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Avengers Volume Five Issue 24

Posted by John Klein III on October 3, 2016
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Avengers Vol 5 Issue 24 Allred Variant

Writer Jonathan Hickman

Artists Esad Ribic, Salvador Larroca, Mike Deodato and Butch Guice

Color Artists Dean White, Frank Martin, Paul Mounts and Laura Martin

Letter VC’s Cory Petit

Cover by Mike Allred and Laura Allred

Cover Dated February 2014

I only own this issue for the variant cover.  For whatever reason, Marvel released multiple variants for this issue, which back in the day, they would have waited for the big issue 25 but 24 isn’t bad in today’s market.  I still want to own the Anka variant.

I really miss the character square from the good ol’ days.

The theme with several of the variants was Avengers on famous X-Men covers and X-Men in famous Avengers covers.  Unfortunately, there was no homage cover to Uncanny X-Men 141.  Others are like the one above, where the artist just had fun doing a cover.  Its by Allred, so of course Doop is there.

Onto the issue, which good thing there was a recap page!

So in previous issues, there are events called, Incursions, which I only know from the Facebook : Avengers Alliance game.  A game I really enjoyed and was addicted to until they went crazy with the PvP Lockboxes.  I always said I will quit playing once I wasn’t able to get one of the limited characters and that is what happened with Elektra.  Now, they have gone crazy with the feature.

Incursions is when two different Earths come together and one of them is going to be destroyed by the other.  From what I can gather, our Earth in the Proper Marvel Universe, is always being one of these planets and the Illuminati has to destroy the other Earth.

I guess at one point, Captain America was a temporary member of the Illuminati and he didn’t like the idea of destroying complete Earths so they, via Doctor Strange, mindwipe him.  Just like Zantanna did to Batman in Identity Crisis.

Also, on the recap page, is a conversation Captain America had with Iron Man about how Cap realizes that their enemies are getting to be more dangerous, attack more often and there is just plain too many of them.  Iron Man’s solution?  To make the Avengers a bigger force to be dealt with.

So the Avengers are –

Captain America, Hulk, Falcon, Thor, Manifold, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Hawkeye, Iron Man (in the big circle)
Spider-Woman, Hyperion, Smasher, Nightmask, Captain Universe, Cannonball, Sunspot, Starbrand, Shangi Chi (on the bottom)

18 Heroes!  That is quite an army!

Avengers V5 24 Cast

I don’t recognize : Manifold, Nightmask, this current Captain Universe and Starbrand sounds familiar.

Issue opens in the future, 3030, and Tony’s whatever number-great grandchild, Rhodey Stark (will they really be still naming their children after Tony’s friends at that long of a line?) and Franklin Richards are talking about time travel.  Franklin is cool with Rhody going back in time.  The captions imply that the Richards Foundation owns the Stark company – which I like.

In the present, Thor is barbequing and makes a joke about not recognizing what hot dogs are, or what meat they are.  I sort of like a Thor who can crack a joke – he’s been on Earth and with this time, for a decade – at least, so he can feel comfortable and it shows that they are rubbing off on him.

He admits that he tried to barbeque a lobster but the creature defeated him.  Good stuff!

Hulk brings out plates of pies : mead, beer and fimbulvinter.

I like the conversation with Spider-Woman, Black Widow and Captain Marvel.

Captain America and Iron Man talk about membership.  Cap has let go of Wolverine, as he is too busy.  Spider-Man has also been let go because he has been acting erratic.  Due to him being Doctor Octopus.

They explain the cast sheet above.  The circle is the main team, the others are reserved.

Then Iron Man 3030 shows up.  Tony states it is December 2013, so there is still time to change the Future.

Future Iron Man gives the Avengers an additional monh to prepare for the Rogue Planet, the name of the issue, that is heading to Earth.  A rogue planet is a planet that leaves its orbit and now is a giant marble heading towards anything that will stop it.

The Avengers set up a base on Mars and create a device that simply merges the rogue planet to Earth, creating a new source of energy.

Iron Man 3030 takes off her helmet and calls Tony, grandfather.  Which, I am not sure if only one child of Tony’s grown up and had a child gets us from 2013 to 3030.

She reveals that in the original timeline, the Avengers destroyed the rogue planet and saved the Earth.

Because they saved the day, the way they did, now the Illuminati (who are also now the New Avengers) can use this new energy source for those pesky Incursions.  That is the type of tight writing one can do when you write two titles.

Decent issue, glad it all worked out.

