Filed under: Pixie
So, here’s a question for you guys: What’s your opinion on Pixie?
I, at first, wasn’t sure how I felt about the little sprite of an X-Man, especially at the very beginning of her stint. When she was just a whimpy fairy that had butterfly-like wings and the most horrid green corduroy uniform. However, after M-Day and Decimation, she seems to have been given the luck of the draw by retaining her abilities and remaining with the X-Men. Here we see the first change in her; no longer does she have her little Asian girl bob but longer, more unruly hair that isn’t fluorescent pink any longer but black with pink streaks (how punk?). Though it wasn’t until her time in Limbo with Illyana (AKA Magik) that her character really was put into the spotlight. Losing a little bit of her soul and brandishing a souldaggar, Pixie has made her first baby steps into being a respectable character with a pretty good back story.
From Westchester to San Fransisco, Pixie comes along with the team (even having her very own one-shot) which somewhat establishes her as an official member of the Uncanny team. An odd choice, I thought, since they already had a teleporter, but her magical abilities (yet to be explored) seem to be a good thing to play upon and add a quirky element to the somewhat “straight-laced” team. But her involvement in Second Coming is somewhat interesting to me, because while Hellbound is interesting it sort of diverges from the normal storyline and Pixie (along will all those stuck in hell) are missing out in a lot back on Earth. However, I’m sure between demons and Nimrod Sentinels there really isn’t a better choice.
Isn’t the growth of her appearance so odd? I mean, don’t get be wrong, all the changes were necessary because now she looks like a decent character–and I rather like that they reinstituted her pink hair. I also think Chris Claremont’s art make every X-Men look epic and for her to be immortalized in a Chris Claremont rendition I think is a big thing.
Just when we thought Marvel was wetting our whistle with the previews from last week of the new series X-Men, here they go gorging us with more textless panels! I don’t know, before I might have seemed a little skeptical with the previous preview, but these scans are making me lean more to the positive side of the fence (especially with the last panel.)
I love how graphic and edgy Marvel is making the X-Men, not that they haven’t always been a little rough around the edges, but ever since the revival of X-Force I feel like the envelope has been pushed so far on what the audience expects. I think this is why Uncanny X-Men is suffering, because they are still sunshine and rainbows while titles like X-Force and X-Factor are all high octane action with a solid storyline. If the writers are solid on this series, I think they might have the ability to make the whole “Vampire” storyline salvageable.
Once the dust settles from Second Coming, you’d think the poor ol’ X-Crew would get a day off–but this is the comics kids, and of course the world is going to be thrown right back into chaos. It’s interesting, just from the preview, where the X-Men are going after this really epic plot line. Here we have the dwindling species fighting for their EXISTENCE and now they are fighting *insert dramatic music* vampires.
Yes, you heard me right. Vampires. I guess the Twilight obsession is making it’s way into the comics, not that I’m going to bring up the abomination that is the Twilight manga. However, it must be said that vampires have existed in the Marvel Universe, as well as the X-Verse, so it isn’t like this came too far from out of the blue, but still… vampires? Here are the new scans that Marvel just put up the other day, I’ll let you guys take a peek at it:
One: Who is the sandbag-suicide bomber? (Vampire obviously)
Two: Who are the two punks playing hackisac? (Gays most likely)
Three: Where are the X-Men now? Seriously, they are like drifters? Like in the last three years they’ve had four different homes.
Four: Who are the people in the building over looking everything?
Five: I’m guessing the girl who gets the blood bath is Jubilee… which I’m guessing will lead her to this:
Thoughts, comments, concerns?
P.S. I might act like I’m completely against the whole vampire nonsense, but I’m not. I’ve been obsessed with Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles as of late so I think it’s fitting that it is reflected in my favorite comic series. (Also, as another side note, I thought it highly interesting that the X-Men all moved to Utopia right when I was shipping off to college. I love the parallels.)
