Shadow and Flame with Magik

Drax 1

Posted by John Klein III on June 14, 2016

Posted in: Review, Websites. Tagged: 2015, Bunn - Cullen, CM Punk, Cowles - Clayton, Drax, Hepburn, Milla. Leave a comment

Writers CM Punk & Cullen Bunn

Artist Scott Hepburn

Color Artist Matt Milla

Letterer & Production VC’s Clayton Cowles

I figured I would be buying a few issues of these Guardians of the Galaxy spinoff titles but I wasn’t expecting to be buying a first issue, that’s pretty quick.

I’m surprised that CM Punk is using his wrestling monikers. I recall reading an article, way back in the day, that whenever Dwayne Johnson is credited as “The Rock” that Vince McMahon gets a cut of some of the movie’s revenue.

CM Punk, retired, and isn’t associated with WWE – at all – so I’m not even sure how that works. He probably has been using “CM Punk” for the past fifteen years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CM_Punk

He’s with UFC now.

Like most of the Guardians, I don’t really have much connection to them, until Bendis started writing the title. Which I know annoys the Abnett Lanning crowd. Batista, another WWE wrestler, did a great job portraying the character, in the film – as far as I know. I know Drax isn’t that dumb of a character, but it felt right.

Issue opens with the Guardians fighting some aliens, which is how I imagine I’m going to get treated to these issues.

The entire creative team does a great job of handling the new Star Lord, Kitty Pryde.

I do like how, in eight months, Agent Venom is already tired of hearing Ben Grimm shout “It’s Clobbering Time!” Makes me wonder how much Johnny Storm got tired of it. But, if he didn’t say it, I’m sure the members of the Fantastic Four would either miss it or wonder why he didn’t say it.

Groot’s “I am Groot” quickly followed by Flash’s “This is hell, isn’t it” must be how television characters feel when they are surrounded by multiple other characters, that have catch phrases.

Rocket is about to ambushed, and with a page turn, we get what will most likely be the tone for this title – Drax just rips the alien in two. Blood and entrails scatter about the room. Which isn’t what I read comics for but I know there is an audience for it. Rocket brings up the great point, about how blood is hard to get out of fur.

The Guardians are there, to prevent a bomb from exploding.

The rest of the aliens turn to Drax, as he is permanently taking out their elk, and he starts tearing into them, as well.

Look at the disgust on the faces of his fellow teammates!

They get to the bomb, Rocket and Groot know a place where they can dismantle it.

We get the scene that makes me wonder if the Guardians are spread too thin. Like the logistics are throwing me off. Will their main title, be only for the big adventures that forces them to come back as a team? Which makes sense but does that mean some of them, won’t make it to the big adventure? Or will their main title have to have throw away lines regarding their solo titles?

Grimm and Venom are going to get a drink from a space station that has Irish liquor, proving how much influence Earthlings are having in outer space.

Kitty just gives the “until next time,” leaving Drax without a friend.

Not hearing what Kitty is up to, Drax tries to join her with her plans. She is doing “girl stuff” which makes me realize that she’s the only member that doesn’t have a solo title announced. That seems sexist to me, but also, she’s the best character of the batch, so it makes some sense to keep her isolated to the big title and guest appearances in the spin off titles. Now that I wrote that, Grimm doesn’t have a solo title, so maybe racist is the term to throw about? Probably more a Bendis call than scheduling, but who knows.

Grimm and Thompson’s side ship doesn’t have room for a third, so Drax can’t join them.

Drax, defaulting to his main goal – decides he will go kill Thanos. Rocket is going to lend Drax a barely functioning spaceship. Whiling flying, who knows if he even knows where to start looking for Thanos – another ship tries to board his ship. They see that the ship is barely held together by string, so they keep flying away.

The ship starts falling apart so Drax has to crash land on a moon. Space problems. After trekking for some time, on a desert looking planet, he comes across a bar. He’s looking for a mechanic. Who he does find, is Terrax! Who I mostly only know from his time as a Herald of Galactus.

Not a bad issue, and I’m super cool with just buying the first issue of storylines but I doubt I’ll be following this series. Unless Drax wishes he had a teammate with him (and name checks Kitty) but I doubt the spinoffs titles are going to have storylines that end with the team showing up and resolving the situation.

X-Men Apocalypse

Posted by John Klein III on June 13, 2016

Posted in: Film, Websites. Tagged: Apocalypse, CSBG, DailyMotion. Leave a comment

Our friends Tina and Damian agreed to watch Walker Dennis on the 11th and we were able to watch X-Men Apocalypse, as an early Father’s Day present.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film. Much better than I was lead to believe it was. I really don’t have any problems with it, lots of surprises. Which I really need to learn a lesson with this, and not follow films too closely.

Onto the major spoilers –

The film opens in 3600 BCE, which I didn’t even know we were adding the E to it, it stands for Era, which doesn’t seem that crucial of a change. I see some traitors of Apocalypse that try to halt the body transfer that Apocalypse has to do to gain additional powers. I like how his ship is clearly Celestial powered but the film doesn’t go into the alien technology aspect of Apocalypse’s origins. That’s probably for the best, as we’re not going to go into the Celestials in the next film – or any of these films. This also explains why Apocalypse hasn’t been around before the “present day” main portion of the film, he’s been sleeping this entire time. We see his Horsemen in action.

We jump to the present, which is 1983, in Ohio. The first new character is Scott Summers, a welcome addition to the films! He’s portrayed by Tye Sheridan who I just saw in the Standford Prison Project – which has a lot of known faces in the cast. Once he has the glasses on, he sort of reminded me of Miles Teller. Maybe all white twenty year olds look the same with that chin? I tried to find an image of the two together but it doesn’t exist, hmmmm.

Scott gets his powers activated in the boys room and totally takes out a dumb jock, which is awesome. His high school teacher is explaining how it is the tenth anniversary of Magneto’s attack on the White House, seen in Days of Future Past. They really emphasis that passage of time in this film.

Berlin. Angel played by Ben Hardy – who I don’t know but apparently he was on EastEnders for a while. I know the old BBC show, by reputation only. He’s in proper Angel form, and has recently taken out Blob, in a cage fight. This is his tenth victory, in a role. This scene makes me start thinking about how this new timeline and so now I’m thinking of how Wolverine Origins still fits into this new continuity. I imagine that some details may be tweaked but that film should remain the same – so I’m just looking for aspects that could be changed. Blob’s inclusion here, I feel like it doesn’t change anything of Wolverine Origins. I do like how Blob was wearing his black unitard with yellow belt.

Angel is sort of bad arse. We see Mystique, looking like a white Jennifer Lawrence, is snooping around the arena. Angel’s next opponent is Kurt Wagner, Nightcrawler – played by Kodi Smit-McPhee who I also haven’t seen before. I really enjoy Kurt and he definitely didn’t disappoint in this film. I wished we got more than just the one scene (well two I suppose) of just Mystique and Kurt together but they didn’t want to play up that angle and I can’t blame them for that. Kurt hurts Angel’s wing, and Mystique is able to crash the arena’s power systems so everyone flees.

Kurt is brought in a box that dampens his power, a motif that we see a couple times throughout the film. Which makes total sense, as ten years later, yeah, people are going to have created security measures to protect themselves against rogue mutants and mutants named Rogue.

Poland, once again, Michael Fassbender’s Magneto steals the film for me. I’m still all for a Magneto solo film, I could watch two hours of Magneto straight killing humans (or whatever he wishes to do) as he is Magneto for me.

I’m not a big fan of Assassin Creed, I played parts of the first two games – i did like the second one more than the first but with Fassbender as the star of the film, I’m all for watching it now. Though I don’t know how they will turn an 80 hour game into a two hour film. That one looked good and the Mark Wahlberg’s Deepwater Horizon. It was nice to see Kurt Russell in a film again (I know he’ll be in Guardians of the Galaxy 2) was Interstate 60 his last film? Probably the last one I’ve seen him in. Such a great movie. I’m not that familiar with the events of Deepwater Horizon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_explosion

Oh, this is the event that lead to the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I hadn’t thought about the origins of the event itself, back in 2010.

Magneto is going by the name of Henryk Gorzky. A name that I don’t believe has any significance to Magneto of the comics. A quick Google search lead me to Henryk Gorski, the Polish sport shooter in both the 1960 & 1964 Summer Olympics. There was also, in 2009, another Henryk Gorski (52) strangled a 24 year old woman. “Gorzky” didn’t have any results besides related to this film.

Erik has a wife, who I kept listening to hear her get name checked but she never does. It wasn’t until the credits that listed her as Magda that I got the confirmation, which is great that they got the name right from the comics. I’m not sure why they took the time to get Magda right but didn’t name the daughter Anya instead going with Nina. Why go half way with the research?

Havok, with totally 80s hair, has taken Scott to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Scott meets Beast, who is also in his white Nicholas Hoult form. He meets Jean Grey, portrayed by Sophia Tuner. I really need to watch Game of Thrones as I’m missing so much. Plus, I need to know more about Daenerys Targaryen. I do like seeing these three Original Five members of the X-Men being together. I start watching the backgrounds, like a hawk, looking for any boy throwing an iceball or a girl walking through a wall – but I had no luck. I’m sure I saw a young brunette with a giant patch of white hair on her head, so that could be Rogue. Maybe Singer’s way of throwing a character a bone for skipping her in the theatrical cut of Days of Future Past.

Scott meets Xavier, who wants Scott to test out his eye blasts. I guess Havok hadn’t seen Scott’s powers either, as no one thinks to just have Scott blast into the sky. Instead, he blasts a tree that Xavier’s grandfather planted and he use to swing on – it was his favorite tree. The other students are weary of Scott now. This is also the first light moment of the film, which the film does a better job of peppering with as this film didn’t seem as dark and dreary as the others.

Mystique brings Kurt to a mutant underground railroad of sorts. There we meet Caliban –

played by Tomas Lemarquis, who looks like he was taken straight from the comic! I still need to watch Chris Evan’s Snowpiercer one of these days.

