Of course he is.. Time Travel is BAD.

Read Batman #370-372 and Detective Comics #537-539.

My old iPad hit the point where it would no longer run the app, so when I got a new model for Christmas, I recently resubscribed to DC Universe Infinite. So it had been quite some time since I worked on reading that run but I have finally reached a personal milestone. The next issue I read will be Batman #373, and that was the first ever issue of Batman I ever bought. I'm excited to reread a childhood favorite with all the added context of having read all the other stories leading up to it.

Continuing my New Mutants read-through, I read New Mutants #8-14, Marvel Team-Up Annual #6, Magik #1-4, and the back-up story from X-Men Special Edition #1. I found a nice reading order online. I have several New Mutants guest appearances (many of which I haven't read), so I figured I'd fit some of those in. I didn't realize I'm missing one issue of X-Men/Micronauts, so maybe I'll come back to that later.

NM #8-12 is the team's South American adventure, from the Amazon to Nova Roma (a hidden settlement of ancient Rome, later joined by Incas) to Rio de Janeiro. I remember this being tedious during a previous read, but it flowed better this time (even though it could be an issue shorter). In the Amazon, the kids meet one of the Roman descendants, Amara Juliana Olivia Aquilla. Unfortunately, Amara gets thrown into a pool of magma by a Selene a centuries-old Incan mutant/energy vampire/witch. Fortunately, Amara discovers she controls geologic forces, so she's unhurt. But she doesn't control them too well, so she might as return to Xavier to learn to do that.

When the team gets back to Rio, it's a bit awkward. First, because the boys dig the new girl, which pisses off the other girls, particularly Rahne (Wolfsbane). But the team was down to four members and Amara is a heavy hitter compared to the other girls, so she gonna get a spot on the team. Second, because the team learned that Roberto's (Sunspot's) father Emmanuel sabotage the Amazon research trip. He was working with Sebastian Shaw to try to exploit the resources there, seemingly unconcerned that his son and wife might be killed. Since the graphic novel, we’ve had four past, current, or future members of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle show up already. Meanwhile, the art has transitioned from Sal B. on layouts with Bob McLeod finishes to Tom Mandrake on the finishes.

After this, MTU Annual #6 (featured the kids, plus Cloak & Dagger, plus Spidey of course) slots into the chronology. It's not a perfect fit, because Amara isn't there and she gets introduced to Professor X on the splash page of NM #13. But it's probably the best fit possible, unless maybe it can be slotted between pages of #13 or before #14 with some excuse of maybe Amara hanging out with the Prof. It's written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Ron Frenz. It drags a little. We get Sunspot and Wolfsbane injected with mutagenic drugs that flip them out for a bit before Cloak & Dagger seemingly heal them. But this will get revisited by Claremont in NM around a year from now, and Rahne takes on a transitional form more like one she use in some later appearances. Also C&D declines an invitation to join the team. Supposedly, they want to learn on their own, but I think Cloak is a bit insecure and possessive.

NM #13 is one of those issues focused on the team’s downtime. Prof. X christens Amara as Magma and convinces her to overcome her fish-out-of-water feelings to stay with the team. The issue also has an epic cover that does appear in the actual comic, as the kids scowl and mock a teary-eyed Kitty Pryde. The story has a less extreme confrontation. But why is Kitty in the pages of NM? Well, she is doing a little light hacking with a fellow computer nerd named Doug Ramsey. Elsewhere, the hack destroys a Sentinel that Sebastian Shaw is testing. But I’m sure getting this seemingly normal teenager involved with an attack against one of the X-Men’s enemies will have no blowback. Good job by Kitty’s totally mature teenage brain!

Special Edition X-Men #1 reprints Giant Size #1, but it's also got a new backup that slots in chronological after NM #3 and UXM #167. Illyana gives Kitty a tour of the mansion. Which get some interesting tidbits about the grounds and team, including that Nightcrawler has a pet pterodactyl he picked up in the Savage Land. To my knowledge, this pet never shows up again but probably was a prototype for Lockheed. Really, it’s just a ruse for to distract Kitty while a surprise party is set up to make up for the one Kitty missed in space during the Brood Saga.

Speaking of missing birthdays, rumor has it that Kitty’s BFF has missed 7 or them, and she’s turning 15 in NM #14. Why is this teenager who isn’t on the New Mutants hanging out at the mansion? Probably because Professor X feels bad about her aging 7 years in a demonic Limbo out-of-synch with Earth time. As of now, she’s just joined Moira in her visit to Gabrielle Haller, smiled creepily on occasion, and been a really nice, seemingly powerless, friend & roommate to Kitty. Well, there was that one time in UXM #171 where Illyana programmed a Limbo simulation into the Danger Room, materialized a sword from nowhere in the control both, and slashed Kitty’s cheek. But then Illyana started crying about remembering her time in Limbo, and Kitty forgave her, because that’s what BFFs are for.

While these issues of NM were being published, we got some answers about our favorite little weirdo in the Storm and Illyana: Magik miniseries. It’s been a year and change since Illyana went to Limbo in UXM #160, but now we get the hellish backstory. Illyana gets mentored in magic by both the evil demonic sorcerer Belasco and an alternate version of Storm. She also displays a mutant power to discs that teleport people & things (not just herself) across space & time. There’s a lot more Illyana than Storm, but I guess there’d be marketed difficulties of a limited series named just for a then minor supporting character. The storytelling is a bit muddled (not just due to time jumps) as Illyana seems at times totally good and at others corrupted. While it is a tug of war for her soul, her internal state is portrayed inconsistently. We also get some foreshadowing of bad stuff that could happen, and teleportation disc time jump to be seen by the New Mutants during NM #14.

