Merry Christmas, All!
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Bitstrips, christmas, Merry Christmas, Walt | Leave a comment »
The Weekly Haul – Week of December 24th, 2014
Posted on December 24, 2014 by Walt
A rather large week to mostly wrap out the year…
A couple $1 books, the 3 DC Weeklies, final issue of Aliens: Fire & Stone; a Valiant in Unity, Letter 44’s latest issue…and since I’d bought into Robin Rises Omega, figured I’d check back in for the conclusion.
Along with these new single issues, I picked up a couple of 50%-off trades. I got the first volume of Love & Capes several years ago…finally got vol. 2. And though I had the older edition of Batman and Son, at half-off it was worth the “upgrade” to this larger edition with more content.
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: Aliens, comic shop, comics, Fire and Stone, Letter 44, new comics day, Ninja Turtles, robin rises, Unity, weekly haul, weekly hauls | Leave a comment »
The ’90s Revisited: X-Men #41
Posted on December 23, 2014 by Walt
Dreams Die!
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Ron Garney, Andy Kubert, Matt Ryan
Color: Kevin Somers/Digital Chameleon
Letterers: Oakley / NJQ
Editor: Bob Harras
Published by: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: February 1995
Cover Price: $1.95
This issue is one of THE iconic issues of my youth. I’ve read and reread the issue countless times. It sticks in my head, and is one of the key issues I think of when considering X-Men stories. The cover image is iconic, as is the silver-ink coloring on the cover (shockingly enough in a way, there’s no foil to the cover.) I have a number of copies of this issue in my collection, as I often buy it from quarter bins for the nostalgic factor. And if only "mentally," the cover combined with my recollection of the issue really lends a bit of finality to the thing, like this really could be a "final issue." (Perhaps that’s also helped by the fact that Marvel doesn’t seem to like any of their titles getting much past 30 these days).
We open this issue with the four time-lost X-Men staring in disbelief at the scene that surrounds them–of Legion and Magneto trading blows in the skies over Haifa, their memories having finally returned (for all the good it does them). They seek out young Xavier, and take turns taking on Legion themselves, before Iceman finally manages to freeze him solid. Meanwhile, in the present, everyone comes to accept that despite their best efforts–of the several X-Men "tagging along" to the past as well as the attempt with Cable to contact them–they’ve failed and the finality of their universe rapidly approaches.
In the past, things come to a head as Legion pounces on Magneto, planning to kill him with a psionic blade…but young Xavier throws himself at them, and is the one killed. But with a dead Xavier, there never would be a David Haller. No David Haller means no X-Men-in-the-past. For that matter, no X-Men. No X-Men, no world where the X-Men have been around to save it umpteen times. Etc. Reality ends. With only moments to react, everyone faces the crystallization wave, taking their final moments in their own ways.
The world ends with neither bang nor whimper…but in an eerie, silent, shimmering shroud of glass. A world, which like one man’s dreams–proved to be such a delicate thing. And when not handled with enough care…is so easily…shattered…
I’d forgotten or not really noticed before how much the art of this issue was broken up. I REMEMBER it as a cohesive whole…and this time through, even, just reading through, I didn’t consciously note any particular "breaks" in one penciler over the other. I just kept right on going, and would actually have to go back through very specifically to pick out which pages were by which team. Which is the way it SHOULD be, for this sort of thing. Garney and Kubert certainly complement each other with a similar enough style–whether one veered toward the other or not, I don’t know.
That goes into the story side as well…namely, that this was such a monumental thing for me back in the day, that even reading it now, it simply IS. I flew through the reading, remembering all these little parts as I went along, as I came to them. Yet the art never jumped out at me or turned me off for anything…it was just there, consistent enough that it definitely worked for me.
Huge as this issue is for what happens, it’s a quick read, and reeks of a foregone conclusion. The cover itself proclaims To All Things–An ENDING!" and we see a beaten Magneto holding the body of Xavier (not entirely accurate as Erik wasn’t yet Magneto and all that, but the cover gets plenty across symbolically with the costume’s presence).
