reading lists

The X-Men Go Out with a Bang. (Sorry Mr. Worthington!)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hey folx! I’m back, and we have some weird X-Men stuff to talk about. I didn’t get as much reading done on our camping trip as I’d thought, but that’s just because Kevin and I were having too much fun with our friends and we never got the rain that was forecasted. (I’d planned on spending the rainy day in the tent reading and listening to the rain on the tent. It’s my favorite thing!) Between that, an insanely busy week at work thus far, and two D&D campaigns, I’m just now getting time to write about the rest of the series. So, let’s get into it, shall we?

So, my darlings, we only have three, that’s right, THREE, issues left of the original X-Men run. This run ends with issue #66. Technically, the series will start back up with issue #67 in December of 1970, but these will just be reprints of the original stories. This was a format that Marvel used a lot at this time. X-Men had been cancelled, but then, seeing the sales numbers of the Neal Adams issues we’re going to talk about today, they decided to bring it back as reprints. Since we’ve already talked about these stories, we won’t be covering them again in the blog. I will let you know which issues were printed during the months we’re covering each time so we can keep up with it. But for now, let’s talk about these last few issues.

Issues 64 is a fun little romp that introduces us to a new mutant named Sunfire. The issue takes place right as the X-Men get home from their ordeal in the Savage Land, and they’re all still exhausted. But, while watching the news, they get a ping from their mini-Cerebro and Bobby, Hank, and Warren decide to go check it out. (Jean and Scott aren’t there). It’s Sunfire! He’s a Japanese diplomat’s son who wants to ruin his father’s legacy of working with the US. See, Shiro’s (Sunfire’s) mom was gravely injured by the bomb in Hiroshima and then died in childbirth. Shiro’s uncle has been raising him to hate the Americans for the bombing and the war. So, now, under his uncle’s conditioning, he sees his father as a traitor and attacks him at the UN in NYC. (Papa doesn’t know Sunfire is his sun, FWIW.) The three X-Men try to stop him, but Sunfire ends up hurting Beast pretty bad before getting away and the X-Men retreat to their city apartment to regroup. They meet up with Jean and Scott and the five of them follow Shiro and his father to DC, where they’re set to meet with Congress. Sunfire tries to blow up the Capital Building!! The X-Men try to stop him. Cyke’s powers are a fairly even match for Sunfire’s, but it takes Marvel Girl stepping in to help to turn the tide of the battle. And then, figuring out that this villain is his son, Shiro’s dad appears at the top of the Capital Building to reason with his son. But then evil uncle shows up and shoots dad. This is way too much for Sunfire, and he kills his uncle before rushing to his father’s side to renounce he behavior and turn himself over to the police. The X-Men shrink away into the trees before they can again be blamed for something that wasn’t their fault.

Like I said, this was a fun little issue, and overall I really enjoyed it. Per a note in the beginning of the issue, Don Heck subbed in on art for Neal Adams on this one, but this didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought it would. I do still have a problem with Scott CONSTANTLY telling Jean to stay out of the fighting, but since it’s just Scott doing it at this point, it’s less about overall treatment of women on the team, and more about super icky chauvinism from Scott towards his girlfriend. It’s a theme that’s going to continue in the series. The women are more and more treated like equal members of the teams, but the guys start exhibiting really problematic behavior in their romantic relationships that are presented as good or virtuous. So, best believe we’ll be talking about all of that toxic masculinity as we come across it! And speaking of toxic masculinity, lets jump over to our next issue!

We know you don’t, Scott. But you’re gonna have to figure it out ASAP.

Issue 65 begins with the X-Men arriving back at the mansion from DC to find Lorna and Alex in full costume waiting for them at the door. They say there’s no time to wait, the gang needs to change back into their uniforms because there’s a terrible danger. But either because the team is tired, or maybe because Roy Thomas is gone this month and Dennis O’Neil is writing, or maybe just because they needed to fill some pages, the X-Men proceed to start fighting with Alex and Lorna about this, going so far as to all use their powers on each other until FINALLY Scott takes his head out of his ass and calls for order. They all go in and change and then fight again. SOME. MORE. about these aliens that are headed towards earth to take over and enslave everyone. The X-Men are still skeptical, even after Alex lays out all the evidence and they fight some more until Alex reveals how they formed the plan to stop the aliens. Are you ready for this, my loves?… Fucking Xavier is still alive.

Not back from the dead. He’s been alive this entire fucking time. And Jean KNEW but was forbidden from telling anyone else. And it gets worse. He was never actually “dying” like he told the X-Men a few months back (a few years in real time, but only months in comic time.). What actually happened was this: He was researching this alien civilization because he figured out they were moving their planet towards ours to come conquer the Earth. In the meantime, apparently Changeling (remember him?) shows up and tells Chuck he’s dying, and wants to redeem himself. So Chuck asks Changeling to impersonate him so he can focus on this research, and then LETS HIM DIE IMPERSONATING HIM and lets the whole world think he’s dead. Oh, and apparently he’s been IN THE BASEMENT OF THE MANSION THIS ENITRE FUCKING TIME. So yeah, we’re going to stop right here and talk about how INCREDIBLY ABUSIVE this all is. Guys, Xavier is a MONSTER. Let’s make a list of the evidence, shall we? First, he took a venerable, dying mutant that came to him for help and manipulated the poor guy into dying for him. Next, he lied to everyone but Jean for MONTHS and then made her lie to all of her teammates/friends and her boyfriend. (I won’t even get into the shitty, patriarchal bullshit that is making the only woman on the team be Xavier’s emotional confidant because it’s automatically a woman’s job to be the emotional sounding board for toxic men.) Then, he just shows back up, apparently weakened, and just starts ordering everyone around again. THEN he takes this band of exhausted, confused, and betrayed kids, MENTALLY ERASES THEIR EXHAUSTION, forces them to keep training, and then sends them on a suicide mission. All in one goddamn issue! I seriously want to scream. This man cares NOTHING about these kids. They are simply tools for him to use to advance his plans. The writers gloss over his jumping into their brains to erase their exhaustion, but we’re not going to. This is so fucking fucked up. Because look, the kids have been running non-stop for days now. They just got done fighting Sunfire, who really messed them up, and they haven’t rested or slept. They’re not just mentally tired. They’re physically exhausted and injured. So, a mental wipe isn’t healing injuries, it’s just making their brains ignore it. He’s forcing them to keep training through physical exhaustion and injury. Someone is going to get REALLY hurt. I mean, not literally, because obviously the writers didn’t actually think this plot point through to it’s conclusion. But for real, it sucks!

But, back to the plot. The kids head to the magnetic south pole to fight the scout ship that’s already there, while Lorna stays back to help Xavier with his part of the plan. They get there just in time to see SHIELD send some jets at the ship and get completely destroyed. (We also get a quick cameo from Nick Fury himself!) But our X-Men are stupid brave and fly their specially designed ship directly inside of the scout ship, fight a giant green alien puppy/sea monster thing, and then fight some of the aliens. Meanwhile, Chuck connects himself telepathically to EVERYONE on the planet, and zeroes in on the good will of those who have it. Polaris (Lorna for those that don’t remember) uses her magnetic powers to help him direct all of this good will to Marvel Girl at the magnetic south pole. MG directs this at Havok, who somehow uses his powers to amplify it and send it into Cyke, who then sends it via his solar eye beams up at the planet of the would-be invaders. Meanwhile, Iceman uses his powers to keep Cyke from overheating from the raw power running through him. This plan succeeds in turning the aliens away because apparently, they have no sense of compassion or empathy, so sending all of that to them freaks them out and they run away. I know it sounds SO. FUCKING. CORNY. But, I have to be totally honest. It kind of works! It at very least gives us some gorgeous artwork of how all of the powers build on each other.

The downside to all of this awesome power combining? Chuck is in a coma!! Did I say downside? I meant bonus. (Look, I’ve made my feelings about Chuck known since the beginning, so let’s not act surprised that I’m happy he’s out of commission.) And it’s this comatose leader that moves us into our final X-Men issue for awhile: Issue #66.

See, the kids don’t know how to help Xavier out of his coma, so they fight amongst themselves like always. Especially Alex and Bobby, who seem to be fighting over Lorna until she puts them both in their place. They try mind-probing the prof, but it doesn’t really work. And only then do they realize that they have a fucking telepath in the room as ask Jean to try and get into his head. This really bothers me, because Jean has been getting stronger and stronger lately, she was the only one who knew Xavier was alive, and she’s been communicating with him telepathically for months. So, there is no reason she shouldn’t have offered to try right away, or why no one else should’ve thought of it too. I have a really hard time with how much Jean is pushed to the side constantly, basically until Claremont gets his hands on her in the 70’s and 80’s. She’s so incredibly awesome and powerful and these early writers don’t get that AT ALL. It’s so frustrating.

Anyway, Jean finally jumps into Xavier’s head and gets flashes of the Hulk. Eventually, the gang figures out it’s probably Bruce Banner, and not the Hulk that the prof needs, and they head out to find him. Scott asks Alex to stay behind to guard the professor. Lorna offers to stay with him, so, OF COURSE, a crazy jealous Bobby insists on staying too. Because, they don’t need everyone available to confront the FUCKING HULK or anything, Bobby. Goddess, I can’t even with this toxic jealousy between these boys. I am so fucking over it. I love Bobby Drake y’all, but I really hate him in this era. I miss the sweet kid who went on double dates with Hank and didn’t pick fights with everyone. He’s turning into Hawkeye. I take that back, it’s worse than that. He’s turning into fucking Henry Pym. Don’t do that to my Bobby, Roy Thomas! Seriously!!

Okay, so, Marvel Girl, Cyke, Beast, and Angel head out to find Bruce Banner. They find the Hulk in Vegas, and of course Hulk won’t listen to them so they fight. MG finally brings him down mentally (Yay Jeanie!!) and he turns back into Bruce Banner. Bruce tells them he worked on a device with Xavier that should help save him, and that it’s in one of Bruce’s hidden labs. But just then, the Army shows up to get the Hulk, which just turns Bruce BACK into a giant green rage monster, and he takes off. The X-Men follow before the Army can arrest them, and they end up out in the desert. They fight again because Hulk doesn’t like people talking about Bruce. Their fight causes an avalanche, which reveals a hidden lap in the mountain. The kids find the device in there, and let the Hulk take off as they head home with the device and save the professor. And we end the series with the whole team around the professor’s bed getting ready to fight another day.

Let’s pause here to talk about this run of X-Men as a whole. I’ve gotta be honest, loves. This was REALLY HARD to get through. This over-the-top, hyper masculine writing its not for me at all. I know there are a LOT of people who love these old comics for the nostalgia of the beginnings. And that’s totally fair. Maybe it’s because my intro to the X-Men was the 90’s cartoon, but for me, this was just painful. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels a little guilty for hating this era so much. I really WANT to like it. But I just can’t overall. I mean, there are definitely good moments throughout. Magneto is so over-the-top and fun during this era. And it’s been a lot of fun seeing the first appearances of characters like Havok, Polaris, Ka-Zar, and Sauron. Plus, I think starting at the very beginning for this project was important, no matter how painful it was. But I’m not gonna lie folx, I am so excited to be moving on to the Claremont run. We’ve got some of my absolute favorite characters coming up once we get to Giant Size and I cannot wait. We’ve got some Avengers to read before we get there, but we’re getting close!

Before we get to Avengers or Giant Size, we need to talk about parts of Ka-Zar 2&3. So, this series of Ka-Zar only lasted three issues, and it was a quarterly magazine with multiple stories in each issue. Issues 2 & 3 included a story about Angel that we are going to cover. It seems to take place after issue 66 of X-Men, even though issue 2 came out the month before. In these issues, Warren’s father, Warren Worthington Jr., is ill and Warren is at home visiting after stopping a bank robbery solo as Angel. He leaves for the evening to take his girlfriend, Candy out on a date. (We’ve met Candy once or twice in the X-Men comic, and, if I remember correctly, this won’t be the last time we see her either.) Anyway, we cut to the goons Angel stopped earlier, and they work for a villain called The Dazzler (not to be confused the the AMAZING Alison Blaire who won’t make her spectacular debut for another nine years!). The Dazzler has some nefarious plan we never really learn the details of, but somehow pulling them off hinges on murdering Mr. Worthington Jr. So, the goons sneak into the Worthington mansion and do just that. Because Warren’s father is a well known businessman and socialite in NYC, his murder is reported on the radio as soon as the police arrive at the mansion. Unfortunately for everyone, Warren hears this report in the car on his way home with Candy. He FREAKS out, and takes off to chase the murderers, leaving Candy alone on the side of the road (luckily, he also left her the car since he ran into the woods and then took off as Angel). He finds the murderers on their flying pogo sticks (Yes, that’s really what they’re called. LOL.) and fights them. He’s beating one of them mercilessly when the police show up. They’re about to arrest Angel as well as the murderer, but luckily FBI Agent Duncan is there too, and let’s Angel go with a warning about not taking the law into his own hands, which Angel is clearly not going to listen to. For those that don’t remember Agent Duncan, he was the FBI agent we met all the way back in X-Men #44 and he’s being coordinating with Xavier to help the X-Men save the day. (Yeah, I’d completely forgotten about him too!)

Warren heads home to console his mother before going to find The Dazzler, but he doesn’t get the chance, because apparently The Dazzler has technology to transport Warren from his mansion to Dazzler’s lair. So now Warren is a prisoner. But, since no one knows he’s Angel, he easily sneaks out of his cell and confronts The Dazzler, who tries to convince Angel to back down by revealing that he also has Candy prisoner. He’s banking on a hero not being willing to let her die, even if he doesn’t know her. (Cause, you know, no one’s figured out that Angel is Warren. LOL) The thing is, Warren was already blaming Candy for his father’s death, because our egotistical, hot-tempered Angel is not coping with his very fresh grief well, my loves. He freezes in place and The Dazzler’s goons close in to remove his mask. And that’s where we end! We’re told the rest of this story will appear in Marvel Tale’s #30, but that won’t be published until April of 1971, so we’ll have to wait to see how it plays out. I have to say, this was a good little arc thus far! It’s super sad, and just the beginning of a pattern of tragedy and trauma for all of our mutants. Angel is super angry and hyper-masculine in this arc, but this time it doesn’t bother me. All of this takes place in two days, and his father was just violently murdered. This feels like a REAL response from a young kid who is also a superhero in this situation. I just hope it’s wrapped up well when we get to MT#30.

