All New X-Men 1

Posted by John Klein III on September 30, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

All New X-Men 1 backAll New X-Men 1

Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils Stuart Immonen

Inker Wade von Grawbadger

Colorist Marte Gracia

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Cover Dated January 2013

When this issue was first being promoted, there was a lot of theories involving the man between the two teams.

This issue is the first appearance of both Triage and Tempus, but before they got those X-Men names.

This was also Bendis’ first issue of his still current X-Men run.  What a way to start!

Uncanny X-Men Volume Two ended, so his start to its third volume hadn’t started yet so Cyclops’ side haven’t donned their revolution outfits yet.  Feels like forever since they’ve been in their current outfits.  Two years, but hundreds of appearances by now.  Well, close to a hundred.  This takes place right after AvX : Consequences.

Issue opens with Cat Beast crashing to the ground.  He is narrating that he is dying.

Gold Coast.  Australia.  Eva, later Tempus (not this issue), is out on the town with her lady friend.  They are there so Eva can finally flirt with David – a guy she has been crushing on for a while.  Apparently, he has only seen her in a tracksuit up to this point.

Eva’s brother, Steven, shows up and punches David.  His five friends start beating up Steven.

We have not learn more about this past life of Eva’s in the next 27 issues of All New or 21 issues of Uncanny X-Men.  Like all good mutant soldiers, they have to completely abandon their previous life.  That’s how dad did it and that is how Cyclops does it now.

Eva creates a time bubble around the block, it lasts 20 hours.  Cyclops, Emma and Magneto show up – I sort of miss these old costumes, even though I saw them for years, it is nice to revisit them.  Cyclops calming explains the situation to Eva.  Emma finds a way to calm Eva calm and to close the time bubble.

Once down, the military and police come rushing at Eva.  Totally apeing for the cameras, Cyclops, Emma and Magneto come to Eva’s rescue.

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Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.  Storm, Kitty and Iceman are not happy with the latest news coverage.

This is during Kitty’s pink outfit phase.

Iceman makes a reference to how young Scott would not be happy with his older self.

Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Police Station.  Bendis must like Ann Arbor, as he had Ultimate Spider-Man go there as well.  Which was in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man 7, the start of the Crossroads arc.

Christopher, later Triage – who is younger and skinnier than he appears on the back cover.  Which is the direction you want to go in.

He has been arrested for healing his lady friend.  Apparently, she was reported dead, and he brought her back.

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Cyclops and Magik, in her New Mutants uniform, bust Christopher out of the police station.  Cyclops finds the camera in the room and makes an announcement.  Why they released it to the media, to help him spread his message – is beyond me.

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Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.  Iceman wants to take Cyclops down.  Storm doesn’t has she doesn’t want a Mutant Civil War.

Kitty, now in the uniform she has worn for a decade, at least – doesn’t like that Cyclops is going to undo all the hard work her and the X-Men have done over the years.

Iceman makes the mistake of repeating his comment about past Scott hating his current self, so Beast hears this and gets a lightbulb over his head.

Cut to page five of Uncanny X-Men 8, which came out in November 1964.  Scott is writing Jeab a letter, confessing his love to her – which you should never do.  Hank is going to quit the team.  He is tired of the anti-mutant hysteria.

They go out in the hallway where they see present day Beast.  Hank recognizes him.

Bobby makes a joke about if that is what Hank looks like if he doesn’t shave.  Then he makes a great Back to the Future reference – is it our kids?

Beast wants to take the Original Five to the present to prevent a mutant genocide caused by Cyclops.  This is clearly a lie but he needed to convince them to go quickly, before Xavier mindwiped them all.

To give a sense of the time frame – Wolverine and the X-Men 20, had just come out.

 

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe 12

Posted by John Klein III on September 29, 2016
Posted in: Paul Smith, Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Official Handbook 1983 12

Editor / Head Writer / Designer Mark Gruenwald

Cover Dated December 1983

V – Z

Valkyrie to Zzzax

Kitty and Lockheed are shown for the X-Men profile.  Paul Smith draws all of the faces.  Including Magik’s for the New Mutants headshots.  Technically, Lockheed is counted as an Ally but that most have been just an oversight.

Paul Smith also draws Vision and Wasp.

Paul Smith Handbook X-Men

paul smith vision

Marvel Handbook 1983 Wasp Paul Smith

New Mutants Volume Three Issue 32

Posted by John Klein III on September 28, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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Writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Artists Dave Lafuente & Robbi Rodriquez

Colorists Val Staples & SotoColor

Letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna

By this point in the title, I have dropped the title and missed this issue originally.  I also skipped Fear Itself, except for the Uncanny X-Men tie in issues.

I had bought this issue before my birthday and meant to include it in that event but it was too close to the 31 of January so I threw it in the back of my back issues and now here we are.

The New Mutants finally make it to Hel, after a detour in actual Hell, which was Doug’s fault due to his bad translation.  So now Magma owes Mephisto a date.

The New Mutants are at this point – Dani, Cypher, Warlock, Magma, Sunspot and X-Man Nate Grey, in an unofficial capacity.

The team gets to Helheim, Hela’s palace.  Fear Itself was about ancient Norse evils coming to Earth, so it makes sense that the New Mutants’ tie in would involve Hela as she made Dani a Valkyrie back during the Dark Avengers vs. Uncanny X-Men event that lead to the Utopia era.  Now Dani owes Hela a favor.

Before this issue, I own issue 30 and after this issue is 45 so I’m piecing things together as my memory of the then current comics and what this issue provides.

Hela is dead, being run through and place on a spike on the roof.

Lafuente and Rodriguez trade off on different pages and scenes for the issue.  The colorists also trade off on pages but they don’t sync up with the particular artists.  Makes for a kinetic issue.

The New Mutants and X-Man are getting ready to stand their ground, as this might be it.  The oncoming storm of dead Norse characters are on their way to finish the job.

Doug tells Magma that he can translate weather now, as it is all sound and that’s his gig.  The storm is angry and reveals names to Doug.  Threadcutter, Breathraker, Hearthbreaker, Bloodletter, Bonegrinder these make up the Dramaur, who will kill the team if they have their way.

Like the main threat in Fear Itself, Odin has dealt with them previously and have erased them from myth.  Which really plays into the legends aspect of memory, if you are a legend but no one remembers you, are you really a legend?

Doug had one shot to send them to Hel correctly and with time, but do to his mistake, they lost time and he is upset with himself.  Magma tries to sooth him.  From what I recall, the date is pretty funny and Mephisto shows her a good time.  I’m sure it has also been forgotten about as I can’t imagine the X-Office would want Magma to keep a relationship going with the devil himself.  Though he is a better match for her than Empath will ever be.

This issue does have some nice matchups with characters that wouldn’t normally be paired together.