The issue’s narration is particularly poignant to me even if it is a bit heavy on the "telling instead of showing" thing. By the final couple pages we see bits showing how fully in-continuity this is for the X-Books (though it didn’t affect the non-X books of the time).
It strikes me that for a contemporary comic of this magnitude, this would have been a foil-enhanced cover for sure, probably $4.99 to $5.99 and a Very Big Deal despite "only" ending the "prologue" to the main event it’s setting up: the massive Age of Apocalypse, with the entirety of the X-books going on hiatus for a third of the year, replaced by four-issue mini-series on a one-for-one basis.
This issue ends Legion Quest, and as an ending to that story, and as an issue taken by itself, it works well for me. With modern comics it seems like story endings are merely backdoor prologues for the Next Big Event. While, yes, this "leads into" Age of Apocalypse in general, the issue itself ends, with finality. Legion Quest is the story of Legion going back in time to kill Magneto, with several X-Men hitching a ride back to stop him, while the rest gather and try to "help" as they can from present-day…but as a whole, the entire thing fails–including Legion himself…which ends their reality.
So far as we see and "know" within the story, everything ends. No broken timestream–just an ending. No revelation of some alternate timeline, no popping-in of some hero from another timeline to save things at the last second, no deux ex machina resolving things in the final panel, no crap ending to an otherwise decent story…this could very well have simply been THE end.
And for the kid I was, this was exciting stuff, and took me "all in" for Age of Apocalypse, and combined with Superman and Batman stuff in the couple years prior made for a massive touchstone in my experiences as a comics reader that holds over into the present.
As my rambling on this issue shows…I’m hardly unbiased, and have loads of thoughts and memories associated with this. But having now covered this issue…next week, I look at X-Men: Alpha and then on into the Age of Apocalypse itself!
Filed under: The '90s Revisited | Tagged: Age of Apocalypse, Andy KUbert, apocalypse, Bill Oakley, Bob Harras, Digital Chameleon, Dreams Die, Fabian Nicieza, Kevin Somers, Legion, Legion Quest, LegionQuest, magneto, Matt Ryan, NJQ, Ron Garney, x-men, Xavier | Leave a comment »
TMNT Revisited: TMNT Adventures Reprints, part 1
Posted on December 22, 2014 by Walt
Full Post at TMNT Revisited
TMNT Adventures: The Reprints, part 2
Filed under: The '90s Revisited, TMNT Adventures Revisited | Tagged: archie, Audio, IDW, Incredible Shrinking Turtles, Mirage, Ninja Turtles, Random House, Return of the Shredder, TMNT | Leave a comment »
The ’90s Revisited: All New Exiles vs. X-Men #0
Posted on December 19, 2014 by Walt
X-Over
Writer: Terry Kavanagh
Penciller: Ken Lashley
Inker: Tom Wegrzyn
Letterer: Patrick Owsley
Color Design: Shannon Blanchard
Interior Color: Malibu
Cover: Dan Panosian
Editors: Chris Ulm, Jerald Devictoria, Bob Harras, Ben Raab
Published by: Malibut Comics
Cover Date: October 1995
Cover Price: n/a (promo/mail-away issue)
I’ve long sought this issue…based on the cover date, it’s safe to say I’ve had at least SOME level of interest in this for 19 years. From what I recall, this was a send-away promo issue. Mail in some bound-in coupon from an ad along with $10 or so, and receive the issue in the mail once it shipped. Simple…but very, very EXPENSIVE…especially for a then-14-year-old. As such, the offer passed me by and my life moved on none the worse for it.
This copy, that I’m covering this in mid-December 2014, came from finding the issue loose in a 25-cent bin this week, and in remarkably good condition for its age and rarity. Of course, I say rarity as I cannot recall ever before coming across this issue in any sort of bargain bin. While it’s not a particularly expensive issue, it’s been expensive enough–more than “just” a couple dollars–that I hadn’t acquired it before now.