In Egypt, the beautiful Rose Byrne returns from First Class, as Moira MacTaggert. She’s following a mutant cult who worship Apocalypse. Unfortunately, if it wasn’t for her actions, the entire film wouldn’t have happen. She follows the cult members under a rug that leads underground but she didn’t recover the entrance with the rug so sunlight hits the underground pyramid that wakes up Apocalypse. This is the first callback to First Class, one of the two X-films that Bryan Singer didn’t direct. I didn’t quite miss her in Days of Future Past but she is a welcome return. Apocalypse waking up causes an earthquake. Back at the factory in Poland, Magneto saves a co-worker from being smashed by a molten bucket – this will backfire on him. Poor Magneto, from mutant leader to common factory worker – sort of like what Wolverine did for years during Wolverine Origins.

Xavier’s School. The students are scared as Jean is having one of her nightmares. Xavier comes to her bedside, as Beast stands at the door. Xavier sneaks into her dream and witnesses the possible destruction of the world. Jean wakes up and to sooth her, he leaves his wheelchair and gets into her bed. Which seems highly inappropriate but Beast is at the door so nothing is going to happen but it is still an odd choice.

Which reminds me, during the trailer, I had thought Sophie Turner wasn’t all that attractive in this scene (for those short seconds) but she is attractive and I wanted to correct the record.

Cairo, Egypt. Storm, played by Alexandra Shipp – who I also don’t know. Did this happen at anyone else’s theater? Before the film started, after the trailers, Alexandra Shipp had a message of thanks and kept emphasizing that the film employed over 1500 folks and it was a pleasure to work on and everyone is excited for us to see the final product. Or did only Cinemarks get this message? It felt like an odd choice. Like, get Singer to do the message or someone bigger or smaller from the cast. Like, I don’t know, like it put her in a lower tier or something. Maybe I’m overthinking it.

We see Storm using her powers to steal some food. Before we see her do it, we see Apocalypse wearing a cloak and walking about the city. I was hoping we’ll get a twist of Storm pick pocketing Xavier, but this time, with Apocalypse but that didn’t happen. In an alley, Apocalypse saves Storm from the shop keepers she stole from. I make a big deal about movie Captain America waking up 60 years later but imagine waking up 3800 years later? I’m not even sure how the brain rations anything it sees.

Poland. Magneto is telling Magda that they need to leave. After some convincing, Magda agrees but Nina is missing. They search for her and come across her surrounded by police officers. They know who they are talking to, as they brought wooden bats and one dude brought a bow and arrows. That guy, I couldn’t believe someone thought an archer was the way to go.

The officers let go of Nina as she runs into her mother’s arms as Magneto has agreed to go with the officers. Nina starts freaking out and this causes birds to swoop down and start harassing the officers so she has some sort of mutant power over animals. Apparently, on the ride home, when we first see Nina – my wife pointed out to me – that Nina was feeding a deer and wild rabbits so she knew from the get go. The archery fuck gets distracted and lets loose an arrow.

The entire time, once we saw the officers, my mind was racing on how Magneto’s family was going to die. It didn’t make sense it would be by baseball bat, as he should be able to stop one of them from being killed. But when that arrow was fired and it goes through both mother and daughter, my heart just stopped. Being a husband and father, these scenes hit me harder than in my single days. Magneto has had nine years of being a father and husband and he loves his family so much. As he should! To have them both die, in that same moment, is heartbreaking. I would have been fine, super fine, if the movie just stop and we got thirty minutes of Magneto killing the police officers and leaving that one archer to just straight torture for the remainder twenty-five minutes. Instead, he kills them in seconds, including the archer, with Nina’s necklace that has the last remaining pictures of Magneto’s parents. It is intense! I swear, the scene probably lasts like five minutes at most but it felt like forever as my brain processed it from expectations to results and what-could-have-beens.

Hank tells Xavier about the earthquake and Hank’s computers are going crazy. We see the Cerebro from the original X-Men trilogy. Xavier checks in on Moira, who he still secretly loves. He’s checked on her a few times and can barely talk about her, which is pretty funny. Xavier and Havok, as we need to get as much screen time of Havok and that hair, as possible.

Lucas Till should have told the hair dressers to go less 80s with it.

Xavier reminds Havok how, in a total dick move – very much like Superman in Superman 2, Xavier erased Moira’s memory. In an awesome and silly exchange, Xavier gets Moira to reveal she has a son – who is totally Kevin and that is frightening! and an ex-husband. Havok enjoys this exchange, as do I, so much. Moira is a good sport during it, she doesn’t know why Xavier knows so much about her or why he seems so familiar to her. Though she has read all of his papers he has written.

Moira essentially gives us the scene that was in all of the trailers, the background exposition of who Apocalypse is.

Egypt. Storm takes Apocalypse back to her place. He discovers television and is able to touch the screen and absorb all information of the missing years. I like the way Apocalypse, who is played by Oscar Isaac who played Poe Dameron in Star Wars : Force Awakens.

Who I glossed over in the very beginning of the film and he’s the flipping star of the film.

I’m glad they were able to make Apocalypse appear more blue as he looked way more purple in photos prior to the film’s release –

made him look like Ivan Ooze from the first Power Rangers film.

Apparently I’ve seen Oscar Isaac in a few things. He was Joseph in The Nativity Story and he was Little John in Russel Crowe’s Robin Hood film.

One of the news reports mentions how America and Russia is a super power and we get a fun moment when Apocalypse uses the term “super power” which I feel like is hardly used in these comic movies. It sounded unique.

Apocalypse makes Storm his first Horseman, it is a shame that each one isn’t given a proper title. By turning her into a Horseman (woman?) he turns her hair white. This won’t be the only hair change Apocalypse is responsible for. At some point, Storm talks about her hero worship of Mystique. Mystique is a hero of many young mutants. Mystique disagrees that she’s a hero, it is why she is rarely in her blue form.

Hank has made a special pair of sunglasses made of ruby quartz for Scott to hold back his powers. I wished we could have gotten a montage of different materials, or just have Hank with three pairs of glasses, with different materials. Instead, Hank got it right on the first go.

Scott still has to lift the glasses to let loose his optic blasts and it wasn’t until the final fight when I realized that he typically has a visor – I got pretty swept up in the film and didn’t really watch the film with my arms crossed looking for faults.

Mystique brings Kurt to the Xavier Institute. Kurt makes fast friends of Scott, Jean and Jubilee. I really thought Lana Condor, as Jubilee, was going to get more screen time. It wasn’t until I was looking things up for this post that I remembered that Jubilee was suppose to get an entire moment in an arcade in a mall but we never get it. Bryan Singer said that there will be no Director’s Cut of this film but there will be delete scenes.

Jubilee, Kurt, Scott and Jean go the mall. They watch Return of the Jedi, which is fun – especially for FOX to allow them to make a Star Wars reference, when they no longer own the rights. I think Jubilee is the one (if not her, it is Jean) who says third films are the worst of the trilogy. Which I thought was producer and screenwriter, Simon Kinberg’s way of insult X3. Then I realized this film is the third of the new trilogy and I thought it was pretty good. Hard to believe this is the ninth film in the X-Men franchise. That’s pretty impressive.

Xavier and Mystique get a fun moment to catch up. I first saw this scene during Graham Norton Show, Season 19 episode 8 –

Thanks to DailyMotion user, El Weston for hosting this episode. I originally saw it on YouTube but that video appears to no longer exist.

Jennifer Lawrence looks stunning in that dress, some great stories are told in that episode. Then Johnny Depp and Will.i.am appear and you can stop the episode before all of that happens. Jack Whitehall is pretty funny, I should watch his proper comedy special, if he ever gets one.

Mystique tells Xavier about Magneto’s family dying and the look on Xavier’s face, like he knows the entire world is going to be ripped to shreds. Magneto, or his power over magnetism, truly is one of those all powerful powers.

Back at Caliban’s shop. After hours, Apocalypse & Storm arrive, looking for powerful mutants. Caliban tries to get them to leave but quickly learns he is out of his league with Apocalypse. As a comic Horseman, it was great that we got a scene with Apocalypse and Caliban. Caliban is protected by Psylocke.

Olivia Munn is Psylocke, she doesn’t get a lot to do but is seen a whole bunch in this film. If she made a reference to her brother, Brian, I missed it as she doesn’t talk much once this scene is over. Though she is great in the role. We also do not get her saying “focus totality” which is a real shame. She has both a real sword and her physic sword. Later, she uses a physic whip, which I didn’t care for but it is her powers, she can do with them as she wanted.

Psylocke becomes Apocalypse’s second Horseman and she knows where to go for a third one. Which will be Angel and I wish we got more moments with Angel and Psylocke, as the two dated in the comics. Angel has a busted wing, due to Kurt’s fight earlier. I do like how they said an angel needs to fight a demon, in that earlier scene. Reminded me of Ultimate X-Men.

Apocalypse takes pity on Angel and gives him a massive power upgrade –

I do wish Apocalypse called him “his Archangel” but he didn’t but Angel does look great with the metal wings.

Quicksilver, who tries to steal the movie again but is usually the best part of the scenes he is in. He’s watching the news that Magneto is clearly back and murdering fools. His mother comes into the room and he goes back to playing Ms. Pac-Man – who he mistaking just says “Pac-Man” but he’s in fact playing the much superior game. On another television screen, we see and hear the Knight Rider theme song – which is awesome!

Magneto shows back up to the factory, he gives a pretty great speech. One of these fuckers told the police that the all powerful Magneto was living in their sleepy Polish city. Which lead to the death of his wife and daughter, so now all of these fools have to die. If I worked at the same factory as Magneto, I would just be cool and the next day, I would have brought him in a cake or something. Magneto is about to kill these fools when Apocalypse and his Horsemen arrive. Apocalypse kills the factory workers and offers to make Magneto even more powerful. They all teleport away.

Apocalypse teleported them to Auschwitz, which I already know is a brilliant move on Apocalypse’s part but he could be just igniting Magneto’s rage in an uncontrollable way. We get flashbacks to both First Class and the first X-Men film, to Magneto’s origins. Which wouldn’t be affected by the timeline change so that’s a smart move. We get several clips from the previous films which I’m not sure is a holdover from Days of Future Past but I enjoyed them.

Once Magneto has been properly motivated, he destroys all of the remaining buildings, so the world knows that Magneto is on the warpath.