Filed under: Hellbound, New Mutants, Second Coming, X-Factor, X-Force, X-Men: Legacy
Well the Second Coming is here and halfway over and I must say that this storyline is fantastic. This is exactly what the X-Verse needed to get itself back in the game. With story archs like Utopia, Nation X, and even Necrosha, the X-Men have faded into the background to let comics, like the Avengers, take the mainstage–WTF!? However, salvation is here in more ways than one–Introducing the teenaged messiah of all us X-Freaks, Hope Summers. Back from the future, Hope and everyone’s favorite cyborg, Cable, have returned to our time period (shaking off the Bitch of a Mutant, Bishop) to put an end to this whole cat-n-mouse chase. However, when they return they are not met with the promise that they thought they would. The mansion is in rubble (if we can remember back to the times when the X-Men still worked out of Westchester) and Cable doesn’t now what to do. Fight or flight leads the pair to a motel where they find an old Newspaper that says the X-Men are now working out of San Fran. In hopes to find their friends and family, the pair are ambushed by Bastion and his groups of anti-mutant fanatics causing the pair to go off map, causing the X-Men to even have difficulties finding them.
Cyclops breaks the X-Men into two groups Alpha and Beta (Alpha being a mix of Uncanny and X-Force and Beta being the New Mutants). He sends Alpha to find Cable and Hope while Beta is sent on the task of putting a stop to Cameron Hodge’s slowly growing army of smiley face bots. The Alpha team falls short of a victory, losing Magik to some interdimensional rift (which archs us into Hellbound, a subserious happening at the same time as Second Coming) and loses sight of our time jumpers. Meanwhile, Beta team, while more successful in their ploy, take heavy damage; Karma loses are leg to the cyborg Hodge/Spider thing while Cypher tells Warlock to go back on his promise of not taking a human life. Luckily for the New Mutants, Warlock uses his TO virus to save the say and sucks all the life out of Hodge and his followers.
Cyclops now understand that Bastion is trying to set up the X-Men by taking out all of their strategical advantages, such as teleporters and communication via telepaths. Cyclops rounds up a team to send to Limbo to rescue Magik (Cannonball, Pixie, Anole, Trance, Gambit, Dazzler, and Northstar) while he calls back Beta team after the damage they took to their team. Meanwhile, Cyclops assigns Ariel as teleporter for the X-Men’s Alpha team (I included the link to her Wiki page, since the majority of you probably don’t know who she is, minus her small appearance in Utopia) and sends them out to find Cable and Hope. In their attempts to find them, the team is gunned down by a helicopter and Ariel is killed in the explosion.
Meanwhile, Rogue and Nightcrawler port like crazy trying to get to Hope and Cable. They are successful as meeting up with the pair, but are attacked by Bastion himself. Rogue, having suped up with all the Alpha teams powers, takes on Bastion while Nightcrawler attempts to get the trio out of the line of fire. Rogue gets her ass handed to her due to Bastions regenerative abilities and is seconds away from killing Hope when Nightcrawler, in one final porting attempt saves the pair, but in doing so is slain by Bastion. RIP Elf, we will miss you (guess Cyclops never has to explain to you about X-Force though, phew… oh yeah, X-Force isn’t a secret anymore).
Hope is now back on Utopia, but it seems that not everyone is as excited to see her. Dani Moonstar and Wolverine are among the group that aren’t so sure about all this risk for one girl, Dani even getting into a fist fight with the Messiah. However, not even Utopia is safe from Bastion’s plans, for the mutant hating Cyborg Peirce is sitting dangerously unknown to the X-Men in their containment brig. Danger is made to believe that Donald Pierce’s presence is still there thanks to the TO virus Bastion has infected all his hosts with and allows Pierce to blow up the the area with the Blackbird and all the X-Men’s means of transportation. He has stranded them on their island, making them sitting ducks.
However, something far worse is happening–a huge impenetrable red sphere engulfs the entire San Francisco area, locking all the mutant population within it. Also, a rift in the space-time continium has opened up in the middle of the Golden Gate bridge and it leaking in sentinels from the Future. The X-Men, seemingly trapped with their lives at stake, send all they can into the front to stop the onslaught from the Nimrod Sentinels while X-Force is sent into the future (with Cable and Cypher) to combat at the source of the problem–however, there is a catch. To go to the future Cable must use his armtech to jump them there though he only has one jump left. It is ultimately a suicide mission that Cyclops and all the X-Men know is completely necessary.