Unfortunately, this issue’s had nearly two full decades to build my anticipation of the reading experience…which made this the obvious let-down that one really ought to EXPECT from the situation. This is a one-shot, in-continuity for the Exiles characters but not so much the X-Men side. It was published as a promo outside the regular numbering of the post-Black September All New Exiles series. And it’s no “key issue” of any sort that I can tell…a fact that adds to the sense of disappointment. So let’s leave all that aside.
The cover feels a bit odd to me with the two teams’ logos seeming strangely small on the cover. Granted, each logo individually would usually fill the top space of a cover and it’s not likely anyone wanted to crowd out the image with logos. But these logos being so small and the image being what it is, the logos kind of get lost in the viewing. The image itself, though–of X-Men Storm, Beast, Iceman, Rogue, and Gambit standing in front of some sort of poster of the Exiles–works quite well for me despite the visual style seeming vaguely manga-esque and cartooney to me (particularly compared against some of my favorite Age of Apocalypse-era X-books from early 1995).
The interior art is not bad, and carries a definite ’90s “feel” to me. I recognize Lashley‘s name from Excalibur (and the title’s Age of Apocalypse iteration X-Calibre), so there’s that air of “authenticity” on the X-Men angle for me, even if Excalibur was never a “core” X-book to me growing up. Characters look pretty good throughout this issue with only moments of difference to me where something doesn’t look quite “right.” I do attribute this to the art not being Kubert, Lee, or someone I’m more consciously (and nostalgically) familiar with far more than I do any particular artistic fault. I’m not unimpressed, and other than the conscious analyzing for this review, the art remained relatively unnoticed and simply “there” as I read the issue.
The story isn’t anything fancy…it has a lot of potential but seems rather rushed. Of course, that particular fault I’d attribute to contemporary comics and the drawn-out 4-6 issue story arcs and lack of done-in-one single issues…especially something with only 22 pages, that isns’t even an over-sized/extra-length issue.
We open on Charles Xavier–founder of the X-Men–frustrated at his inability to locate the Juggernaut (Cain Marko, his step-brother) anywhere on Earth. Having picked up on their mentor’s frustration, the X-Men join a physical search, enlisting the aid of Gateway to check other dimensions. Once in another dimension, they find themselves face to face with the Juggernaut and others, where a fight breaks out. The two groups are then distracted when a creature attempts to come through the portal Gateway had opened, and they’re forced to work together to stop it. Ultimately, the status quo is restored with the X-Men returning to their dimension and the Exiles left on theirs with no way to follow the X-Men without re-energizing the creature they’d just stopped.
There’s not a lot of room for any characters to have actual characterization given how many are here and how few pages, along with the story being set up and moved along. Again based on contemporary standards, something like this seems like it would be best served existing as a 3-4+ issue mini-series. Crammed into one issue, we pretty much need to be familiar with the characters to get anything out of this. Familiar or not, everyone’s pretty much to be taken at face-value, with limited dialogue to contextualize things.
I would expect more of this issue–as a singular, special thing. Given its length and publication, this feels more like I picked up a random issue of All New Exiles that happens to guest-star the X-Men…something rather akin to what I picture of random crossovers in “indy” comics…that is, one side or the other takes more out of the story and the other property seems to have no reference to it other than the character(s’)’s existed in the given issue.
Despite my expectations and relative disappointment…for the 25 cents I paid, this was a very good issue and well worth my having bought and taken the time to read. It does also lift my interest in delving into the All New Exiles…though that particular reading project is quite a ways off yet as I seek to complete my Ultraverse collection.