And with that, we’re done with our X-Men for a few years. We’ll be jumping back into Avengers with our next outing, as our favorite mutant twins are making their return to the group. And we’ll be there for awhile while we wait for Giant Size to come in 1975. We’ll also be adding more titles before then, as our wayward mutants join some other teams to bide their time. I’m excited to move on to this next chapter, and meet some really fun new characters. So, until next time my loves, keep searching….

1969 Part Two: This is More Fun!

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my loves! I’m back already with the remainder of 1969. There’s only four issues left to cover, so this will be a much quicker discussion than yesterday. I’m flying through stuff right now in the excitement (and ADHD hyper focus) of starting the blog back up. But I can’t promise I’ll be able to maintain this pace long-term. So fair warning, we may slow down a bit eventually. But there won’t be any more five year hiatuses, so don’t worry too much! Just understand that I do have a career to navigate, an incredibly spirited 6.5 year old to parent, and an amazing husband and friends to spend time with. So let’s set some expectations now. LOL.

Speaking of amazing husbands and friends, we’re going camping this weekend with some awesome comic-shop friends and some awesome non-comic-shop friends, and I’m super excited! We do this trip every year, and it’s where Kevin proposed two years ago, so it holds a special place in my heart. It’s also the perfect excuse to run over to Carol & John’s later today to pick up some trades. I mean, what if I don’t have a cell signal this weekend and can’t get on Marvel Unlimited?! I need to be able to do some reading while we’re there. But seriously, I’ve been using Marvel Unlimited exclusively since I’ve been back. I lost most of my Avengers and early X-Men trades in the divorce. C seemed to think all of the comics were just automatically his I guess, and I wasn’t in a healthy enough place to fight him on it. I was able to hold on to my Uncanny X-Men Omnibus, my Adamantium Collection that I highlighted on the blog a few years ago when I got it, and my copy of God Loves, Man Kills, but that was about it. Those three were the most important to me, and two of them are now signed by Chris Claremont, so I’ll survive and rebuild my collection as I go! It’ll be fun to share my purchases and finds with you all as we go anyway, so look out for shopping posts in the future!

My copy of God Loves, Man Kills sign by Chris Claremont and letterer Tom Orzechowski

For now, let’s jump into our comics for today. We’re starting with Issues 60-61. You’ll remember we left off after the craziness with the Sentinels with the X-Men reaching out to a Dr. Lykos, who is apparently an old colleague of Charles’. We pick up exactly where we left off at the beginning of issue 60. The X-Men are rushing Alex to this doctor because he’s apparently gravely injured from the fight with the Sentinels. and they don’t want to chance a public hospital since there’s been so much anti-mutant sentiment lately. So, they drop Alex off and leave, and have some fun in the danger room. It’s a great little sequence of the guys training, while Jean and Lorna use their powers from the sidelines to fuck with the guys by activating different parts of the room. It’s great to see the danger room again. It’s been a really long time since we’ve seen it, and it’s such a wonderful part of the X-Men. And it’s great to see the girls have some fun, mess with the guys, and show off their powers. It’s also nice to see Jean have another girl to interact with and not just be there for the guys to infantilize. Meanwhile, we learn Dr. Lykos’ backstory. He used to live in the Antarctic with his dad, and they were guides for rich people who wanted to explore. One day, a rich guy and his kid had hired them for exploration and the little girl, Tanya goes missing. Young Karl finds her in a cave being attacked by Pteranodons and fights them off but gets injured. (Do you guys know where this is going yet? No? Okay, let’s keep going!) Rich guy is a doctor and helps him, but he now has the ability to drain living things of their energy! (Still unsure? Let’s keep reading…) His dad eventually dies and rich guys takes him in to repay the debt he owes Karl for saving Tanya. Karl and Tanya grow up and fall in love, but rich guy doesn’t want his daughter to marry Karl because he’s poor. So Karl leaves to find his fortune as a doctor and win the hand of his love. But, in the process, he finds he needs to drain life from people to gain strength and stay alive. Also, something is driving him to do it more and more. He’s battling with himself over the ethics and of this and it’s clear there is a good Karl and an evil voice fighting for control in his mind. We learn he worked with Charles before to try to get access to mutants because he thinks draining them will give him powers and allow him to amass a fortune to buy his bride. (He says it’s to win her hand, but we all know what it really is. He has to buy her from her father. That’s the not so subtle implication here. Tanya has absolutely no agency in this story!) So, now Lykos has his hands on an unconscious Alex, and he begins draining him of his energy. And as he does, he transforms! Into a fucking dinosaur! A Pteranodon to be exact! That’s right my loves, this is the very first appearance of SAURON!!!!!!!

Quick aside: I fucking love Sauron. He’s a talking Pteranodon that has a hypnotic stare and can only turn into/maintain his dinosaur form by draining life force from mutants. It’s just the kind of absolute ridiculousness that I love from my X-Men villains. Also, Lykos specifically tells us that he chose his name directly from The Lord of the Rings mythos, (see panel above) so that’s a fun fact I didn’t know about him! Seems fitting since he says that he’s giving in the the evil in his head, and given that his powers derive from his eyes. I like it!

Anyway, Sauron takes off to go be evil, and the X-Men catch wind of it on a news report and take off to stop him. They fight. He loses his form, but not before hypnotizing Angel to help him and take him home. Sauron having gotten away, and the kids unsure why Angel helped him, they rush off to pick up Alex from Dr. Lykos. But Tanya has also shown up at his office, having run away to be with him. Alex is awake with no idea about what Lykos did to him, and feeling better then ever. And just then, Tanya’s rich dad shows up to demand she come home and never see Karl again. There is SO much happening in this office all at once! OMG. Tanya insists she’s staying with Karl, but Karl refuses her, saying he has to earn the money first to show her dad. Again, she has no fucking agency. It’s annoying. But since both of these men are villains, I can look over a bit and chalk it up to them being assholes. So lets move on. The kids head back to the mansion to find a dazed Angel bring looked after by Lorna. They decide they need Lykos’ help with Warren, but Warren freaks out at hearing the name, so Beast knocks him out! Because, you know, that’s the responsible way to deal with your mentally unwell team mate Hank! The X-Men leave to go get Lykos while Alex and Lorna stay to watch Warren and look through Chucks notes about the doctor. But Lykos shows up while the X-Men are away, and drains all three of them, turning back into Sauron. He leaves to find Tanya and her dad, and they all converge, with the X-Men. Karl wins out over Sauron when he sees how freaked out Tanya is, and he takes off. Tanya follows, and then the X-Men. He’s headed to his old home in the Antarctic. Tanya gets there before the X-Men, and Karl THROWS HIMSELF OFF A CLIFF so that Sauron can’t force him to kill Tanya for her energy. Seriously. The X-Men show up just in time to be too late, but they do stop Tanya from jumping over the edge after Karl. So, I guess that’s good? Cyke even makes a comment about how the man won out over the monster and that’s all they could hope for.

This was a fun little arc, and a fitting intro to Sauron, who is a great X-Men villain. (Spoiler alert I guess? You didn’t think he was REALLY, TRULY dead, did you? If you did, you haven’t been paying attention.) I have to say, as much as I’ve really not liked a lot of this 60’s stuff, the one silver lining to all of the it is getting to see the beginnings for all of these great, classic characters. And this next arc is no exception, so lets get to it, shall we?

Issues 62 & 63 start off with Angel, alone, fighting Pteranodons. Huh?!? He loses and begins to plummet from a deadly height. And as he falls, we get the story of what’s happened to bring us to this point. See, he woke up at the mansion to find the X-Men gone, and followed their trail. He showed up at Lykos’ a bit too late, but found his journal and guessed they were headed to the Antarctic. He got there too late as well, but was told by Tanya that the X-Men went down the cliff to recover Karl’s body for her. So, Angel heads that way as well and is attacked by the flying monsters we saw. All caught up, we watch Angel land on the ground in a tropical location, seemingly dead. He’s found by a frog-man and a mysterious stranger and they take him back to their base to try to revive him. Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men are somewhere near-by fighting a T-Rex!!! Have you guessed where we are yet, my loves?!? No? Here’s another hint: As they’re fighting, an old friend and his feline companion show up to tell them to leave. It’s none other than Ka’Zar and Zabu!!!!!! That’s right, we’re in the SAVAGE LAND!!!!

Like before, Ka’Zar is having none of the X-Men’s shit and basically yells at them to leave because he has his own problems to deal with here. But, because these boys all have egos that are too big for their own good, Iceman fucking attacks Ka-Zar just for pointing at them, and they fight until Zabu pins Beast to the ground and the X-Men realize they’re outmatched. They follow Ka-Zar and watch him fight some locals who seem to have mutant powers. They join the fight to help him. Meanwhile, we see “The Creator”, the stranger from earlier, using a machine to revive Angel. He’s also put Angel into a snazzy new blue and white costume. Angel awakes and the Creator tells him how he’s been rescuing mutants in the Savage Land from being discriminated against by non-mutants, and says that Ka-Zar and the X-Men are trying to stop him. Angel agrees to talk to them to try to help the Creator and takes off to find his friends. He finds them quickly, but Ka-Zar attacks him before he can say anything since apparently the people who have lived and fought with Warren for the last five years can’t fucking recognize him just because he changed his fucking clothes?!?!? Poor Warren. These people either don’t give a shit about him, or they’re really really stupid. LOL. Anyway, he tries to tell them all to stand down, but just then the Creator’s mutants attack them all and a huge fight ensues. The X-Men prevail and fight their way into the base. We learn that the Creator is actually…. wait for it…. MAGNETO!!!! No joke. Our favorite bad guys is back!!! Horary!!!!!!!

Turns out he lied to Angel (I know, I’m shocked too.) He’s been making mutants by capturing the locals and doing experiments on them. His newest mutant is Lorelei, a gorgeous blonde with a siren song that seems to hypnotize and stop all the guys in their tracks. Marvel Girl is unaffected, and tries to fight Mags. She’s not doing great until she uses her telekinesis to lift Cyke’s visor and destroys Mags machine. The bad mutants revert to their normal, human selves, and Mags throws himself under the falling wreckage of his machine, seemingly dying. (This man is so emo and I am so here for it!) But, we’re smarter than that, right my loves? We know better than to fall for that again. However, the X-Men aren’t apparently, because they just assume Mags is dead. Really guys?!?! This is like, the fourth time he’s “died” and you’re just going to take it at face value and not look for a body or anything? GRRR. That said, we finally got a story where Marvel Girl gets to save everyone! I’m not thrilled that she acted like a weak little girl through most of the fight, but she still won out in the end and outsmarted Mags to save the day. So, YAY!!!!

And yay for finally being out of the fucking ’60’s. Overall, these last four issues had way less problems then the previous ones, and we got to spend time with a lot of my favorite X-Men baddies, so it was a nice end to an annoying decade! We’ll pick back up with 1970 soon. We’ll be hitting a break in the X-Men as the title ends soon, but we’ll be jumping back into Avengers, so there’s still plenty of mutant madness to go around! I’m excited to keep going. If you’re excited too, come back for more, and in the mean time, check out the brand new Facebook page for the blog: Searching for Genosha! It’s a great way to stay up-to-date on posts if you’re not following the blog on WordPress. There will also be more content there, as I share photos and quick updates about my life and about the shopping and writing/creative processes behind all of this. I hope you’ll join us over there, and until next time, my loves, keep searching!!!

1969 Part 1: Let’s talk Representation

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my loves! It’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve written about comics, so I’m feeling a little rusty and anxious about this post. So, bare with me as I get my bearings again.

Since currently the only title we’re reading is X-Men, (and because I am DESPERATE to get to Giant Size and Claremont’s run!) we’re going to fly through 1969 in just two posts. This post will cover issues #52-59. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and a few different story arcs, so lets jump in!

So, X-Men #52 is the end of the arc we started 5 years ago. (Oops!) I’ll do my best to catch you guys up, but you can also refresh your memories here! Basically, Mesmero is trying to carry out Magneto’s vision of mutant supremacy. He has captured Lorna Dane, telling her she’s Magneto’s daughter and that she must rule in his stead until he returns. We learn that Magneto is apparently NOT dead, and Bobby storms off on the rest of the team when they are forced to leave Lorna behind with Mesmero. Cyke tells the team he has a plan, and we cut to Erik the Red, challenging Mesmero for leadership of this whole silly plot. And that brings up to #52!

So, issue 52 is the wrap up to this arc. Eric the Red proceeds to fight his way through ALL of Mesmero’s goons and Mesmero until he is face to face with Lorna, who, despite recognizing that her dad’s plans are evil, feels she must help him because he’s her blood. Erik talks his way into joining Magneto as his second in command, and Mesmero is pissed guys! The whole thing is crazy silly, but it’s still fun. Then we cut to X-Men, where Jean is telepathically reaching out to each of them to begin Cyke’s plan that he mentioned at the end of issue 51. We still don’t know exactly what it is, but Bobby isn’t part of it since he stormed out on the team last issue. MG, Beast, and Angel arrive at the hideout of Mags and Mesmero and sneak in. They’re confronted by Erik the Red, who turns out to be Cyclops!! I have to be honest, I didn’t actually see that one coming. I probably should have, but I didn’t. It’s a great little plan on Scott’s part, until his identity is IMMEDIETLY discovered by Mesmero and the X-Men accidently use the trap they’ve laid against Bobby instead of the bad guys!! Way to go guys!

Anyway, the X-Men fight Mesmero and his henchmen after Beast gets an unconcious Iceman to safety. Bobby wakes up and find Lorna. He tells her that he spoke with her adoptive parent’s and has proof that she is NOT Magneto’s daughter. Thus free of her allegiance to Mags, Lorna absolutely destroys the remaining base and bad guys. Mags escapes (because of course he does!), our X-Men + Lorna live to fight another day, and Bobby and Lorna seem to be getting very close. But let’s pause here for a second to talk about Lorna. Cause guys, I have issues. Lorna Dane is a pretty cool character who is going to get totally under-utilized as the years go on, but this is the first time I’ve read her origin. And I have to say, it really sucks. Like Jean and Wanda before her, she starts off a totally one-dimensional character. A damsel in distress that is too stupid to question these villains feeding her some legit CRAZY story about how a mass murderer is her real father and also too weak willed to not question it and just go along with them because “blood” or some such nonsense. SERIOUSY?!? Like, she spends all of issue 52 complaining about how Mags is evil, but she has to defend him to the death because he’s her father. Girl, you’re powerful enough to bring this entire operation down in a second, and you don’t even think to do it until Bobby tells you that you were lied to?!? Even then, you just believe Bobby with no proof (although, in Bobby’s defense, he does have receipts and offers them to her, she just apparently doesn’t need to see the evidence.) I’m so fucking sick of reading women who are nothing but pretty things for the guys to swoon over and sometimes have small victories against the villains. It’s exhausting. Especially when I’ve read more modern stuff and know how fucking bad-ass these same women will be under a better writer. Jean, Wanda, Lorna: they will all eventually have world-ending, reality-bending, earth-shattering powder and they deserve better than this. Ok…rant over for now. Let’s continue on.