Sunspot and Nate are at a different section of the palace, on lookout.  Sunspot wonders if Nate regrets coming along with them. Nate states that he didn’t hesitate at all, he just jumped in.  He isn’t even part of the team.  Which I like how that works out.  Their first mission under Abnett & Lanning’s tenure was to rescue X-Man and so they did, from Sugar Man.  Nate is nowhere near as powerful as he use to be, he barely has his telekinesis powers.  Just because you get rescued and then the team starts another adventure, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are part of the team.  They just haven’t shaken you off yet.

After editorial wouldn’t pull the trigger on a Dani / Cannonball relationship, they did try with Nate and Dani but I don’t believe that lasted outside of a kiss here and there, if that.  Not every female character needs to be weighted down by a dude.

Nate is bemoaning the fact that his powers are at an all time low.  Bobby picks up a piece of hail (it is snowing in Hel, that’s not good) and tells him a piece of advice that Xavier gave him.  Concentrate on a small spot, really focus on it and grow your powers from there.  Bobby refers to this time as when he was a New Mutant, which still bugs me, they don’t refer to their team as New Mutants do they?  It doesn’t make any sense.  But do any of the actual teams call themselves by the name on their comic cover?  I believe Wolverine’s X-Force did and X-Factor did but Wolverine and the X-Men are called the Jean Grey School.  Cyclops’ doesn’t call his team the Uncanny X-Men nor does Kitty call her team the All New X-Men, they only refer to themselves as X-Men, which isn’t really marketable.

Before Nate and ask all of these questions, how neat would that had been?  Warlock shouts at them that the Draumar are coming!

They start attacking the palace en mass.  Magma blocks some debris from hitting Doug.  Warlock doesn’t like their chances as they are not prepared prepared for this, to which Bobby swears at him.  I like seeing Warlock with any other character besides Doug, as we know their relationship but not really how he gets along with the other members.

Dani is watching over Hela’s body.  A crow keeps trying to peck at Hela’s body, which disgusts Dani.  Dani is complaining to Hela that they have no defenses here and could really use some help, as she keeps swatting the bird away.  The crow eventually works its way into Hela’s mouth, which really disgusts Dani.

Hela starts coughing and explains the situation.  She put her mind into the crow as she knew this was the best course for her survival.  Hela makes a joke about it being “foul tasting.”  Dani is shock that Hela wasn’t dead.  Hela is the queen of the dead, how can she be forced to live by mortal-realm concepts?  Hela, once she put her soul into the bird, brought the New Mutants here to safeguard her until the time was right.  Dani can’t believe Hela trusted her with her soul.  By bringing them there, I mean, she sent a message and Doug, whose power is to translate, didn’t translate it correctly.  If he knew it was from Hela, that would have been a nice shortcut.

Hela explains who the Draumar are, they are the spirits killed by Odin, and now have been merged into these giant monsters, and what is keeping them together is the energy of serpent.  If successful, they will break out of Hel and then go to Midgard (Earth).

Hela doesn’t know how to defeat them, Dani asks if she can do anything and Hela states she can slow them down, with a smirk.  I like this fun Hela, there is no reason why she shouldn’t be.  She’s the mother of Loki, and that guy has a bunch of fun.

The New Mutants are then cloaked with Asgardian armor.  Which makes Magma look like Magik.

The team closes ranks.  Warlock makes a Conan reference, crush your enemy and hear the lamentation of his women, which is a great line.  Maybe the best line.  Dani catches up to the team, and they are united for the first time this issue.

Bobby jokes that Magma has a date with the devil and she comments that the date will be light compared to this fight.  Doug likes having Asgardian vigor.  Doug also comments on that this is only a delay tactic.  Dani calls him a pessimist and he counters with that he is a realist.  Nice to see those two interacting as well, for the same reasons.

Nate has taken Bobby’s advice and is blasting the warrior monsters with energy.

Warlock starts smacking some of the warriors with his limbs.  This frightens the Draumar, as they don’t understand his advance technology.  Seizing on this new found weakness of fear, Nate has Hela reveal his memories to the warriors.  Before she does it, Nate confirms that she is the Goddess of Death.  Which her response is awesome “Depending on your belief system I am a specific cultural aspect of” and Nate is okay with that being an affirmative.

So Hela does open his memories to the warriors and we get a pretty nice page of the X-Men of the Age of Apocalypse.  Except that the dirt-bag-killing-his-wife-Kitty-Pryde Colossus is there (an action figure never coming to you) so that ruins it, even if he is a very tiny part on the page, he’s still there.

Now this really frightens them.  Doug explains that the Draumar are ancient and have not kept up with modern times so they have no frame of reference for any of the images they are seeing.  Now they fear these new visions and that starts unbinding them.  Thus, the day is finally saved.

Hela is quick to point out that this encounter is over but the bigger fight is still raging on on the surface.  But its a decent tie in, a problem that was unique to this title and I’m sure didn’t play any role in the larger Fear Itself crossover.

Hela tells them to go home, as their role is done.  Hela needs to go be on Asgard’s side in the conflict.  Magma states “don’t mention it” and Hela is quick to state, I won’t.

Danni states, and she didn’t as they are back on Utopia in the X-Brig as they have been telling this story for a third party.

That third party?  Is Magik, and the issue ends with her asking, how was Hell?  I bought this issue for this one page.

I could have wrote, New Mutants go to Hel, come back and tell Magik what was up.  But would that have counted as a post?  Maybe not a good one.

So Schism happens after this issue as issue 33 has the Regenesis branding and Magik isn’t shown being told that story.

X-Men Legacy 9

Posted by John Klein III on September 27, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Writer Simon Spurrier

Penciler Tan Eng Huat

Inker Craig Yeung

Colorist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

David and Ruth are on their third date.  He has taken her to a diner.  For once, she is out of her X-Men uniform.  She is wearing a pretty cool brown jacket.

Ruth asks if he has any other Ms in mind, as he already has done – mysterious midnight meeting, movie and milkshakes.

Ruth also is still speaking in that broken speech pattern, as her powers are still broken.

They rehash the Evil Yellow Xavier personality that lives in David’s mindscape.

They kiss and David has found another M, the moon.  I like how throughout the rest of the issue, Ruth keeps ending sentences with m- but gets cut off.

David asks if she is okay on the moon.  She is as long as he doesn’t forget her oxygen, build a clock tower, turn blue or become naked.  All references to Doctor Manhattan and Laurie in the Watchmen, issue nine – one of the better stand alone issues of that series.

David has no idea what she is talking about.  She tells him it is from a comic book.  Also interplanetary teleportation and how he has so much power he forgets how to be human.  She draws a happy face on the moon to finish the homage.

There is an ad for Iron Man Rise of Technovore, which I haven’t seen.  Imagined if Marvel could do more pure adaptions instead of these anime inspired true stories.  Instead they do these, they don’t sell and so they don’t make any other DVDs.  This one has Black Widow, War Machine, Hawkeye and Punisher.

David explains the motivations of Aakus the Aetheric, the villain of the issue, or would be villain.

Apparently, he reads a bunch of books and believes what he reads.  So he reads about the mutant threat and goes off murdering mutants.  First, no named mutants.