Back at Cerebro. Xavier, Mystique, Hank, Alex and Moira are about to look for Magneto. Xavier had to tell Mystique, earlier, that he midnwiped Moira’s mind as Mystique wasn’t there for that scene as she had joined Magneto.

Xavier finds Magneto and they have a telepathic conversation. I like how Apocalypse is just cool that Magneto walked away (but not out of the room) to mutter to himself. I’m really not sure what those four were doing during Magneto’s conversation, as they seem to just be walking around.

Xavier is a good friend, having so much sympathetic for Magneto’s lost. He doesn’t try to belittle Magneto’s motivations.

Eventually Apocalypse walks over and uses his connection to Magneto to connect to Xavier. From here, the movie really kicks into gear. Apocalypse uses Xavier’s connection to Cerebro to reach into the minds of everyone on the world. He has soldiers and seamen fire all of the nuclear warheads into space. So there goes the main offense the world was going to have on Apocalypse.

Xavier is glued to Cerebro so Hank has to start trashing the place. As the heroes start to leave the chamber, Apocalypse and crew arrive. Magneto takes a knocked out Xavier with them. Alex, trying to help, blasts at Apocalypse but they teleport away. So Havok’s blast hits the fancy new Blackbird and it explodes!

Quicksilver arrives, and notices the explosion starting. We get treated to what would be a minute’s worth of explosion, experienced over six minutes as he is rescuing the main cast and the students in a super fun sequence. Once everyone is out, we get treated to our first . . . Xavier Mansion Explosion!

It is intense to actually see the whole thing go down as it happens so often in the comics, that I got use to it.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/11/03/drawing-crazy-patterns-the-x-mansion-is-destroyed/

Brian Cronin, over at Comics Should Be Good, has a great list of when the comics mansion exploded.

It is during the rescuing part, that we see the girl with the white patch of hair but I can’t find that image anywhere.

Scott, Jean, Kurt & Jubilee come riding back and Quicksilver believes he saved everyone. Hank asks about Alex, who Quicksilver doesn’t know, as it turns out, Havok was the closest to the explosion, so Quicksilver didn’t see him. Scott doesn’t take the lost of his older brother well but it is okay, as we have the much better Summers brother in the film.

It is this at this time that my bladder starts telling me that I have to pee. Which I always do before the movie starts and that usually works for me but not this time. I worked at Hastings that morning and I had a very tight window from leaving there, to go home and pick up my wife and son so we can get him to Tina’s. This caused a slight issue where, in my rush to get out of the store – I apparently annoyed an older man wanting into the lock video cabinet, as he had waiting twenty minutes before I got around there. Which I know that couldn’t be true but I tried to be playful and that upset him greatly but I got him his Blurays and he wanted to talk to my supervisor but I didn’t have time to defend myself but I’m sure I’ll hear about that at some point. Has this happened to other Hastings were sales are low and staff has been scaled way back? This keeps happening where I either get a Friday night shift or a Saturday morning shift. So there was suppose to be someone else on the floor but he was covering cafe and the other person hadn’t arrived for 2pm so that’s what happened there. I probably could have handled it differently but I had to go home.

I knew a certain scene was coming up so I had to hold out until that scene had happened, a scene or a moment.

Once Scott has had his moment, Colonel Stryker arrives and knocks all the mutants out. For some reason – Kurt, Scott & Jean are not knocked out. The soldiers pick up Mystique, Beast, Moira and Quicksilver. They are thrown on a helicopter and the mutant teens with altitude jump on the helicopter too. By the time the chopter is about to take off, Stryker flips a switch that dampens their mutant powers. If only Kurt teleported onto the chopter and immediately teleported them off, the rest of the film would have played out differently. Instead, some acting had to happen and everyone is now captive.

If you wanted the interview above, Jennifer Lawrence reveals that they were able to scale the makeup process way back. So now she is essentially wearing pantyhoes on her legs and arms. Which is unfortunately as whenever she is in knocked out, and in her natural blue form, you can see her white skin through the slits in the pantyhoes. Sort of takes me out of the film but I can see production trying to stay on Jennifer Lawrence’s good side. Mystique and Beast are both in their blue forms, now that they are taken captive.

Styrker has taken the mutants to Alkali Lake, a great connection to X2. Quicksilver wakes up and freaks out now that Beast is blue and Mystique is blue. He’s worried that he’s going to turn blue too – so funny! Plus, Kurt is blue so that’s a lot of blueness going around. The three teens, meanwhile, are running around the base, trying to go unnoticed by the troops – which doesn’t work.

Meanwhile, Apocalypse and the Horsemen have Xavier, back in Egypt. Apocalypse forces Xavier to send a message to everyone in the world – the dark days are coming. At some point, Apocalypse mentions how the world needs to be cleansed and it totally reminded me of Ra’s al Ghul’s speech about how the League of Assassins have been cleansing the world, for generations. Xavier, somehow sends Jean a side telepathic message – I’m not sure how that works. Apocalypse wants Xavier to finish the speech by stating “the strongest will survive” but instead, Xavier ends it by saying the strong need to protect the weak – which isn’t the same at all.

In the dampening cell, that still gets Xavier’s message – so I’m not sure how that works too. Quicksilver mentions to Mystique how Magneto is his father – no mention of the younger sister from the first film. Mystique is confused by the information and Quicksilver tries to explain to her where babies are made but she understood that part of his story.

Then we got to the actual scene that steals the film. Like Spider-Man in Captain America : Civil War, I knew this was coming but I also thought this was only going to be a minute but it was a full on scene. An awesome scene!

Jean senses a mutant, who is more machine than man –

Thanks to Tumblr user, hughjackmania for the above image.

The head gear is a pretty good attempt at the comic Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith –

but with the understanding that once Jackman agreed to be in the film, FOX wasn’t going to allow his face to be covered by a silly helmet.

The scene is awesome, as he slays into soldiers as he tries to escape. It really did remind me of the Wolverine Origins video game (that I still enjoyed) with him just mowing down fools. I was reminded of my own thought – of why did the soldiers keep coming at him? I would have just stopped and walked away. The teens keep following behind him.

This, of course, did not happened during Wolverine Origins, and I’m okay with this change (especially as I have to be) but it still lines up in my mind. Jean gives him back a few memories and he runs away in the snow, not naked. So Wolverine Origins can still happened. Except that Scott isn’t going to be a prisoner for Wolverine to be free about that is another slight change. That film can still work, maybe not with “Deadpool” at the end but another Weapon XI stand in. Also, that Patrick Stewart’s Xavier wouldn’t be at the end of that film, but James McAvoy’s but that works too, due to what Apocalypse does to Xavier.

Wolverine, has a crazy amount of hair on the back of his head, as the last we’ll see of him. My wife says it is due to being in that chamber for so long but I say it is due to being filming a movie that requires him to have long hair.

So once Weapon X is gone, I head to the bathroom so I missed like three minutes of the film.

I come back and the mutants are on a new plane. My wife said it was a Russian plane but I’m sure it must be Canadian as they were at Alkali Lake. So I’m not sure. I did see that Beast sees the flight suits and the X-Men get sweet suits!

I had forgotten that Moira got a suit even, as she stays in the plane during the final battle. The suits seem very flattering on the ladies

Egypt. We start the climax of the film. Apocalypse tells Magneto to start stripping the world of metal. He takes Xavier to the transfer plates so that Apocalypse can take Xavier’s body and powers.

In classic X-Men fashion, they split up. Beast, Scott, Jean and Kurt will go after Apocalypse. Mystique and Quicksilver go after Magneto.

Magneto was given a sweet new outfit too!

Quicksilver decides to not to tell Magneto that he is Magneto’s son – though I’m sure that would have had Magneto stop destroying monuments. The world is definitely going to be changed after this.

Storm and Cyclops fight, and it is awesome. I wish we stuck with these two for a bit. Psylocke seems to really beat Beast down and we are treated to Round Two of Kurt v Archangel.

Quicksilver tries to slow flight Apocalypse but he stops him in his tracks. That slow fight does look pretty great through. Psylocke is told to kill Quicksilver but it is really Mystique. Apocalypse grabs Mystique by the throat, as Storm watches.

Apocalypse made a comment about how he is linked to Xavier. Xavier knows this to be true and realizes that he has a connection to Apocalypse. It is at this time when I realize that we haven’t seen the scene where Xavier loses a fight with a giant Apocalypse in the mansion. Which we get the beginning of that fight. I do like Apocalypse showing off one of his known powers – the ability to grow – I was hoping a giant A would show up on his belt but that didn’t happened. Xavier puts up a decent fight but Apocalypse is clearly beating him. Xavier reaches out to Jean but she is super slow to coming to the rescue.

On the outside, we get a classic Claremont care bear stare moment as Magneto turns on Apocalypse as does Storm – so powers are coming at him. Cyclops starts blasting the dude, as well. Jean finally decides to help and goes all out Phoenix Force – which looks pretty incredible. I hope Singer gets his wish of properly adapting the Dark Phoenix Saga and having it be in space. That would be simply uncanny!

Apocalypse is dead, which makes sense as you can’t have Apocalypse just sitting somewhere, planning a second attempt. Psylocke walks away, silently.

For her thanks, Xavier gives Moira her memories back – which she is happy about but I hope she never drops that it was a dick move on his part. A clear time jump happens as Magneto and Jean are almost done rebuilding the school. Downstairs, Xavier tells Magneto that the world has already started rebuilding. Quicksilver has decided to not tell Magneto about his origins.

During Magneto’s decision making process, before he turn on Apocalypse, we got full clips from First Class – which was fun. I do like Xavier and Magneto together, they have great chemistry and moments together. They repeat the whole “what will you do when someone comes to this school looking for trouble” that I feel like has been done in X-Men 1 & 2 and again in First Class. Xavier has had to answer this question a few times to Magneto but I do love the answer every time.

Movie ends with Mystique giving a speech about how these peeps are the X-Men as we see they got sweet new official outfits –

I forgot to mention how during that Apocalypse fight, when he was going to take over Xavier’s body, it came at the price of Xavier’s hair! So that’s how he became bald.

The outfits do look pretty nice, I’m glad Kurt got some red on his and Cyclops got his visor. Mystique being in a white outfit is nice as well.

