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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 2, 2020 16:41:50 GMT -5
It must be Wednesday, because my nose is just full of that new comic smell, which means more... OFF THE RACKS! |
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 4, 2020 5:33:38 GMT -5
X-Factor #5
Written by Leah Williams
Art by David Baldeon and Israel Silva
What Happened Before:Mutants have united and live nearly all on the island of Krakoa. Through the use of telepathic backups and a combination of five specific mutants (known as the Five), mutants have achieved a form of immortality where dead mutants are resurrected by creating a new body and putting a backup of their last registered mental state in it. One of the most important rule is that the resurrection protocol may only be started when a mutant is confirmed dead and that's where X-Factor comes in. X-Factor is a group of six mutants who act as detectives, investigating missing mutants and confirming mutant deaths.
Plot: It's a bit of a getting caught up issue, with no real action or new story arc till the end. The team investigates the weird resurrection of the mutant Rockslide, killed in issue #4 on Otherworld, due to the otherdimensional nature of the place, the resurrected Rockslide is not the person they knew. Rachel uses her telepathy+time-manipulation and finds out that this new Rockslide's memories only go back about a week, the moment of his resurrection and technically he's therefore a completely new person.
Having determined that the problem is not with the resurrection process itself, the Five start the Resurrection Process again for other mutants. The depowered mutant Winddancer who has killed on Mojoworld in issue #3 of this series, is revived on Krakoa with her powers restored.
While the young mutants welcome back Winddancer and decide to celebrate her return, Eye-Boy takes the time to help the newly-born Rockslide get adjusted to life on Krakoa and Aurora and Northstar catch up and. With her resurrection, Aurora's powers are back to their original form, so the twins can generate light again when they are holding hands.
The peace and quiet is disturbed as the twins hear a scream and rush outside, finding Siryn, who appeared to have died from a fall. A curious way to die for a mutant who can fly.
The Good: A step in place after a big crossover (even if X-Factor was hardly involved with the whole crossover) is a good decision. Williams remembers the various relationships between the characters, even those that are rarely used.
Future plotpoints are established: Prodigy confides in Winddancer that he thinks he has been murdered as well (explaining his repowering, but he has no further information at this point). Polaris states that they need to go back to Mojoworld to prevent further deaths like Winddancer, but they have no way to do so right now (interestingly, Winddancer states that 3 different persons tried to help her in Mojoworld to escape death: Adam-X, Shatterstar (both make sense, even if they are not glaring examples of superheroes, they do tend to be on the right side of things) and Spiral (which is a surprise.)
The Bad: Definitely not an issue for new readers. Not much happens during this issue, but I enjoy issues that take time for the characters to sit down and process everything that has been happening.
7/10: Decent enough issue, but little happens and not an entry point for new readers. On the upside, we're back to murder investigations, starting next issue.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 4, 2020 8:27:31 GMT -5
Justice League: Endless Winter #1Written by Ron Marz and Andy Lanning Art by Howard Porter Summary: An ancient evil has emerged from the ruins of Superman's Fortress of Solitude and he's freezing the world.
Plot: I'm not usually a fan of big crossovers(the last one I read was Battle for the Cowl in 2009 and even then I didn't read half the tie ins) because they are almost always bloated affairs with plots that aren't interesting or complex enough to warrant their lengths. So why did I check this out then? Three words: Ancient Justice League. I know, not super compelling on the face of it, but as a kid I always loved using non-DC comic action figures like He-Man or the Thunder Cats with my Batman and Superman figures and I'd make up stories that they were heroes from the past so a plot playing that out really caught my eye. Here though, instead of He-Man and Lion-O we get Hippolyta standing in for Wonder Woman, Black Adam as Superman and surprisingly the long under used Viking Prince for the Batman role and a past version of Swamp-Thing just sweetens it further. I don't know if ultimately I'll be following this even to the end but for now I'm in.
Art: I'd feel a lot stronger about me following the event to its conclusion if the art was stronger. It's not that Porter is bad, his figures are clear and the action easy to read...but there's nothing special either.