On top of this silly story, issue 52 brings us the art of Werner Roth who has made a few appearances as artist in the past. His art is great, if a little “house style” for my liking. It’s awesome art, it’s just not Steranko, so I’m a little sad. But nothing I can’t get past. And also, we need to talk about Erik the Red’s AMAZING bondage outfit. Who knew Scotty had that side to him?!?

But seriously, with that arc neatly wrapped up, lets move on the the next one! But first! Issue #53, “The Rage of Blastaar!” (AKA, the useless filler issue) Seriously, this is a one-off story about some alien named Blastaar who gets pulled down to earth when Jean tries to use some of Chucks equipment. He’s very angry and ragey, and he’s absolutely destroying our X-Men until Jean and Bobby make a bunch of ice mannequins to throw at him, they melt, and make a connection between him and the machine and he’s sent right back to where he came from. I wish I were kidding. We’re even treated to Jean being sad at watching this creature “die” even though he’s clearly pure evil and wants to destroy then entire world. Because, girls are emotional you guys! (Please see above for my feelings on this matter. LOL)

Let’s move on, shall we? Awesome! Cause I’m super excited for this next arc. It’s a dumb story, but I have reasons for being excited. Issue #54 starts a new arc that will run for like, three and a half issues, centering around the Living Pharaoh (LP) and it also introduces the one and only, Alex Summers!!!! (*insert happy dance here*!) That’s right, it’s time to meet the baby Summers brother, my loves! Are you as excited as I am? You really should be!

So, first off, just want to mention that as this arc unfolds, we go from Arnold Drake writing and Don Heck taking over on pencils, to Roy Thomas writing with Don Heck’s art, and finally to Roy Thomas writing with Neal Adams doing the artwork. This pair will continue for the next eight issues, and it’s a great pairing. I really like Neal Adam’s art. It’s clean and crisp in a way we haven’t seen yet and it’s really pretty. So, anyway, this whole arc is about a new mutant villain who has named himself the Living Pharaoh. He’s kidnapped Scott’s younger brother Alex, who by the way, Scott has been in touch with, but has told no one about. The entire team is with him to watch Alex graduate from college, all thinking about how Scott never told them he had a brother. Not even Jean! Alex doesn’t appear to have any mutant powers, FYI. The team fights LP and loses, the LP tries to frame Cyclops for his death. Cyke escapes the police and find LP and LP ends up kidnapping him as well, and he takes them to Egypt. The rest of the team follows, and they fight some more. In the fight, Alex suddenly manifests his mutant powers and stops LP! (Here’s my shocked face that Alex is a mutant. LOL. As if a Summers could get through this world without powers or tragedy.) As they try to find someone to turn the captured LP over to, they stumble into his base and there’s more fighting. LP kidnaps Alex AGAIN. SOME MORE. And the team is left trying to find him somewhere in the Egyptian desert. And yes, I know, this recap is very tedious. Trust me, so was the arc. LP goes on and on to Alex about cosmic rays being the source of their powers and that he grows stronger as Alex grows weaker? Don’t ask. It doesn’t make sense to me either. LOL. Anyway, LP drains Alex of his powers and, I kid you not, transforms into a giant stone being and calls himself “The Living Monolith”. I wish I were making this up. But the X-Men eventually defeat him (and by X-Men, I mean Alex. They’re getting their asses handed to them until Alex takes control and breaks out of the machine draining him and uses his powers. This apparently drains LP of all of his powers and he’s no longer a giant stone creature and passes out.) We end with Alex freaking out about not being able to control his new powers. Whew!

So, there’s still like, half an issue left of this arc in #57, but it’s just a wrap up of Alex, not LP, so let’s pause to talk about LP. Because it’s super icky. We’ve talked a tiny bit about representation and politics and such in the past, but, fair warning, we are going to be discussing it more going forward. It’s important to me to talk about how these things evolve and change. That said, back to the current issue at hand, which is that every last one of these “Egyptian” henchmen and LP himself are white men dressed like ancient Egyptians. You see the problem here, right? It’s made even ickier when the Living Pharaoh explains that he thinks he is an ancestor of the ancient pharaohs. And he thinks a very white Alex is too. So, not just a white boy with an Egypt fetish. A white boy who wants to claim status in this non-white culture. We have ourselves a lot of weird, imperialist, white-washing politics going on here. Historically, this isn’t surprising. This is completely on brand with a long history of white-washing Egyptian culture and representation in American media. (For further examples, please see Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, the entire cast of “The Ten Commandments“, and basically the entire cast of “Gods of Egypt” just to name a few) I’m not exaggerating when I say that American media really likes to cast white actors as Egyptian rulers and gods. Like, a LOT. To be honest, I’m not sure if this is worse then some villainous stereotype like we had with the Mandarin in Avengers? They’re obviously both bad choices. Like, if the only representation of non-white characters is villains, that’s obviously shitty. But, white-washing everyone isn’t the answer. (Nor do I give the writers and artists enough credit to think that was their intention when making these villains white.) But either way, it’s super gross to have all of these white superheroes (Avengers and X-Men alike) fighting villains from all sorts of non-white cultures when those cultures don’t get any representation as heroes. There are no Asian superheroes in this era. There are no African superheroes. But we’ve seen villains from all over Asia in Avengers that were gross stereotypes, and now we have Egyptian villains here. Guys, I need some Storm and Sunfire in my life like, right fucking now. So, lets end this rant and keep going so we can get to Giant Size and get to at least some representation in the hero’s line-up!

If it’s not clear from the covers above, this next arc (Issues 57-59) is bringing back those undaunting, ever-returning, amazing X-foes: THE SENTINELS!!!!!! And, as should be clear from the cover of issue #58, we get the first appearance of Alex as Havok as well!! Guys, I’m excited for this arc. Not just for these appearances, but because it’s just a better arc in general than the last one. So lets go!

Issue 57 starts with Lorna, home in NYC, getting kidnapped by a Sentinel!?! And then, before we can question it, we cut back to our X-Men in Egypt. Alex has fled and the Egyptian authorities are on scene of the last battle with LP. LP turns out to be some renowned archeologist, and he blames Alex for the destruction of the ancient ruins he was using as his base (Not wrongly either, as Alex literally razed the entire structure when his powers went off in the last issue!). But Cyke is pissed that these cops are after his brother and he fucking attacks them, because of course he does. **Quick aside here. Do you guys remember my undying love for Scott? Full disclosure: it’s gone. I warned you all that I’m a different person and comic fan than I was five years ago. This will probably be most apparent in this specific shift. You’ll find I no longer love Scott. In fact, I have very little patience for his quick temper or his martyrdom or (spoiler alert!) the absolutely terrible way he treats Jean and other partners in the future. He’s got a lot of toxic traits and he reminds me too much of my ex husband, and it isn’t until MUCH MUCH later on that he starts to redeem himself. So, just be prepared. LOL.** Anyway, the team runs off to find Alex, but it’s for naught because he was hiding in a nearby cave, but he is also captured by a Sentinel. The team tries to contact Lorna so she can turn on Cerebro for them to find Alex, and they discover her apartment in shambles. Iceman freaks out because she’s his girlfriend and he’s worried. So the team splits up. Iceman and Beast head back to the states to find Lorna and the rest of the team continues to search for Alex. When Iceman and Beast arrive at Lorna’s, they’re confronted by two NYPD officers and we learn through the TV that while they’ve been in Egypt, a federal judge has been working with Bolivar Trask’s son to stir up anti-mutant sentiment again and restart the Sentinel program!! And these aren’t his father’s Sentinels. Dear son Larry has improved them. They’re now the purple and pink giants most of us think of when we think of the Sentinels. And they’ve been upgraded with specific attacks meant to counter the X-Men’s powers. (Heat for Iceman, water for fire, etc.) The boys are attacked by a Sentinel and Iceman sacrifices himself so that Beast can get away and contact the rest of the team to warn them. The rest of the team rushes home, but not before Angel throws a fit about being “The Avenging Angel” (we’ll talk about that at the end. It’s part of his back story that’s been happening in the ends of the last few issues) and decides to FLY HOME FROM EGYPT HIMSELF. WITH HIS WINGS. I can’t even with this. Cyke warns him that he’s never flown that far before, that they’re in a hurry, that he’ll be too exhausted to fight, and 100 other reasons this is a terrible fucking idea. But, of course, Angel does it anyway.

Cut to Larry Trask’s base of operations where we learn he has a way to temporarily block mutant powers. We also learn that he has Alex and Lorna there and Alex has agreed to work for Trask as “Havok” in return for Lorna and the other’s safety. Iceman is relieved to see Lorna still alive, but fights with Havok about his deal, calling him a coward. But then Havok takes down a Sentinel single-handed and that basically shuts Iceman up. Alex is POWERFUL you guys. Like, incredibly so! It’s awesome!! And he’s now in a very basic Havok costume: all black with the circles around his head. Anyway, Trask blocks Havok’s powers and we cut to Professor Abdol (the Living Pharaoh!) bitching about the X-Men and mutants to a room of Trask cronies, just to then turn back into LP as Havok is weakened by some device of Trasks and is attacked and carried away by Sentinels. It’s a fun bit of karma carried over from the last arc, and it’s done well. I really appreciate how at this point in the series, Roy Thomas blends these arcs into each other so organically.

Meanwhile, Angel is captured by two Sentinels as he streaks across the ocean, and guess what? It happens right outside of the commercial flight that Scott and Jean are on, so fuck off Warren. You weren’t any faster then them and you were too exhausted to even try to fight off the Sentinels. These boys and their fucking egos. Anyway, we cut to scenes of other mutants being captured by these new and improved Sentinels. We see Mesmero captured, but when the Sentinels try to capture Magneto too (who is with Mesmero) we learn that it’s not really Mags!! It’s a fucking Android!!! And Mesmero had no clue!!! I love it. I love it so much. Of course Magneto isn’t really there. Is he actually really dead? Is he just too cool to actually hang out with Mesmero? Who knows?!? But then Judge Chalmers shows up at the base. He and Larry fight as we see the remaining three X-Men (Marvel Girl and Cyke have met up with Beast) trying to sneak into the base outside. The judge pulls a medallion off Larry’s neck that his father gave him, and suddenly the Sentinels stop obeying him. Guys, turns out little Larry is a fucking mutant (because of course he is!). He is clairvoyant and predicted his mom’s death. That freaked out Bolivar, so he gave him a medallion to block his powers. Then he created the Sentinel program to wipe out mutants because, I guess, he was scared they’d out his son or something? But now that the Sentinels can sense that Larry is a mutant, they refuse to listen to him. They lock him up with Havok, Lorna, and Iceman and prepare to receive other mutants that have been captured so they can kill all of them. We see Banshee (!!!!) for the first time in years, as he’s been captured and tries to overpower everyone in the base. He fails. We also see Sentinels capturing Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad, and Unus, Mastermind, and Blob. Our three remaining X-Men sneak into the base, switch costumes with SW, QS, and Toad to confuse the Sentinels, and then fight their way to the rest of the captured mutants. Between Cyke and Havok, they take out a lot of the Sentinels. And then Cyke convinces the Sentinels that they have to protect humans by ending the source of mutation itself, so the Sentinels all fly away to go try to destroy the sun. For real. It’s so ridiculous, but it works and is HIGHLY entertaining. We end with Havok injured and the team calling a mysterious old friend of Charles’ for help. A friend named Dr. Lykos!!!! (If you don’t know Dr. Lykos, I won’t spoil the surprise, but I’m so fucking excited!!!)

So yeah. That ends the reading for this entry. We still have to talk about the back stories at the ends of these issues, but I first want to say that this reading ended on a major high note for me. You guys, I LOVE the Sentinels. They’re awesome adversaries and, while these original ones in the 60’s are a bit silly, they become absolutely terrifying as the years go on and I can’t wait to see them evolve. It’s going to be lots of fun!! But lets talk about the origin stories in these issues:

First off is the rest of Beast’s backstory. We left off with him captured by El Conquistador and forced to help him to save his parents. Hank has to steal an experimental nuclear reactor. He does no problem, but of course EC lied to him and won’t release him or his parents. Then Angel, Cyke, and Iceman show up to save him and take him back to the mansion. (Yes, I know we haven’t gotten Angel’s backstory yet. The writers are also aware and mention it. Apparently we’re getting them out of order.) Beast joins the X-Men and Chuck ups his game this time and erases the memory of Hanks powers from the ENTIRE FUCKING TOWN. I am so glad he is dead. Like, for real. This man has no concept of consent at all.

Next up is Angel. He’s in boarding school when his wings start to grow. He freaks out and gets himself isolated from the other boys in the dorms so no one knows. Then one night, there’s a fire in the dorms and he flies in and saves everyone, pretending to be an actual angel. This gives him the bug for hero-ing and he rents an apartment on his own and begins fighting crime as “The Avenging Angel” (I told you we’d get it it! Lol). Anyway, Cyke and Iceman show up to recruit him as he’s coming back from stopping some thieves. He still has the vial the thieves stole. Chuck telepathically tells Cyke and Iceman to capture Warren with NO explanation and they fight. Then Chuck jumps into Warren’s head to tell him that the vial he has is going to explode because, I kid you not, his MUTANT BODY activated it. *Sigh* So Warren does the noble thing and flies it up into the upper atmosphere to freeze it (because of course right before this he knocked Iceman out, so he conveniently can’t freeze it). He almost dies, but doesn’t, and agrees to join the team. And this time, Chuck doesn’t have to mind-wipe anyone!! Yay for small victories I guess! Let’s go with that as we jump to Jean, cause it’s not going to be fun.