So in NM #14, Belasco demon thug S’ym goes seek Illyana. He knocks out Xavier out, smacks our teenage protagonist around, and scares Illyana into an inability to use her powers. But when Stevie Hunter helps her flee, Illyana gets her second wind and defeats S’ym with her Soulsword. Illyana teleports S’ym back to Limbo after exacted an oath that he will serve her. None of the New Mutants were around to see this & Illyana uses her magic to wipe Stevie’s memory. Plus, Charles can’t read her weird mind. But then at the party to celebrate her birthday and make Charles feel better than his girlfriend is fighting a galactic civil war (which Amara found out last issue), Illyana sees that the genius professor has figure her secret out. But he’s seems cool with it, because he’s a nice guy. And he’s gotten over the psychosomatic limitations on his cloned body. Professor X can walk again! Last page shocker: Doug is back to tell Kitty he got a scholarship offer from the fancy Massachusetts Academy. He heard Kitty transferred there for a short time (shouldn’t that be a red flag), so he asks her to join him on his campus tour. Kitty should’ve left a more detailed Yelp review!

What saves these issues is that the characters all have personality. The dialogue is fun. It was an abomination that the silver age  JLA was as boring as it was. 

You must’ve gotten an Earth-2 version of Avengers #14. The dialogue is excruciating. Especially Giant-Man. This is the only issue of Avengers that’s as bad as those really bad issues of Thor in Journey into Mystery or the Human Torch in Strange Tales.

Avengers #233, script by Roger Stern and art by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott.

It's a cross-over issue running parallel to Fantastic Four #256. The art is particularly good, seeing as in those days the Avengers was often drawn by people like Al Milgrom. Milgrom is a competent storyteller, but I 'd never have bought a comic just because he had drawn it (everyone's a critic).

It's a nice read in that all the characters have the right voice and get some exposure time; plus we are treated with a bit of company-wide continuity that helps maintain the conceit that these events are really happening somewhere. It has some cool superhero action, too, but it's a bit unfortunate that the story's climax and resolution occur in the pages of Fantastic Four; it's essentially the story of the Titanic told from the viewpoint of the Carpathia's crew. (This is the storyline in which Annihilus "dies" for real. The first time of many, alas.)

The plot: a forcefield originating from the Baxter Building is growing, pushing all people away but passing over inanimate objects and (although not specifically mentioned) plants. The Avengers are informed that unless they can cross the barrier, the Earth is doomed. Game on!

Where I had problems as an older reader (problems I didn't have all those years ago) is in how things work, scientifically speaking, in the Marvel Universe.

Sometimes it's just a matter of artistic latitude; for example, when Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau, the only true "new" Captain Marvel as far as I'm concerned) tries to go through the force field, her energy form is represented as a wave (radio), then little fat dashes (the Kirby cosmic rays), then green blobs (gamma rays) and so on. It gives the impression that these forms of electromagnetic radiation differ in something else than wavelength; it would have been more accurate, though arguably less visually interesting, to have them all be drawn as waves of varying wavelength. But as I said, that's a rational artistic decision.

No, my problem are rather these: first, the force field is impenetrable to living (or at least human) beings. She-Hulk, for example, tries to slow its expansion by leaning on it, but all she manages is to dig troughs in the pavement as the field slowly pushes her back. No energy can get through either, as demonstrated by Captain Marvel's failed attempt. Lightning doesn't do anything either. Heck, not even magic can go through, as when Thor throws his hammer at the field only to see it cross the barrier and fall to the ground, neither returning to his hand nor turning back into a cane after a minute (though Thor, being outside the field, does change into Don Blake). And yet... the field is transparent. We can see what's in it quite well. How the heck are we able to see anything in there is the sun's light doesn't get through?

Further ad hoc strange effects include the field's refusal to let Captain America's shield through; it just pushes on it as it did earlier with She-Hulk. I know Cap's shield is supposedly made from strange molecules (as said once by the Molecule Man), but they're not that strange; Owen Reece could cause them to fall apart quite easily. Anyhoo... small potatoes, but it makes me go "how does that happen?" and no answer is forthcoming.

Vision does get through the field... but collapses immediately, for reasons yet unknown. Roger is planting the seeds of a future story, which is fine, but it's hard to understand how the Vision can cross the field at all even while intangible. It's a very fickle forcefield, apparently. How does it work? "Very well, thank you, and that's all you need to know".

Funny moment: as the Avengers notice that the summit of the Baxter Building is glowing, Cap says something to the effect of "we can probably safely assume that this is not one of Reed Richards' experiments going haywire". Say what? On the contrary, that absolutely strikes me as the most likely explanation!

One point might have annoyed me more than it did: Captain Marvel having noticed that gamma rays seem to affect the field somewhat, she flies off into space, goes around the sun and drills through the field in the form of a gamma ray laser. Graphically, it looks as if she's first gaining momentum, as an athlete does before a high jump; this would of course be unnecessary, since she could go from zero to light speed instantly right here on Earth. But as captions explain, she has not only to turn to gamma rays but to focus into becoming a tightly focused gamma ray laser, and as her brain does not work faster than a beam of light, the sequence actually makes sense. Plus, it is drawn exquisitely.

I was a bit repulsed by Eros/Starfox' behaviour in this issue, as he acts like a sexual predator. Yes, his actions could be seen as mere boorish flirting... until you know that he can psionically cause people to fall for him! Not cool, not cool. Shades of Marcus and Ms. Marvel.

Overall, a very honest issue in the "now happening in the shared Marvel Universe" vein. I miss such simple, honest comics that cost very little!

Just started Avengers Epic Collection 77-97. 57-100 may be my favorite time for Avenger. Though 164-189 had some great little runs.