During the post credits scene, we see the janitors working on collecting the bullet shells fired from Weapon X’s escape. Which is a great detail, I could go for a Damage Control series. We see government officials open a cabinet and take some blood from Wolverine and put it in a briefcase.

A great way to tease both Mister Sinister and X23! I know when asked who he would play in a comic book movie, Bryan Cranston said “Mister Sinister” which if FOX could get him to sign a contract, they would go out of their way to make that film. It wouldn’t be great, unless it was a Mutant Massacre style film. Which could really work as a film.

This was a pretty good movie, I think the altered timeline could still make the other films work – until told otherwise.

Jackman has made all nine films, a record for an actor in a comic book movie franchise! I imagine Chris Evans is going to beat this record, with his brief appearance in Thor : Dark World, him or Robert Downey Jr. due to both Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man : Homecoming.

. . .

Thanks for these websites for keeping my memory of the film alive –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse

http://marvel-movies.wikia.com/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse

Here is hoping that the next X-Film, either New Mutants, Deadpool 2 or X-Men : Dark Phoenix Saga (which can’t be the next one) keeps the streak alive.

Extraordinary X-Men 1 – Hastings Exclusive

Posted by John Klein III on June 12, 2016

Posted in: Review. Tagged: 2015, Extraordinary X-Men, Nauck, Troy - Andy. Leave a comment

Cover by Todd Nauck with Andy Troy

I have to add the J. Scott Campbell variant, to my Wishlist. At least Hastings had one of the variants that I wanted, makes sense that it would be their own variant.

Big Brother 18 – Coaches Return

Posted by John Klein III on June 11, 2016

Posted in: Reality Television, Websites. Tagged: BB18, Big Brother. Leave a comment

Four players returning for Big Brother 18, and another cast twist

I’m not one to report rumors but I’m getting super excited about Big Brother 18! That is, until I heard the latest rumor that the coaches are coming back. That concept, I’m okay with but the two ladies that are coming back, are super disappointing. The two worst players of Big Brother 18 – Audrey and Vanessa – are strongly rumored to be coming back as coaches. Vanessa was impossible to watch last season and Audrey, well, she essentially shut down last season. I figured Production would bring Audrey back, most likely as a host of a competition – just so we can see that she is doing well but potentially another season to watch these two collapse into themselves, I can’t get excited about it.

Derrick and Doctor Ian Terry, I’m all for. Especially as Doctor Ian Terry was part of the Coach season, Big Brother 14. Derrick won his, Big Brother 16.

Though that above website does state that Doctor Ian Terry said he isn’t coming back so who knows if any of this is warranted. We learn the cast on June 13th, so expect another post about that, sometime after I’ve done some research.

This upcoming season starts June 22 and suppose to last until mid-September. This is the last official season of Big Brother, unless it gets renewed – but I’m not sure if those two rumored coaches, if ratings will be there.

The siblings of former houseguests could be interesting but it would probably be like Elissa, Rachel’s sister from Big Brother 15, which was super disappointing. They should just own being the sibling as lying at the beginning rarely pays off. I think it only worked for Derrick but his strategy could only have worked his season.

The plan, for this blog, is to have the posts go up the day after it airs – if we can stay up that late but we’ve been staying up pretty late lately, as it has been so hot here. Once we know the official days of the week, I’ll post that schedule so we all know what to expect.

While talking to my wife, it don on me that they went with two male winners and two crappy ladies from last season. Why couldn’t they go after two of the female winners of the series?

http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_brother/news/1002470/

Season 3 – Lisa Donahue

Season 4 – Jun Song

Season 6 – Maggie Ausburn

Season 11 – Jordan Lloyd

Season 13 – Rachel Reilly

Rachel couldn’t do it as she’s super pregnant, as I saw during the Big Brother prime time episode of The Price is Right. Big time, show time, prime time!

I’m not sure if Jordan is available but since Jeff practically works there, I could see him maybe convincing her to go again, it would be her third time.

I couldn’t remember Maggie, my wife kept saying “nerd herd” but that didn’t mean anything until she said the firefighter and how it was Janelle & Howie’s first season. It is amazing how much Season Seven was a reaction to Season Six. Maggie would have filled the Vanessa role, in likeability. I can see her saying no.

Lisa and Jun, I’m not sure about. Jun would have been super fun, if her Twitter account is any indication.

Tweets by JunDishes

Five winners out of 17, isn’t great and no woman has beaten a man, they were all winners of a all female final two.

Extraordinary X-Men 1

Posted by John Klein III on June 10, 2016

Posted in: Review. Tagged: 2015, Caramagna - Joe, Delgado - Edgar, Extraordinary X-Men, Lemire - Jeff, Magik, Olazaba, Ramos - Humberto. 4 Comments

Writer Jeff Lemire

Penciler Humberto Ramos

Inker Victor Olazaba

Colorist Edgar Delgado

Letterer VC’s Joe Caramagna

Cover by Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado

The second series that I’m committed to buying (unless Magik ditches it) begins!

We skip eight months, since the end of Secret Wars 2015 9 (or Uncanny X-Men 600).

The issue opens with Storm talking about how she isn’t quite making it, as X-Men leader. She sees a vision of Xavier but (now gay) Iceman, doesn’t see him. Is this just artistic license, or is Storm going a tad crazy? Iceman is telling Storm that Magik is on another away message. This time, she is in New Delhi.

The villagers (like Nightcrawler’s origins in Giant Size X-Men, which this issue has a lot of similarities with) are about to pounce on a poor little girl. They believe she is (or could eventually be) affected with M-Pox, and get them sick.

Like a bad arse, Magik teleports in and takes control of the situation. Thanks to a translation spell, Magik can speak their language. I like her being even more skilled as a sorceress. The villagers want to try to kill her now.

We get a more covered up version of Magik’s outfit, Actually, I’m not sure that is true, it might just be a color scheme changed or something is only slightly modified but I like it.

Magik, as she does make for a scary entrance – has to defend herself but also try to sooth over the girl’s parents.

The girl’s name is Sapna, and she agrees to be taken to safety. Who would turn that offer down?

Magik gets shot at, and she quickly realizes how not armored, she is. One can’t show that much flesh and go into situations where bullets may fly.

Magik, heroically, teleports the family out of there.

Iceman tells Storm how the students are starting to feel fatigue. Storm needs them to keep pushing, as they are not out of the woods yet. Bobby hints that there is further bad news.

Magik and family teleports back, Storm can tell that she is wounded. Illyana puts on a brave face, and says it is only a flesh wound. Which, from my experience, is always said to cover up, a more serious injury.

Magik is the first, in the comic, to state that the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mist, is messing with the mutant race.

These two pages (the above one and the one before that) look like two different artist did it. Would that be something, within, Olazaba or Delgado’s control?

Magik gets to tell Storm (and us) how bad the front line is. The military is now getting involved in trying to stomp out the mutants. Mutants are now being actively, outlawed. Magik hints that Cyclops did something, that made things worst. Which clearly isn’t a reference to Uncanny X-Men 600, as all he did was have a bunch of mutants stand around in America’s capital, doing nothing.

Glob Herman, is the only student that I can recognize, in the backgrounds.

Iceman gives me the impression that the X-Men may be down to these three. Storm, running the school. Iceman running around, doing whatever Storm needs. Illayan doing search and rescue, as well as protection.

So I take it, that the X-Men have been licking their wounds, for eight months.

Hey, Anole is there too!

Storm announces, in classic Storm style – that the war for survival has begun!

Empire State University. Manhattan. Jean Grey is trying to live a normal life, which of course, is not allowed! The X-Men can never just let go of someone, they will come and get you! After class, she has a midterm due next Friday, she is invited to hang out with some classmates but she turns them down. So, best case scenario, she may have had one full course load, for one semester – so four classes, five if she got a good adviser, who understood her situation.

It is raining but then it stops and Jean notices Storm. Do the X-Men really need Jean, or do they just need to account for her? Jean tries to leave, but since Iceman needs to still settle a score, blocks her path, with a wall of ice.

Jean left, also do to whatever Cyclops did. Jean, for once, gets permission to read Storm’s mind. Worldwide, mutants are being hunted. The Terrigen Mists, is killing mutants. Mutations, to make things worst, have stopped. There have not been any additional mutants discovered. Storm explains it further, mutants are sterile.

Lake Baikal, Russia. Formerly the Ust-Ordyneski Collective Farm. Did Colossus buy his family’s home? Or did he inherit it after X-Men 18, when Omega Red killed his parents. A bear tries to intimate Colossus but he doesn’t bow down to the beast.

Magik, coming to her brother (and her family home) just like Xavier did, in Giant Size X-Men 1. Magik likes that her brother, has grown a beard. It is a good look. If my wife would let me grow a beard, I totally would.

I guess Colossus and Domino are not dating, what happened there? Though, I do like that Colossus’ default mode, is to go back to farming.

Look how big Colossus’ smile is there! So big!

Colossus is the first, in the issue, to name – X-Haven. The secret location, of where mutants are going. Colossus doesn’t feel like he should be involved, he brawls and does humanitarian tasks. He must be forgetting the Lovelorn storyline of Uncanny X-Men (504 – 507), wherein he saves some Russian mutant prostitutes. Or maybe they were just Russian mutants, who were about to be forced into prostitution? I’m not sure, it had Emma so that was pretty good. Colossus’ Katya tattoo, has magically disappeared. In the world of the Marvel Universe, tattoo removal, must be super easy.

Colossus, there is a lot of world building in this issue, also reveals that Beast is working with the Inhumans, that lousy race traitor! Illyana explains to her brother that they are all sterile now. There will never be another new mutant.

These pages are amazing, like Ramos can’t tame all of his anime influence, but he is trying a new style and I’m totally digging it.

Great flashback (with new material) of Colossus, as a boy, first experiencing his powers. His father shunned him and made him sleep in the barn. Which is crazy aggressive and sad, but it was the 70s, a completely different time. I have never imagine him as a scrawny little boy. I’m pretty sure this information doesn’t contradict anything but it also doesn’t change anything, like it makes sense that he wouldn’t bring this up before. When would he have?

Do you think it is hard for people to talk to Illyana? Like, you try to maintain eye contact but then your eyes keep noticing those head garb thingies. What is keeping those in there? Have we seen her remove those? Anyone know a cosplayer who has dressed in Magik’s current attire (or previous one).