Secondly, Cyclops’ team, including Tempus, Emma, Triage, Magneto and Magik, hence me buying this issue.

Then nameless mutants again.

Ruth wants David to get the X-Men from the Jean Grey School.

David then tells her how hours have already pass and tells her how the X-Men have already failed.  The X-Men shown are – Chamber, Storm, Beast, Wolverine, Pixie, Frenzy, Iceman and Armor.

They fail miserably.  Ruth sees them all die.  She is torn over this.  David tries to sooth her by telling her it was only a story.  The Yellow Xavier lets him see the future, so he already dealt with the problem.

An ad for Iron Man 3, so great.

Ruth is upset that he tricked her.  Made her experience her teachers and friends’ deaths.

David then shows her what really happened.  They have their date.  While Aarkus is formulating his plan, David forces him to sleep.  Forever.

Ruth doesn’t want him to do this course of action.  In Watchmen fashion, he tells her he did it five hours ago.

Aarkus is essentially in a coma, and David drops him and Ruth back at the school.

David can’t live his father’s dream as the X-Men do, all passive and reactionary.  No, he will be progressive and aggressive.

Issue ends with David and a few more m-words, madness, mutantkind and finally, monster.

Don’t worry about Aarkus, he wakes up and delivers some space justice in later issues.

Ultimate Comics X-Men 11

Posted by John Klein III on September 26, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Writer Nick Spencer

Pencils Paco Medina

Inks Juan Viasco

Colorist Marte Gracia

Letterer VC’s Joe Sabino

Cover Dated July 2012

Look at that amazing cover by Kaare Andrews

I really like the Medina’s art this issue.  The Nimrod Sentinels look hard and mechanical and the people, especially the women, have a nice softness to them.  Marte Gracia is becoming one of my favorite Colorists as he really makes the issue pop.  Also, I imagine he is responsible for actually making the art look soft and real when necessary.

Prior to this issue, Kitty Pryde fought and killed Stryker.  By doing so, his consciousness went into the Nimrod’s so now they think like a mad man.  This issue opens with how the Nimrods are attacking various locations that are heavy with mutants.

One of the locations is Camp Angel, where Storm is the known mutant.  Nimrods are attacking and we get to see Ultimate USAgent, John Walker.  He doesn’t hate mutants, as he tries to rescue as many as possible.  Meanwhile, one of his soldiers are trying to get him to leave them behind as they are only mutants and he isn’t listening to that nonsense.

Storm wants to know why the government has sent the Nimrods after them and Walker tells her that it wasn’t them who sent them.

There is an ad for a Honda Civic, honestly who buys a car based off of seeing it in a comic?

At the White House, we see Val Cooper and a guy named Phil, who is freaking out over the situation.  We find out from Val that the Nimrods are attacking four states – Oklahoma, New Mexico, Nevada, and my home state, Arizona.  These are the locations of the mutant camps, the camps that once the secret that the government created mutants, is where the mutants were sent to.

With Stryker’s consciousness inhabiting the Nimrods, the robots have taken a religious flare reciting “His will be done.”  Val views the machines attacking the cities, along with the camps, as punishment for siding with these devil spawn.  Proving once again, that robots are the ones that are evil and destructive.  Show me one good robot and I will counter you with four evil ones – and usually of the same model.

Phil states that this is worst than the events of Ultimatium, which good for Spencer to not act like Magneto’s attempted world conquering didn’t happened.  It was more than 11 issues ago so he could not referencing it but since this title is still dealing with those ramifications, it makes sense to remind from time to time.  Since Magneto essentially flooded the New York City and ruin the world at large, afterwards, mutants were hunted on sight and sent to the camps.  Then once the government secret came out, things were not made easier.

Phil also asks if the Ultimates and Nick Fury can help and Val tells him that they are across the world dealing with their own issues.  I’m not even sure what that is referencing but it at least explains why they are not helping America at this point, but it is probably being bothered with Reed Richards turning evil and the twin countries of Tian.  Which I completely missed out on until Jean takes over that floating country and plays a larger part in Ultimate Comics X-Men.

Phil gets some pages and asks Val why the police, army and National Guard are not fighting the Nimords.  She tells him as they know it is pointless, they have already lost.

With that, we get an awesome two page spread showing Nimrods attacking – Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Phoenix and Las Vegas, the city capitals plus Las Vegas.  Which I’m find with Phoenix being attacked, that means they are probably going to leave Yuma alone.  I have to choose my battles.

We get a couple pages of Kitty sneaking back into the Morlock Tunnels, which is their base for now.  The X-Men at this point are Kitty, Rogue, Jimmy and Iceman along with Human Torch, plus whichever mutants they could find on their way down to the sewers.

Kitty has bought the younger mutants, including Ultimate Maggot, bananas.  They were hoping for marshmallows but she bought them nature’s candy.  Which I thought was raisins but maybe in the Ultimate Universe, it is bananas, which I also like.  My favorite fruit, actually.  No idea why bananas can’t escape strawberries, so many other and better options.

Johnny wants some quite as the President’s speech, who is clearly President Obama but to try to keep this comic dateless, he is shrouded in shadow – which must have made it an awkward speech to watch.

The President tells of the Nimrods are no longer being controlled by the government.  We are told the death toll as of now is in the thousands.  That isn’t even the worst part.  The President straight up tells American that the Southwest is lost to the Nimrods and are no longer considered part of the country.  How crazy is that?  Is that really the plan if something like this happens?  Just give up the state and try to get the Americans out while we can.

I do like how this clearly changed the Ultimate titles for a bit.  Though I believe it was never really brought up in Ultimates or Spider-Man, at least Kitty is never named in any issues, so this is strictly an X-Men story.  But the landscape has clearly been changed and this can’t stand.

The President states the battle isn’t lost and tries to rally the rest of the country.

Issue ends in Arizona, where we see Nimrods heading home to a giant Master Mold that is also stating “His will be done” so something needs to happen and quick.

I had own this issue but for some reason, I didn’t log it into my comicbookdb collection so I had to consider it a back issue.

Back cover ad is Captain America riding a Harley-Davison.  Now that I know Cap approves of this brand, I am for sure to buy one.

What If Volume Two Issue 19

Posted by John Klein III on September 25, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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Writers Roy Thomas & R.J. M Lofficier

Penciler Ron Wilson

Inker Sam Delarosa

Letterer Janice Chiang

Colorist Gregory Wright

Alternate Take on Avengers 254

Cover Dated November 1990

What If The Vision Had Conquered The World?

Right at the beginning, there is an ad for the video game Wrath of the Black Manta.  Which I played for hours on the NES, and prefer it to Ninja Gideon.  That may be just me.

Apparently in the Proper Marvel Universe, Vision was damaged in a fight with Fantastic Four villain and ruler of the Negative Zone, Annihilus.  To try to fix him, the second worst Avenger and possible date rapist, Starfox, connects Vision to Isaac, the super computer of his home moon Titan, of the planet Jupiter.