All New Doop 5

Posted by John Klein III on November 6, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

All New Doop 5

Writer Peter Milligan

Artists Federico Santagati and David Lafuente

Color Artist Laura Allred

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Cover Art Michael and Laura Allred

Was Santagati rushed this issue, or does he just like thicker finishes?

The funnest miniseries of the year finally comes to a close.  I’m really going to miss this adventure.

The non-Kitty parts didn’t hold my attention, it just felt off to me.  I really think it was the inks, it reminded me too much of Bill Sienkiewicz’s inks over Sal Buscema’s pencils during their time together on Spectacular Spider-Man.  Which I do hate to keep harping on that as I love Sienkiewicz has an artist but as solely an Inker, I would prefer anyone else.  It was probably just a style they were going for but it has ruined me for thick inks.  If it was a black and white comic, I would be cool with it but it just looks off.  That’s the best I can describe it.

Issue opens at Karolinska Hospital.  Sweden.  Wolverine is fighting Mama Doop, trying to get some answers.

In Doopspace.  Poor Doop is having to escape from a hundred versions of himself.

Jean Grey School.  The Brotherhood of Evil X-Men and the Present Day Regular X-Men are also having to fight off dozens of Doops.  Raze starts losing his cool, if he ever had it.  Bling! confronts him and Xavier Junior shuts her down.  Rachel and Xavier Junior are talking.  Xavier Junior is whining as done of this happened originally.

Wolverine and Anarchist are in Dooospace.  Wolverine finds Doop and reveals the secret, but not to us.

Back in the Real World.  Bling! is not thrilled by Xavier Junior.  Rachel wonders how Kitty is holding up.

In the Jean Grey School’s Lab.  Kitty wants to get back to Doop, he’s in trouble.  She starts phasing into Doopspace.

All New Doop 5 Kitty Hot Tub

Doopspace.  U-Go Girl, which this is the first time I have really noticed her hero name.  Pretty clever.  She’s in a hot tub with Anarchist.  Apparently, there is a Hot Tub Rule to not place one’s foot between another’s legs.  Makes sense.  Turns out, it was Kitty doing the touching.

Doop and Wolverine are talking.  Doop is worried that he upset Kitty.  Wolverine tells him that Kitty is pretty tough.  Doop returns Wolverine back to school.  Doop puts a piece of him into Wolverine’s ear, causing him to forget all of the Doop business.

Everyone at the school starts forgetting.  Wolverine walks into the room.  Kate Pryde stabs Wolverine, turning into Raze.  So this happened twice.

Doop finds Kitty out of the hot tub.  They leave so they can talk.  Doop admits he had a bad meltdown.  As oppose to all of those good ones, you hear so much about.

Doop reveals to Kitty, and us, his big secret.  His Mama and Papa are one and the same.

Thanks to my pal, SlickNickShady for the second two images :

All New Doop 5 Pre Kiss

Kitty explains – Doop is asexually reproduced hermaphrodites.  Our Doop is the same.  Doop withdraws his marriage proposal.  Kitty is not super relieved, Doop had started growing on her.

Doop has said some nice things to Kitty.

All New Doop 5 Kitty Doop Kiss

So they kiss!  Kitty even gives Doop a little tongue.  Doop is the fifth person Kitty has ever kissed!  Now we can create a Top Five!  Actually, her and Star Lord have not kissed yet.  It is just a matter of time though.

Kitty doesn’t want to go to school.  She wants to stay in Doopspace.  She is happy there.  Doop realizes that she is just avoiding making a tough decision.

All New Doop 5 Kitty reaction

I’m so happy that Lafuente got to draw these Kitty pages.

Kitty is offended that she can’t like weird things.  Also, Doop tastes like spicy peanut butter, so now we can never unlearned that.

Doop gets Kitty to admit that she is ready to leave the school and join Cyclops’ side.  Doop also reveals this entire adventure was to show Kitty that she can do anything.  The ring and proposal were only props.

If Doop and Kitty were a couple, then he wouldn’t be part of the margins – he would be part of the main story.  Dman right!

Sometime Later.  Kitty announces she is leaving the Jean Grey School.

Thus the best miniseries of the year comes to an end.  I want a sequel already!  More Kitty and Doop, please!

All New Doop 4

Posted by John Klein III on September 24, 2014
Posted in: Review, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

All New Doop 4

Writer Peter Milligan

Artists Federico Santagati and David Lafuente

Color Artist Laura Allred

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Cover Art Michael & Laura Allred

Sometimes a comic has two artists and it is hard to tell the two apart but this issue, it is super easy to tell Santagati and Lafuente apart.  If it looks smooth and cartoony – it is Lafuente.

The Doop Origin Issue!

Karolinska Hospital.  Sweden 1957.  The Hospital Room of Film Director Ingmar Bergman.