Saying their goodbyes, the team ports into the future where they see that all the X-Men have been eliminated and a huge “wanted” board is decked out with posters of ever mutant. The team quickly gets to work, however, it seems that their task might be impossible for an infinite line of Nimrod Sentinels awaits the jump into their timeline. Their plan is to use Douglas’ abilities of language and communication to tell the source of these robots to end this, though how they plan on accomplishing this is still up in the air.
Back at home, the team has taken some damage and are not able to continue at this pace, it seems that the X-Men might face some more causalities in the near future for their is little that they can do to fight the onslaught of Nimrods.
I am in love with this serious, so much is happening and absolutely everyone is being used or at least mentioned–even the Avengers and Fantastic Four are out there trying to help out the struggling race. Also something that is really interesting in this plot line is all the story lines that are going along with it (Hellbound, Blind Science, and X-Factor). This literally is affecting every single mutant on the planet and it will only stop if every mutant, evil or good, comes together and stops this. I love it. I can’t wait to see what Hope has in store in this plot line because as of now she has had very little
impact, other than being the catalysis to all the pandimonium. Slowly but surely we are seeing that Hope’s powers are a lot like Rogue’s, though I’m not sure if they work like hers. She seems to have more like Prodigy’s powers.
WHOOOSSHHH! Sorry about the HUGE absence; school and theater seemed to have taken over my life. But now that I am in Summer Stock hell (for all those who understand my pain) I have acquired a lot of need to escape my current situation–AND what a better to do that than with my X-Blog!
Well I’ll sum up everything that has happened recently in the X-Verse so that my posts to come will tie in nicely. So we shall begin with Necrosha.
So Necrosha had a pretty nice plot line–nothing too amazing, but entertaining. I was originally excited about this because I thought maybe the X-Gene, or at least the reanimated mutants, would retain their powers, but alas this was not the case. Only a select few of the zombified mutants retained their powers, much like the ones living. Also, I was hoping the newly reanimated would remain animated, but that was also not the case–minus Douglas Ramsey, aka Cypher. The plot was pretty linear, no one really was changed forever (minus Cypher being left alive), and for the most part life as the X-Men know it was relatively unchanged. However, this story arch gave the New Mutants and X-Force a little more game time and it showed that these covers work well–especially New Mutants. However, in the wake of Utopia, Necrosha seemed to just fade away with a rather anticlimactic death of Selene, who probably won’t remain dead for long.
I’d say, read it them. The story is pretty solid, it has a lot of exciting elements, and you get to see a lot of those mutants you’d never expect to see again. Overall I give the Necrosha plot line a 3.8/5. Not completely a four because nothing major impacted the X-Verse, but not completely a three because it did have some awesome elements in it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So, if I were the creator of a future X-Title that would bend to my will, I think this would be my line-up:
Wolverine:
Yes, it is true, Wolverine is in everything–but it’s because you need him. He adds something to the X-Men that no one else is able to do and not to mention the dude is a tank. While I think he is horribly overpowered, in my stint as an X-Writer, I’d tame the beast that is Logan Howlet and make him more of the drunk Bastard everyone knows him for–think early Astonishing by Whedon and Cassidy. Logan would also not always be around for the group, he sorta is reserve member that graces the covers every now and then to get more readers. Cheap? Yes. Effective? Yes.
Dani Moonstar (AKA Mirage):
This would be the unspoken second in command to Havok of the group who is sort of the glue to the ragtag team of mutants. She hasn’t had a lot of play on an actual X-Team, other than the New Mutants, but most people see the New Mutants as prepubescent teens who are constantly fighting Nordic Gods and myths. My spin on Dani would keep her depowered but somewhere along the stint of the run she’d be repowered. I’d also try to make her past involvement with the Valkyries and whatnot a bit more real looking–something more than winged helmets and flying horses. Maybe an arc reclaiming Dani’s Valkyrie powers?