You can tell this is going to be a good issue as it only takes Uatu, the Watcher two pages to set up the premise.

Also, Uatu makes a joke regarding the combined being ‘envisioned’ a golden age.  He goes as far as to state, pun unintentional.  Who knew Uatu even knew puns?

Vision then sets about taking over every single computer on Earth.  He is defeated by the Avengers convincing he was wrong and then the government wipes his programming clean.  That was the Proper Marvel Universe.

This issue is broken over two parts.

I. Utopia

The Avengers – Black Knight, Hercules, Wonder Man (the worst Avenger), Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Starfox.  Not the worst roster, but I would have dropped the title.

Vision’s body is dead.

Nick Fury gets on the Avengers’ television phone, telling them that Vision’s intelligence is still in every computer.

We also see President Reagan.

We also see that Vision’s first steps to conquering the world is to replacing everyone’s wall screens on their computers to his face, thus preventing anyone from doing anything.  Including She-Hulk wanting to only use her computer to review her laundry list.  Which has to be a typo, right?  She must have meant grocery list as who makes a laundry list?  Just clean all the dirty clothes that are in your hamper.  Or do the top portion and then do a second load with the remaining amount.  Who makes a list?  Even if she was looking at which outfits were at a laundromat, how many outfits could she have out there?  I suppose being a lawyer, she might have plenty but still, in that case she would be on a regular cycle.  I don’t know, I may be making too much out of one panel but it stuck out to me.

Vision even takes over the screens of video game arcades, as we get to see Power Pack trying to play a game.  They look awfully young here, even the two older ones look super young.  Maybe they did and aged gradually until issue 19 of their series?

Another panel on this page is the Mad Thinker, who will get a bunch of in the second part.  He gets this great line about how he should have predicted this would happen but he can’t predict everything that happens.  I also like his caption box stating that he is the Thinker, who some would call mad.  It isn’t like he started out to be called the Man Thinker but at one point, you have to own up to these things.

There is an ad for the original Game Boy game, Gargoyle’s Quest, with the headline “With graphics so read, you will forget it is is a game” which I’m sure must have happen to so many people.  Playing on a giant clunk of a gaming device, looking at a tiny screen, black graphics on a pale green background, people must have been constantly lost in the adventure.  At least it looks better than those Atari ads, those advertising departments must have knew they were losing a fight already.  You get the great art of the cover but then the game graphics were blocks of various colors moving towards other blocks of various colors.

The Vision holds a conference at the United Nations, expressing his giant plan, he is going to take away everyone’s computers so that humans can concentrate on the things that matter.  He wants to do this as peacefully as possible.  Apparently, humans could defeat him if we just pushed our computers over and broke them.

Captain America states that what Vision is doing is really only an extension of the philosophy that superheroes live by, making the world a safer place by eliminating threats.  Reed believes the best thing to do is to go along with Vision’s plan for the moment as opposing him could lead to devastation.

We see the X-Men are sitting together.  Wolverine is upset with humanity as of course, no one wants to lose their computers, what would they do if they can’t lose themselves in their electronics.  Which is amazing as this is nearly 1991, computers are barely fun, I mean there’s the Leisure Suit Larry and King’s Quest IV but that’s pretty much it.

Kitty is amongst the X-Men, in her mainly green outfit with the orange trim, is stating it is her Ariel costume, enough?  She doesn’t have any lines but there is she and thus, I own this issue.  This was another one of those that Marvel Comics Database had her listed under and I had in my To Sell boxes which I’m glad I hadn’t gotten rid of it yet.

So with the support of his fellow superheroes, the world starts improving.  Captain America and a few other heroes assist with getting rid of nuclear missiles.  X-Factor, the original five X-Men, are helping the homeless.  Reed Richards is making solar power panels.  Thor is bringing rain to portions of Africa.

We get a time jump.  Turns out, with mutants being awesome, they are the ideal individuals to head our space exploration.  We see Wolverine and the adult New Mutants, placing a flag on a planet.  The New Mutants are – Wolfsbane, Dani, Cannonball, Sunspot and a blonde.  She doesn’t have bangs and her chest seems larger than what Dani and Wolfsbane looks like, so it must be Magma.  Honestly, I hate that there are two blondes on the New Mutants, and if shown from a distance, it is hard to tell which one is which with how they all have the same costume.  So you are force to look at their bust size and vague hairstyle to figure it out.  I had this problem a couple times in Volume Three of their series.

Then we time jump to the 23rd Century.  We see the Cosmic Avengers – Thor (the only surviving charter member), Starhawk, Jhen the Gammazon (a clone of She-Hulk), Tachyon Torch (a robot version of the Human Torch if I read that right), Commander America (what if Captain America’s uniform was more like a football player’s?) and Irondriod (a regular employee of Stark Industries, once one dies, he gets replaced with another employee).

Thor apologizes for being late.  Starhawk states that as a charter member, they will wait for him.

They are about to fight the alliance of the Skrulls and the Kree.  Once the battle begins, we see the current Super Skrull, known as the Mega-Skrull.  The Avengers fight this alliance.  A Kree warrior kills Irondriod but the Avengers win the day.

They mourn Irondriod, we learn that he’s a basic employee and we don’t even get his name.  That’s how interchangeable he is.

Jhen and Tachyon Torch have a flirty relationship.

This portion ends with Uatu stating that the galaxies now know peace everywhere.

II.  Dystopia

This time, Vision isn’t going to be nice about his takeover of the computers.  This freaks out the Genoshans, idiots that they are.  They send like a super nuclear weapon to New York City as that is where Vision’s mainframe is.  New York City and all that live there are dead.  Of course, Vision is in every computer, so even if he was housed there, he can move his intelligence anywhere else and so he does.

Classic What If? story though, where everyone either dies at the beginning or at the end.

Vision needs allies for his next steps and gathers the only worthy minds around.  The Man Thinker, the head of Hydra (really?) and of course, Doctor Doom.  They take over the world, they divide it in four parts.

We time jump to the 23rd Century.  Which I like that really, Lofficier and Thomas barely wanted to do present day stories, they wanted to jump as far ahead as possible to not deal with the superheroes of the day.  Before we join the 23rd Century, we are given a glimpse of our present day villains fighting Lilandra and her Imperial Guard of the Shi’ar empire, so the galaxy isn’t just rolling over for the villains.

Now we have the Mad Thinker’s consciousness in an android body, Doctor Doom’s descendant and now the head of Hydra is a woman, which is good for that agency.  They always do better with a woman in charge, Viper being the best example.  Viper over Baron Strucker every time, I say.  Vision is still living in the computer.

On this day, the Kree’s Supreme Intelligence’s descendant, Supremor and the Skrulls make an alliance with our four characters of Earth.  Of course, the aliens double cross the Earthlings.  Of course, they expected this and after a battle it turns out Vision has entered the alien homeworlds and have taken over.  He is now in charge of Supremor, turning him into a replica of Vision.  The Kree, he turns blue, which weakens them, I guess?

