Browsed by
Tag: Cyclops

Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

Uncanny X-Men, Part 9: Filling in the Corners of the Original X-Men with Savage Hulk #1-4

Comments 0 Comment

screenshot_20200321__MUoYX

Welcome to the 9th episode of my reread of the vast X-Men story that began in 1963. The X-Men series stopped putting out original stories in early 1970, due primarily to low sales; it was a reprint magazine from issues #67–93, cover dated December 1970 to April 1975, until the beginning of the Claremont and Cockrum run in issue #94.

I’m going to go through their early Bronze Age appearances in coming blog posts, but for story continuity purposes, I’m also reading issues created in contemporary times but fitting into that 5-year dead period, like I covered for the original X-Men in X-Men: First Class.

So this time I read the 2014 series Savage Hulk, by writer/penciller Alan Davis, inker Mark Farmer and colorist Matt Hollingsworth. 

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

Uncanny X-Men: Part 7, Issues #54-58 – Havok and Neal Adams

Comments 7 comments

screenshot_20200124__fJtC3

I was super-tempted to pause my blogging about my X-Men reread to complain about my reread of another classic, but I opted for the high road and am glad I did, because this was a fun post to think through. And, for those of you still with me, we’re almost at the end of the original X-Men! So pull up a chair for the 7th installment of my reread of the X-Men.

In this post, I want to look at issues #54-58 (March, 1969 – July, 1969), a run that contains two major Silver Age milestones. The first is the introduction of Alex Summer, the mutant brother of Scott Summers. Alex will eventually join the X-Men as their 7th member. The second is equally exciting – the beginning of Neal Adams’ brief but spectacular run. The team-up of Roy Thomas and Neal Adams marks the beginning of the zenith of the original team, outshining the Kirby-Lee issues and sitting comfortably at the same table as many of the great Claremont-Byrne stories.

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men Part 6: Issues #49-53: Reunion and Family and Steranko

Uncanny X-Men Part 6: Issues #49-53: Reunion and Family and Steranko

Comments 3 comments

screenshot_20200111__scNxZ

Holy mutants, Batman! We’ve reached week 12, episode 6 of the great X-Men reread! This is an exciting run, because we get to experience the first of two  moments of major artistic experimentation in the Silver Age X-Men, as well as the first real addition to the X-Men’s roster since issue #1. This blog post will only cover the 4-issue Daughter of Magneto saga and a stand-alone issue with an FF villain (so October, 1968 to March 1969), but I think we’re getting to periods where it’s worth slowing down to experience the art and writing more slowly.

We left the X-Men at the end of issue #48, having been split up for two issues and still mourning their deceased professor. By the time issue #49 rolled around, we readers were ready to see the gang back together. Their reunion feels like a big deal not just because they’re together again, but because of the cover art and the new story.

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men, Part 5: Issues #40-48: Death and Separation

Uncanny X-Men, Part 5: Issues #40-48: Death and Separation

Comments 7 comments

Screenshot_20200105-225137_Marvel Unlimited

Welcome to the 5th installment of my reread of the X-Men from 1963 forward. This is a cool one, going from cover date January, 1968 to almost the end of 1968. There are some big stories and even the middling stories in this run have their charm, and the best ones hold up as exemplars of the best of the Silver Age, including an Avengers-X-Men cross-over. If this it the first of these posts that you noticed, my can find my previous ones here:

  • Part I: X-Men #1 (Nov, 1963) to X-Men #20 (May, 1966)
  • Part II: Early X-Men guest appearances (1964-1965), X-Men #21-23 (1966), and X-Men: First Class Volume I (2006)
  • Part III: X-Men: First Class, Volume II (2007)
  • Part IV: X-Men #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

I wish I could say that this run opens with a bang, but after the work that went into ending the Factor Three multi-part story line, Roy Thomas and company come out with a forgettable (or best forgotten) Frankenstein’s monster story in issue #40. Issue #41 follows up slightly better, because although they’re fighting another poorly-drawn hulking brute, it’s about a secret subterranean civilization that have all died due to human action.

…

Read More Read More

X-Men, Part 4: Issues #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

X-Men, Part 4: Issues #24-39: The Middle Years of the Original Team

Comments 0 Comment

Screenshot_20191214-151002_Marvel Unlimited

While travelling in November, I loaded a bunch of X-Men comics onto my phone for the airports. I haven’t stopped reading and I started blogging about my reread. I’ve made the reread slightly more complete by adding in stories that were written later but fit into the canon.