Illyana tries to goad her brother into rejoining the cause, by calling him a coward. Illyana teases the information, that they are trying to prove the world wrong. Cyclops had people thinking mutants are murderers but Illyana wants to prove that they are warriors.

Illyana attempts to attack Colossus, with her soulsword.

Colossus catches the sword, and metals up. Now that he is primed, they are going to go after Nightcrawler.

Nightcrawler is dodging attacks from would-be Asgardians, or some mystical folks. They are quoting the Bible, and Kurt gets in on the action. I’m sure answers will come next issue, and it is good for there to be additional mysteries with the title, but I feel like this one has a lot going for it, already, with it being the clear flagship title.

The big guy, with horns, is called Aries. A mummy fellow and a broad. The broad’s name is, Azimuth, as she can unhook her jaw, like a snake. There is also, a second lady. The mummy guy’s name is Coda. Nightcrawler was trying to escape.

Jean is pretty sad, about all of this. Beast is working with the Inhumans, to try to reverse what is happening. Storm wants Jean, as she is a marquee name. I do like how Jean is pretty up front about her reasons, she is going to die and not just once or twice maybe even not thrice times!

Storm understands and gives Jean a Cerebro. Jean asks the question, where is X-Haven, but since she doesn’t want to join the cause, she doesn’t get to know. Another mystery! I read that over in Uncanny Avengers, volume three, we see what is happening to mutants and maybe a peak at X-Haven, I’m not sure. I don’t have much interest in that title, at this moment. I do like Human Torch being an Avenger, for the first time, in fifty years. But Johnny Storm is also working with the Inhumans, and dating Medusa, so that isn’t cool. Plus, he dated Crystal, her cousin, so that is super awkward. Or is that old fashion of me?

After, whatever happened to Cyclops, Jean did a scan of who else was out there and found someone that Storm may want to check out.

So whatever happened to Cyclops, lots of people were able to see it and not have to be present – Is what I’m imagining.

That person that Storm and Iceman investigate? Old Man Logan! Also, they travel by giant Sentinel.

That is how the issue ends. I can’t imagine a better first issue to launch the X-Men, in this All New All Different Marvel age we are in now. I do want to know what happens next!

X-Men Evolution Season Two

Posted by John Klein III on June 9, 2016

Posted in: Cartoon. Tagged: Evolution. Leave a comment

Season Two picks up in a big way after Season One’s big finale.

2×1 – Growing Pains

The Brotherhood crashes Jan’s soccer game.
I like Duncan being a rival to Scott for Jean. The school as some New Mutants – Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Multiple Man, Jubilee, Iceman, Cannonball, Meltdown and Magma. Logan wants some new professors. Havok and Cyclops are keeping in touch, via Skype. Quicksilver gives Lance a hard time about his crush on Kitty. Kitty is way over Lance, now that he has proven himself a villain. Rogue meets “Misty.” Ed Kelly is the new principal. Lance and the Brotherhood out, not just themselves but the X-Men and Xavier’s dormitory. After the fight, Xavier mindwipes everyone to forget but he is sure that Kelley probably still remembers. Storm tries to convince him not to do it but its Xavier. There is a hint that Magneto may still be alive.

2×2 – Bada-Bing Bada-Boom

Boom Boom flirts with Kurt, and gets a visit from her criminal father.
Boom Boom isn’t taking training sessions seriously. Her and Kurt do have nice chemistry. She cals Wolverine “Badger” which is fun. Tabitha and Kurt are grounded. Mystique is no longer guiding the Brotherhood. There is going to be a fundraiser to fix the old gym. Kurt likes how strong she comes on, she’s very confident. She’s also trying to dodge her father. Her father and Xavier don’t get along. Tabitha, at the fundraiser, starts destroying property but as she is “hot” Kurt keeps encouraging her. The school is going to need a fundraiser to fix all of this equipment. Did they ever name Jean’s brunette friend? Tabitha’s father wants them to steal the earnings for the night. Teran is the name of Jean’s friend, what type of name is that? Tabitha’s father is arrested and Xavier bails her out. He’s not going to be freed anytime soon. She leaves Xavier’s and joins the Brotherhood – she’s the new Rogue. She gets Mystique’s old room, which must be the size of the entire boarding house. no Kitty so that’s never good.

2×3 – Power Surge

Jean loses control and only Rogue can stop her.
I do like Rogue not liking Jean, I do wish that Scott and Rogue were an item on this show. Kitty is in this episode, so we’re off to a good start. Jean can’t stop listening to everyone’s thoughts and can’t continue with her speech. Kitty still lets Lance walk her to chemistry, so I guess those feelings run deep. They are lab partners. Beast is their teacher, he’s not blue (yet) and he’s the PE teacher. We see Kitty without her pink outer shirt on. Scott gets to Duncan’s party, I do like how Jean is popular and Scott is a loner. Rogue and Misty are at the party, were they invited? These two leave as I get Rogue not wanting to see Scott fail at getting Jean’s attention. Jean’s at practice and her telekinesis powers spike again and almost kills Kitty with a harpoon! Luckily, Lance is there! Kitty and Scott bring Jean to Xavier. For the first time in three episodes, some of the X-Men suit up. Rogue volunteers to siphon some of Jean’s powers and Scot will have Jean focus on him.

2×4 – Fun and Games

Xavier tends to Juggernaut’s stasis cell and the teens trick Scott and Jean into leaving so that they can throw a party.
Xavier has to go make sure Juggernaut is going to stay asleep. Storm and Wolverine are away so Jean & Scott are in charge. Teran is wanting to know what color Scott’s eyes are, and his secrets – which makes Jean’s eyes green with jealousy as well as naturally green. Kitty’s programmer teacher gets on her case for crashing three computers. This episode features Arcade! Misty asks Kitty about party’s this weekend, and gives Kitty the idea of throwing a party. Kurt and Spyke are all for it. Rogue mentions how Scott and Jean are going to shut down the party. Kitty and Kurt have tricked Jean and Scott into meeting each other in front of a beautiful backrop of the lake. The party begins! Kitty turns up the music so she can dance. Misty leads Arcade straight to the Danger Room! Scott and Jean are on their way back. Rogue’s watch alarm goes off and she brings Kitty, Kurt and Spyke to the Danger Room. Not sure why Kitty didn’t just phase through that last wall there. Arcade thinks he’s just playing a game, though eh should recognize three of the characters. We see what DefCon4 procedures are. Misty gets knocked out and shifts into . . . Mystique! “Misty” is such a fun name for her to adopt, so on the nose – once you know it. Arcade is one of Kitty’s classmates.

2×5 – Beast of Bayville

Dr. McCoy turns into The Beast!
Spyke ditches McCoy’s class, McCoy has a bit of an attack. McCoy destroyed that bathroom! Kitty isn’t prepared for her upcoming math teacher. In the Danger Room – Kitty, Kurt, Scott, Jean and Rogue are in a session. Rogue gets hit and Scott carries her to the finish line. Spyke wasn’t there, he isn’t committed to the team. Kitty got a package! It is a type of pyramid hat, that stimulates brain power. McCoy apologizes to Spyke. Spyke is trying to learn McCoy’s Shakespeare passage, Kitty offers her hat to him, which he accepts. I do like Kitty’s philosophy, she walks through walls and Spyke shoots bones, so why not believe in the hat. McCoy meets with Xavier, who sought McCoy out in the early days. McCoy has been keeping The Beast back with a serum. McCoy creates a new serum, to cure him but instead it turns him into the Blue Beast. Principal Kelly outs McCoy has he turned into Beast. The X-Men go to track Beast, Jean and Kitty are a pair. Kitty has excellent tracking abilities and is the first to come across Beast. Wolverine and Beast get into a fight, Beast isn’t using his words. Spyke knows where Beast is heading and Kitty & Jean follow his head. Beast finally gets to the amphitheater. After some more fighting, Spyke quotes the Shakespeare piece, Xavier shows up and corrects Beast’s head. Beast can’t go back to being a school teacher, he can’t use an image inducer as the world knows he’s a mutant. Kitty threw her hat away, as she looked silly. She aced her test though, due to studying! Beast is a new teacher a the school!

2×6 – Adrift

Cyclops and Havok are on a boat tour.
The brothers are in Hawaii and the weather is bad. Meanwhile, it is snowing in New York. Kitty gets a call from Lance, who wants to to go to the mall with her. At least he’s trying. Kurt is trying to give himself muscles, via the image inducer. The X-Men learn of the bad weather in Hawaii but not the danger the brothers are in. Somehow, the brothers being missing makes national news and the X-Men are on their way to rescue them. Only Xavier, Storm and Jean go off to rescue the Boys of Summer(s). Back at home, Jean takes care of Scott and Xavier tricks Kurt into using the image inducer to show off a female form.

2×7 – African Storm

Storm is tortured by Houngan, an evil African shaman.
Gosh, Taren is getting closer to Scott – I like this subplot. Jean throws Spyke down a table – costing like twenty kids their lunch, that’s pretty messed up Jean. Quit being the worst, Jean! Spyke is horrible at both school and Xavier’s, I guess they are trying to write him out of the series already. He goes out like a chump too, Morlock style. The house alarm is 537, is that significant? Thanks Rogue for showing us that, does it pay off later? Storm has a nightmare and Kitty phases through the door to aid her. This show didn’t do enough to pair Storm and Kitty – that’s a messed opportunity. Man, everyone is hating on Evan (Spyke). Storm sees an image reflected in the mirror and freaks out. The bath tub overfills and Kitty has to check on Storm, who is very dirty at this point – I imagine. Storm broke the mirror, which startles Kitty and Storm. Rogue is updating Misty on poor Storm. Misty reveals she knows too much about Storm, which Rogue finds suspicious. Kitty tells Jean and Scott that Evan is leaving. Who is that kid with the three locks of red hair? Pyro maybe? Storm is captured by the Shaman’s goons. Wolverine, Xavier, Spyke, Kitty, Jean, Rogue and Scott, are on the rescue mission. Kitty and Scott are a pair. Spyke earns his place on the team, again. The team is happy to that he’s sticking around, until he starts bragging on how he saved the day. They were all there so they know he’s making it up.