Now, I know all types of things about Ingmar Bergman as I’m a huge of Alex Withrow’s So It Begins blog :

http://www.andsoitbeginsfilms.com/

I thought it did a career retrospective of Bergman but I swear, every six or so posts, involves Bergman.

From the comments of the ones I thought were the post I was thinking of, he is working on the giant The Directors : Ingmar Bergman post.  it is a great film blog, and you can lose yourself for hours and maybe days now.

We learn Doops are born from imagination.

Outside the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.  Now.  We see that Mama Doop is extremely abusive.

We get the flashback, by Lafuente.  Santagati does most of the other art.

Papa Doop left home.  Doop always blames himself for it.  He was too inquisitive.  Mama Doop didn’t like being a single parent and that’s, sadly, when the abuse started.

Beast’s Lab.

All New Doop 4 Kitty seen

This is the only time we see Kitty.

I wish I remember Battle of the Atom better as I’m sure they must have cut to a different scene after Wolverine got stabbed by Raze, as we get nearly a full comic’s worth of story after that scene.

Back to Doop’s origin.  He finds a camera and starts filming, which is very therapeutic for him.

X-Statix gets a lot of page time during this.

All New Doop 4 Kitty mentioned

One of the More Lugubrious Bars in the Margins.  Mama Doop mentions Kitty, stating she is an inappropriate unobtainable obsession.  Which seems rather harsh but she’s that type of lady.

She reveals the information that Raze threaten to blackmail Doop with.  Of course, we are not told it but we see that exactly two minutes later, Doop is losing his mind with rage.

Then there are like a hundred evil Doops now.

Anarchist shows up to assist Doop.  He’s going to get some backup.  All the Doops break through the Margins and are now in Beast’s Lab.  Wolverine agrees to help Anarchist.

In a fun scene, Wolverine states that he misses X-Statix and that they should come back.  Anarchist states that maybe they will.  So look out for any announcements for a X-Statix report.  Which, if Doop makes references to his time with Kitty Pryde, then I would buy those issues.

Issue ends with Mama Doop being confronted by Wolverine.  He wants to know what she told Doop, and so do I!

All New Doop 3

Posted by John Klein III on September 6, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

All New Doop 3

Writer Peter Milligan

Artists David Lafuente and Jacopo Camagni

Colorist Laura Allred

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Cover by Mike Allred

The best X-Mini of the year continues!

Previously, Doop intervened in the Battle of the Atom to give things a little push, but he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

There is something about the art this issue, that really popped for me.  I wonder if it was the addition of Camagni.

All New Doop 3 Kitty Rachel

I really like the way Rachel and Kitty look at the beginning of the issue, as they look for ‘Kate Pryde’ who is really Raze.  Which reminds me, we still don’t know what happens to Kitty in this future timeline.  It is great to finally have it be addressed that Kate isn’t the one that Rachel knows so well.

Otherwise, in Doopspace.  Between the margins.  Beyond the story.  Raze recognizes Doop and stabs him.  In retaliation, Doop vomits on him.  Doop reveals he knows who Raze is, and who his parents are.  He isn’t sure how he knows it, his head is full of information.

Anarchist, from X-Statix, shows up to assist Doop in this confrontation.  I do like how the artists threw in No-Girl, the only character people want to see from that title – besides Doop, himself.

Doop is about to go tell Kitty who these Future Brotherhood of Evil X-Men are, and who really is Kate Pryde.  Raze blackmails Doop into not doing it.  If Doop does, Raze will reveal to the world the truth about Doop’s mother.

Which gives me the impression that this is suppose to be a back door Doop origin story.  Which I am fine with.  I still don’t know much about Doop.

Fun scene with Kitty and Rachel planning to leave the place Kate was just at.  Kate states a similar statement that Kitty jokely said Kate would do.

Anarchist is trying to build Doop’s confidence so that Doop can speak to his mother.

Doop pulls present day Iceman from a fight.  Doop, both, reveals that he proposed to Kitty and points out how useless Iceman is.

Doop brings Kitty to where he left Iceman.  I really like how Milligan gets to explain why Kitty and Iceman broke up.  Yet, it still fits with what was established.

All New Doop 3 Kitty Iceman 1

All New Doop 3 Kitty Iceman 2

All New Doop 3 Kitty Iceman 3

If I am going to start scanning pages, I really should learn how to trim pictures down but I have no idea what I need to do that.

I can’t believe that Iceman would throw Colossus in her face, but I bet he was always insecure about measuring up to the Russian.

They break up due to Iceman not supporting her and her not trusting him.