Up until now, all of our heroes have had multi-installment back stories that involve danger and adventure. But that’s all about to change. Because Jean Grey doesn’t get a backstory. She gets five fucking pages at the end of issue #57. The whole thing is told from her perspective and is entitled “The Female of the Species”, so I’m already seeing red. We’re told on the first page that Stan Lee has brought in a female writer (Linda Fite) for this special “origin”, but if you think that’s going to help, you’re sorely mistaken. What we get is Marvel Girl explaining her powers to us in the most ridiculous ways. We see how her telekinesis helps her make apple pies and do housework, how her levitation helps her escape “boring garden parties” and we end with her telling us that just walking down the street is an adventure because she can stop purse snatchers (without taking any credit for it) and that she can “turn men’s heads without trying” because apparently being appealing to the opposite sex is more important that being a badass superhero. Guys, I’m livid. We get absolutely no explanation of how her powers manifested, how she was originally recruited to join the X-Men, or anything else. We just get, basically, a Good Housewife article with superpowers.

And on that less than stellar note, it’s time to wrap up this EXTREMLY long entry. Please know that, despite all my rage, I do love these comics and these characters. These stories are silly and convoluted, but they’re still a lot of fun. And we’re about to get into an arc that introduces a really fun villain in our next section of reading, so that will be cool to get into. I think you guys will really like him! I know I do. He’s just so over the top and silly, you can’t help but love it! So, hang in there with me my loves. I promise I won’t always be so negative and grouchy with our merry band of mutants. Let’s get excited about what’s to come, and until next time, keep searching my darlings!

5 Years Later… Or, how meeting Chris Claremont brought me back home.

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Me & Chris after a LONG day or signings and photos.
Me and Chris after 14 hours straight of signings, photo ops, and comics discussion.

Well, it’s been four years since my last post, and over five years since the last time I actually talked about the X-Men. And it’s been a LONG five years. I want to get back into this blog, but for my own personal well-being, I need to clear the air a bit and explain my absence. While there aren’t too many people following this blog, and most of you know me IRL, the last five years have changed me as a person, a comic fan, and a writer, and will thus probably change the tone of the blog and my impressions of the comics we’ll be covering moving forward. So, I think it’s only fair to explain a bit. So, here goes nothing…

Literally a week after my last X-Men related post in May of 2016, my husband, “C”, told me he wanted a divorce. I was caught completely off guard by this, and my world crashed around me. I would later learn that he’d been having an affair with a coworker and was leaving to be with her. I’d also learn it wasn’t his first affair, and that he’d spent most of our relationship trying to sleep with everyone he could; our friends, his coworkers, even my cousins. Over the next year, I had to learn who I was outside of that relationship, learn to parent my young daughter basically alone, and started the hard work of coming to terms with just how abusive and toxic my marriage had been. What followed was the hardest, and best year of my life. A lot of therapy and a lot of help from my best friends helped me start unpacking the damage C had done to my self-esteem, my sense of self, and my mental and physical health. I reacquainted myself with friends that had drifted away as C’s toxicity started to show through his façade, and let go of people I learned weren’t actually the friends I thought they were. I rediscovered things I’d let go over the years; camping, nights out with my friends, reading new novels, and even slowly found myself falling in love with the best man I’ve ever known: my best friend, Kevin.

I’m happy to say that I got to keep the comic shop and the family I’d made there over the years, as C distanced himself from them. But what I lost was my love for the comics and the atmosphere. It was all too tied up in my feelings about him and what he’d put me through. Comics and the shop were such a central part of our relationship and I just couldn’t uncouple the two. And it broke my heart. I maintained my friendships with the staff and the patrons I’ve become close to over the years, but I closed my file and stopped reading comics completely. Eventually, Kevin and our friend Joe would persuade me to start attending shop events and parties again. Kevin and I even dressed up as our favorite mutant twins for one FCBD celebration and volunteered to work the midnight party like I used to. It felt like coming home. But I still wasn’t ready to start reading again. At least not main-stream, super hero stuff. I did throw myself into The Wicked and The Divine and a few other indie things.

Honestly, the hardest thing was trying to figure out if this love of X-Men and Marvel comics in general was real, and if it was MINE, and not some weird obsession I subconsciously picked up to please C or relate to him. If you’ve never been in a relationship that was controlling and abusive, that might be hard to understand. All I can say is that it is a coping mechanism I picked up without actively meaning to over the years, and it took me a LONG. TIME. to both unlearn it, and figure out what things were true to my likes and passions and what were coping mechanisms. This specific part of my life was the hardest to figure out. I mean, I LOVED comics. I loved them so much I wrote my senior thesis for my English BA on them. I spend HOURS and HOURS making costumes for comic shop events. And I spent an obscene amount of time and effort and money on this X-Men project and blog. But, on the other hand, I didn’t even think of reading comics until C was so obsessed. Outside of X-Men, which I’d loved since the cartoon in the ’90’s, I let him dictate what I should read. So, was this really MINE? I hope you guys can understand how these fears and doubts made it impossible for me to keep going on my project and the blog.

I spent the last 5 years working extremely hard with my therapist and Kevin and my friends and family to find myself again. And I have. I still have a lot of PTSD and triggers to work on, but I’m more myself and more sure of who that is then I have ever been. Kevin and I got engaged in 2019, and I threw myself into planning our wedding. We got married this past Labor Day weekend it was perfect! My daughter started kindergarten in the middle of COVID last year, and I threw myself into helping her through distance learning and uncertainty. I got a new job that I love and that I am kicking ass in, and I threw myself into this new career. And somewhere in the midst of all of that, I silently came to terms with the fact that comics weren’t part of my life anymore. I could finally enjoy Carol and John’s again, and I could watch all the Marvel movies/TV shows and obsess over them with my friends. But reading comics wasn’t mine. And even though that was hard, it was okay. And then, something amazing happened. Something, dare I say, uncanny… I met Chris Claremont!!

John, the owner of Carol & John’s Comic Shop (and a dear, dear friend) called to tell me that he was bringing in Chris Claremont to do a panel and signing at the shop for Free Comic Book Day this year (this past August). John obviously knows how much I loved the X-Men and knew all about this project and blog (I mean, he and his staff were INTEGRAL in helping me compile my crazy reading list), and so he was calling to see if I would like to help him out and work as Chris’s handler with my friend Joe for the weekend. Guys, I’m not overstating when I say that that single conversation broke through YEARS of trauma and baggage in an instant. In that moment I KNEW. I HAD to take this opportunity. I HAD to meet Chris. And so I did!! And it changed my life.

Chris is AMAZING. He is wickedly smart and quick-witted, and he just gets it. He loves his fans, and the comics community in general, and he loves to just talk comics with everyone. He doesn’t pull his punches when discussing the good and bad aspects of the industry and X-Men specifically. And he still genuinely is touched by the stories of how X-Men and his writing touched people’s lives, how they got kids reading when they didn’t want to read anything else, how they gave kids who felt like “others” a place to feel accepted and safe. And getting to navigate that with him for that weekend made me realize how much I ALSO felt that way about his writing, and how much he’d influenced my love of not just comics, but reading and writing in general. As I drove him to and from his hotel, ate with him, chatted with him one-on-one, and watched and joined in his interactions with the hundreds and hundreds of fans that showed up to meet him that weekend, I found myself near tears on many occasions. He did a private, VIP event Friday night with just 50 people, a sort of Q&A talk. I dropped him at his hotel afterwards, and just burst into tears after he got out of the car. I finally understood just how much I’d missed the X-Men, comics, and this world over the last five years. The next day, we spent 14 hours together and we joked and talked easily. I told him about my senior thesis that I wrote on God Loves, Man Kills. He was genuinely interested. He asked about how I got into X-Men and my favorite arcs. I told him about this project and the blog. He asked why I stopped and listened as I tried to gloss over the divorce and such quickly, then very gently pushed me to be honest with him about it. And when I was, he just let me tell my truth, and then told me to keep going. To find that spark again and keep reading/blogging. He said he understood why I’d stopped, but that if I was ready, it was time to start again to redefine this part of my voice.

And so, my loves, here I am! Bearing my heart for all to see, and eagerly preparing to jump back into this endeavor. I took a few weeks to digest this advice (and to enjoy my wedding and honeymoon!!), and now I’m ready. I hope you will stick around with me, and maybe invite some friends to join us. We’re going to be talking a LOT more about my impressions of the comics, the recurring themes, the politics and such. I’ll still recap the issues so those of you not reading along at home, and just reading my posts can know what’s happening. We left off with Charlie dead, and 1968 ending. We’re currently only reading X-Men, as our Maximoff twins have left the Avengers to join back up with Magneto, but we’ll be adding some more titles in the near future! So, until tomorrow, keep searching my loves…

Back from the Dead…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my darlings!!

Image result for back from the dead gif

So, it’s been over a year since I’ve posted. I’m really sorry for that.

At this time last year, my husband decided that he wanted a divorce. The last year has been a process of getting said divorce, learning how to co-parent our daughter, and me learning who I am outside of that 10 year relationship. With all of that going on, I just didn’t have the energy for blogging. And, tbh, since my ex was the one who originally got me into comics and encouraged me to start this blog, I really just needed to separate myself from it for awhile. But, I’m happy to say, I’m back and ready to get to work!

I’ll be spending today reviewing the old posts just to get myself back in the correct mind-frame for blogging, and then over the weekend I’ll get some reading done so we can start next week off with a brand new post!

If you’re still around and reading these, thanks for sticking with me! Until next time…

Keep searching!

We’re Losing Heroes Left & Right…

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my darlings! It’s time for some more mutant madness. After the excitement of FCBD, and pulling myself away from my new books and my new obsession with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, I’ve read through six more issues getting us about a quarter of the way through 1968. But things are going to be a little different now.

Recently I’ve realized that part of the reason I’ve been finding it so hard to keep consistent with these posts and my reading is that I really just hate the Silver Age. I understand why others love it but to me it is just so boring and so frustrating. So, I’m going to do my best to power through the rest of the Silver age as quickly as possible so we can get to one of my favorite X-Men periods: Claremont!!! So, these posts may be a little less detailed as far as storylines go, and much more about my thoughts and impressions along with quick recaps. (At least, I’m going to try to do that. But lets be honest, brevity is NOT my forte.)

avengers48

So with that, let’s check in on our Maximoff twins over at Avengers Mansion in issues #48-50. Er, at Garrett Castle. As you may remember, when we last left our mutants they had been captured by Magneto (!!!) who returned to Earth and wants to re-form the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wanda and Pietro are refusing to join him. While all this is happening, Dane Whitman has woken up and broken out of the room Mags locked him in. He has apparently been improving the Black Knight (BK) armor and weapons and he plans to take up the mantle as a super-hero to make up for his uncle’s wrong doing. So, he dons the armor and takes off to get the Avengers to come rescue Wanda and Pietro. But of course all superheroes are idiots, and especially Hawkeye now that Cap is gone, so they attack BK before he can tell them why he’s there and they all fight. Eventually they stop fighting after Goliath is forced to grow to his full 25 ft. height (which will be important later) and BK tells them where the twins are, but refuses to help  them since they attacked him. They get to the castle, but Mags and the Maximoffs are gone.

As the Avengers (At this point it’s just Hawkeye, Wasp, and Goliath. Cap has quit and Hercules has gone to Olympus to try and make up with Zeus. He has his own plot thread going on through all of this that I’ll talk about at the end) head back to HQ to regroup, Mags takes the twins to his secret base to try and persuade them to join him. He’s telling them that he’s changed his ways. He no longer wants to use violence, and just wants to protect mutants. He says he’s going to be addressing the UN and brings Wanda and Pietro with him. Basically, he’s insisting mutants be given their own sovereign nation with a seat on the UN Security Council or there will never be peace between mutants and humans. He’s set it up so the council HAS to say no (because it’s an insane idea) but will look like the bad guys doing it. He’s trying to play on Pietro’s bitterness towards humans. When the council says no, Mags tries to attack them but is thwarted by the just-arriving Avengers (They saw his address on TV and rushed over). During the fight, some guards aim their guns at Magneto. He uses his powers to make them fire at the mutants and then directs one of the bullets to hit Wanda’s temple, effectively sending Quicksilver into a rage strong enough to make him side with Mags and attack the Avengers. He then leaves with his unconscious sister and Magneto! This is how Wanda & Pietro’s stories tie up for now, and we spend the rest of this issue and the next one on Herc’s storyline. So lets jump in:

While all of this has been going on, Hercules has returned to Olympus to try and get his father to lift his exile. When he arrives, all the gods are gone and most of Olympus is in ruin. Hercules is attacked by a Titan named Typhon who Zeus had banished long ago. Typhon has destroyed the Temple of Promethean Flame which banished all the gods to the Land of Shadows. He and Hercules fight, and then Typhon calls forth a monster to kill Herc. Obviously, this doesn’t work, so Typhon instead banishes Herc to the same realm as the gods. Once there, Hercules finds Zeus and the others and explains what happened and who banished them. Since Herc is half mortal, Zeus is able to send him back to Earth. Meanwhile, Typhon has also gone to Earth to conquer it. He runs into the Avengers who are out looking for Herc and they fight. It’s looking bad for the Avengers until Hercules shows up and they manage to defeat Typhon. Hercules says he needs to take Typhon to Olympus to be dealt with by Zeus. Once he’s there, it becomes clear to him and to the Avengers that he will be staying in Olympus for now, and so the Avengers are down yet another member. So, our mighty team is now just Hawkeye, Wasp, and Ant-Man. I say Ant-Man because Hank Pym can no longer change into Goliath thanks to him growing to his 25 ft. height a few issues ago.

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Overall, these were good stories. It’s interesting to note that Hawkeye’s temper seems to be back now that Cap has left. He’s sulking about Cap quitting and he and Hank are fighting constantly. Also, Hawkeye mentions that Natasha has taken off “on vacation” without telling him, so it seems his temper has also ruined that relationship. Janet’s costume changes twice during this arc. She wears a bright pink costume that essentially makes her look like a Playboy Bunny with wings for a second, but then it changes again to a blue and yellow outfit that’s surprisingly adorable. And, more important to our mutants, I liked this story-line about Magneto basically manipulating Quicksilver into joining him again. It was paced well, and given the seeds of bitterness we’ve seen in Pietro recently, it made sense character-wise. We’ll see how this plays out Avenger’s wise soon. But for now, it seems our twins may be headed back over to the X-men book for a bit. And speaking of X-Men books:

Issue 40 is a silly stand-alone story about Frankenstein’s monster. Basically, some explorers found him in ice in the arctic and brought him back to New York and are thawingxmen40 him out. Apparently Xavier knows the monster is real and has always thought Dr. Frankenstien must be a mutant. He also apparently gets premonions now and can project his thoughts onto the wall like a movie projector. (This is why I hate the Silver Age.)