Chamber (AKA Jonothon Starsmore):
We haven’t seen much of Chamber after his depowering then being pumped up with Apocalypse’s blood. In my arch I’d have him be somewhat of the antagonist but eventually being brought over to the team after they somehow rid him of Apocalypse’s hold on him. I’d have him regain his abilities after the transfusion and have an adept control over them while he is the X-Men’s enemy but then lose control when he crosses back over to the good side. He’d be torn between having control over his ability and having his face, but being Apocalypse’s minion, or being the same misshapen and out of control mutant. Also he’d have a little affair with his past lover…
Husk (AKA Paige Guthrie)
It’s been a while since Husk has made it onto an A-team and this stint would prove that she’s grown up quite a bit but has kept her attitude and wild spirit. A natural-born hero, she sometimes clashes with Dani, but for the most part she is a team player. Logan likes the girl, Dani knows she’s a necessity, and with Chamber around it should make things interesting. Husk is sort of the jack-of-all-traits among the group and is down for almost anything. I’d also write her somewhat up beat, just to counter balance the darkness that comes from Chamber. With her and Chamber we’d get to see how Generation X has fared since their breakup back in the 90s. I think having the skin ripping girl on the team would give it not only a blast from the past but also include a Guthrie in the storyline.
Polaris and Havok (AKA Lorna Dane and Alex Summers)
Back from outer space, the cosmic couple will sort of be the Scott and Jean of the group, giving them a full rounded base. With Logan as the brawn, Lorna and Alex will act as the back line powerhouses–Lorna with her magnetism and Alex with his concussive blasts like his brother. The pair will be the leading man and lady, but I’ll probably throw in Maddy Pryor showing up to throw a wrench in the system.
Prodigy (AKA David Alleyne)
I’d make Prodigy the “Beast” of the group, giving the group someone with some brains who can give the team briefings and insight into everything they get into. He’d also have a new sort of wit that he has started to acquire since he regained all his knowledge by the Cuckoo’s. Also, since he is only human and has uncharted amount of information in his head he had acquired a form of turrets that causes him to go on tangents of spouting useless information. He’ll be more playful and less serious than he use to be depicted back in the New X-Men.
Due to winter break, I have been home from school, which means that I don’t get to rely on the glory of my local comic shop. I guess I’ve been taking my comic shop for granted because returning home I’ve witnessed how unreliable comic book shops can be. UGH! This is awful and I won’t be back at school till the ninth of January… which is so long. Not only that, last week the comic shop didn’t have X-Force #22 or Cable #21… gurrr… So that means I’m so not up to date with Necrosha as of late and won’t be for about two weeks. UGHH! Well here’s a list of all the comics I’m missing out on…
I need these comics, especially that What If? title, which looks epic. Anywho, I was lurking the future comics list on Marvel and I was getting really excited earlier–there is so much that is going to happen in the beginning of this new year. Epicness such as X-Men: The Second Coming and the end of Necrosha plus fun little tidbits like Nation X showing characters like Northstar, Jubilee, Goop, Anole, and other X-Men with less attention. From now until March the X-Universe should be getting extremely interesting. Keep your eyes peeled.
Filed under: X-Men: Legacy | Tags: Bling, Emplate, Gambit, Nation X, Necrosha, Rogue, Trance, X-Men: Legacy
X-Men: Legacy #230
This series, in my eyes, has improved leaps and bounds from where it use to be. I feel like this is sorta the loop in type of comic that goes along with the main plot, but doesn’t directly impact it–the sort of venue to get lesser known characters out in the open and start developing them. However, following Rogue in the last few issues, the series has started to become more down to earth and has gotten a real feel for what it is. While I’m glad that this series isn’t just a Rogue spin-off, I do appreciate that it focuses on our Southern Bell and throws her into the chaos that is Utopia.