Grade:7/10 |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 16:03:11 GMT -5
 Batman/Catwoman #1. Written by Tom King. Art and Cover by Clay Mann. A 12 issue maxi-series about the relationship between Batman & Catwoman. This story jumps around in three timelines: the past, present, and future. Plus the Joker & Andrea Beaumont - the Phantasm. In the past we see the start of their relationship. In the present Andrea and a mystery surrounding her son. And in the future hints of a daughter named Helena and the death of Bruce Wayne. Plus Selina tracks down the Joker to kill him now that Bruce is gone. I was not a fan of King's Batman run. I tried a few times to get into it based on positive reviews. However I do like the idea of this series and with the beautiful art by Mann I gave it a try. It is a bit confusing with all the jumping around in time. Hopefully it will read better as a collected story than one told in installments. 7/10. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 16:09:45 GMT -5
 Daredevil #25. Written by Chip Zdarsky. Art and Cover by Marco Checchetto. Matt's guilt over the death he caused lands him in jail as DD. So what happens to Hell's Kitchen? An old ally - Elektra steps up and fills Matt's shoes as the new Daredevil. Two new twists. Matt has been in jail before but not in his ID as DD. And Iron Fist had stepped into the DD costume then. And this time Elektra seeks atonement as she tries to do things Matt's way and help him protect Hell's Kitchen. Still really enjoying Zdarsky's run on Daredevil. 8/10. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 19:00:33 GMT -5
Did they re-launch Daredevil during Zdarksy's run? It feels like he's been writing it for way more than two years.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 19:24:00 GMT -5
Did they re-launch Daredevil during Zdarksy's run? It feels like he's been writing it for way more than two years. No he started with this volume. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2020 15:04:02 GMT -5
Justice League: Endless Winter #1Written by Ron Marz and Andy Lanning Art by Howard Porter Summary: An ancient evil has emerged from the ruins of Superman's Fortress of Solitude and he's freezing the world.
Plot: I'm not usually a fan of big crossovers(the last one I read was Battle for the Cowl in 2009 and even then I didn't read half the tie ins) because they are almost always bloated affairs with plots that aren't interesting or complex enough to warrant their lengths. So why did I check this out then? Three words: Ancient Justice League. I know, not super compelling on the face of it, but as a kid I always loved using non-DC comic action figures like He-Man or the Thunder Cats with my Batman and Superman figures and I'd make up stories that they were heroes from the past so a plot playing that out really caught my eye. Here though, instead of He-Man and Lion-O we get Hippolyta standing in for Wonder Woman, Black Adam as Superman and surprisingly the long under used Viking Prince for the Batman role and a past version of Swamp-Thing just sweetens it further. I don't know if ultimately I'll be following this even to the end but for now I'm in.
Art: I'd feel a lot stronger about me following the event to its conclusion if the art was stronger. It's not that Porter is bad, his figures are clear and the action easy to read...but there's nothing special either.
Grade:7/10 I enjoyed it, although it felt like it had a lot of filler. the biggest compliment I can give it is that a LOT of the dialogue felt like it was cribbed from Gail Simone (something that popped in my head the moment I saw Catman early in the issue). and I really mean this in a very positive way. that cover art is horrid tho - every time I see it, I think "why is Diana wearing goggles???" |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2020 15:06:56 GMT -5
Daredevil #25. Written by Chip Zdarsky. Art and Cover by Marco Checchetto. Matt's guilt over the death he caused lands him in jail as DD. So what happens to Hell's Kitchen? An old ally - Elektra steps up and fills Matt's shoes as the new Daredevil. Two new twists. Matt has been in jail before but not in his ID as DD. And Iron Fist had stepped into the DD costume then. And this time Elektra seeks atonement as she tries to do things Matt's way and help him protect Hell's Kitchen. Still really enjoying Zdarsky's run on Daredevil. 8/10. do they explain at all why Elektra feels the need to put on the DD costume and take the name? I mean, why not just patrol the streets as Elektra? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2020 15:40:36 GMT -5
Daredevil #25. Written by Chip Zdarsky. Art and Cover by Marco Checchetto. Matt's guilt over the death he caused lands him in jail as DD. So what happens to Hell's Kitchen? An old ally - Elektra steps up and fills Matt's shoes as the new Daredevil. Two new twists. Matt has been in jail before but not in his ID as DD. And Iron Fist had stepped into the DD costume then. And this time Elektra seeks atonement as she tries to do things Matt's way and help him protect Hell's Kitchen. Still really enjoying Zdarsky's run on Daredevil. 8/10. do they explain at all why Elektra feels the need to put on the DD costume and take the name? I mean, why not just patrol the streets as Elektra? Yes Zdarsky provides a valid (IMO) reason for her motivations. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 5, 2020 16:55:09 GMT -5
Justice League: Endless Winter #1Written by Ron Marz and Andy Lanning Art by Howard Porter Summary: An ancient evil has emerged from the ruins of Superman's Fortress of Solitude and he's freezing the world.