2×8 – Joyride

Lance wants to join the X-Men, so he can get closer to Kitty.
Meltdown returns too, after several episodes! Kitty is worthy of giving up one’s days of being punched in the face by heroes so I get Lance’s motivations. Episode opens with Lance breaking into the mansion, to prove he has skills. Lance is pretty skilled with his powers. Everyone is in shock that he wants to join the team. It was Jean, Kitty, Wolverine, Rogue and Cyclops. Spyke and Kurt are there too. Kitty doesn’t believe Lance wants to join the team. Lance doesn’t want to reveal his true reasons. Kitty jokes that he didn’t want to live with those losers too. Xavier is willing to give Lance a chance. Kitty shows Lance to a new guest room. Scott is a jerk about Lance being here. Xavier knows that Lance is there for Kitty. Kitty shows Lance the room, he likes it but it needs to be roughed up a bit. Kitty likes the idea of Lance wanting to be an X-Man but she gives him a warning that the X-Men are not going to give him any slack. I do like how Lance has an easy time with the training sessions, he isn’t inexperience with his powers, he’s been using them for a long time now. Kitty does like having Lance around.
The new recruits – Iceman, Cannonball, Jubilee & Multiple Man – have been joyriding (hence the name of the episode) Scott’s car, the X-Van and the Blackbird. Poor Lance has been accused of taking the vehicles. Lance wakes Kitty to try to stop the recruits from taking the Blackbird. Lance has Kitty phase the two of them onto the Blackbird before it can leave the hanger. Good thing Kitty wasn’t wearing anything that wasn’t safe for adventures in. Bobby loses control of the jet and Kitty has to take charge. Lance gets motion sickness and throws up so he loses points there with Kitty. The Air Force starts chasing the now hostile Blackbird. Kitty phases the Blackbird through a mesa and successfully dodges two missiles. Kitty is exhausted and Lance catches her. They get the jet back and it is tore up. The recruits confess to everything, they took Wolverine’s motorcycle at one point too. Lance quits the team, as Cyclops keeps accusing Lance of things. Xavier tells Lance that there is always a place on the team for him. Kitty kisses him, on the cheek, goodbye. Those two are pretty cute together. Bets episode of the season, thus far!

2×9 – On Angel’s Wings

It is Christmas time and Angel arrives!
Now the fifth and final member of the Original Five X-Men has arrived! It’ll payoff in a much later episode.
At the X-Men Christmas Party, Jean gives Kitty a Star of David necklace. After that, Kurt chases Kitty with some mistletoe but she keeps dodging him. Rogue and Scott are going to be one of the few people left behind once everyone else leaves. It should be these two, Xavier and McCoy. During Kurt’s chase, he ends up kissing Bobby.
There are news reports of Angel’s heroics. Xavier quotes the bible, I like the hint that McCoy doesn’t recognize the passage, as it comes from the bible. McCoy quotes Shakespeare and Rogue recognizes it. Xavier suspects Angel is a mutant and Rogue & Scott investigate. Rogue and Scott see Angel at the hospital, he flies off. Magneto tries to recruit Angel but Angel isn’t a dummy. Magneto flees but Rogue gives chase, confident with his powers that she borrowed. Rogue falls into a Stark Enterprises sign. Rogue and Scott offer Angel a place at the school but Warren turns them down. We see Kitty with her parents, lighting the Menorah.

2×10 – Mindbender

Mesmero kidnaps some of the X-Men and forces them to commit crimes for him!
Kitty, Rogue and Kurt are looking for Jean. She had a nightmare last night, involving Mesmero. Kitty went to the Brotherhood and they are mad at her for suspecting it was them, who took Jean. I like how she makes a reference to how Blob kidnapped her once before. Jean stole a ring and came back home and has recruited Kurt. Kitty and Beast are able to locate them, and Cyclops & Wolverine head off to find them. The boys don’t grab them. Jean and Kurt come back home and take Kitty this time. They also apparently took Spyke at that time too. The four of them take out of security guards at a museum. We get a slight taste of how incredible Kitty would be, if she was a criminal. Kitty phases and steals another ring. We get Kurt, Kitty, Spyke & Jean vs Beast, Cyclops, Wolverine and Rogue. Kurt v Beast, blue on blue violence. Spyke v Rogue & Cyclops. Jean v Cyclops. Kitty v Wolverine, she kicks him to the shin. Xavier v Mesmero. Rogue finally gets to punch Jean, good for her! Xavier defeats Mesmero and the four students wake up from their mind control. Wolverine is still nursing his shin from Kitty’s brutal attack. Episode ends with Mesmero opening the first door that leads to Apocalypse.

2×11 – Shadow Dance

There is a Sadie Hawkins dance and everyone wants a date.
Episode starts with Rogue and Kitty, who didn’t get enough sleep. I like Kitty with her hair down, a rare occasion to see. Kitty and Lance were up all night, talking on the phone. Kitty tells Rogue that she didn’t ask him to the dance. Kitty jokes that Rogue should ask Scott before Jean does. Jean, like a total bitch, rides in the elevator down with Rogue and Kitty. I do like Kitty and Rogue talking about Scott, off screen. Forge is back, I thought this was the episode that introduces Forge, so I may not quite remember this episode. Kurt is going to explore the dimension that Kurt teleports into and out of. We get Amanda from Kurt’s math class, who is clearly Amanda Sefton. Kitty, in a green shirt, asks Lance if he would go to the dance with her. He tries to play hard to get but he can’t resist. These two are cute together and now that Kurt has Amanda, the couples can now be together. Now we just need Rogue and Scott! Lance is catching shit for going to the dance with Kitty, from the Brotherhood – but it is worth it. Kitty got a nice blue dress for the dance. Everyone actually does. A portal opens between Lance and Kitty, letting out a few demons from Kurt’s teleporation dimension.

2×12 – Retreat

Beast is depressed so Kitty arranges a field trip with the New Mutants.
Kitty was up all night, again, writing a paper on redwood trees. She overhears how sad Beast is. Kitty comes in, does a quick telepathic meeting with Xavier, and they convince Beast to go on the field trip. Beast is taking Iceman, Spyke, Sunspot and Wolfsbane. The students barely cover the Blackbird with tree branches. Kitty is there too, in a sporty new outfit. They must have done good ratings with the first season to warrant so many new outfits. Spyke gets a poison ivy rash, an elaborate scheme to get Kitty to put ointment on him. Wolfsbane is in a bikini, so out of character! Kitty is in a pink one piece, which feels right. She checks in on Beast, who is living and hating his wild side. She’s doing her best. There are jerk poachers in the woods. I believe they are actually Big Foot hunters. Good for them, I’ve been all for hunting down Big Foot ever since I saw a documentary about a Big Foot terrorizing a family, forcing them to turn against their father and husband. One of the hunters gets away with a “Real McCoy” joke. Beast is taken captive and the students have to find him. Sounds like Kitty pronounced Rahne as something that sounded like “Ronnie” instead of a more “Rain” like sound. Xavier took the time to buy school jackets. The students save Beast from drowning. Beast appreciates Kitty convincing him to take this class trip.

2×13 – Walk on the Wild Side

The female X-Men are tried of being second class citizens and form their own crime-fighting group.
One of the best episodes of the series, and they really did put a lot of production into this episode. The gals all get new outfits and there is even an original song!
Kitty shows Magma where her first class of the day is, it is Magma’s first day of high school. Kitty recommends Magma sit by the window so that she can watch the track team, which is totally worth it. This episode was meant to come out prior to Shadow Dance as Duncan bought tickets to the dance already. Magma, Meltdown, Jean are taking on crime and buying clothes. Int he montage, Kitty joins up and we see that she can’t be stopped if she was fighting street crimes. Rogue joins too. I really do like this song. Lots of dancing, which is almost contagious. Misty doesn’t like being left out. Bayville Sirens is their name. Meltdown steals Lance’s jeep, and Scott & Kurt are chasing the broads as they have dicks and have to ruin the ladies’ good time. The gals take down a chop shop with style.

2×14 – Operation : Rebirth

Nick Fury tells Wolverine that Magneto stole Captain America!
You can read my full review here –

Fun With YouTube : X-Men Evolution 2 X 14

2×15 – The HeX Factor

Wanda joins X-Men Evolution! She’s mentally unstable!
Kurt can’t get his books out of his locker and Kitty does it so easily. She needs a favor, he needs to taste her muffins. They don’t taste good and are quite bouncy. Mystique comes home and hates the conditions of the boarding house. Meltdown leaves as Wanda joins the team. Wanda is not happy to see her brother, Quicksilver. Kurt is trying to dodge Kitty, as she keeps trying to feed him muffins. They are not getting much better. Xavier updates the X-Men about Wanda. She’s super dangerous and a woman. The X-Men are stopping the Brotherhood, as they search for Wanda. Lance tells Kitty to leave as this fight is going to get nasty. Wanda takes out the X-Men, she even stops Kitty from phasing through the floor. Kurt saves Kitty but he teleports the two of them in the middle of the park. The X-Men retreat, giving the Brotherhood their first victory over the heroes. Wanda wants to make Magneto pay. The X-Men don’t care for losing, they are not use to the feeling.

2×16 – Day of Reckoning, Part One

Bolivar Trask captures Wolverine and introduces him to Sentinels.
Wolverine and Sabretooth are captured, Storm & Beast are in the sewers looking for him. That sewer water on Beast’s fur has to be gross. In the Danger Room, the students are being taken out – New Mutants and X-Men proper. Kitty is there but mostly just in the background. This isn’t ringing many bells for me either. Xavier is pushing the students hard, knowing that Magneto is around the corner. Xavier has recruited the Brotherhood to take on Magneto, the X-Men are still feeling the burn of their first loss. I do like Scott and Lance’s rivalry. Xavier takes his students, leaving Cyclops behind, as they head off to face Magneto. Magma, Meltdown and Scott are a team. Wolverine fights his first Sentinel. Those Magneto spheres from the first season finale are back. Five of them contain – Sabretooth, Colossus, Gambit, Pyro and Magneto himself. I do recall this being awesome.