So in the last few issues that villain back from Generation X, Emplate, has resurfaced from the dimension that he was thrown into, apparently now able to navigate through it and the real world. With his arrival of course comes Emplate’s hunger for mutant life energy so he is bent on finding a new Penance to feed off of (if you don’t know Penance, I’m sorry but the plot is entirely too long for me to write here, just follow this good ol’link: Penance). In his search, he discovers Ms. Roxie Washington, AKA Bling! (can I mention how much I hate the “!” at the end of her codename. Why?), a mutant with powers similar to Penance’s.
Anywho, Roxie gets abducted, taken to his dimension, only Trance can see the portal where Emplate took Roxie (apprently due to her astral form), Rogue borrows Trance’s powers to hope dimensions where she finds Emplate’s goon and he unleashes some ectoplasmic worm things that attack Rogue. Rogue defeats the ghost worms and heads back to Emplate to get to the bottom of shit, she inadvertently discovers the navigation system and tells it to take her back to Utopia. Meanwhile, while all this is happening, The X-Club is trying to create a device that would seal and remove extradimenional portals.
Okay, so now on to this issue. Rogue is locked in Emplate’s draining grasp when her own powers kick in and absorb his ability. She then leeches on to Emplate and begins to counter his own drainage–ultimately nullifying his ability. Trance’s borrowed powers fade causing Rogue to return to the present dimension, leaving Bling behind. However, Rogue’s plan still works, sending Emplate’s lair into Utopia, which is effectively sealed by Doctor Nemesis and the X-Club.
Emplate, now unable to change his solidity, tries once more to harvest Bling’s energy, but this time, due to his inability to become intangible gets a blast of diamond shards from everyone one’s favorite lesbian diamond. He then is thrusted back into his dimension and sealed–likely to resurface sometime or other with revenge against Bling, Rogue, and the X-Men.
(Bling) Having Rogue come riding to the rescue, and sweep me up in her womanly arms? Kind of hot.
(Trance) God, you are such a slut!
Hahaha, got to love the gayos that is happening in the Marvel world. Anywho, the issue ends with three one page epilogues, each recapping what has happened. One with the X-Students all asking Roxie how it went, another with Scott confirming Rogue’s spot here on Utopia, and the third is the lead in to X-Men: Legacy’s part in Necrosha. Any guesses on whose lips those are on Gambit’s card when he changes over to Apocalypse’s horseman? I’m actually sort of clueless.
Rating: 3/5 art was great, story was a little meh, nice use of a large cast
Filed under: X-Factor | Tags: 200, Fantastic Four, Invisible Woman, M, Madrox, Multiple Man, Shatterstar, Siryn, Strong Guy, The Thing, X-Factor
X-Factor #200
So our super powered Investigators have moved out to New York again to take advantage of a larger superpowered populace. However, not all of our PIs have embarked on this little journey–Madrox (AKA Multiple Man) and Terry (AKA Siryn) have gone their separate ways after their last encounter, which is probably smart cause Terry promised to break Jamie’s neck if she saw him again, and this Irish beauty is a lady of her word. However, apparently finding a base of operation seemed to be difficult for Madrox because the new X-Factor is currently running out of an abandoned funeral home, morgue and hearse included! Everyone quick, to the X-Hearse!
So the New York investigators include our doppelganger leader Jamie Madrox (AKA Multiple Man), super strong tank Guido Carosella (AKA Strong Guy), adaptive powered Armando Muñoz (AKA Darwin), genetically engineered mutant Gaveedra-Seven/Benjamin Russel (AKA Shatterstar), depowered earthshaker Julio Esteban “Ric” Richter (AKA Rictor), and probability manipulator Longshot while Monet St. Croix (AKA M) and Terry Cassidy (AKA Siryn) have stayed back in Detroit, however it is later revealed that Terry closed down her office of investigation.
The issue opens up with two shady characters burying the body of some unknown victim. Having a little banter among the two, the one gravedigger is quickly dematerialized after the body is buried and we come to find out the man who is behind this is none other than Reed Richards, Mr Fantastic! Or at least it appears to him. What is America’s superhero celebrity doing burying bodies?