Plot: I'm not usually a fan of big crossovers(the last one I read was Battle for the Cowl in 2009 and even then I didn't read half the tie ins) because they are almost always bloated affairs with plots that aren't interesting or complex enough to warrant their lengths. So why did I check this out then? Three words: Ancient Justice League. I know, not super compelling on the face of it, but as a kid I always loved using non-DC comic action figures like He-Man or the Thunder Cats with my Batman and Superman figures and I'd make up stories that they were heroes from the past so a plot playing that out really caught my eye. Here though, instead of He-Man and Lion-O we get Hippolyta standing in for Wonder Woman, Black Adam as Superman and surprisingly the long under used Viking Prince for the Batman role and a past version of Swamp-Thing just sweetens it further. I don't know if ultimately I'll be following this even to the end but for now I'm in.
Art: I'd feel a lot stronger about me following the event to its conclusion if the art was stronger. It's not that Porter is bad, his figures are clear and the action easy to read...but there's nothing special either.
Grade:7/10 I enjoyed it, although it felt like it had a lot of filler. the biggest compliment I can give it is that a LOT of the dialogue felt like it was cribbed from Gail Simone (something that popped in my head the moment I saw Catman early in the issue). and I really mean this in a very positive way. that cover art is horrid tho - every time I see it, I think "why is Diana wearing goggles???" I definitely got the Gail Simone vibe from the villains, especially Catman. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 6, 2020 17:07:23 GMT -5
Batman/Catwoman #1. Written by Tom King. Art and Cover by Clay Mann. A 12 issue maxi-series about the relationship between Batman & Catwoman. This story jumps around in three timelines: the past, present, and future. Plus the Joker & Andrea Beaumont - the Phantasm. In the past we see the start of their relationship. In the present Andrea and a mystery surrounding her son. And in the future hints of a daughter named Helena and the death of Bruce Wayne. Plus Selina tracks down the Joker to kill him now that Bruce is gone. I was not a fan of King's Batman run. I tried a few times to get into it based on positive reviews. However I do like the idea of this series and with the beautiful art by Mann I gave it a try. It is a bit confusing with all the jumping around in time. Hopefully it will read better as a collected story than one told in installments. 7/10. I was really looking forward to this. But, WOW, Tom King is over-rated. It feels like King read The Long Halloween and thought “Oh! I like how pretentious this is! I can write something even more pretentious than this!” Nice art. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,867
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Post by shaxper on Dec 7, 2020 9:03:52 GMT -5
X-Factor #5Written by Leah Williams Art by David Baldeon and Israel Silva What Happened Before:Mutants have united and live nearly all on the island of Krakoa. Through the use of telepathic backups and a combination of five specific mutants (known as the Five), mutants have achieved a form of immortality where dead mutants are resurrected by creating a new body and putting a backup of their last registered mental state in it. One of the most important rule is that the resurrection protocol may only be started when a mutant is confirmed dead and that's where X-Factor comes in. X-Factor is a group of six mutants who act as detectives, investigating missing mutants and confirming mutant deaths. Plot: It's a bit of a getting caught up issue, with no real action or new story arc till the end. The team investigates the weird resurrection of the mutant Rockslide, killed in issue #4 on Otherworld, due to the otherdimensional nature of the place, the resurrected Rockslide is not the person they knew. Rachel uses her telepathy+time-manipulation and finds out that this new Rockslide's memories only go back about a week, the moment of his resurrection and technically he's therefore a completely new person. Having determined that the problem is not with the resurrection process itself, the Five start the Resurrection Process again for other mutants. The depowered mutant Winddancer who has killed on Mojoworld in issue #3 of this series, is revived on Krakoa with her powers restored. While the young mutants welcome back Winddancer and decide to celebrate her return, Eye-Boy takes the time to help the newly-born Rockslide get adjusted to life on Krakoa and Aurora and Northstar catch up and. With her resurrection, Aurora's powers are back to their original form, so the twins can generate light again when they are holding hands. The peace and quiet is disturbed as the twins hear a scream and rush outside, finding Siryn, who appeared to have died from a fall. A curious way to die for a mutant who can fly. The Good: A step in place after a big crossover (even if X-Factor was hardly involved with the whole crossover) is a good decision. Williams remembers the various relationships between the characters, even those that are rarely used. Future plotpoints are established: Prodigy confides in Winddancer that he thinks he has been murdered as well (explaining his repowering, but he has no further information at this point). Polaris states that they need to go back to Mojoworld to prevent further deaths like Winddancer, but they have no way to do so right now (interestingly, Winddancer states that 3 different persons tried to help her in Mojoworld to escape death: Adam-X, Shatterstar (both make sense, even if they are not glaring examples of superheroes, they do tend to be on the right side of things) and Spiral (which is a surprise.) The Bad: Definitely not an issue for new readers. Not much happens during this issue, but I enjoy issues that take time for the characters to sit down and process everything that has been happening. 