Doop takes Iceman back to the fight scene.  Once he comes back, Kitty tells him that the forced conservation was mean and unnecessary.  Doop wanted Kitty to quit wasting her time with Iceman, so she can have true happiness.  Doop believes his meeting with his mother might end with Doop’s death.  Kitty offers to help but he needs to do this on his own.

Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.  Magik comes back from the future with Past Beast and Iceman.  Doop takes a small piece of Magik’s um magic.  Now he can teleport to his mother.  Once there, he uses the phrases Anarchist told him.

Mama Doop is embarrassed that it took so long for Doop to learned English.  Issue ends with Doop asking his mother to tell him everything.

 

All New Doop 2

Posted by John Klein III on July 13, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

All New Doop 2

Writer Peter Milligan

Artist David Lafuente

Color Artist Laura Allred

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

Cover Artists Michael and Laura Allred

Previously : After confessing his undying love to Kitty Pryde, Doop learned how to speak English!

Continuing the best aspect of Battle of the Atom!

All New Doop 2 Kitty Pryde 1

Kitty politely turns Doop’s marriage proposal down.  It isn’t due to him being gross looking.

He sinks into the ground, feeling rejected.  Kitty dives in after him.  Here she learns of, Marginalia – the place between the panels.  The margins, get it?

All New Doop 2 Kitty Pryde 2

We see images from Battle of the Atom.

All New Doop 2 Kitty Pryde 3

Young Bobby finds Doop’s ring on the floor.

Doop takes Kitty to his favorite restaurant – Chateau du Armpit.  Next, to Cinema of Emptiness – the screen is blank.  Then they go dancing.  Doop is doing his best to woo her.

Doop is also trying to get Kitty to accept her irrational side.

Then the BotA portions kick in again.

The three Icemans are talking.  Young Bobby calls Present Bobby, which I find odd.  Shouldn’t they have a cuter name by now?

We see Kate Pryde, that we know really is Raze.

We revisit the Jean and Scott running away and stealing laundry scene.  Kitty isn’t pleased that Doop video taped Jean getting undressed.

This is during the part of BotA where Kitty is deciding what to do.  She wants the Original Five X-Men to decide on their own to go back to their timeline.  The other X-Men want to force them to do it.

We revisit one of my favorite scenes from BotA, where Kitty and Rachel eat Chinese food.

Issue ends with Raze and Doop being in the Doopspace.

. . .

Someone wanted this review maybe a month ago.  Thank you for the interest, having back to back event months put me a little behind on current reviews.  I have maybe ten waiting to go.

Hopefully the comic readers are not losing interest due to all of the Big Brother 16 posts, but those are tracking so well!  Thanks to you newer visitors that are finding my blog through that show.

I can let you know that in August, I have some plans for the Friday posts – so I am not sure how I am going to do the Thursday recap.  Tempted to let it go, but we will see.

I just wanted to to address the comic fans that visit, that show should end in September and I have a quasi-event plan that is comic book related that will take top priority in August.  It shouldn’t be the entire month so I don’t want to refer to it as a Month Event, officially, but I do refer to it as such to myself, so I may slip and call it that here from time to time.  It just rolls better.

So comic readers, please be patient and Big Brother viewers, I hope you like comics and stick around.

I am trying to balance the two groups and it may get dicey, but I hope everyone can, at the very least, enjoy half the posts.

The schedule for July should be Monday / Thursday / Friday – Big Brother posts.  Tuesday / Wednesday / Saturday / Sunday – Comics / Random other posts.

September may be the same but that should be pretty limited, though I can’t seem to find an official last Big Brother 16 finale date.

Thanks to both groups of visitors, again, I really do appreciate everyone who comes to S&FwM – Thank you so much!

All New Doop 1

Posted by John Klein III on April 23, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

All New Doop 1

Writer Peter Milligan

Artist David LaFuente

Color Artist Laura Allred

Letterer VC’s Clayton Cowles

This story takes place around the margins of Battle of the Atom.  Hence, this is the best story that happens in Battle of the Atom, and it is barely that.

Doop gets an alarm.

All New Doop 1 Kitty 1

He heads to where Kitty and the Original X-Men are, as they get greeted by Cyclops’ Uncanny X-Men team.  We see some of the same dialogue and plot points.

All New Doop 1 Kitty 2

Kitty feels like she is being watched.  Doop is recording everything, like he did for his relaunch of X-Force and X-Statix.

We see Magik kicking much Sentinel can as well as Kitty, so that’s awesome.  They still don’t get any time together though.

Doop has written a letter, we get the impression it is a love letter, but to whom?  We already know from the solicts but let’s not ruin the story with future knowledge.