Well we quickly learn from his two children, Valeria and Franklin Richards, that The Invisible Woman has gone missing and their father is acting casual about the disappearance of their mother. The super-powered geniuses finally get the assistance of Madrox and the crew after a few puns about the disappearance of the Invisible Woman.
Also as a side note, a few cute panels are dedicated to Rictor and Shatterstar sitting around watching a movie together. I love their relationship, and I also love how the writers aren’t afraid of making them real about it too. Guido’s banter, Madrox’s statement, “Who didn’t know about Rictor and Shatterstar”, and just the general feel the two of them have for each other. I’m a supporter of this as a positive image of gays in comics. Score one for X-Queers!
Anywho, also as a side note, what the hell is Terry doing!? Sleeping with Deadpool… Not only is that disgusting but… what the hell, random? While we never see the Merc with a Mouth in any of the panels his costume is strewed across what appears to be Terry’s apartment floor and his characteristic yellow speech bubbles are everywhere with typical Wade Wilson craziness. Oh jeez… what are you doing with your life Siryn?
Well, as the Madrox, Strong Guy, and Shatterstar make their way with the Fantastic kids to confront Mr. Fantastic about the disappearance of his wife, a Madox dupe and Rictor head around the Fantastic Four base to find some clues to what might have happened to Susan. To maintain Rictor and the dupes secrecy, Guido starts a fight with the thing to buy the pair some time to snoop. However, Valeria is quick to catch onto what Madrox plan was, which gives Madrox the feeling that Reed Richards too picked up on the crews plan–however, Mr. Fantastic didn’t do anything to stop them. Something is up.
Meanwhile, back at the base, Monet comes back to try to get Madrox to accompany her to Ireland and talk to Terry who is becoming more and more distant but is quick to judge the funeral home/base and finds a presumably dead Longshot in the morgue. However, it appears that in a drunken stupor the luck manipulator had fallen asleep inside one of the body compartments. However Val Cooper comes to deliver some bad news to M, telling her that her father has been captured by terrorists with plans to behead him on TV. Their only comprise, is M in exchange for her father.
Best line of the entire issue though is when Madrox returns to headquarters to stumble upon M and Val in the middle of discussing what they are going to do about her father: “And… Val…? Are you two together? Not… in the romantic sense, I mean, but…” Love the gayos (gay + chaos).
M asking for some space, gives the crew a chance to piece over the clues they found over at the Richards facility. A single bobbypin that was found in the Fantasticar (lamest name ever) leads to Longshot using his abilities of psychometry to view what happened to the Invisible Woman. This leads him to following Susan through some sort of portal that brings him face to face with what appears to be a cloaked Layla Miller who states she is in Latveria–nation ruled by Doctor Doom.
The story then crosses over to Ireland where Terry is standing before her father’s grave (wonder if this is going to have any relavance or noting in Necrosha sense papa Cassidy is out and about being all TO zombified) rather confused about her life. Madrox then appears behind her and asks if she could us some help, which leads her to clobbering him across the face. However, we quickly find out that this is the dupe of Madrox that is a priest. The pair follow the sound of a gunshot which leads to a pair of idiotic hunters who accidentally kill a baby deer. This leans Siryn to use her powers and scare away the hunters while she laments over her past on the shoulders of the dupe of Madrox.
Rating: 4/5 art is nice, story is looking good, heading in the right direction
Filed under: NCW | Tags: Astonishing X-Men, Cable, NCW, X-Factor, X-Force, X-Men: Legacy
IT’S MY 19TH BIRTHDAY! HUZZAH!
Unfortunately I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow so that means no crazy, sexy parties tonight, but I am in store for some awesome presents and some time with my friends and family. (Also I asked for all the back issues of X-Factor, so we’ll see how that goes *wishes really hard*) Anywho, tomorrow is NCW (my fancy anagram for New Comics Wednesday), which means all us comic fans are getting pumped for the next installments of our favorite superheroes. Here are all the X-Men comics that are coming out this week, just in case you didn’t already know.