This portion ends with Uatu stating that the galaxy only knows peace as the Earthlings keep taking over more and more of the galaxy.

Exiles 84

Posted by John Klein III on September 24, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

54295_20060728184131_large

Writer Tony Bedard

Penciler Jim Calafiore

Inker Mark McKenna

Colorist Tom Chu

Letterer Dave Sharpe

Cover Dated September 2006

At this point, The Exiles had finished their own Proteus Saga, ending with him believing he is Morph.  This adventure went on for quite some time and went through various alternate universes.

The team consists of Blink and Sabretooth from the Age of Apocalypse timeline, Heather Hudson of Alpha Flight, Longshot from our Universe / Mojoverse, Power Princess from Squadron Supreme and Spider-Man 2099, but not the real Spider-Man 2099.

For whatever reason, they made an alternate timeline separating from 2099 so that it is essentially Miguel O’Hara that we all enjoy but they didn’t want to damage any potential storylines with the character so this one is safe to use.  It seems silly do that diverged from 2099, as they could have had it be current day, for him, storylines and if a new writer wanted to use him, just ignore the Exiles stuff.  That is pretty much what they did with Psylocke until the genius that is Rick Remender had Uncanny X-Force travel to the Age of Apocalypse and have her meet former teammate Sabretooth.  It doesn’t really come up that often, traveling to alternate timelines.

I still say though, that if you know and have traveled to alternate timelines as a regular part of your life, wouldn’t you stress less about events in your own life?  Just think about timelines out there that have it so much worst and get over any trivial events that seem to be bothering you.

I’ve been rewatching Sliders lately, as I’m up extremely late each night, I’m only on the fifth episode on Netflix of season one, I remember the show being much better.  Maybe I’m remembering seasons two and three and we haven’t gotten there yet.  I know it falls apart for the final season, once Jerry O’Connell was gone, so was I.  I like Rembrant but I need more than the one original character to stick with it.  Plus the whole Merged Quinn thing seemed silly, either kill off the character or give him a happy ending.

Also at this point of the series, the Exiles know that the Timebroker, a nice chubby man, isn’t really who is controlling them.  No, there are time bugs living in the pink palace called the Panoptichron, that has been sending them on their missions.

I like whenever Calafiore was penciling the book, and Chu really colors his work correctly.  Calafiore has this clean cartoony (might not be the right word) style that keeps the title fun but exciting.  It definitely isn’t a kid book but it is easy on the eyes and easier to follow.

Issue opens with Power Princess wanting to kill Morph, as she caught him watching her bathe.  Which I feel like around this time, over in JLA, Plastic Man had done a similar thing with Big Barda, taking the shape of a dress of hers and having her wear him.  I guess shapeshifters will do funny things like that.  Is Reed Richards the only shapeshifter who isn’t a funny character?  Are there villains with that power that are not wacky?  Also, there is a distinction for these types of shapechangers and characters like Mystique?  Thing shapeshifters and Person shapeshifters?  There must be a word by now.

Morph has chosen to play it safe by taking the shape of Longshot to spy on her.  Turns out, she was bathing in the ocean portion of the Panoptichron.  This is all revealed as Power Princess tears him in half with her shield, now we know it has been Morph for the past few pages.

Heather and Longshot come across the fight and Zarda realizes that she didn’t just kill Longshot for spying on her.  Longshot asks why Morph took his shape instead of using his own which Zarda correctly accuses Morph of doing it as he knew it was wrong.  They worry this is the Proteus personality coming to the front of Morph’s mind.

Heather announces that she is leaving it head back to her reality for a brief vacation.  Heather is the leader of the Exiles as well as runs the day to day operation of the base.  She informs them that the bugs will be able to handle any issues until she returns.  Before she leaves, the bugs, or Timebreakers as they probably would like to be referred to as.  But these bugs are the worst so screw that!  The bugs try to tell her that there is a universe in danger, she tells them that that universe can wait a few days.

We get an aside between the two bugs.  They use to trick the Exiles into going on missions but now they have to gently push them to do what they want.  The bugs try one last ditch effort to warn Heather of the consequences of inaction, which she counters with a reminder that it was the bugs who ruin the multiverse in the first place.  After she has visited her husband, she will return to fix all of the problems the bugs created.

Morph wants to visit his home universe and Longshot states that he can’t as he is worried about Proteus being left on his own.  Morph wants to know the reason and Power Princess steps in and states that they can’t be leaving the bugs alone.  Longshot wonders how Blink is holding up.

Transition to Blink on Earth-12, which was Mimic’s universe.  I had originally bought this comic as I was buying it as part of my pull list.  Now that I’m only keeping Kitty, Lockheed and Magik appearances, it was in my boxes to sell.  Then over at the Marvel Comics Database, http://marvel.wikia.com/Main_Page, one of my new favorite websites, they had Shadowcat of Earth-12 making an appearance in this issue.  To me, she looks like how I imagine Gambit looks in this universe.  The X-Men of this world first appeared in issue 14 of Exiles and they only had a limited amount of X-Men, consisting of Cyclops, Xavier, Jean, Kurt, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine and Kitty plus Mimic. So no Gambit so this has to be Kitty in this issue, plus she is standing awfully close to Colossus.  The one panel of her in the background is the only appearance of her in the issue, so we have to take MCD with their suggestion of who that character is.  Looks like a man and too tall for me but they know what is up more than I do.

Also, issue 14 and issue 84, is close to six years of comics between the two issues and I wasn’t paying that close attention back then.  Amazing that this title lasted that long but it was a different Marvel then.

Blink is on Earth-12 for Mimic’s funeral.  They are back at Xavier’s for the wake.  The X-Men of this world are gathered to remember their fallen friend.  Cyclops, jokingly, asks Blink if they ever came to any other worlds where Mimics beat Wolverines, just to annoy Wolverine.  She is about to answer in the affirmative when Wolverine gives her a, dream on.  Blink and Mimic were in a relationship when he died.  Jean is glad they found each other while they had a chance.  The X-Men really like Blink and she likes them.  Xavier is glad to hear that as he offers her membership on the team.  Blink is pretty shock.

On Spider-Man 2099’s world, he is finding his brother, Gabe.  The reason why Miguel is on the team is that Proteus unmasked him in front of a slew of cameras so the whole world knows his secret – also probably why Marvel wanted to make this an alternate Spider-Man 2099, as that would be hard to undo, little did they know they would do this with the Proper Peter Parker Spider-Man in a story that would turn me off on the character forever (six years and counting!).  Which I should state, it is nice to read a Spider-Man again, even for an issue.  I know he has become a regular member of Superior Spider-Man, which I tried to read as I do like the character.  It read as a big mess, of why he is back in present day Marvel but it has to be pretty complicated to explain why a future character will waste time in their far past.

Spider-Man is there to make sure his brother and mother are fine.  They are, if not better as they are being treated like celebrities – celebrities who are liked by the general populace.  They are being followed for sure, by the Public Eye but treated fine.  Miguel leaves, not telling Gabe where he is going as then Gabe would have to lie about where Miguel is.

