Curated, edited, and sometimes co-written by comics legend Kurt Busiek, Marvels Snapshots is an engaging set of flashbacks that fill in some gaps in the greater story of the Marvel Universe. Featuring a series of covers by Busiek’s frequent collaborator Alex Ross, these stories feel like a step back into the duo’s early work in Marvels. By taking much the same ground-level view on Marvel continuity but expanding the idea so that new writers and artists can be involved, this is, at its best, an updated look at Marvel’s canon. [Read more…] about Marvels Snapshots Graphic Novel in Review!
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Juggernaut Reading Order!
Cain Marko (Codename: The Juggernaut) has been rampaging through the Marvel Universe since his first appearance in 1965’s X-Men #12. The Juggernaut serves as the avatar for the ancient deity, Cytorrak, which makes him (nearly) unstoppable. At first glance, the Juggernaut is your classic heavy but once you pry off that comically oversized helmet, you discover a man struggling with his tragic upbringing, sense of morality, and place in the world.
Marko’s step-brother just so happens to be Charles “Professor X” Xavier and their unique relationship has made Juggernaut an X-Men mainstay. But it’s his shifting role between hero, villain, ally, and threat that’s made the Juggernaut to break free of the X-books with memorable parts in stories across the Marvel landscape. [Read more…] about Juggernaut Reading Order!
Avengers By Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol. 4 Review!
There’s still time.
Things are still falling apart in the Marvel universe, but the Avengers have had a victory, after fighting back the Builders and Thanos in Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 3. For the Illuminati, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. The death of everything is still coming. And now, the chaos that comes with that begins to seep into everything else. Things are unraveling, and the heroes begin to realize why.
If Infinity was an epic story, touched with character moments, then Avengers Vol. 4 by Jonathan Hickman and a host of artists, is focused on the characters, using the epic moments to bring us closer to them. And the question these characters are forced to ask themselves is – what have they become?
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How to (Re)Read the Hickman Era of X-Men: Powers of X #3 Pt. 2; and the Conundrums of Moira
I. POX3, pages 11-25: “This Is What You Do”
A. Black Hole Sun
At first, it looks like the four diversionary X-Men attacking the Church of Ascendancy are winning. But they’re really just pressing their advantage of surprise while they can, knowing this is a last desperate act. Even Cardinal—“pushed to the brink”—knows this, having eaten “a terminal apocalypse seed” in order to fight till the end.
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Introducing Michael Morbius in the Morbius Omnibus
With the Morbius film due to make its debut in early 2022, one assumes that more people than ever are looking back to the early days of our dear Michael M. to see what makes him tick. Though Morbius would later go on to have a more complex arc that would bring many nuances to his strange morality, his early days portrayed him as bloodthirsty and ravenous, destroyed by the experiments that were meant to save his life but instead saw him cursed to be—you guessed it—a LIVING VAMPIRE!
Following his premiere in Amazing Spider-Man #101, Morbius quickly grew in popularity via the pages of Marvel’s various horror titles, enjoying brief stints in anthology titles like Fear and Vampire Tales. For fans of the bizarre horror/sci-fi/superhero stories coming out from both Marvel and DC during the early 1970s, Morbius’s early appearances will scratch a very specific itch, while newer fans might find enjoyment in the camp factor of juxtaposing superhero hijinks with the tortured self-loathing of vampires. [Read more…] about Introducing Michael Morbius in the Morbius Omnibus