Filed under: The '90s Revisited | Tagged: All New Exiles, All New Exiles vs. X-Men, Ben Raab, Bob Harras, Chris Ulm, Comic Reviews, comics, Exiles, Exiles vs. X-Men, Exiles/X-Men, Jerald Devictoria, Ken Lashley, Limited Premium Edition, malibu, Malibu Comics, MARVEL, Marvel Comics, Patrick Owsley, Shannon Blanchard, Terry Kavanagh, Tom Wegrzyn, Ultraverse Revisited, x-men, X-Over | 1 Comment »
Loot Crate December 2014: Anniversary
Posted on December 18, 2014 by Walt
The latest Loot Crate’s shipped; mine arrived this afternoon…a few days earlier than I’d anticipated.
Yet I think I can say this is–for me–the most disappointing of the four Crates I’ve gotten so far.
Given I’m led to believe some folks consider the contents of these to be “spoilers” and such, I’m putting the rest of this post behind a cut.
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: 65, Anniversary, Batman Endgame, December 2014, Funko, Ghostbusters, Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, Joker Batman, loot crate, Lootcrate, Pop, Socks, spoilers, Super Heroes, Tetris | Leave a comment »
The Weekly Haul – Week of December 17th, 2014
Posted on December 17, 2014 by Walt
Last week, I was in Missouri and never made it to a comic shop. By the time I was getting home, traffic was such that I couldn’t make it before closing time. And knowing the shop’s closed a couple days, I held out for Wednesday this week.
This meant an extra helping of Valiant and Gold Key:
And two TMNT books along with Astro City (which I have GOT to get caught up on one of these days…)
There were also a bunch of $1 books, which due to the price I keep on my pull list as a general thing–all promo-priced/$1 books.
I also hit the bargain bins for nearly 50 comics, knocking some more off a couple lists, and snagging some random stuff. These six are probably the “key” issues I got, including THE gem of the day, new and old.
I’ve been holding off on the Exiles vs. X-Men issue for years, not wanting to pay the $10 or so when it was originally published, and then more recently just not finding it for a decent price. Snagging it in this bunch–and in quite good condition–is a real treat, and lands it in my stack of stuff to read ASAP. The Ultraforce/Avengers issue is in crummy condition such that I put it into a bag/board just to keep the cover in place. Despite the Half-Price Books clearance sticker on it, I still went ahead and bought it, attracted by the shiny foil logo and not remembering for sure if that’s the standard or other edition and wanting to err on the side of NOT regretting coming across it.
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: $1 books, comics, Exiles vs. X-Men, TMNT, Ultraverse Revisited, Valiant, weekly haul | Leave a comment »
The ’90s Revisited: Cable #20
Posted on December 16, 2014 by Walt
An Hour of Last Things
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Guest Artist: Ian Churchill
Guest Inkers: Bud Larosa w/Barta & Carani
Lettering: Richard Starkings/Comicraft
Colorist: Mike Thomas
Editor: Lisa Patrick
Group Editor: Bob Harras
Published by: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $1.95
Cover Date: February 1995
This issue takes place during and after Uncanny X-Men 321. That issue had noted this as a must-read; this returns the favor. This issue definitely requires the context of the Legion Quest story so far, but those issues don’t require this.
We get a bit of exposition while seeing the present-day group facing the apparent dangers Cable, Xavier, and Jean face with their psionic time-communication thing. We then pick up with Cable’s "return" to the present, and realizing that despite his having made contact, it apparently didn’t do any good–nothing in the present has changed, and the universe is still coming to an end…which forces everyone to face the fact that this IS their final hour. Much of the issue is the reactions the characters have, who they turn to and how, in this "hour of last things."
Despite some panels where the art seems a bit minimalistic or at least not as detailed in linework as I’m used to and would expect…I really enjoy the visuals in this issue. As with all the previous chapters of Legion Quest, this is extremely "familiar" to me, bringing back memories…something that surely colors my views on the art–where I might complain a bit with a contemporary issue, this one sits perfectly fine with me, being simply another part of a whole, a piece of a larger positive memory, and the general good feelings I have revisiting a favorite, favored period in comics.