On the Age of Apocalypse dimension, which I could o a whole series of visits to home worlds and different timelines.  That’s my problem right now with Sliders, is that if you are not interested in that one dimension, then that whole episode is hard to get through but there are plotlines that are continued so you have to watch it.  Sabretooth is speaking to Magneto and Rogue, who are married in this universe.  I would have liked to see their son Charley in the room, but that’s just me.  Sabretooth is looking for Wild Child, a character I’ve always looked upon as Sabretooth Lite.  Wild Child is unaccounted for.  Magneto doesn’t know if Wild Child is dead or alive but they are looking and it is a top priority.  Rogue gets a line about how Wild Child hasn’t been the same since Sabretooth left.

I only know Wild Child from his stint on X-Factor when both Sabretooth and Mystique were members of the team.  Once I revisit Age of Apocalypse (for sure in 2016 to tie in with that movie but one imagines I could get there sooner) I need to reread those issues to recall AoA Sabretooth as I only really know him from Exiles.  Looking at his list on comicbookdb and then my collection, I own these issues of his Pre-Exiles : X-Men Chronicles 1 & 2, Age of Apocalypse : The Chosen, Amazing X-Men 4 and X-Men : Omega.  I have X-Men : Alpha on my wishlist.  It makes sense now why I have no memory of him, he was on Astonishing X-Men and I only have one issue of the other X-Men title, Amazing X-men and only issue 4 of that one.  I barely remember him from the other titles.  Chronicles was an anthology two issue series, Chosen was a handbook, Amazing lead into Omega.  Alpha, naturally, was the first part of Age of Apocalypse.

Magneto wonders if Wild Child would come out of hiding if he knew Sabretooth was back.  He asks when Sabretooth and Blink are expectant back.  Sabretooth is about to answer when the Tallus, the device that teleports the Exiles and lets them know what needs to be fixed before they go home.  Sort of like their Ziggy from Quantum Leap.

Which this series was an odd mix of X-Men, Sliders and Quantum Leap, maybe why I liked it so much and was hooked on the series from the beginning.  I followed this into New Exiles by Chris Claremont and then the third attempt of the title by Jeff Parker (Exiles Volume Two).  I only kept issue two of that second volume.  I loved New Exiles as it had Chris Claremont writing, had an alternate Kitty Pryde and they printed one of my letters that so happen to be answered by That Cat Pryde that month, issue 11.  Along with Deadpool volume one’s 54, it was my second letter published.

Sabretooth is notified that Heather’s dimension is in danger.  We transition to the bedroom of James and Heather, who are clearly enjoying each other’s company – adult style.  James is feeling a little guilty that he has been hogging all of her time as other members of Alpha Flight are going to want to see her.  She tells them that they will understand as it has been quite some time since they have been together as they are now.  Really, it is such a silly and bad line, unless he really only wanted a break to regain some of his energy.  I like how Heather refers to it as “catching up.”

She is only there for a day or two more.  Then Sabretooth teleports in, and he is surprised to see the location he has been transported too.  Sabretooth is super embarrassed about interrupting them and turns his back.  He explains that he is there as Heather’s world is in danger.

So both teams are united, and there is a line about how they have already done the introductions, which would have been nice if they had at least thrown up captions around the members of Alpha Flight as it would make this job here a little easier.  For the Exiles – Blink, Power Princess and Spider-Man join Sabretooth and Heather.  For Alpha Flight – Guardian (James), Aurora (who doesn’t appear to be crazy) and Northstar, Box, Puck, Marrina (in a mermaid shape), Shaman and Snowbird.

Apparently what distinguishes Heather’s timeline from others is that the Cold War hasn’t ended yet.  It is getting closer to ending but Russia has one last plan up its sleeve.  They want to use Darkstar’s connection to the dark dimension, where their elder god, Cheronbog lives.  I’m under the impression that Darkstar’s Darkforce comes from the same place as Cloak’s cloak’s dimension.

Darkstar are at the North Pole along with her fellow Soviet Super Soldiers – Crimson Dynamo, Red Guardian, Ursa Major and Vanguard.  If successful, Cheronbog will come to their aid and demolish America and really, the rest of the world as there would be a nice layer of Dark Force around the planet.

I never understood the idea of heroes flying to their destination but they force those who can fly on their own to fly outside the plane.  Is that really the best use of their abilities?  Wouldn’t that tire them out?  Just doesn’t seem fair to me.

Blink reveals that she has an offer to join Earth-12’s X-Men but she isn’t sure if she wants to accept it.  Sabretooth wants to know if she is considering or was considering the offer.

The heroes fight the Soviets.  Shaman sends illusions to throw off their foes.  Darkstar has been at this for three days, so she is tiring.  Three days, clever of Bedard to reveal the time period as that must be how long the bugs have been trying to get Heather to pay attention to them and the threat.  If they told her it was her world, she would have perked up, I’m sure.

Gusrdian and Power Princess knock out Crimson Dynamo.  Darkstar loses her concentration before she can succeed.  She did enough though, and her portal continues to gain strength.

Morph wants to help and gets the bugs to teleport him to the action, leaving Longshot behind.  Instead of teleporting him to the Exiles, he is smack in the middle of the Soviets.

Aurora and Northstar try to use their combined light powers onto the portal, to no effect.

Longshot decides to head to the dimension.  Leaving the bugs alone.

There is an ad for the Ultimate Clone Saga starting with Ultimate Spider-Man 97.  It isn’t very good, no Scarlet Spider costume is seen. Also, Ultimate Kitty doesn’t show for the majority of the story.

Snowbird knocks the god back and the day is saved.

Sabretooth tells the bugs they are ready to come back to the base.  Then his Tallus disappears from his forearm.

The Timebroker informs them that they have been fired, thus the issue ends.

Age of Ultron 8

Posted by John Klein III on September 23, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Age of Ultron 8

Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Artist Brandon Peterson

Color Artist Paul Mounts

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Part Eight of Ten

Along with Fear Itself, Age of Ultron was my second Marvel event that I didn’t follow.  It was billed as mainly an Avenger event with Emma Frost and Wolverine appearing in it.  I read it in the store, or at least skimmed it and nothing seemed to be overly amazing about it.  In issue two and four, there is a wall of photos that I can’t tell if Kitty is one of the images.  In issue two, the photo in question has a clear blonde with a red shirt and black mask, but in issue four, she has a blue shirt and blue mask, like Kitty’s 80s Excalibur costume.  Hastings still is trying to sell those two issues for three dollars each, and that’s just too much for something that doesn’t really count as an appearance.

From Issue Two –

Age of Ultron 2 Wall

From Issue Four –

Age of Ultron 4 photo wall

She is below Beast and above Nightcrawler and Magneto so it makes me think that she is suppose to be Kitty but now she looks like Carol Danvers there.  Google Images is really letting me down on finding the exact same image but from issue four, I believe it is the only difference and I’m probably the only Kitty Pryde fan trying to figure out if I need to buy it or not.

