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X-Men

X-Men #9: Naïve Politicking as Entertainment While Our Own World Shatters & Spins

March 21, 2022 by David Bowen Leave a Comment

A group of people in clothing Description automatically generated with low confidence

[Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia]

Elements of US and Russian* intelligence services allying to work at Orchis? A small thing, you might say, but a glaring dissonance to anyone who’s been following the apocalyptic news of the past week. But hey, it’s not impossible that mortal enemies could work together. In a much more positive light, we found out today that FSB agents tipped off Ukrainian intelligence of a Putin-directed Chechen hit squad gunning for President Zelensky. Apparently, the Ukrainians, with this rogue Russian help, took out the would-be assassins.

Already, before the world changed (again) on Feb 24, Putin said the Ukrainian people should not exist. That is a real-world genocidal statement. By the time this piece is published, the realization of his hatred may, tragically, be much clearer to us than currently.

[Read more…] about X-Men #9: Naïve Politicking as Entertainment While Our Own World Shatters & Spins

Filed Under: Featured, Marvel Reviews Tagged With: X-Men

Casual Krakoa: X Lives of Wolverine #5 Crashes Hard!

March 20, 2022 by Dave Leave a Comment

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 *

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

[Read more…] about Casual Krakoa: X Lives of Wolverine #5 Crashes Hard!

Filed Under: Best Comics Ever Podcast, Featured Tagged With: podcasts, X-Men

Science Fiction & The X-Men, Part 1: The Golden Age Origins of Marvel’s Heroes & Mutants

March 5, 2022 by David Bowen Leave a Comment

Text Description automatically generated

Introducing – Some Big Ideas

When Comic Book Herald EIC (Ed note: and all around genius savant bachelor) Dave Buesing asked me to look into the non-comics sci-fi connections to Jonathan Hickman’s 2019 House of X and Powers of X, I found myself facing a much larger challenge. While the Hickman era of X-Men threads in not a few outside sf tropes and influences, the tapestry itself has already been perpetually in the loom for the past 60 years. And my restless penchant for connecting parts to wholes and present to past wondered: But what sf stories were Stan and Jack reading? Where did the first superman of American comics come from? How did the notion of the born mutant become shorthand in the pulps for the outsider genius or the beautiful freak whose very existence was countercultural?

Obviously, there are endless such questions we could formulate, especially when it comes to the early years of pulp adventure and popular sf*, of which virtually no one but a handful of scholars has ready knowledge. And anyway, what does this have to do with Hickman’s X-Men at this point? Well, if you know his work going back to the start of his comics career, you’re certainly familiar with the fact that he’s always been a nut for high-concept sf; indeed, many of his influences appear to call back quite clearly to Golden Age sf classics (the 1930s and ’40s) and sundry benchmarks in the genre—even if it’s not intentional or a direct citing of specific stories. To be clear, it’s not my intention here to ever presume that any author is plagiarizing. However, I do work off the assumption that even the most astonishing creators aren’t creating ex nihilo: Everything comes from somewhere, but ultimate origins are all but impossible to trace. We are inspired by what’s in our environment, education, and experience, and even the most radical auteurs are so limited. Simply put, what this series of articles will try to track to the best of my current ability is the evolution of those tropes central to the current X-Men narrative from its earliest discernible origins in the primal soup of pulp sf, with an undeniable dash of (warped) Nietzscheanism and necessary historical and cultural context. [Read more…] about Science Fiction & The X-Men, Part 1: The Golden Age Origins of Marvel’s Heroes & Mutants

Filed Under: Comics Guides, Featured Tagged With: X-Men

Welcome Back – Two Downtime Preludes for Big Drama Down the Line: New Mutants #24 & Secret X-Men #1

February 28, 2022 by David Bowen Leave a Comment

A group of people on a roller coaster Description automatically generated with low confidence A group of people in clothing Description automatically generated with low confidence

[covers by Martin Simmonds (l) and Leinil Francis Yu (r)]

Finally! We’re back to two ensemble X titles in one week! Woo! It’ll be more than a month before that happens again—and then we’ll be going big: A veritable title wave of comics! (Not sorry for the pun! And shout out to the used bookstore of the same name I worked at 20 years ago in Anchorage.) Let’s hope we survive the experience; 2022 should prove quite different from the scheduling chaos of the last two years, supply chains permitting.

Regardless, as to the books at hand, they each bring different strengths, but certainly, it’s increasingly clear that Vita Ayala is entering their early peak as a storyteller with each issue of New Mutants, so we’ll start by covering issue #24, which couldn’t be more perfectly balanced as a kind of intermission between arcs (with “The Labors of Magik” likely to be as decompressed as the Shadow King arc but even more epoch-making judging by this issue’s last panel).

[Read more…] about Welcome Back – Two Downtime Preludes for Big Drama Down the Line: New Mutants #24 & Secret X-Men #1

Filed Under: Marvel Reviews Tagged With: X-Men

Forever Is Where I Live: X Deaths of Wolverine #3 In Review

February 25, 2022 by David Bowen 6 Comments

A picture containing text Description automatically generated

Moira lays down the cybernetic gauntlet. Heavy spoilers follow.

X Deaths continues to excel and compel in ways that X Lives has yet to achieve, but I’m also less interested in Logan’s many pasts and all in for being at the edge of now, looking to mutantkind’s future. And it looks rockier than at any time since HOX/POX. It’s clear at this point that the current two-series-that-are-one will end in a way that shapes the course of Destiny of X, at least until the next epoch-defining event. [Read more…] about Forever Is Where I Live: X Deaths of Wolverine #3 In Review

Filed Under: Featured, Marvel Reviews Tagged With: Wolverine, X-Men

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