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Anyway, they go to the museum to try and stop them from waking up the monster, but they’re too late. They fight the monster, but the Prof is being so dumb. He keeps holding Iceman back and won’t tell any of them why or what the plan is. The monster runs way and tries to go south on a ship, but again the X-Men stop him. They eventually corner him on the ship and Iceman uses his powers to try and encase him in ice again. Instead, the monster blows up because he’s not actually a monster, but an android sent to Earth all those years ago by an alien race from a tropical planet to test how humans would respond. The android went nuts and the aliens chased it to the arctic, where it jumped into the water and froze. Seriously. This is the stupidest story ever. But wait…it gets worse. After saving the day, Xavier MAKES THE SHIP’S CREW FORGET EVERYTHING. This is because according to Xavier, the X-Men don’t search for personal glory or something. I mean…come on!! There is absolutely no reason for this. In fact, it works against their whole mission. They want to protect the world and show that mutants aren’t all bad. But then every time they save the day, X makes all the witnesses forget. WTF? How is the world ever going to know the X-Men are good guys if they never take credit for the victories? Guys, I’m sooooo done with this. This is moronic. Can we just move onto the next moronic story-line? K, thanks!

Issues 41 & 42 aren’t as bad as the previous story, but they’re close. In these issues, NYC is xmen 41attacked by Grotesk, the Sub-Human. He’s the last remaining member of an ancient race that lived under the earth. Atomic weapons testing caused all of his race to die out from radiation sickness and left him deformed. He’s here to get vengeance by stealing a machine that apparently causes man-made earthquakes and turning in all the way up to make the Earth crumble and killing everyone on it. So, Bobby and Hank learn all this when they encounter him in the subway while on dates with Vera and Zelda. They rush back to the mansion to tell the rest of the gang and find the other’s training with a VERY grouchy Xavier. He’s testing Scott, Warren, and Jean and is being a huge dick. They call him on it, but he just gets more angry and refuses to listen to Bobby and Hank when they arrive. He leaves for his office and takes Jean with him. He’s told her some secret the others don’t know and she’s helping him with secret experiments. After this useless cutaway so that the reader can learn about these secrets, he and Jean go right back out to tell the boys to go stop the Sub-Human. They go,  they find his hide-out, and Angel and Iceman go back to get Jean to help while Cyke and Beast continue on and fight Grotesk.

Jean refuses to come with the boys and also refuses to let them see Xavier who is not there. Angel gets rightfully pissed off and starts yelling at Jean. Xavier shows up and says that NONE of them can go help Cyke and Beast. He orders them to stay but won’t tell them why. Cyke and Beast get totally beat up by Sub-Human and then head back to the school as well. Jean again refuses to let anyone see Xavier or leave the room, so she and Scott get into a fight. Suddenly she says that NOW the Prof wants them to meet up with him. Apparently he’s decided to stop Grotesk alone but he fails and Grotesk turns on the machine. The X-Men show up and try to help. They’re losing big time until Marvel Girl and Xavier slow down the machine. Grotesk tries to make it go faster again and it blows up, killing him! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your feelings of the man) Xavier is also caught up in the blast. The X-Men rush  to his side to save him, but he tells them that he was dying anyway from some total mystery illness that he couldn’t cure. He uses his dying breath to explain Grotesk’s motives (even though the kids already know  them because like every other villain over, Grotesk told them about it at length) and then he dies.

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Guys. Seriously. This is why Professor Xavier is just a huge dick. He was dying for some time and only told Jean. First of all, that’s shitty. He should have told them all. And if he wasn’t going to, he shouldn’t have told Jean and made her keep that secret. Also, this feels so rushed. This storyline of him keeping secrets and Jean working on experiments with him just started in this arc. And secondly, him dying is not a legit reason for him trying to stop Grotesk alone. He has NO good reason for this. If he and the X-Men had attacked together from the start, and he had clued them into what Grotesk was doing, they probably could have stopped him before he even turned the stupid machine on. And X probably wouldn’t have been caught up in the explosion. It’s so frustrating and so stupid. It’s also a little on the creepy side that he only tells Jean, the only female on the team, and has her in his office working on experiments with him. Before this reveal, it would be pretty easy to assume they were having some sort of affair, which is totally gross. Scott even thinks to himself that the reason they’re spending so much time together alone is because the Professor is in love with Jean. Guys, Xavier is at LEAST in his 40’s at this point. And Jean is like, 20. And his student. Eww. I seriously hate this arc. And to be totally honest, I’m kinda psyched that X is dead for now (Come on, it’s X-Men. You already know he’s going to come back at some point.)

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But, moving on. In the back of these three issues they have continued the “Secret Origin” storyline about how Xavier met Scott. Last we saw, Scott was running away from some cops and found a cabin with a mutant inside. This is Jack Winters or “Jack O’Diamonds”. Jack has hands made of pure diamond and also can influence other mutants with his mind. (minor telepathy basically) He essentially forces Scott to help him break into the nuclear power plant he used to work at. There was an accident there that gave him his powers and he thinks that if her repeats it, he can make himself diamond all over and thus be invincible. Basically what happens is they break it, Scott refuses to kill anyone so Jack leaves him behind and starts up the machine he’s looking for. The experiment works and he’s now a “Living Diamond”. Xavier shows up and he and Scott manage to stop the Living Diamond, but Jack dies in the process. X recruits Scott to his school as his first student and tells him about the dream and the X-Men. There are more continuity issues with Xavier’s powers (he seems to be telekinetic also since he’s opening locks  and such with his “mental powers”).

So my darlings, that’s all for now. As I’m sure was evident, I didn’t really enjoy these arcs (at least the X-Men ones) that much. Here’s hoping it gets better now that Xavier is dead. Also, I promise I won’t ALWAYS be this negative. Just today since X-Men is being dumb. I just keep telling myself that Silver Age X-Men ends in 25 issues and I can suffer through until then. And with that my loves, I’ll end this not-at-all-shorter-like-I-said-it-would-be post. Until we meet again, keep searching….

 

Finally! Factor Three!! (Oh, and the Avengers did some stuff too…)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my darlings! I’m back, and with six freaking issues too! I have officially finished 1967! Thank Odin! These six issues are action-packed. All three of the X-Men issues are one big, Factor Three filled arc that I’m so happy to have finally gotten to, so let’s start there this time around! (And fair warning, this is going to be a LONG, LONG post. Even by my standards!!)

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The X-Men #37-39. We start with some mysterious person from F3 watching a tape of the X-Men battling Juggernaut and studying the group. We learn the F3 is somehow able to extract memories from Banshee and the Prof and that is how they’re seeing this fight. Meanwhile, our mysteriously broke teenagers (sorry, still annoyed about that waste of an issue…) are on their flight to Europe and trying to talk strategy without being overheard. But of course, F3 has been watching them, so they know which flight the kids are on and attack it! I’ll be honest, I was a little surprised they attacked a commercial flight like that. I mean, I know I SHOULDN’T be, but I still was. F3 misses the airplane luckily, but the X-Men realize what’s happening and do the stupidest thing they’ve EVER done…they jump out of the fucking plane. (apologies for the language, but seriously?!?) I WISH I were kidding. These morons open the plane door, which in the real world could have crashed the plane or at least sucked a few passengers or flight attendants out, and then jump out WITHOUT parachutes!

So, our favorite idiots are free falling through the air. Scott and Hank are clinging to Warren, but his wings are strapped in their harness, so it’s not like he’s flying right now. He’s falling just as fast as they are. Jean is using her powers to slow herself and Bobby down a bit, but they’re still falling too fast not to be killed. And then, Scott’s Ruby quartz glasses fall off and he has to keep his eyes closed so as not to kill everyone with his optic blasts.

Guys, I love this arc. I really do. But this is so, so stupid. They’re so, so stupid. But anyway, Hank and Scott almost get impaled on a mountain top, but Scott blasts it just in time. Warren get his wings free and grabs them and then flies over to Jean and Bobby. But he’s not strong enough to carry them all and they’re falling too fast for Jean to stop them. Bobby finally gets the idea to create an ice slide, and they all slide down it and land hard, but safe. Oh, and somehow, through all of this, Hank has managed to hold onto the briefcase carrying their costumes! Seriously. So, they change into costume and are attacked by some of those mechanical spiders that we met a few issues ago. (The dumb one with Spider-Man. LOL) They make a valiant attempt at escape, but our heroes are eventually caught and brought into the F3 secret base.

Once there, we see that our X-Men are being tried for “betrayal of mutant-kind” for helping humans and defeating evil mutants. It’s obviously a kangaroo court of sorts. The witnesses are Vanisher, Unus, The Blog, and Mastermind. They’re also the jury. (See what I mean?) We meet the prosecutor, a mysterious mutant named Changeling. He is running the court and is second in command to The Mutant Master, who watches from the shadows. We get a rehash from our “witnesses” of their defeats by the X-Men, and then the kids are quickly pronounced guilty and sentenced to death. But, before the sentence is carried out, Mutant Master decides to tell them his entire plan for destroying the human race so that mutants can rule the earth. Seriously guys, WHY do villains ALWAYS do this? I mean, I get that it’s the writer’s lazy way of letting the reader know what’s going to happen if the hero doesn’t pull through. But it’s dumb.

So, Mutant Master plans to start WW3 by killing a bunch of Eastern military brass, and then breaking into a US military base and launching all the nukes. Then, once the Cold War has erupted into an actual war and the planet is devastated by nuclear fallout, he and his band of Evil Mutants will rule the wasteland that is left. This is seriously the silliest plan ever, but hey…it’s 1967. This was actually a legit fear of most people. (At least, the part about a nuclear war was). MM sentences the X-Men to the Oblivo-Ray which is apparently a fate worse then death. It will make them slaves with no sense of self. But, of course, Changeling then leaves the X-Men unattended while the machine starts up, so our heroes escape thanks to some quick thinking on Cyke’s part and some great teamwork. They easily defeat a giant robot left behind to guard the base. MM sees all this, and warns them that they’ll still be too late to save the world. And this is the end of #37!

Ok, sidebar time! The way the X-Men work together here to get out of the Oblivo-Ray (OR) and escape the giant robot is awesome. These guys are no longer kids. They’re a seasoned, well trained, well led fighting team equal to any other team in the 616. Cyclops is a great leader. He keeps his cool when they’re in the OR machine, coming up with a plan to short circuit the machine. He directs Iceman to create icicles for Marvel Girl to levitate over the hot machine so that they melt and drip water all over the circuit boards. It’s a great use of everyone’s powers! I love seeing them use their powers in new ways like this. It’s a nice change from just having MG telekinetically lift Cyke’s visor and having Cyke blast everything. Or Iceman straight up freeze something. It’s interesting and shows the kids are smart, not just tough. And when they take out the giant robot? Seamless teamwork guys! Seriously. It takes them like 1/2 a page and they work together from the start to blind the thing so it can’t find them. I’m so happy. THIS is the X-Men. THIS is why I love them. They have their inner “family” drama no matter what iteration of the team it is, but at the end of the day, they fight like a well oiled machine and they have the best powers that are used in the best ways! Ok, sidebar over!

So, Issue #38 starts with them stealing some egg-pods and heading back to the school just before the base blows up. While the X-Men regroup and try to strategize back at the school, Changeling is starting to question MM. He thinks the pods the X-Men used to escape were awfully convenient and also questions why they didn’t just straight up kill them instead of leaving them alive and attached to a machine. (At least ONE of these villains is smart not a total moron.) They send a radio transmission to Blob and Vanisher who are “behind the Iron Curtain” to see how things are going. Cerebro picks this up for some reason, and the X-Men are able to figure out where they are. MG, Angel, and Beast take one egg pod to the Far East to stop Blob and Vanisher from killing the military leaders there, while Cyke and Iceman head to the US military base to try to protect the missiles MM said he was going to launch.

Beast sacrifices himself and gets caught so that Angel and MG can fly to the roof of the castle the secret meeting is taking place in. Once there, they meet Blob and Vanisher with a bunch of android henchmen and begin to fight. During the fight, the androids blow up and Vanisher, well, vanishes. This leaves Blob, MG, and Angel knocked out to be caught and imprisoned by the guards. They’re thrown in the same cell as Beast.

Meanwhile, Cyke and Iceman break into the military compound and try to reason with the top brass. They explain why they’re there, and that the missiles are going to be hijacked. Of course, no one believes them, and so the boys start destroying all the missiles!!! It’s kind of a bold (albeit desperate) move on Cyke’s part, and I’m sort of impressed.

The military begins to attack them, so now they’re dodging bullets and destroying government property as quickly as they can.

And, while ALL of that is going on, Changeling is also talking to Professor X. Charles is trying to convince Changeling that he’s being stupid and that MM’s plan will kill everyone, even mutants. Changeling says that MM has technology that will protect him and chosen others from the radiation. Changeling eventually loses his temper with Charles and threatens to kill Charles if he doesn’t shut up. But he is immediately rebuked by MM, who is watching and says that he alone shall decide who should die and when. This  brings us to the end of #38, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance!

#39 opens back with Cyke and Iceman. They’ve given up trying to destroy all the missiles as it’s an impossible task. Instead, they fight there way into the compound and Iceman freezes over the air filtration system. MM said they planned on gassing everyone on base so that they could have control of the missiles, so our boys figure if the air is frozen over, there’s no way for the base to be gassed. Just then they’re attacked by Mastermind and Unus. As the fight goes on, the troops hunting down Cyke and Iceman are drawing closer. Cyke comes up with another brilliant idea, and he and Iceman use their powers together to create a thick, cold fog. Under this cover, they escape, as do Unus and Mastermind, leaving the base safe from MM’s plan. They take off in their egg pod to go find MM and hopefully rescue the Prof and Banshee. (TBH, I almost forgot that F3 had Banshee too!)