2×17 – Day of Reckoning, Part Two

X-Men are in shock when Xavier teams with the Brotherhood.
Which already happened in Part One. Wolverine is defeated by the Sentinel. Scott, Magma and Meltdown are trying to get into the Xavier School, and save the New Mutants. Xavier and the students (with Storm) are where Magneto is. Kitty and Toad are a team, as she is disgusted by Toad’s wicked tongue. Of course, Quicksilver betrays the team, to get on daddy’s good side. Gambit has lots of fun exploding things around him. Colossus is the strong silent type, which I can support. The school explodes! When Scott is mad, he leaves nothing standing! We get Rogue and Gambit! Shame he’s clearly an adult to her high school age young woman. Colossus v Toad, he could have been paired with someone better but we’ll get that in a later episode. Colossus v Blob is a better matchup. Kitty phases Colossus into a building that Lance drops onto Colossus – great team work! Sabretooth v Beast makes sense too but Rogue does better against Sabretooth with Beast’s powers than Beast did. Wanda tries to work through her daddy issues. The students and Magneto were at the Trask / Sentinel factory. When the episode description stated Xavier joins Brotherhood, they meant Magneto’s team, not Mystique’s team.
Magneto wanted the Sentinel program to go live and public, so that the world would really fear mutants. The students take on their first Sentinel. A traffic news chopper captures the figure on tape. Xavier can’t mindwipe the entire world, after this event. Magneto is about to defeat the Sentinel but Wanda stops him, as she don’t get a dman.
The X-Men make it back home but the mansion is gone gone. Kitty doesn’t see the students. Scott has been taking care of them, in the woods. Scotti s not happy to see Jean, and he picks up Xavier and throws him on teh ground, like a boss. Xavier stands, as she is clearly Mystique! Which explains bringing in the student Brotherhood.

Such a great season!

Don’t expect season three anytime soon, it took a while to do this one. Maybe next year.

Uncanny X-Men 600 – Kris Anka Variant

Posted by John Klein III on June 8, 2016

Posted in: Review. Tagged: 2015, Anka, Uncanny. Leave a comment

Cover by Kris Anka

I still need to buy the Art Adams variant, but I’m glad that Hastings had at least one of the variants that I wanted.

Justin Timberlake – Can’t Stop The Feeling

Posted by John Klein III on June 7, 2016

Posted in: Fun With YouTube, Songs. Tagged: Music, YouTube. Leave a comment

Thanks to justintimberlakeVEVO for hosting his video.

Like most people, I’m sort of addicted to this song. It is super catchy! I type that as someone who isn’t a huge JT fan, most of his popular songs don’t sound like songs to me. Like Sexy Back, is he even singing on that track?

This song is for DreamWorks’ Trolls, that should be out on November 3rd, I believe. I’m hoping the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trolls make it to the film.

I’m not sure if that movie is working under the rules of the Lego Film wherein they have the rights to everything Troll but those were the only ones I ever bought. I’m sure I was given some or gotten one for free but I wasn’t ever swept up in it. My sister had a subscription to Troll magazine and had a lot more of them.

The Trolls film I had already decided I wasn’t going to track the film but then this song came out and I had to look the film up.

There is a more star studded music video –

that VEVO channel hosted this video too.

The stars are – the beatufiul Anna Kendrick, the funny late night host Josh Cordan, Gwen Stafani, @Midnight alum and super funny Ron Funches, Big Bang Theory’s Kuanal Nayyar. The two ladies with the puppies, I didn’t know but that’s Icona Pop.

I know I’ve posted this before but –

Saturday Night Live’s (who hosted this video) Dongs All Over the World, features Anna Kendrick and has an appearance by Icona Pop. Such a fun song!

JustinTimberlakeVEVO hosted this video as well.

I wouldn’t mind if they posted the full video of the stars dancing but they smartly released Anna Kendricks and it is awesome! Is there anything she’s not great in? I doubt it as I’ve seen a lot of her films.

. . .

Post 1,075!!!

Uncanny X-Men 600

Posted by John Klein III on June 6, 2016

Posted in: Review, Websites. Tagged: 2015, Anka, Asrar, Bachalo, Bendis, Bleeding Cool, Caramagna - Joe, Gracia - Marte, Immonen - Stuart, Irving, Irwin, Keith - Jason, Marquez, Pichelli, Townsend, Uncanny, Von Grawbadger. Leave a comment

Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Art Sara Pichelli, Mahmud Asrar, Stuart Immonen, Kris Anka, Chris Bachalo, David Marquez, Frazer Irving

Inks Wade von Grawbadger, Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin

Color Art Marte Gracia, Jason Keith, Chris Bachalo, Frazer Irving

Cover Art Chris Bachalo

Lettering & Production VC’s Joe Caramagna

Six months after it was suppose to come out, we get Bendis’ final issue of Uncanny X-Men! Though I can’t go on, too much, as this came out in November and I’m now reviewing this in February!

Last time in Uncanny X-Men – Cyclops tried to have a mutant revolution and it went nowhere, after one campus visit. Colossus was mad at his younger sister, as she could have undid Juggolosuss, at any time, but let him keep dmaning himself. Also, Teen Jean Grey forced Teen Iceman to admit to being “full gay.”

Jean Grey School. Storm has asked Beast to come to the cafeteria.

Note Kitty’s sweet space outfit, it will chance from time to time, even though it shouldn’t.

Look how sad or determined people look in this room. Doop doesn’t want to be there.

Iceman announces, like an idiot, that he didn’t want to do this. Kitty, regretting ever making out with the guy, gets the show back on track.

Beast picks up, immediately, that this is an intervention. Which I like how the X-Men finally got around to pointing out to Beast, how off the tracks, he has been. If only Beast had drank, smoked or whatever he means by dating (do people get interventions for dating?) those people can rationalize.

Instead, he has decided to break the laws of – physics, space-time continuum and genetics. One is bad, but one has to be triple threat, to be this ridiculous.

I wish I could tell who did these pages. I can’t distinguish Pichelli or Marquez’s art, for whatever reason. There are seven artists (minus inkers and colorists) but I can tell who the five artists are. Does anyone know which pages were which? I imagine I’m just not telling when they switched, during the intervention.

Beast, only a minute into this, has decided that this is really . . . a trial!

20 Minutes Ago. These pages, are done by Kris Anka.

Colossus, in classic Claremont fashion, destroys a tree! Kitty teases him about it, so that’s pretty great. Also, Kitty is in her classic X-Men outfit.

What does Colossus have on his butt!?!

These two do talk, like they have known each other for years. Like they have gone through some shit together – which they totally have.

Colossus turns the conversation to Kitty’s engagement. She’s surprised the news has made it back to Earth. Which I imagine, it would has Teen Angel came back with a brand new look. Kitty’s engagement would have to be mentioned, as one of the three highlights of Black Vortex.

Kitty hints that Illyana is here to talk to her brother, so he calls her out.

I like how awkward the Rasputin siblings are, it has been too long since they have talked. Illyana, showing some real vulnerability, admits that she has been training with Doctor Strange.

The faces that Colossus and Kitty make, what is that look? Surprised, mixed with disgust? They look, clearly taken back by the revelation.

It is astonishing that Xavier didn’t try to hook Illyana with Doctor Strange or Agatha Harkness, or anyone who is magically inclined. I guess, as there isn’t that many mutants who also use magic, he didn’t know who to reach out too. It isn’t like Amanda Sefton was an expert in the field – at that time. I’m pretty sure Scarlet Witch was still mostly mutant hex powers than sorcery

Colossus tells her to stop.

Bendis really excels with the whole, how people read a comic. As this is a great use of a page flip.

Colossus gives his little snowflake a much deserve hug! Look how happy Magik is!

Kitty announces that Storm is summoning them, and Magik teleports them away. So when did Kitty change outfits? This will happen, one more time.

Illyana joke that Colossus should make a move and stop the wedding, but he’s cool. Is he still dating Domino? I hope he is.

Back at the trial! Storm hints that people have approached Beast about these issues, but he ignores them and keeps on trucking. It was this or have SHIELD arrest him, which I’m sure SHIELD isn’t in the game of arresting Avengers – not with Steve Rogers running the place.

Beast keeps going on about Scott Summers.

Emma steps in, which is smart to have Storm, Emma and Kitty being the ones to do most of the talking. He relates to those three on different levels. Emma likes how this situation should embarrass and shame Beast, maybe the last tactic, will be the one that works.

Beast tries to explain himself. His ideas are so advanced, that he can’t explain himself – which is a bunch of shit. He knew no one would clear his decision to mess up the time stream and bring the Original Five X-Men to the present, so he just goes ahead and does it.

The Icemans (Icemen?) start saying the same thing, at the same time.

Which transitions us to Mahmud Asrar pages. The pages that deal with Teen Bobby talking to his present older self – which Teen Jean, in tow. Iceman makes short work of Cyclops’ new students, they didn’t really get much fighting experience.

Teen Bobby comes out to Iceman (that’s how I’m going to distinguish them). Teen Bobby asks if Iceman is gay too. I do like how Teen Bobby’s motivation to coming out to his older self, is that he doesn’t want to live in the closet, but he realizes how complicated that would make things, for his older self.

Iceman, without missing a beat, tells Jean that this is why no one likes her. Which is completely true! Teen Bobby tries to defend her, saying that people like her too much. Which I imagine is hard to prove. Who would like Teen Jean Grey? She makes poor decision, after poor decision.

Iceman doesn’t understand how his younger self is more put together than he is. Iceman tries to explain he decisions. He was persecuted for being a mutant and an X-Man, he wanted a part of his life that he could just live like a normal person. So he kept himself busy, too busy, to be gay. I guess I can understand that, but it does seem like he went out of his way to get some beards. He dated Opal for like six years! But that does happen.

Irritatingly, Teen Bobby asks Iceman what he is thinking. Instead of giving him a second to answer, Jean goes ahead and reveals what Iceman is thinking – as that worked out so well, before. If he isn’t being selfish to wanting to commit energy into making himself happy, instead of being an X-Man. Which makes sense, as one of the Original Five, he has seen how – once you are an X-Man, that’s pretty much all you are. If you try to do a side project, it will eventually bring you back to the team.

To end on a light note, Teen Bobby asks if Iceman finds Angel cute, which he does. Which is super weird, as the Angel he knows, has gone through the frying pan! I’m sure he hasn’t thought he was cute, since his original Archangel days.