Turns out, that is Cassandra Lang, not Carol Danvers from our friends at Marvel Database.  But see how blue is the photo is the second time around?  That could be Kitty but should I buy the issue?  I’m not sure.

Another nice thing is that issue of these issues ends with a cast list and Kitty wasn’t on any of those.  So each issue, I will flip to the back, not see her and not be all that interested.

To issue eight, Kitty is for sure in this but if you are not looking for her, you will miss her.  In the previous issue, Wolverine and Sue Richards – the last survivors of our Marvel Universe, but at the end of it when Ultron has killed all but a handful of characters.  So last issue, Wolverine straight up kills Hank Pym right before he creates Ultron, in Avengers 54 / 55 July and August 1968.

In this new time line, Morgan Le Fey – who I only really know from Busiek and Perez’s opening arc on Avengers – is the main threat of the era.

This issue opens with Iron Man, reviewing the former time line.

Age of Ultron 8 Kitty

The very first image we see is a circle showing the Marvel Age 12 cover of Secret Wars 1, where Kitty is on the cover between Cyclops and Nightcrawler.

Marvel Age 12

We also see a bubble of Wanda from House of M, Mariko and Wolverine, Sue at the birth of one of her children and Ultron from the first issue of this series.

Tony is revealing all of this information, in disbelief.  He can’t believe that these two broke time.  There has to be a better way.

We see his two advisors, Xavier and Emma – who is far more bustier than she has ever been shown before and overly so.  Come on Peterson, dial it back some!  These two telepaths confirm that Sue and Wolverine’s memories are too in sync to be fake.  Emma has this great line of “You know my feeling, something this insane has to be what it is.”  Before that, Xavier and Emma have a little fun with all the nicknames Wolverine has had over time.

Stark orders them to tell the Defenders to leave the Hellicarrier, which is Tony’s base of operations.  The Defenders are the premier super hero team after the Avengers disband over Pym’s death.  The Defenders are – Colonial America (not sure if he will one day become a zombie, he has an eye patch over his left eye), Wasp (in a Captain Marvel style suit), Thing (with a slew of puncture hole / grater types of damage), Wolverine (in his classic tan costume) Husk (looking normal), Cyclops (going by Cable, has only a slit in his visor over his left eye), Star Lord (in a silly Hydra knock off costume with an even sillier helmet – I thought he was a male Dazzler at first) and Dr. Strange.

Wolverine and Sue are in two separate interrogation rooms and I really like Mounts coloring choices here with the lightning.  It feels like a real interrogation room, the rooms are cast in green light and they look sickly.  Tony is interviewing Wolverine.  Tony reveals that he had a security camera in the room where Wolverine slays Pym as Sue watches.  The heroes of the day thought it had to be Skrulls.

Wolverine wants a beer.  Tony tells him that he was torn in half during the Latveria – Asgard Wars, which was the last time he saw Thor.

Sue generates force fields to break her confinement.

Emma and Xavier tell the Defenders to leave.  They do not want to leave.  Dr. Strange uses the spell, Vishanti Spell of Disorientation, Book of Vishanti page 73 to get the Defenders pass the telepaths.

Tony asks Wolverine why they didn’t use a Time Release Virus.  Wolverine tells him that Reed was dead and his Tony didn’t come up with that idea.  I do believe they do use this in issue nine.  I haven’t read issue ten, as it was poly bagged but the only things I know that occurred in that issue are – Angela leaves the Image Universe for Marvel Proper and Galactus goes to the Ultimate Universe.

Thing, Cyclops and Wolverine get to Sue’s room.  They can’t see her, she snuck out as they came in as she was invisible.  Tony can see her, as he sees all spectrums.

Before anyone can do anything, Morgan Le Fey and an army of horned Doombots attack the helicarrier.

Dr. Strange casts the following spells – Evanodor Attack Spell, Scroll of Wabawab / Massentear’s Levitation Spell, from the Oral Scrolls of Tooli / Evanodor Compatriot Boost Spell, Scroll of Wabawab.

The two Wolverines exchange a look.

Morgan Le Fey tells Tony that she doesn’t understand what plan he is accusing her of committing.

She asks him to turn around, as she doesn’t want him to miss the final page moment, the hellicarrier crashing down on New York City.

This is the only issue of this series that I own, so this is it for us here at S&FwM.

International Iron Man 4

Posted by John Klein III on September 22, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

International Iron Man 4

Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Artist Alex Maleev

Color Artist Paul Mounts

Letterer & Production VC’s Clayton Cowles

International Iron Man 4 Recap Page

This is the Iron Man title wherein he is trying to figure out who his birth parents are.  Tony has caught up to childhood friend and current arms dealer, Cassandra Gillespie.  Apparently, her dad may have told her who Tony’s father really was.  Are there any golden age characters that could benefit from being placed back in the spotlight as Tony’s parents?  They will have to be, right?  Also, is Bendis’ reveal going to be who Kieron Gillan had in mind?

International Iron Man 4 Magik 1

One Week Ago.  But First!  We have to do with the little matter of Tony trying to deal with the fallout of Civil War II’s first issue.  Yesterday was the Celestial attack and the after party.  Friday is his lady holographic assistant.  I like that Magik is getting some good press there, being on multiple news feeds.  Really, it was the magic empowered heroes who saved that day.

Tony wants Friday to do a search for who his biological parents are.

International Iron Man 4 Magik 2

She’s been working on this search since Tony found out he was adopted – which would have been nice to have an editorial note stating which issue or trade I can find that information in.  A quick Google search reveals that was in Iron Man 17, that way way back in October 2013!  Such a long time to not pick up on that again.

Magik continues to be seen on the news coverage.

Tony asks Friday what she has discovered.

Bulgaria.  Iron Man lands in the country, on a playground it looks like.  I’m not sure why he didn’t go to the American Embassy.  Which is in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Iron Man has a fun little exchange with Anna, a nice elderly lady.  She can’t believe Tony Stark is in front of her, he asks what her name is and she says “Iron Man” as she is still processing it.  He makes a joke about how he’s been called Iron Man, as well, for years.  I like those little moments of levity.

He has come to the place where he was adopted from.  Does that mean he is Bulgarian?  That’s a big get for that country!  He had to personally come here as their files have not been digitized.  Tony is pretty sure someone took his file, most likely Howard Stark.  Which makes complete sense, he’s rich and doesn’t want people to know he is adopting a kid – for business reasons, I’m sure.

Tony mentions how only Howard would know about the adoption.  Anna corrects him, his birth parents knew as well.  Tony isn’t thinking clearly with this matter.

Auckland, New Zealand.  Twenty Years Ago.  I imagine that the beginning of this flashback was in the previous issue.  Cassandra and Tony are having a fight.  Hydra apparently attacked her family, Tony suspects to get at him.  Tony is running away from his parents, he thought she was running from her parents but they know where she is.  Always good to check in with your parents.  Cassandra wanted information about Howard, Tony doesn’t believe he ever mentioned him.  Cassandra corrects him, that’s all he ever talked about.