I did notice, however, that Archangel’s costume seems to have a lot of red to it here, where I’d noticed blue previously. I’m not sure if there was something I’ve forgotten in-story for the varied colors, but it was a bit of distraction. I like the LOOK overall, just not sure why the red instead of blue.
The cover is one of those distinctive "iconic" ones for me. And yet, somehow looking at it for this review now MIGHT be the first time I consciously realized it’s showing the crystallization wave taking the characters, and not just a generic shot of them facing something else.
The story itself is by Jeph Loeb–who at the time I didn’t know from any other writer–but whose name I know quite well at present and have not been overly thrilled with despite quite enjoying Superman: For All Seasons and such in particular. While this IS part of a larger story, I love the "moments" between the various characters, as well as the overall feeling OF this being a final issue, an actual final chapter.
I’m pretty sure I knew better at the time, back in 1994 than to think these titles were going away PERMANENTLY, and was certainly geared up for the Age of Apocalypse as a large but temporary story. The "official" revelation in-story of Scott and Jean’s part in Cable’s life was particularly key, as is Cable’s "moment" with Domino. Despite this issue covering some of the same ground as Uncanny X-Men 321 and X-Men #41, it leaves certain particularly beats and "moments" to those issues…but what we see here builds on the overall feeling of continuity, that this is truly taking place in the same world and time as other issues rather than just being "related" to each other.
Perhaps it’s the issue’s ending, or the interaction of Cable, Cyclops, and Jean, but this is easily one of my favorite issues of the entire Cable series…and reminds me why the Cable of this period is my favorite take on the character (especially in the face of the last few years of the character).
Only one issue directly involved with Legion Quest remains, as the X-Universe comes to an end…if only for a time.
Filed under: The '90s Revisited | Tagged: Addendum, An Hour of Last Things, Barta, Bob Harras, Bud Larosa, Carani, Comicraft, Ian Churchill, Jeph Loeb, Legion, Legion Quest, Legion Quest Addendum, Lisa Patrick, MARVEL, Marvel Comics, Mike Thomas, Richard Starkings, x-men | Leave a comment »
Completing the Set: Trial of Captain America Omnibus
Posted on December 15, 2014 by Walt
Over 7 years ago–when I first got my current job–I rewarded myself with the purchase of my first-ever Marvel Omnibus volume in the first Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus volume.
In the years since, I’d ordered the Death of Captain America Omnibus and then the Captain America Lives Omnibus.
Now I’ve “completed” the “set” with the Trial of Captain America Omnibus.
And much as with the first…this leaves me with a nice, thick volume of “new material” to read, to wrap up the Brubaker run on the series.
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Captain America, Ed Brubaker, MARVEL, omnibus, Trial of Captain America, Trial of Captain America Omnibus | 1 Comment »
Aliens On My Shelf
Posted on December 12, 2014 by Walt
With the new Alien novel comes a revisiting of my collection. I’ve been “collecting” the Aliens novels since my high school years, if not a bit before. Unfortunately I’m still missing some, but still quite enjoy the run I do have of these…
The original trilogy of novelizations, all by Alan Dean Foster.
These novels are based on the various comics published by Dark Horse, though I didn’t learn that until years later, having never paid attention to the indicia–or it never “registered” with me. I simply enjoyed them for what they were…especially the initial trilogy.
A few years ago, I caught up on these–a newer series of novels, again from Dark Horse, but I don’t think they were adaptations.
My introduction to Predator was through these novels. It was a number of years later before I finally saw the Predator films, though. I recall looking forward to the initial AVP film, but being quite disappointed In the result.
And now some new novels are out, and I’m intending to get back into reading Aliens for 2015.
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Alien, Alien Vs. Predator, Alien3, Aliens, Aliens Vs. Predator, AVP, bookshelves, Dark Horse, novels, Predator, Stephanie Perry, Steve Perry | Leave a comment »
Comic Reviews by Walt 