Iceman wants to hug Jean but she doesn’t like how the code makes her front parts. oh Jean, you are the worst. So she gives him a mental hug, which feels nice – apparently. They are summoned to Storm.

Back at the Trial. Storm keeps coming at him. Out of nowhere, he was going to bring up that she married Black Panther, as if that has anything to do with this. Classic deflection! Plus, her decision affected, like no one. Even the people in Wakanda just saw it as an opportunity to have a party and then things were back to normal. Well, besides, Doomwar but that would have happened if Storm wasn’t there.

Beast doesn’t want to be blamed for Future Beast’s issues (from Battle of the Atom and that sequel story), as he also tampered with time and furthering his mutation. He gave himself goat legs, that have only worked for Illyana!

Dazzler, wanting to get involved, points out that Dark Beast tried to kill them, in the X-Men versus SHIELD arc. Which I had forgotten about, already. Probably as that reveal, was essentially “insert any villain” here.

Kitty just wants to be in the conversation, Beast can’t just keep doing whatever.

The New Xavier School. Location Sercret. (Still?) 40 Minutes Ago. (as they have to account for the Icemans segment). These pages are brought to us by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger and Marte Gracia. Also, Joe Caramagna, but he does all of the lettering and production, for this extra sized issue.

The All New X-Men, including Cosmic Upgrade Angel and X23 (pre-All New Wolverine) are relaxing on the grass. Which last time they tried this, Bobby tried to comment on how attractive Illyana was and Jean told him how full gay he was and determined how he should categorize himself.

Jean wants a break, from being an X-Man. Cyclops got to have his own adventure, and she wants to see how she should define herself. Which is super ironic. Jean wants to train more, and fight less – which makes sense. Angel agrees, he wouldn’t mind some off time. He just wants to date X23, some more – I bet! Bobby wants some of Angel’s money, which I’m pretty sure NuAngel, has squandered all of that money, as he didn’t know how to spend it. Where is that guy, these days?

Hank walks away, realizing that he broke up the X-Men. Jean confronts him and FINALLY has the conversation they should have had, since Battle of the Atom, when the two kissed! Or, in that event, he didn’t want to run away with her, so she took Scott, instead. Hank is worried, about how much they have changed, in only a few months.

Jean has been reading Hank’s mind, she knows that he has been waiting for this moment and now, she is ready for it. Jean and Hank made out and in full view of Scott, who isn’t happy! Did Scott have a space honey? I thought I read somehow that he did meet a space pirate princess, or some such title.

I’m glad these little segments exist, as this non-trial would be hard to read, otherwise.

Back at the trial. Storm tells Beast that she loves him but he tells her that this isn’t love. Which is classic intervention! From what I imagine. Kitty and Illyana both tell him, that this is love. I like to think that Illyana saying it, is what makes him go quiet.

Beast turns to Young Hank, and asks how he is just standing there. Hank doesn’t like it, the Original Five X-Men were brought here, based on a lie. There was no mutant genocide. Beast tries to say that there would have been, but he stopped it by bringing the Original Five X-Men to the present. Which seems silly.

Beast goes on about Scott Summers, again.

Everyone is so tired of Beast and his breakup with Scott Summers. Beast starts walking away, he is done.

Kitty volunteers to follow Beast but Benjamin gets paged. Cerebro has picked up a unique signature, which seems weird as who it is, shouldn’t be a new detection. Unless it got a new setting or was doing a search for him, but we don’t get any additional information on that front.

This mutant is in Washington DC. Illyana teleports the entire school to the capital.

So Cyclops is in Washington DC! Also there, Kitty, back in her classic X-Men costume. What is she doing!?!

Cyclops makes a point of saying that the X-Men are the last mutants to arrive. He has gathered all of these mutants, to one location. I’m not sure he forced Mystique or Sabretooth, to be there or any of the other villains.

Look how cute Doop is!

Oh, these pages are brought to us by Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend and Mark Irwin. I imagine Jason Keith, like Caramagna, colors the rest of the issue – outside of Immonen, Bachalo and Irving’s part (which is the last pages).

Cyclops has to explain, that he misused the word – revolution – or that he simply failed at having a unified vision.

Cyclops has clearly lost it, as he states how Washington DC is the heart f everything democratic and good. Maybe democratic, but good? That seems silly.

The real revolution is that all the mutants can be in one location and not be fighting. Just then, Magneto arrives and people are worried that this will spark a race riot. He lands and says how crazy this plan is, but Xavier would have loved it. Which makes Cyclops smile.

The last two pages, are brought to us by Frazer Irving. Tempus talks to Beast, wondering if this is the Trial of Henry McCoy, as she has been foretold about it, three times. I’m not sure what she means with this – because if this was it . . . what do you do with what happened today?” Like, there are too many words or too few words. I’m not sure what she also means “and if this wasn’t it . . . ” I get that she is trying to indicate that things are going to get much worst,

What I’m getting at, is this – the issue ends on not a great note but the rest of it, was pretty good.

There is a nice letter by Bendis. He teases that Goldballs is going to show up in Miles Morales’ Spider-Man title, that I didn’t know, and that Bendis is taking Kitty Pryde, with him, to Guardians of the Galaxy, which I did know about.

For some reason, the Iceman story from Bizarre Adventures 27 is reprinted. There isn’t anything, that I can see, that tells you where that story is originally printed or why it was included, but that’s what that story is.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/11/03/is-this-why-uncanny-x-men-600-reprints-bizarre-adventures-27-from-1981/

Bleeding Cool News believes that the story was reprinted due to Iceman commenting on how pretty Angel is. So it is canon, I suppose. Still weird that there wasn’t an introduction page to set up the backup story.

Ultimate Spider-Man Annual 3

Posted by John Klein III on June 5, 2016

Posted in: Review, Websites. Tagged: Annual, March on Ultimatum, Newsarama, Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimatum. Leave a comment

Writer Brian Michael Bendis

Artist David Lafuente

Colorist John Rauch

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Cover Dated December 2008

So I remember this issue being promoted as being about Peter and Mary Jane’s teen sex life. So I had to look up the original solicitation.

http://www.newsarama.com/482-marvel-comics-full-october-2008-solicitations.html

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #3

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS

Penciled by DAVID LAFUENTE

Cover by MARK BROOKS & RICHARD ISANOVE

The relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane is one of the most iconic and popular romances in all of comics — and in this very special issue by series writer Brian Michael Bendis (SECRET INVASION), and red-hot artist David Lafuente [HELLCAT], that relationship delves into an area never before seen in any Spider-Man comic! Destined to be one of the most controversial issues of the year!

48 PGS./Rated A …$3.99

Maybe I just read too much into it or there was some interview I read that stated it. Well, skimming it, I didn’t see anything all that controversial.

So the Recap Page does a nice job of summarizing what has been going on, and it is a lot! – symbiotes, mercenaries, clones and Peter cheating on Kitty with Mary Jane and Kitty going to their school. Will Peter and Mary Jane have sex or will they very briefly talk about it?

Last Night. Mary Jane and Peter say they love each other. Mary Jane describes how deadly their lives and become and she poaches the subject that maybe they should do something. At school, they are very awkward with each other. If they are going to do it, they should hurry as Ultimatum is coming and Peter is only slightly going to survive it.

Kitty sees Mary Jane run from Peter. I love how sarcastic Kitty is about those two breaking up. Kitty suspects that Peter did something wrong, as that’s his move. He runs away, upset.

Spider-Man is swinging across the city and he’s thinking about how he’s the jerk in this situation, as he’s the guy. He joins a police chase. We learn that when a costume person joins a situation, the code is 616, so that’s pretty clever. He is able to get the criminal’s car to stop but it explodes, once it does.

Midtown High, Next Day. Mary Jane is in the newsroom with Jessica Jones. Jessica is recapping the heist, she also explains that since Spider-Man clearly goes to this school, any story involving him is a school news story. She also wants to figure out who is Spider-Man.

Lunch Break. Mary Jane sits with Peter, which surprises both him and Kitty & Kong. I believe those two are dating right now too. Peter and Mary Jane seem pretty hostile. She updates him about Jessica Jones coming for him. He wants to talk about the other night. Mary Jane wants to know about the car explosion, instead of talking about the night before.

Peter picks up the story where we last left off. The police are actually talking to him, not trying to arrest him and even trying to get him to help. At the police station, a lady in a Jessica Drew Spider-Woman costume is shouting “embrace change” a fun hint to Secret Invasion, also written by Bendis.

Spider-Man is viewing the bank heist footage. The police have started calling the criminal, Mysterio, who will be a big name in the upcoming volume. Mary Jane is going to solve the mystery of how Mysterio actually robs the place, after he’s done the getaway part.

Greenwich Village, That Night. Maggie, who works for the police department (and showed Spider-Man the video) is also working for Mysterio. He likes the name he’s been given. He wants to lie low now that there is some heat coming his way. Spider-Man crashes through the skylight and sees Ultimate Mysterio. He tires to punch Mysterio in the head but his fists go through it. Maggie tries to run away but her police friends are at the entrance.

Mysterio grabs Spider-Man by the neck, stating that he will be back when he is ready and fades away. With that, the building explodes.

Peter goes to Mary Jane, she was right that it was an inside job. I like Mary Jane asking him if he told the police it was her who figured it out. Like that wouldn’t take more explaining.

They finally get around to talk about “it.” They didn’t and are not going to. Mary Jane loves Peter, and she wants to go all the way, but not right now. She regrets bringing it up. Apparently Flash broke up with Liz over this, as they never had sex. Good for her!

Peter isn’t Flash, he has never brought up sex before. He would love to have sex with her but he’s not pushing it. She worries that he could die any time but he counters that anyone can die any day. He tells her that he wants to marry her and she would totally marry him.

I forget that these two are fifteen, so yeah, they can slow down. They make out, as that’s what they like to do. As the camera pulls back, we see that Mary Jane isn’t wearing pants!

Not a bad issue at all.

	John Klein III on X-Men United 1
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	MoxieMk5 on Exceptional X-Men 12

	John Klein III on X-Men United 1
	MoxieMk5 on X-Men United 1
	Ron on Emily VanCamp
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	MoxieMk5 on Exceptional X-Men 12

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