his brother’s demise, see Claremont’s backup story in Classic X-Men #3.)

However, there’s no reason to doubt that Thunderbird could continue directing his unspent rage at Cable, over in X-Men: Red, though I do vastly prefer his characterization in this one-shot. And while redefining who John Proudstar is precisely by going back to his roots, it makes perfect sense that Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird echoes in its title his giant-size debut in his Apache homeland in Giant-Size X-Men #1.

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