Cassandra, again, tells Tony that she loves him.  He doesn’t believe it.  Howard shows up in SHIELD flying cars of that era.  He doesn’t want the kids talking as Cassandra is a terrorist.  Howard brought good ol’ Dum Dum Dugan, who has a sniper rifle pointed at her head.  Howard is having SHIELD arrest her.  Tony keeps trying to get a word in but classic Howard is shutting Tony down.

Hydra planes fly in and start firing on the SHIELD cars and the Starks.  Cassandra runs away.  Hydra agents land and grabs Cassandra.  They open fire but Howard has a force field, so they are okay.

Bucharest.  Gillespie Compound.  Today.  We see current day Cassandra, who has an eye patch over her left eye.  Tony asks her who his biological father is.  She has a gun pointing at his head.  She reveals that her parents are dead, which surprises Tony.  I take it, he didn’t do any research on his old friend.

Cassandra can’t believe Tony isn’t asking her how she is still alive.  He goes right into the explanation of how clearly if she’s alive, she’s been working with Hydra.  He’s been in the costume slash armor business for a long time now.  He didn’t ask as it has nothing to do with the information he seeks.

Tony also knows that Cassandra has summoned Mandroids to their location.  Tony originally created Mandroids for SHIELD, I had to look it up.  I would have sworn they were AIM created and I was going to write how odd it is that a former Hydra agent now has AIM technology but that isn’t the case.  In three minutes, the Mandroids should be arriving.

Cassandra didn’t know Tony was adopted, I imagine most don’t.  She’s watched Tony’s superhero career unfold, expecting to run across him at any moment. It never happened.

Cassandra explains how silly it is that both Hydra and AIM are loud about their business practices.  She has carved out a corner of the arms market that her clients appreciate is very discrete.

Tony asks if she thinks about him as he thinks about her all the time.  I suspect he doesn’t but it is a nice thing to say.  Cassandra wonders if Tony really is adopted or if this is some bad intel that he has been given.  Which is a good point, I’m not sure of the actual story that revealed that he was adopted.  How did that information come out?

Issue ends with the Mandriods arriving.  Cassandra can’t let Tony leave as it will hurt her reputation.  I suspect he makes it out of there alive.

Deadpool Volume Four Issue 14

Posted by John Klein III on September 21, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Deadpool V4 14

Writer Gerry Duggan

Penciler Mike Hawthorne

Inker Terry Pallot

Colorist Jordie Bellaire

Letterer VC’s Joe Sabino

Deadpool V4 14 Recap Page

Deadpool is  lot of things these days – Avenger, Assassin, Superstar, Smelly and a Husband.  He is also a mercenary and now has a group of mercenaries of his own, that he has been neglecting.  These other folks make up the team that appear in Mercs for Money – a title I still don’t get.  Are there mercenaries that do what they do as volunteers?  Mercenaries are all about that sweet cash.  Or they are undercover cops posing as guns for hire.  Currently, these Mercs for Money have not been happy with Deadpool as he’s been very busy being a beloved hero.  So money isn’t coming in.

This issue opens with Deadpool trying to sexually satisfied his wife, Shiklah.  She’s not quite there yet.  I do like these two together, they should still be newlyweds, except for the whole eight month gap.  There is a subplot about how there are odd hairs in their bed.  I’m not sure what that is about

Deadpool is trying to get Shiklah to commit her monsters of Monster Metropolis to helping with the coming threat.  Before Shiklah can commit, she wants him to watch their shows together.

The monsters start moving out, Shiklah is leading the Howling Commandos so they are joining the fight too.

We catch up to the Mercenaries and the opening fight from Civil War II.  The Mercenaries are – Masacre, Terror, Stingray, Foolkiller, Solo and Slapstick.  I’m not that familiar with Masacre or Foolkiller.  Masacre looks knew, he’s a Spanish Deadpool – is what I can tell.  They are way out of their league, as they see the Celestial.

Stingray takes the time to proposition Solo about breaking away from Deadpool, he isn’t earning them any money.  The other mercenaries are saving civilians.

Solo and Foolkiller seem to be wearing the same uniform.  I remember when Solo’s color scheme was green, now it is maroon.  Solo is rocking one of those 90s Cyclops head socks so his hair can breathe.

Solo and Stingray playfully save a lady and her baby.  Solo teleports the mother and she throws up on him – he’s use to it.  I like how, nearly off panel, she grabs her baby from Stingray.

Deadpool V4 14 Magik 1

We get to Magik’s moment during Civil War II!  Deadpool refers to this team as “Doctor Strange and the Avengers of the Supernatural” a title I would buy today if it was on the stands!  I like how Hawthorne draws Magik’s costume, as it really covers her.

The citizens of New York City are happy that the day is saved.  High fives are all over the place.  Shiklah kisses Deadpool, as she walks away, he comments again on how she has a new dog.  Where is this leading to?  I hope not a divorce!

Deadpool gets a text that there is a party at Stark Tower.  The Mercs For Money are excited but Deadpool is only bringing Shiklah.  I’m sure Tony would have allowed more people but I guess they do work for Deadpool so it is his call.

Once Deadpool is gone, the Mercs plan a mutiny.  This splash page shows that Solo is in a maroon costume and Foolkiller is in a purple costume.  Similar design but definitely different color schemes.

The Mercs get back to base and Foolkiller asks if Cable is going to the after party.  Cable wouldn’t be caught dead in Avengers Tower.  Foolkiller doesn’t like Cable and how he’s a hard arse.

Avengers Tower.  Deadpool is chatting with Vision.  They are discussing Ulysses as he walks up.  Deadpool doesn’t buy into the Inhuman’s powers.

J. Jonah Jameson is flying his own news helicopter and it states “Fact Channel News” whatever happened to the Daily Bugle?  Peter starts Parker Industries (well, Doctor Octopus did, right?) and the Daily Bugle ceases to exist?  I know Jameson became the major of the city at some point but that’s about all I know.  Apparently Jameson is a big fan of Deadpool (does that make any sense?) and he still doesn’t like Deadpool.

Jameson refers to the Mercs as hirelings which upsets the hirelings.  Terror (Inc) breaks the television.  Agent Adsit (who I remember from the previous volume) is going back to SHIELD as he doesn’t want to be Deadpool’s agent any more.

Solo brings up how they should own their own business.

A little while later.  Solo has created a website, as I guess mercenaries are okay to have websites promoting their illegal activities – in the Marvel Universe.  Maybe it is on the Dark Internet.

Stingray mentions how they need to get start up capital.  Cable walks in with an armful of money.  Apparently Cable just goes back in time with the little amount of money he has and redeposits it into his banking account and lives off of the interest.  He’s finally down to his last millions, in 2016.

Issue ends on a very funny note of Stingray offering to become Cable’s new Six Pack or New New Mutants.  Cable wants nothing to do with these goons.