Meanwhile, Angel, Beast, and MG escape from  their cell, leaving an unconscious Blob behind. They try to convince the military leaders that they’re in danger, but of course, no one believes them. Somehow, MG uses her powers to sense where the bomb is hidden, (don’t ask. I’m just as confused as you are…) and they attempt to steal the briefcase it’s in instead. Just then, Blob shows up, having regained consciousness. He gets the case from MG and decides to just hold it until it detonates. He reckons he can survive the blast with this mutant powers. Since she can’t get it away from him with her powers, MG decides to try and reason with Blob. She points out that MM would probably make the bomb powerful enough to kill Blob too so that Blob couldn’t be captured and reveal the plan. Blob buys her reasoning, and drops the bomb to run away. They only have seconds, so Angel flies the bomb as high as he can so the detonation doesn’t kill anyone. Our three heroes leave while the communist leaders are still to stunned to stop them, and they also head to find MM.

In a cut away to MM, we learn that he allowed the X-Men to escape in the beginning so that if anything went wrong, they would be blamed for the attacks. But they’ve made sure this doesn’t happen and are now headed for him. Cyke and Iceman get to MM’s base first, only to find themselves facing Vanisher, Blob, Mastermind, and Unus all at once. But the other three show up before the fighting starts and just as things are about to go crazy, Professor X rolls in and tells everyone to stop. He says the MM has been playing everyone and that he isn’t who he says he is. He points out that MM let the X-Men escape, and that his plan will kill EVERYTHING on Earth, not just the humans. MM freaks and sets his androids to attacking everyone. The X-Men and “Evil Mutants” fight side-by-side to destroy the androids. Banshee escapes from his cell and joins the fray. He realizes that a certain frequency will blow up the androids. He does this and then tries it one octave higher. This frequency causes MM to transform into a gross, octopus looking green alien!!! He’s attacked by Unus and can’t handle Banshee’s screams. In his agony, he hits the self destruct button on his floating chair and commits suicide! (I know, right?!?)

And just when things couldn’t get weirder, there are suddenly TWO Professors in the room! Turns out that the one who showed up and accused MM of treachery was actually Changeling. Go figure. The real prof proves himself by using telepathy. Seems Changeling can mimic voices and appearance, but doesn’t get the powers. Once everything has calmed down, the X-Men become stupid again. They decide to let all of the evil mutants go! Apparently since they all fought together to destroy MM, it means they can’t capture the bad guys. The amazing issue actually ends with the Prof going on and on about the day there are no “good” or “evil” mutants, just men fighting together against a common foe. *EYEROLL*

Oh, wait, no it doesn’t. He makes that speech and then we cut to that night in the school. Apparently before the Prof was kidnapped, he and Jean decided everyone needed new uniforms!! The guys make jokes about them not actually changing much, just the trim. It’s a nod to the last costume change that really didn’t change anything. But this time, we get costumes that make them individuals! Jean and Charles explain that, since they’re not kids anymore, they shouldn’t dress in “uniforms” like kids. They’re individual adults and are now dressed that way. Scott’s in the classic blue with yellow visor he’ll sport for years to come. Jean is in her iconic green dress with yellow mask. Angel is in yellow and red with his blonde hair coming out the top of his mask. Hank is in red and blue. It’s similar to his old costume, but better colors and more stylized. Bobby even comments that he got new boots and gloves, although he doesn’t really look all that different given his powers. See below:

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So, overall this was a great arc. It was worth all the build up over that last few months of issues, and it was a well done. We got to see the kids work as an awesome team, without help or guidance from the Professor. (I should probably stop calling them “kids” now. They’re all college-age and this arc made a big point of showing that they aren’t kids anymore)  They figured out a game plan on their own and executed it well. And Jean seems to be growing in her power quite a bit, and in her confidence. It’s nice to see. (The same thing seems to be happening with Wanda over at Avengers Mansion. Our girls are competent women now. They’re equal to the guys, and sure of themselves and their powers.) AND, on top of all of that, we end with them in their more iconic, colorful costumes!!!! I love it!!

There’s one more thing we have to talk about in regards to X-Men before we hop into the city and check on our Avengers. Starting in issue #38, there are special “issues” in the back that are going to chronicle “The Origins of the X-Men”. They’re fun and it’s cool to see how Charles found them all. The first installment in #38 shows us how Charles decided to start his school. He sees a news clip about a mutant that saved people, only to be attacked by an angry mob. (It’s Scott!!!) The news piece ends with the reporter saying that the FBI will be starting a special investigation into mutants. Charles heads to Washington to meet with Fred Duncan, the agent heading up the investigation. He explains who he is and gives them a demonstration of his powers. They both agree that learning about and watching young mutants would go better if they were approached by another mutant instead of FBI agents. Duncan agrees to let Charles track down the teenage mutants they’ve got info on and train them, and in return Chuck will report into the FBI periodically on their status. (?!??!)

The installment in #39 is a continuation of this arc from Scott’s side. We see him destroy a crane, causing a heavy crated to plummet towards the crowded street below. He blows it up with his optic blast just in time, but the crowd turns on him and he runs for it. Turns out this is the very first time his powers have manifested like this! He has had headaches his whole life until an optometrist gave him ruby quartz classes. They stopped the headaches but no one could explain why. (But we know, don’t we my loves!) Anyway, it was the optometrist that reported him to the FBI and so Xavier interviews him and that’s how we learn about the headaches and glasses. Meanwhile, Scott is on the run, afraid to return to the orphanage where he lives. (so sad!! Seriously guys, the Summers’ family history is TRAGIC, as you’ll see as we get further into our reading) He hops a train out of town, ends up being accosted by “hobos” and then saved by police who then immediately recognize him as the runaway they’re looking for.  They remove his glasses and his uncontrollable optic blasts scare them away. He learns that he’s immune to his own powers, finds his glasses, and then runs away through the woods before the police can return with reinforcements. He stumbles across a cabin where he feels an unnatural pull to go inside. He does, and there he meets a man sitting in the shadows who tells Scott that he sensed that Scott was born to rule, just like him and that he his also a mutant! DUN DUN DUN!!!

OOOOOK…so, 3000 words later, that finishes off The X-Men for 1967 and for this post! Whew! But there’s no time to lose kiddies, because now we must check in on out mutant twins and their teammates over at Avengers Mansion!!

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So, Avengers #45. We open with Iron Man and Thor still with the Avengers. Apparently today is “Avengers Day” in NYC to thank the Avengers for thwarting the Mandarin’s plan avengers45for world domination (See my post here about AA #1 if you don’t remember. Which is totally fine, since I wrote that post like a month ago. I know, I suck. Moving on…) Anyway, everyone’s gathered in Central Park for the ceremony except Janet and Steve. In her ridiculous fashion, Janet shows up “fashionably late” in a brand new, expensive sports car and designer clothes. (Remember that inheritance from a few issues ago? Neither did I. But, it’s now important. Janet is loaded.) She makes a scene, Hank gets jealous, and we all move on.

Meanwhile, we learn that in the crowd is the Super Adaptoid (SA) (who we last saw in X-Men!) Crash course for those of you who weren’t around or don’t remember: He’s an android created by AIM to destroy Captain America. He can absorb and then use the powers of anyone around him. Everyone’s waiting on Cap, and some of the Avengers show off their skills to keep the crowd entertained. Thor and Iron Man have to cut out before he arrives, but not before SA absorbs their powers. So, Cap FINALLY shows, they say thanks to everyone for the support, and then Hank announces  that Herc will be made a full time Avenger now!!

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Herc is shocked, but happy and honored. Just then, SA attacks! The battle is fierce and SA is totally winning and it’s bad. The battle goes on for the ENTIRE issue. It gets a little tedious, but there you go. Each Avengers tries to take SA on alone, and they all fail. Then, FINALLY, our favorite silver-haired mutant comes up with a plan. They all attack him at once, forcing him to use all of their powers at once. This is too much for SA, and he short circuits. The crowd remerges and continues the celebration, but our Avengers are morons today, so they had the super dangerous, ultra powerful robot over to the NYPD?!?! WHY DO THEY DO THIS SHIT?!?!? Ahem. Sorry. Done now.

One quick side-note: After they defeat SA, Pietro makes a comment that SA should be pitied because he is just an android created by humans to do their bidding. Wanda notes that he seems bitter, and Steve reminds him  that the evil humans wanted to use SA to control humans AND mutants alike. Keep this seeming random outburst by Pietro in mind as we move forward. (Spoiler alert) It’s going to fester and build, but it’s done well, and is very indicative of Pietro’s character throughout the years.

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On to #46. The Avengers are hanging out with nothing to do. Hank announces that he is working on some experiments with ants because he might go back to being Ant Man instead of Goliath. He thinks to himself that now that they have Herc on the team, theyavengers46 don’t need his raw Goliath power. Herc is even stronger than Goliath. But they could use Ant Man’s unique skills. Cap is sulking and preoccupied with thoughts of quitting and living as Steve Rogers. (Again…*eyeroll*) Clint and Natasha show up. She’s out of the hospital and fully recovered. Then Janet shows up with her new chauffer. Hank chides her for letting in driver into Avengers HQ, so she sends him away. But, as he leaves, we learn Hank was right. He is using Jan to get into the building and check it’s defenses.

oops glenn close movie film funny

Clint and Natasha decide to take a walk and Herc and Wanda are going to join them. First, they change into normal clothes and Herc shaves off his beard! It’s kind of a cute moment. Pietro and Cap are going to go to a baseball game, and leave Jan and Hank back to work on his ant experiments. We find out Jan’s driver Charles is actually Whirlwind, who used to be the Human Top. He’s an old villain of Giant-Man who was locked up. He’s back with more power and a new name. He breaks into the mansion, manages to shrink Hank and Jan with Hank’s equipment, and then, because he’s a dumb villain, dumps them into the colony of red ants Hank was experimenting with instead of just killing them himself. He also plants a time bomb in the laboratory. The red ants attach Jan and Hank, who don’t have their little headsets to control them. They fight  them off, and Janet eventually kills the Queen ant. That makes the ants stop attacking long enough for Hank to build a mini headset with some machine that’s in the colony and they control the ants to get out.

Meanwhile, the baseball game was apparently rained out? (Even though the other four Avengers out for a walk didn’t run into rain, and there is no rain drawn in ANY panel in the entire issue, but whatevs! Plot device!) Anyway, Cap and Pietro are back just in time to fight Whirlwind! Whirlwind is actually a bit scared, since Quicksilver’s speed seems to be the only thing that could stop him. They battle and Hank climbs out of the tank, He rushes to a voice amplifier to warn Cap and Quicksilver about the bomb that’s about to go off. He tells them where it is, and Quicksilver rushes it out over the river to explode safely. But on his way back to the mansion, he hears people below. They saw him with the bomb, and are talking about not trusting him or Wanda since they’re mutants. Pietro thinks to himself that basically, humans suck, and they will eventually push him too far and he will strike back. YIKES!

supernatural no nope yikes

In the excitement, Whirlwind escapes. Cap un-shrinks Jan and Hank. Quicksilver is pissed that Whirlwind escaped, but eventually calms down so Hank can announce that now he can be both Goliath AND Ant Man depending on what the situation calls for!

Now it’s time for issue #47. Guys, before we start, I have something I have to get off my chest:

excited amy poehler tina fey happy dance exciting

Ok. I’m done. Why the happy dance you ask? Because my loves, the villain for this issue (and at least one more to follow that I haven’t read yet) is none other than MAGNETO!!!!!!!!! I’m so freaking excited! I’ve missed Mags!!

avengers47Anyway, Mags and Toadie are still on the Stranger’s far off planet where he exiled them. But, Mags can feel “magnetic rays” coming from space. They’re getting stronger and he believes he can use them and his powers to escape. We learn the rays are coming from Garrett Castle in the US where a man named Whitman is working, He’s the nephew of the Black Knight, and wants to do something good with his experiments to try and make up for this evil uncle.

At the same time, over at Avengers Mansion, Cap has called a meeting to announce that he’s quitting the Avengers. (AGAIN!)

Hawkeye is upset and because of that gets in a fight with Natasha and takes off. Janet and Hank take off for an already planned vacation in Vegas (driven to the airport by her driver, Charles who is really Whirlwind). Herc announces that now that he’s an Avenger, there’s something he needs to take care of. He heads to Olympus to ask Zeus  to lift his exile so that he can return to Earth by his choice. He climbs Mt. Olympus only to find the city totally abandoned!!

doctor who what

But, that’s apparently a story for another time. Next we see that Mags and Toadie have indeed used Whitman’s magnetic rays to escape from the Stranger and return to Earth. They lock up Whitman and his bad assistant Norris. (Norris had just knocked Whitman out before they arrived so that he could take all the glory for himself) and Mags decides to get the band back together. For whatever reason, he decides not to call Mastermind right now (probably because he’s currently caught up with F3!) He wants Wanda and Pietro back in his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. We see a flashback of how he saved their lives and thus put them in his debt. He tricks the twins into coming to the castle with a coded message. Once there, he attacks them with a giant robot to test their powers. All this time as Avengers has paid off, and they easily defeat their foe. Mags is impressed!

leonardo dicaprio oscars impressed

He invites them  to join him, but they refuse, saying they’re Avengers now. Mags is obviously pissed, so he attacks them with MORE robots. They manage to destroy the robots, but when they attempt to attack Magneto, he captures them!! And that’s how the issue ends!

So, my loves, we’re done with 1967. I know this was REALLY REALLY long. I’d apologize, but I kind of feel like, if you’ve read this far, you must like SOMETHING about my writing style, so there’s no need for an apology. Hehe. Anyway, We’ll move onto 1968 soon. I’m excited now that Magneto is back in play. I’m also excited to see where this story-line with Pietro’s bitterness is leading. I think I know, and I think it’s pretty obvious, but still, it will be fun to see it play out. I’m also excited for our X-Men to start working more like an adult team with Charles as a mentor instead of like kids with a teacher!

And, one last thing before I go. As some of you may know, this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day!!!! This is my favorite weekend of the year. My shop, Carol & John’s goes all out every year! Midnight release party Friday night into Saturday morning, events all day Saturday. They highlight local artist who are there to do sketch covers, they create pieces for an art gallery. Every year all those pieces sell. They’re amazing. Cleveland has some amazingly talented artists! Every year has a theme. It’s normally tied into whichever comic movie is coming out that same weekend. So, this year it’s obviously Civil War themed. It’s going to be a crazy good time. So, any of my readers in the NEO area, come out and join us. Dan (hubby) and I will be there all night Friday and will be stopping by on Saturday with our daughter. We’ll both be in costume too! Just look for Wonderman and his companion. (Sorry guys, not revealing my costume until that night!!) And any readers not local to NEO, I really urge you guys to find a local shop in your area to go check out FCBD. Even if they’re not doing a huge event like C&J, there will be tons of FREE COMICS to check out. And while you’re there, maybe pick up some other comics (X-Men) and support your local businesses! So, between a midnight showing of CA:CW on Thursday night and FCBD activities Friday and Saturday, it’s safe to say I won’t be getting much reading done this weekend. But I’ll post pics of my awesome costume and of the event afterwards and tell you all about it! And then we’ll pick up with 1968 next week. Until then my loves, keep searching…

 

 

This is Getting Silly…(Or, Bring on Factor Three Already)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello my dears!!