In this post, I’m covering my thoughts on X-Men #24-39, with cover dates 1966-1967 which cover, most significantly, the introduction of Banshee and the multi-part Factor Three story. I mention the dates though because for the older issues I often spool up music from the corresponding year to play in the background for flavour. If you’re reading along at home via Marvel Unlimited or trades or Masterworks, give it a try. It’s weird way to situate yourself in the historical era.

It’s also important to situate ourselves in the comics era. During this period, Roy Thomas was getting his feet under him, with maybe as many hits as misses? Elsewhere in the Marvel Universe, Kirby and Lee were introducing the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the Black Panther. On TV, the Adam West Batman series was premiering, as was the animated Spider-Man series, the first Fantastic Four animated series, as well as Marvel’s old Thor, Captain America and Iron Man cartoons which were half animated, half motion comic. It was a heady time to love superheroes, although I missed it by 15 years.

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men, Part 3: X-Men: First Class, Volume II and First Class Finals

Uncanny X-Men, Part 3: X-Men: First Class, Volume II and First Class Finals

Comments 2 comments

xmfc 11

I am continuing my perhaps Quixotic reread of The X-Men. I started in 1963 and am working my way up to the present, and I’m including not just the main series, but some significant cross-overs and the series that retcon some good stories.

My first blog post covered X-Men #1-20. My second post covered X-Men 21-23, some early cross-overs, and the 2006 series X-Men: First Class. For this one, I read X-Men: First Class, Vol II, #1-16, which continued Jeff Parker’s excellent story of the original five X-Men, with art by Eric Nguyen, Roger Cruz, Nick Dragotta and others.

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men, Part 2: Early Guest Appearances (1964-65), Uncanny X-Men #21-23 and X-Men: First Class Volume I (2006)

Uncanny X-Men, Part 2: Early Guest Appearances (1964-65), Uncanny X-Men #21-23 and X-Men: First Class Volume I (2006)

Comments 2 comments

Marvel X-Men 23-small

While I was travelling, I loaded a bunch of X-Men comics onto my phone for the airports. I haven’t stopped reading and I started blogging about my reread in Part I two weeks ago, which covered X-Men #1 (Nov, 1963) to X-Men #20 (May, 1966). It’s been a lot of fun, with not too many cringey moments.

This second post, I’m continuing my reading, but altering the experience a bit. I’m not just going to include the core X-Men series. I think I would like to try reading the stories in the chronology that Marvel sort of had in mind for each story.

So I’m going to start including guest appearances and cross-overs and later series that added history to this period. So this post will cover Strange Tales #120, Fantastic Four #28, Tales of Suspense #49, Journey Into Mystery #109, and X-Men issues #21-23, all of which were published between 1963 and 1966, and Volume I of X-Men: First Class, which was published in 2006-2007, but whose events occur before X-Men #24. I hope this ride is not too disorienting for you or me!

…

Read More Read More

Uncanny X-Men 1-20 – Part I: Introducing The Strangest Super-Team of All: Uncanny X-Men #1 (Nov, 1963) to X-Men #20 (May, 1966)

Uncanny X-Men 1-20 – Part I: Introducing The Strangest Super-Team of All: Uncanny X-Men #1 (Nov, 1963) to X-Men #20 (May, 1966)

Comments 2 comments

Screenshot_20191214-104537_Marvel Unlimited

Sometimes when life is too busy, I don’t have the bandwidth for entertainment that engages too deeply with me emotionally or intellectually. It seems like all of 2019 has been like that. Earlier in the year, I talked about rereading the first hundred and twenty issues of Marvel’s The Defenders. Last month my brain needed another break, so I started rereading the original X-Men. It was fun and full of nostalgic feelings.

The problem is, I can’t just do 500 words on the X-Men. They were certainly a second-string title in the 1960s that, publication and profit-wise, was on a slow train to moth-balling by 1970, despite a brief renewal under Roy Thomas and Neal Adams. But five years later, the Claremont-Cockrum-Byrne team modernized the X-Men mythos for the Bronze and modern age and by the late 1980s, the soap operatic X-Men had become an economic juggernaut (sorry).

I lost touch with the X-Men in the 1990s when I left comics, and found the mythos so ornate as to be impenetrable once I came back to comics in 2007. It was too vast.

…

Read More Read More