7/10: Decent enough issue, but little happens and not an entry point for new readers. On the upside, we're back to murder investigations, starting next issue. Wow. This is the first time the X-titles have sounded at all appealing to me since Astonishing X-Men a decade and a half ago. Has the quality been consistent? If so, where would you recommend a newbie start? |
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 7, 2020 11:29:20 GMT -5
X-Factor #5Written by Leah Williams Art by David Baldeon and Israel Silva What Happened Before:Mutants have united and live nearly all on the island of Krakoa. Through the use of telepathic backups and a combination of five specific mutants (known as the Five), mutants have achieved a form of immortality where dead mutants are resurrected by creating a new body and putting a backup of their last registered mental state in it. One of the most important rule is that the resurrection protocol may only be started when a mutant is confirmed dead and that's where X-Factor comes in. X-Factor is a group of six mutants who act as detectives, investigating missing mutants and confirming mutant deaths. Plot: It's a bit of a getting caught up issue, with no real action or new story arc till the end. The team investigates the weird resurrection of the mutant Rockslide, killed in issue #4 on Otherworld, due to the otherdimensional nature of the place, the resurrected Rockslide is not the person they knew. Rachel uses her telepathy+time-manipulation and finds out that this new Rockslide's memories only go back about a week, the moment of his resurrection and technically he's therefore a completely new person. Having determined that the problem is not with the resurrection process itself, the Five start the Resurrection Process again for other mutants. The depowered mutant Winddancer who has killed on Mojoworld in issue #3 of this series, is revived on Krakoa with her powers restored. While the young mutants welcome back Winddancer and decide to celebrate her return, Eye-Boy takes the time to help the newly-born Rockslide get adjusted to life on Krakoa and Aurora and Northstar catch up and. With her resurrection, Aurora's powers are back to their original form, so the twins can generate light again when they are holding hands. The peace and quiet is disturbed as the twins hear a scream and rush outside, finding Siryn, who appeared to have died from a fall. A curious way to die for a mutant who can fly. The Good: A step in place after a big crossover (even if X-Factor was hardly involved with the whole crossover) is a good decision. Williams remembers the various relationships between the characters, even those that are rarely used. Future plotpoints are established: Prodigy confides in Winddancer that he thinks he has been murdered as well (explaining his repowering, but he has no further information at this point). Polaris states that they need to go back to Mojoworld to prevent further deaths like Winddancer, but they have no way to do so right now (interestingly, Winddancer states that 3 different persons tried to help her in Mojoworld to escape death: Adam-X, Shatterstar (both make sense, even if they are not glaring examples of superheroes, they do tend to be on the right side of things) and Spiral (which is a surprise.) The Bad: Definitely not an issue for new readers. Not much happens during this issue, but I enjoy issues that take time for the characters to sit down and process everything that has been happening. 7/10: Decent enough issue, but little happens and not an entry point for new readers. On the upside, we're back to murder investigations, starting next issue. Wow. This is the first time the X-titles have sounded at all appealing to me since Astonishing X-Men a decade and a half ago. Has the quality been consistent? If so, where would you recommend a newbie start?
The whole new Status Quo is post House of X/Powers of X mini-series that was released about a year or so ago. Since then the X-Men title itself has been mostly standalone issues that show life on Krakoa and several missions of the mutants and so on.
I'd say Marauders has been the title of the new batch that has been consistently the best; Kate Pryde can't enter Krakoa for unknown reasons (or at least, she can't use the teleportation portals everybody else is using), so she has been given the task to be one of the three people in charge of the Hellfire Trading Company, who provide Krakoa's advanced medicine to countries all around the world in Exchange for mutant rights and recognition. The idea is that Sebastian Shaw makes deals with governments for the medicine, while Emma Frost and Kate Pryde make sure that the people in need will get the medicine as well as transporting mutant refugees to Krakoa. In practice Shaw is secretly working against Pryde and Frost to gain sole control of the company. Issue #16 will be out this week.