I’m back already! It felt so good to finally get back in the blogging saddle yesterday that I couldn’t help but post again today! I’m sure you won’t mind!

Today we’re going to talk about the 4 issues from August and September of 1967. AKA, Avengers 43 & 44 and The X-Men 35 & 36. Since I read the monthly titles in alphabetical order, let’s talk about them that way too. Which means….

Avengers! 43 & 44 are a two issue arc centered around Hawkeye’s attempts to rescue avengers43Natasha from the generic Asian communists that have her prisoner. It’s fun and silly, so let’s dive in. We open up with Cap & Hawk coming back from some recon mission and walking into Quicksilver freaking FLYING around the Mansion. That’s right. He’s flying. It’s AMAZING. Basically, Quicksilver has figured out that if he vibrates his legs at super speeds, he can levitate himself and “fly” for short distances. Guys, it’s so great to see our resident mutants (the whole reason we’re reading through Avengers for this enormous project) growing in their powers. This is one of the things I love about Quicksilver (and admittedly, also The Flash over at DC) and his powers. There are so many creative ways to use super speed other then just running really fast. It’s nice to see Roy Thomas exploring those other uses!

So…back to the story. Herc is being Herc, and thus fighting with everyone. Cap picks a fight with him to keep him from hurting anyone else, and then easily avoids getting trampled by out maneuvering Herc. This gains him Hercules’ respect, so now Herc is calmed. While all that is going on, a lawyer shows up to tell Jan that since she’s now 23, she can access her inheritance of more then $3 million! In the commotion of her celebrations, no one notices that Hawkeye has slipped out to follow the lead he and Cap got by himself. Hawkeye goes to a sketchy bar to find out where Natasha’s being held. But, because he’s Hawkeye, he can’t get in and our of there without getting in a fight. Seriously. He returns back to the mansion to find everyone asleep but Hercules. Herc is itching for adventure, so Hawkeye invites him to come help rescue Natasha. The unlikely duo heads out.

Meanwhile, at the secret, non-descript communist base where Black Widow is being held, we see that Colonel Ling* is showing his precious Psychotron to “Comrade General”, a generic Soviet general who is overseeing Ling’s work. He also shows the General his latest creation: Red Guardian. For those of you at home, Red Guardian is basically Commie Cap. He has all the same abilities as Captain America, but he wears red and hates capitalism.

So, Commie Cap gives the General a demonstration of his abilities, and then he and the General forget all about Ling’s Psychotron and decide what they really need to do is lure Captain America to their top secret base full of top secret military research so that Red Guardian can beat him up. When even Colonel Ling is telling you that’s a bad plan, you know it’s a bad plan. These guys are seriously stupid! But, their minds are made up and now they just need a way to lure Cap there. Enter our dynamic duo of Herc and Hawk…

Commie Cap quickly knocks Hawk out, and then tricks Herc into the Psychotron. Herc is kept busy in there battling hallucinations of hydras while Hawkeye is locked up in a glass tube right next to Natasha. When he wakes up, he (and Natasha) discover that Commie Cap is…Natasha’s husband?!?

For the end of the issue we cut back to Avenger’s HQ in New York, where Cap and the rest of the Avengers are gearing up to go rescue our intrepid rescuers and Natasha.

Before we move onto issue 44, can we just pause for a second? Guys, Quicksilver can fly!!!! I’m still not over that. It’s so freaking cool. It’s like Roy Thomas woke up the morning he wrote this issue and said, “You know, Quicksilver is actually a WAY cooler character then we’ve been giving him credit for!” and I couldn’t be happier. Also, since we talk a lot about power sets for out mutants, I think we should also talk about powers for our non-mutant Avengers since they’re such an important part of our reading. In the beginning of this issue, Cap thinks to himself that Herc probably doesn’t like being challenged by him because he has no super powers. But then, later in the issue when Commie Cap is bragging to Hawkeye and Black Widow about how he’s going to wipe the floor with original recipe Cap, he mentions that Caps powers were given to him by science (Super Soldier serum for those at home). So, I’m a bit confused as to what Cap’s story is at this point. I know his origins are that he was a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who volunteers for the Super Soldier program and is the sole success story. I thought (and it’s cannon much later on) that the serum gives him enhanced agility and strength. Like, not just enhanced from his former self, but like, super strength and agility. But in these early Avengers comics, they seem to imply Cap has no actual powers; he’s just a really well-trained fighter. We’ll have to see how that takes shape as we go forward.

So, issue 44: The Avengers find the top secret communist base in Asia very easily and get out of their Aero-car to discover it was a trap. They fight their way through all the bad guys on the base and Wanda and Jan are both given the chance to fight as equals with the guys for the first time in awhile. Wanda’s hex powers seem to not only be back up and running, but she seems to have better control of them then before. It’s nice to see her sure of her powers and not second guessing herself.

While they’re fighting outside, inside the General is insisting that Natasha be given a lie-detector to make sure she’s really a traitor because she’s still insisting she’s been on the communist side all along. Tash beats the lie detector because, of course she does. She freaking Black Widow. There was never any doubt she would be able to pass a lie detector. Meanwhile, Cap has made his way inside to find his fellow Avengers and instead finds his commie counterpart. They fight, and are fairly evenly matched. A quick cut to outside shows us that our other Avengers seem done for when the communists unveil a giant machine thing to kill them. Goliath is too worn out from the prior fighting to be able to stop it. But then, our favorite speedy mutant saves the day! He runs in circles around their foe so fast that it creates basically a mini hurricane that tears the machine apart! And, in another cut scene, we see that Hawkeye as mysteriously been freed from his glass tube (most likely by Black Widow) and goes to join Cap’s fight. That fight seems to be at a stalemate, but then Colonel Ling grows impatient and electrocutes Cap. Commie Cap is SOOO mad guys. He wants to beat his foe fair and square, but since Ling is the only communist with a brain in this arc, he insists they don’t have to play fair, and that they need to stop worrying about beating up the star-spangled Avenger and start focusing on their plan for world domination.

But at just that moment, Natasha reveals herself by trying to climb up the wall to destroy the Psychotron, which was the real purpose of her mission from SHIELD. Colonel Ling takes aim at her and tries to shoot her down, but Alexi (Red Guardian) leaps in front of the shot to save her. As Alexi falls, Ling aims at Widow again, only to be stopped by Hawkeye this time. Widow succeeds in destroying the Psychotron, but Ling’s second shot still hits her and she falls. Hawkeye catches the mortally wounded Widow just as Hercules FINALLY busts out of the stupid, and now malfunctioning Psychotron. The base is on fire, so Herc scoops up the unconscious Cap and they head for the hole Herc bust in the ceiling. The other Avengers pull them to safety, but Herc wants to go back for the commies, as he doesn’t think they deserve to die in the fire. But before he can, Colonel Ling loses what little sense he had this whole time and attempts to shoot the Avengers down. Commie Cap stops him, as this goes against his moral code of combat, and instead Ling’s shot causes the base to erupt in lava (it’s apparently on top of a dormant volcano. Don’t ask. LOL.)

The Avengers rush the wounded Natasha to the nearest hospital (in Hawaii) where she survives her surgery and tells the Avengers that Alexi, her husband, was a test pilot for the Soviets. She was told he died in a training accident, and was then recruited to become the Black Widow to honor his sacrifice. She had no idea he was actually being trained to be Red Guardian! Whew!! That was exhausting!

And, now that I’ve caught my breath (and rested my fingers!) let’s move onto X-Men! xmen35Issue 35 starts with Banshee (!!!) flying over Eastern Europe looking for Factor Three’s secret base. He seems to find it in the mountains, but he’s attacked by a mechanical spider and barely gets away. He makes it back to his base and sends a message to the X-Men telling them to beware of the spider, but can’t get anything else transmitted before he passes out and is kidnapped by F3!

Cut to Westchester where the kids are frantically trying to find any info about F3’s whereabouts so they can find Charles. They receive Banshee’s cryptic message about the spider just as Cerebro alerts them to the presence of a mutant nearby. They decide it must be evil mutants from F3, and the guys go to check it out, leaving Jean behind to keep tying to pinpoint the Prof’s location.

At the same time, we see Peter Parker riding his motorbike around Westchester Co. He stops at a stream with an old mill nearby to check it out, and suddenly sees a flying egg-shaped pod landing right where he is. He ducks into the mill to become Spider-Man and fights the mechanical spider that climbs out of the egg. Of course, this spider is what has set Cerebro off, and of course, Spider-Man defeats it before the X-Men arrive. And OF COURSE the thing self-destructs, leaving not trace it was ever there. Do you see where this is going? No? It’s telegraphed pretty openly here. Banshee told them to beware of the spider, so OF COURSE that MUST mean Spider-Man since he happens to be where Cerebro led them! And OF COURSE our boys are just going to attack him without any explanation or even asking him why he’s there. It’s soooooooo silly. I hate these story lines. Seriously, it’s like, fate has to set it all up perfectly, and everyone has to act like brainless idiots just so this plot can play out. And it really has nothing to do with finding F3 or Professor X. It’s just an excuse to have the X-Men battle Spider-Man. It’s annoying that they spent a couple REALLY GOOD issues setting up this kidnapping, just to give us useless stories before we can finish the F3 storyline. (SPOILER ALERT! I’m going to have an even bigger problem with the next issue!)

Anyway, while the boys are out being dumb, Jean is busy being the only useful person in the issue. She’s found a note in the Professor’s files about the transmitter he put in Banshee’s headband so they could contact him using Cerebro. She tries to do this and finds Banshee unresponsive. She also realizes that Cerebro stopped registering a mutant almost right away after the boys left. (Probably around the same time Spider-Men succeeded in destroying the mechanical spider, funnily enough!)She sends Cyclops a message letting him know this and he FINALLY comes to his senses and stops the fighting long enough to ask Spider-Man what he’s doing there. SM tells them about the mechanical spider and they realize this is what set Cerebro off and apologize for attacking SM. When they arrive back at the school, Jean tells them about the tracking in Banshee’s headband and that she’s used it to find his location! You go, Jeanie!!! Now they have a destination! Hurray! Progress! We’re finally going to move forward with this story-line! Oh, wait…xmen36

It’s issue 36, which I am entitling: “Dumb plot contrivance to have the kids fight another D-list bad guy with Daddy issues instead of rescuing their mentor!”

That’s right my loves! Remember our mutant superheroes? The ones that live on a giant estate in Westchester County, drive a Rolls Royce, and have their own jet? Well, they apparently have NO MONEY to buy plane tickets to Eastern Europe. I know what you’re thinking! Surely they can just take their jet? But alas, it’s out of gas and apparently the Professor doesn’t think ahead enough to have fuel on-hand in their hanger. What’s that you say? Surely the Professor MUST have some emergency cash lying around the school somewhere? Apparently not. Wait? What? Surely rich-boy Warren Worthington III can just borrow the money from his parents? Sorry guys! They’re on a cruise!

So, now our teenagers are forced to find another way to get the money. They try the welfare office, but luckily the lady there has a brain and doesn’t approve their loan. Next, they try to get construction jobs, but they’re not union, so that’s a no-go. Finally, Bobby and Hank decide to preform tricks as Iceman and Beast in Washington Square Park for loose change. (I wish I were kidding). While they’re there, a nobody of a villain named Mekano shows up. He says that Iceman and Beast are helping him by drawing the crowd so that they can all watch him destroy the new library. (for real) So, he begins to destroy it. The cops think our mutants are in on it, so they handcuff Iceman to a pole and try to arrest the rest of the X-Men. Marvel Girl disarms them and moves them to safety and then disappears for the rest of the fight because, not only are the kids magically penniless, but they’ve also reverted to treating her like a precious flower, so Cyclops orders her  to stay outside.

Beast, Angel, and Cyke fight Mekano, but he escapes out the window and attempts to jump to the roof of a neighboring building. He misses and falls! Lucky for him our boys are chauvinists this month! If they weren’t, Marvel Girl might not have been sitting around outside waiting to catch him!! Just as MG lets him down, the cops close in to arrest them all. But because this whole issue is one plot contrivance after another, the man who built the library shows up just then and insists on asking Mekano to explain his reasoning. Turns out Mekano is this guy’s son, and all of this was just his way of acting on his deep-seeded Daddy issues because his dad didn’t love him enough or something. So, Daddy Mekano refuses to press any charges, and then wants to give our youngsters a reward for saving his son from falling to his death. Yay! Now they have the money for their plane tickets!! UGH! This sucks. But, they thank him for the money and then head off to the airport. While they’re there, we learn that F3 is watching their every move, even when they’re traveling under their civilian identities! (finally, a plot point that has actual ramifications to our F3 arc!!)

A few power-related notes from this issue. Apparently Bobby’s back to being able to use up his ice powers (or at least, he is when the writers need him to stay handcuffed and need an excuse as to why he doesn’t just freeze the cuffs and shatter them…) Also, apparently Cyke can use his optic blasts to “catch” heavy machinery in mid-air and lower it, unharmed, to the ground? I call bullshit on that one. Those optic blasts have been nothing but forces of destruction from day one. Why can they suddenly be used in this way? If that were the case, then every time in the past that Cyke accidently hit one of his teammates with his optic blasts and hurt them was either a plot devise or Scott being a huge dick.

Ok. I’m done for today. As I’m sure you noticed, I was a little annoyed with our X-Men this time around. Hopefully that will change in the next issue since it seems like they’re finally going to rescue Professor X and Banshee now! (I hope!!) So, until next time my loves, do what our X-Men should have been doing these two issues and keep searching!!

*In my last post, I mistakenly referred to Colonel Ling as a General. This issue makes it fairly clear that Ling is under the control of the Soviets, and thus not at the rank of a General.