Kitty phases through a Sentinel and comes across Doop.  He hands her the letter.  She doesn’t get time to read it before young Bobby shows up.  Unlike Wolverine, Kitty can’t understand Doop’s language.

Bobby tells Kitty that he saw her fall, which she corrects that she didn’t fall, she jumped.  There’s a subtle difference.  I already like Milligan already.  He co-created Doop with Mike Allred, who is providing art on the covers.  I didn’t really read their X-Force/X-Statix story.  I read the rest of the X-Force run and own that first trade but then I bailed with the relaunch as it seemed like a good jumping off point.  I also didn’t read much of his proper X-Men run.  I know it dealt with Apocalypse.

We are reshown the scene of young Scott getting hit by a Sentinel blast.  Emma calls for Triage.  He is freaking out, we see that Doop had to literally slap some sense into him and he was able to heal young Scott.  Thus, proper Cyclops lives.

There is an ad for the Amazing Spider-Man 2, which reminds me that I really wanted to play the first game as I read it had a fighting style similar to the Batman Arkham games.  Also, I really like the redesign of eyes on Spider-Man’s mask.  They are so big and white.

We cut to the scene with the Future ‘X-Men’ and the present’s Wolverine’s X-Men.  There is a lot of Iceman on these two pages as Bobby asks Iceman for some advice on how to get ladies.

Scott and Jean run off, holding hands.  Doop fixes the Blackbird so they can fly it.

The Lady Xorn reveal happens.

There is a ‘Trust No One’ ad for Agents of SHIELD, showing Ward – uh, spoilers, ya’ll!

Rachel and Kitty are about to get something to eat.  Rachel runs ahead.  Kitty hangs back as Doop would like a moment.

Kitty finally reads his letter.  Doop would like to marry Kitty, which really, who can blame him?  She is pretty awesome!

She gently turns him down.  Though she makes one big mistake, her main reason for not marrying him is that they can’t communicate.

So poor Doop, it looks painful, rips himself in half and now he can talk.  Your move, Ms. Pryde!

Such a fun issue!  Can’t wait for the next four issues.  This and Marvel Knights : X-Men are already two great X-Mini Series this year.  Going to be hard to beat!

Wolverine and the X-Men

Posted by John Klein III on March 4, 2014
Posted in: Retrospective. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

I own these 33 issues :

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 42.  Plus the Annual.

I have these issues on my Wishlist :

1 the Nick Bradshaw Variant, 2 the 50th Anniversary Variant, 3, 4 the Venom Variant, 25 the McGuinness Variant, 32 and 36 the Kris Anka Variant.

Once I own the 25 Variant, then I can get rid of the issue proper as Kitty doesn’t appear in it besides on the last page with the names of faculty members.  The variant has a picture of Cameron Drake, her and Bobby’s son.  32, I need as Hastings never got that issue in.

Of the 43 issues, Jason Aaron wrote every issue.  Which is pretty impressive at modern day Marvel.

Chris Bachalo – 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 42

Duncan Rouleau – 3

Matteo Scalera – 3

Nick Bradshaw – 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 42 and Annual 1

Jorge Molina – 14, 15 , 18

Mike Allred – 17

Steve Sanders – 20, 42

David Lopez – 24

Ramon Perez – 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 42

Salva Espin – 30

Pasqual Ferry – 30

Pepe Larraz – 30, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42

Giuseppe Camuncoli – 36, 37

Todd Nauck – 41

Nuno Alves – 42

Shawn Crystal – 42

Tim Townsend – 42

Actually the only issue Aaron didn’t write was 27U, the Age of Ultron tie in which I don’t believe should count against him.  Art for that issue was done by Paco Medina, Jack Kirby and John Buscema.

Storylines included Regenesis, Mutatis Mutatandis, Avengers Vs. X-Men, the unnamed Frankenstein Monster arc, Savage Learning, The Hellfire Saga and Battle of the Atom.  Including the Annual, which was the title’s Infinity tie in.

This was the core title, once Schism happened, that Wolverine’s side had.  I was a huge fan of the title, then Battle of the Atom happened and Kitty changed sides and I quit reading the title as she no longer appeared.

Issue 17, the Doop issue, is still my favorite of the run.

Thanks to this title, not only did I gain a new found appreciation for Doop, we got to see Kitty become the Headmistress of the Jean Grey School, see her go from her red phase to a pink phase, Kitty officially getting over Colossus so we are now done with that relationship, Colossus as one of the Phoenix Five place crab legs on whales and most importantly, I discover Nick Bradshaw and fell hard for his art style.