I like New Mutants a lot as well, but it had alternating creative teams early on with one team being considerably better than the other. The basic concept is that the New Mutants tour the world (and for the first couple of issues the universe) of finding mutants who haven't made it to Krakoa yet and offer them a place. The first issues is Sunspot deciding that Cannonball is missing out and is taking his friends into outer space to bring him home.
Issue #14 will be out this month, but will be the first issue of the new creative team, so I have no idea how it's going to be.
X-Factor: Like I said above, they are the detectives investigating dead and missing mutants. The first issue was very good (setting up the team, giving each of them a reason to be there as well as showing why each is an asset to the team), the 2nd and 3rd issue were OK, but not what I wanted the series to do at that point. Issue 4 was part of the giant crossover and had nothing to do with X-Factor, so that was a disappointment. 5 is more what I want from this series though.
Excalibur: I liked the concept a lot (I've always been into the Moore/Davis Captain Britain and this deals a lot with those issues), but the execution has been lacking, so I can't recommend it as a title. Concept is that Elisabeth Braddock, now back in her original body, has taken the mantle of Captain Britain and leads a group of mutants into Otherworld, the mystical realm that is the source of the Captain Britain Corps and many British legends. Apocalypse works with them for his own reasons; strengthening Krakoa as a nation, but his methods often turn off his teammates.
Of the other titles, I've read none of them except maybe an issue here and there in the beginning to sample. Fallen Angels at least was the worst of these titles.
Keep in mind that my tastes often differ from others on these boards.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,867
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Post by shaxper on Dec 7, 2020 12:30:51 GMT -5
Wow. This is the first time the X-titles have sounded at all appealing to me since Astonishing X-Men a decade and a half ago. Has the quality been consistent? If so, where would you recommend a newbie start? The whole new Status Quo is post House of X/Powers of X mini-series that was released about a year or so ago. Since then the X-Men title itself has been mostly standalone issues that show life on Krakoa and several missions of the mutants and so on.
I'd say Marauders has been the title of the new batch that has been consistently the best; Kate Pryde can't enter Krakoa for unknown reasons (or at least, she can't use the teleportation portals everybody else is using), so she has been given the task to be one of the three people in charge of the Hellfire Trading Company, who provide Krakoa's advanced medicine to countries all around the world in Exchange for mutant rights and recognition. The idea is that Sebastian Shaw makes deals with governments for the medicine, while Emma Frost and Kate Pryde make sure that the people in need will get the medicine as well as transporting mutant refugees to Krakoa. In practice Shaw is secretly working against Pryde and Frost to gain sole control of the company. Issue #16 will be out this week. I like New Mutants a lot as well, but it had alternating creative teams early on with one team being considerably better than the other. The basic concept is that the New Mutants tour the world (and for the first couple of issues the universe) of finding mutants who haven't made it to Krakoa yet and offer them a place. The first issues is Sunspot deciding that Cannonball is missing out and is taking his friends into outer space to bring him home.
Issue #14 will be out this month, but will be the first issue of the new creative team, so I have no idea how it's going to be.
X-Factor: Like I said above, they are the detectives investigating dead and missing mutants. The first issue was very good (setting up the team, giving each of them a reason to be there as well as showing why each is an asset to the team), the 2nd and 3rd issue were OK, but not what I wanted the series to do at that point. Issue 4 was part of the giant crossover and had nothing to do with X-Factor, so that was a disappointment. 5 is more what I want from this series though.
Excalibur: I liked the concept a lot (I've always been into the Moore/Davis Captain Britain and this deals a lot with those issues), but the execution has been lacking, so I can't recommend it as a title. Concept is that Elisabeth Braddock, now back in her original body, has taken the mantle of Captain Britain and leads a group of mutants into Otherworld, the mystical realm that is the source of the Captain Britain Corps and many British legends. Apocalypse works with them for his own reasons; strengthening Krakoa as a nation, but his methods often turn off his teammates. Of the other titles, I've read none of them except maybe an issue here and there in the beginning to sample. Fallen Angels at least was the worst of these titles.
Keep in mind that my tastes often differ from others on these boards.
I really appreciate this! So start with House of X? I just might give this a try. And my tastes often differ, as well  |
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