This is How The X-Men Should Be!!

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello Darlings!!

It’s time to keep talking about some of the issues I’ve read recently. I’m excited! Are you?

But, before we begin, I want to talk about the blog itself. I was looking back through my posts the other day, and I realized that I’ve been spending a lot of time discussing the details of the individual issues, but less and less time talking about my impressions, the characterizations, powers, politics, etc. that I originally wanted to talk about. This is going to change. I want to get back to discussing these things. So, posts may change a bit going forward. For a little while longer, I’m only reading two titles, so I can continue giving summaries of the stories as well as my impressions and such. But once I add even one more monthly title, it’s going to be too much. So I’m going to have to streamline the format a bit. (Or quit my job to blog full time, which isn’t an option! Sorry my loves!)

And on that note, lets jump into X-Men #32 & 33. If I were Omnibus2reading X-Men in the pretty, pretty Omnibuses I wanted to read them in, this is where I would be finished with The X-Men Omnibus Vol. 1 and starting The X-Men Omnibus Vol. 2. Isn’t it pretty? One day it will be mine!! But, for now, my Marvel Unlimited subscription is certainly paying for itself! Now I just need to remember to keep my damn Kindle charged so I always have my digital comics on me! I tend to carry my trades around in my bag at all times, but a lot of the time I can only read one issue, and then it’s time to switch to digital for X-Men and I don’t have a way to read them. I’ve tried reading them on my iPhone, but it’s WAY too small. I just can’t do it!xmen32

Anyway, enough about my inability to keep my electronics organized and charged! Lets move on to the real reason we’re all here: Mutants!! Or, in this case, SOME mutants and some black-magic enhanced wrecking balls of fury. That’s right my dears, JUGGERNAUT IS BACK!!!!

So, apparently the last time they fought Jugs, he fell into a comatose state. When the doctors couldn’t revive him, the police agreed to place him in Charles custody! (I know, right?! I think there was just a bit of mental persuasion on Chucks’ part if you know what I mean!) The Professor has been keeping his comatose step-brother locked up in the school’s basement for months and the X-Men knew nothing about it! How messed up is that?!? Guys, this is the shit I’m talking about when I say that Charles Xavier is totally a dick and a manipulator, and all the other things I’ll say about him as we go.

The Prof. has built a machine to try and remove the Juggernaut powers from Cain Marko and save him. But, of course, it backfires and Juggie wakes up even more powerful than before, AND with Chuck’s telepathy powers too! He lies in wait at the mansion while the kiddos are out and then defeats them when they return. He is just about to kill them all when he’s contacted telepathically by the mysterious Factor Three who convince him to leave the X-Men and join them in Europe to help them take over the world. The X-Men wake up, move the still unconscious Xavier to bed, and then Jean uses the “amplifier” to delve into his mind to find out what happened.

It’s here we learn the back story of the Ruby of Cyttork that turned Cain into Juggernaut. It had a guardian that was defeated and sent to the universe within the Ruby by the Ancient One. It’s also here that we get to see the kids work as the refined, disciplined super-hero team that they are for the first time. Without the Prof there, Cyclops fills in the leadership role seamlessly, and the kids work wonderfully together. This is really the first time we get to see that, perhaps, it’s their reliance on the Professor, and his refusal to ever tell them EVERYTHING that has been holding them all back. I love seeing them like this. And I love seeing Scott fall so naturally into being a leader and a decision-maker. He’s a master strategist on the battle-field (a fact that will be highlighted more in the future) and it’s nice to see this mastery start to take shape. I’m beginning to see bits of the character I fell in love with in the ’90’s.

Sorry, got a little side-tracked there by my fictional, mutant boyfriend. LOL. Basically, the X-Men recalibrate Cerebro to find the Ancient One. Dr. Strange (!!!!) shows up and tells them that two of them must go into the Ruby’s universe and bring back the “unearthly” version of the Ruby. Cyke chooses Jean to go with him, and the three boys head off to try to delay Juggie. Ok, I know I already went off about Scott once, but guys, I can’t even. The thoughts going on in both his and Jean’s head when he chooses her to come with him are ADORABLE. And also, Jean has never been written as more capable and sure of her powers as she is here. She takes initiative getting them to the cave, getting them past the soldiers patrolling near it, etc. She defeats the Outcast, and they get the ruby together, as an equal team. It’s wonderful and sweet, and I can’t handle the cavities it’s giving me!!

But, back to the action. They manage to get the Ruby, and then meet up with the rest of the team. The other guys are holding Juggie off at the airport, and it’s not looking good. Marvel Girl and Cyke show up and trick Jugs into holding the unearthly prototype of the ruby. It sucks him into the ruby universe and saves the day. But, when the kids return to the school, Xavier is gone!! He’s been kidnapped! It seems Factor Three was merely using Jugs as a decoy to draw the X-Men from the mansion, so they could kidnap the unconscious professor.

So, I know I went into a lot of detail about this arc, and already talked a lot about Jean and Scott, but there were a few other things I wanted to talk about. First, Bobby’s 18 now! They started the arc at the coffee shop Bobby and Hank frequent in the Village celebrating. Bobby and Hank’s girlfriends where there, and Scott and Jean. Warren shows up with Candy! It’s awesome to see him with someone else, and Scott and Jean able to bumble their way along towards their eventual relationship. They dance, and I nearly die of happiness!! And, after the party, our lovebirds walk home together, and have a talk about Scott’s commitment issues and fear of his eyes. It’s the first time we get to see these two (or ANY of the X-Men for that matter) open up to one another about their fears and dreams. They all keep everything so locked up most of the time, so it was really refreshing to see Scott open up. It’s how real teenagers/twenty-somethings act with their friends and teammates.

All in all, this was my favorite arc thus far. This is what I love about the X-Men. Scott and Jean together (even if they’re still not sure about it all)and equals, the team working together and Cyke leading well, the Professor being his normal shady self and it biting him in the ass, a huge, over-zealous bad guy with a grudge. It’s nearly perfection! So, on that happy note, I’m going to end this here, and we’ll pick up with Avengers in the next post!

For now, my loves, keep searching…

 

Finally, a Bit of Girl Power! (And Also, Hank Pym is a Jerk)

Posted on by GenoshaGirl85

Hello, loves!!

I’m back to finish talking about all the reading I did last week! We’ve got 5 issues to talk about, so lets just jump right in, shall we?

Lets start with X-Men today! Issues #22 & 23 are a two issue arc in xmen22which Count Nefaria shows up with some super-powered henchmen to try to ransom Washington DC. Their plan is basically to capture the X-Men, and then either convince them to join the Count, or frame them. Nefaria’s henchmen are Plantman, Scarecrow, Porcupine, Eel, and Unicorn. He’s hired them to be his second-in-commands and to lead his Maggia crime gang. Anyway, they are able to kidnap the X-Men one by one as the kids leave the school for a vacation. The X-Men of course refuse to join Nefaria, so they’re held captive and framed for Nefaria’s plan.

Nefaria’s plan is this (and get ready, because it’s a little silly): He creates a giant dome around Washington DC. He then sends a projection of the X-Men to make a ransom demand for $100,000,000. It’s ridiculous. For real… But the X-Men decide to play along in order to save the city, so they go into the dome to “retrieve the ransom”. Because Nefaria doesn’t trust the X-Men, he sends his henchmen to watch them. But the henchmen decide they don’t want to work for Nefaria anymore, and attempt to double cross him by stealing the money from the X-Men once they’re outside of the dome. They fight the X-Men, and eventually Jean ends up with the money. She rushes it to Nefaria. While she’s turning it over to him, and stranger with his face covered shows up and destroys the machine that controls the dome. He also switches briefcases so that Nefaria flees without the money.

It turns out that the stranger is the Professor, who has created a device that will allow him to walk for short periods of time! I’m not even kidding. You might as well accept it now, because it’s going to be something he uses often for a little while. In the end, Jean gets a letter from home and announces she must leave the X-Men! Talk about a cliffhanger!

So, in this arc, there were some really silly plots. I mean, the idea of ransoming Washington DC in and of itself seems like something straight out of an Austin Powers movie! But it’s fun to watch the X-Men take on 5 super-villains at once and win. Everyone’s powers seem to be working exactly how they should be and no one has any weird new limits or abilities. So, that’s refreshing.

I think it’s interesting that Warren is still vying for Jean’s affections. At the beginning of the arc, as the kids are leaving for their vacations, Warren invites Jean to dinner in the city before she leaves. He is clearly asking her on a date. And she says yes!! But before my heart can break too much, she turns around and invites Scott to come with them!

It’s interesting that at this early point, both Scott and Warren are in love with Jean. She loves Scott at this point, but neither of them seems to notice that. Scott is convinced that she’s in love with Warren, and Warren seems to believe he still has a shot as well. It’s a silly little love triangle, but one the writers are handling well thus far. They’re not pitting Scott and Warren against each other, or having Jean play them both. Everyone’s just really bad at expressing how they really feel, just like real teenagers. It’s fun to read and will make it so much more satisfying with Scott finally gets the girl! (oops! Spoiler! *wink*)

So, lets move on to Avengers for a bit! Issue #31 takes us to South avengers31America to find out how this story line with Goliath is going to pan out! It’s also the first issue in our next trade! I’m done with Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Vol. 2. and am now on to Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Vol. 3! Seriously, I can’t describe how good it feels when I finish one trade and move on to the next. It actually lets me know I’m making a dent in this list, even if it’s the tiniest dent ever!!

That said, lets get back to the comics! The issue starts with Cap, Wasp, and Hawkeye heading for South America to find out what happened to Goliath. Wanda and Piertro are still in Eastern Europe trying to build their powers back up. (And I still think this is a really dumb story-line…) Meanwhile, Goliath and Prince Rey are trying to save Dr. Anton and stop the Keeper from losing control of the magical fire. During this time, Goliath realizes that Rey doesn’t actually want to put out the flames, but wants them for himself! So, Goliath takes off to stop the Keeper himself.

The rest of the Avengers show up, and they’re able to stop the fire and save Dr. Anton. On their way back to New York, Goliath talks to Dr. Anton about his condition. Dr. Anton doesn’t have any ideas, but does suggest that Goliath talk to another doctor he knows. A doctor named Henry Pym! HAHA!

This issue is a little nuts, and things never really slow down. But one of the best things about it is that the guys all treat Janet like an equal in a way we haven’t seen Wanda treated. While I’d like to see Wanda treated this way when/if she returns, it’s refreshing to see at least one of the female characters treated like an equal!

Of course, then we get to issue #32 and Hank ruins it.

In issue 32, Hank is working tirelessly trying to find a cure for himself. avengers32Janet is helping him until he decides he needs another scientist’s help. He enlists the help of Bill Foster, who is an employee of Tony Starks. Meanwhile, the Sons of the Serpent (SotS) are running around New York beating up immigrants and spreading xenophobic propaganda. Black Widow comes to Hawkeye to tell him what’s happening and to try to prove she’s trustworthy again.

That night, as he’s leaving Goliath’s lab, Bill Foster is attacked by the SotS because he’s black and in a nice neighborhood. Goliath finds him afterwards and vows to take out all of the SotS. He and the rest of the Avengers start to investigate them. Cap goes to see Nick Fury to see what info S.H.I.E.L.D. has on the info. This is the first time we get to see Nick in our reading! I’m so excited. I love Nick Fury. He’s such a dick, but almost always right. Anyway, while they’re investigating, the SotS attack the UN and then capture Cap. The Avengers pretend to be in support of the SotS in order to save Cap. And that’s where the issue ends! On that cliffhanger. I hate to do this to you guys…but we’ll be talking about the second half of this arc in the next post! I know, I know, I’m evil!!

This issue was fun, but also anvil-icious! I mean seriously, Stan Lee couldn’t have hit us over the head with this month’s message any harder. Prejudice and xenophobia are bad guys! (just in case you missed it!) But there’s also lots of good in this issue. This issue marks the very first time we see Hawkeye without his mask on! He’s a handsome devil, even if he is kind of a bro.

Also, we really get to see just how awful Hank Pym’s temper can be. He completely loses his shit on Janet when she tries to take care of him or help him. It’s really awful. And since I know what it’s leading towards, it’s also a bit like seeing the beginning of a car crash and knowing it’s going to happen no matter what. There’s no way to stop it.

But it’s not just Jan that Hank is awful to, although she does get the brunt of it. He barks orders at everyone and blows up violently at the slightest provocation. It’s this anger that makes Hank so interesting. He’s the most flawed Avenger, and because of that, in some ways the most human. But it doesn’t make it any easier to read. We’ll talk more about Hank as the series goes on. But for now, we need to hop back over to X-Men for a bit!

Issue #24 brings us the Locust. He is creating giant bugs to over run the xmen24country so that he can swoop in with his insecticide and save the day. The X-Men fight his giant bugs a few times and then eventually catch him. The professor convinces him he’s doing the wrong thing, and the Locust just gives up! It’s a fun little romp, and basically seems to serve as an “adventure of the month” just to advance some personal plot points for our mutants. Plot points like the following:

Jean is leaving. Her parents have enrolled her in Metro College since they feel it’s time for her to get a college degree. Afterall, the X-Men technically “graduated” from Xavier’s a while ago. This  departure allows both Scott and Warren to be sad at losing Jean, and we get to see that even now, none of these clueless teens seem to see how the others feel about them. Warren tries to cheer Jean up by letting her know that Johnny Storm goes to Metro too, but it’s an act that Jean sees right through. Meanwhile, both Jean and Scott are pouting about never having told each other their feelings.

But don’t worry my loves! Jean won’t be gone long! You see, Metro College is right in the city! So Jean can come visit whenever she likes. Which she does, just in time to help the boys out fighting Locust. Roy Thomas writes Jean so much more self-assured in her powers than Stan Lee did, and it’s a treat to read. She’s an equal in the fighting now. And she’s also the one who saves the day in this issue. (She realizes before anyone else that the Locust is using the antennae on his costume to control his giant beetles, and uses her powers to tangle them up, causing the beetles to attack the Locust instead of the X-Men.)  It’s also interesting to note that Werner Roth (aka Jay Gavin) draws Jean to be dressing in a much more sophisticated way once she’s at college. It automatically makes her seem older and more mature on her return to the mansion. It will be interesting to see how she continues to progress as a character under Roy!

Well, that’s all for now my loves! I have some more reading to do!! We’re almost done with 1966. I can’t wait! Until then, keep searching…