Spurrier

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X-Men Legacy Volume Two

Posted by John Klein III on February 23, 2017
Posted in: Retrospective. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Now, I never referred to it as Volume Two as Volume One started with issue 208 so there was no need to clarify which volume of the title it was but this has been Volume Two of X-Men Legacy.

Of the 24 issues, I own 14 of the issues – 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 14.  On my Wishlist are two issues – 20 and 23, both of which are due to Hastings not having my comics in.

The reason I own so many of these is how often Magik showed up in this series.  A few of them are due to Kitty being there for Illyana being part of Cyclops’ Uncanny team helped keep her involved.

There have been some great storylines in this series, such as Prodigal, Invasive Exotic, Hope and Glory, Wear the Grudge Like a Crown and the concluding storyline.

This series was written by the mastermind that is Simon Spurrier.  Along the way, he had some excellent artist on board.

1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 23, 24 – Tan Eng Huat

4, 5, 6 – Jorge Molina

10, 11, 12, 16 – Paul Davidson

17, 18, 21, 22 – Khoi Pham

My favorite would have to be the Wear the Grudge Like a Crown.

Some might have dismissed the title as a solo David Haller title or as a satellite title but it tied into and used the current titles’ continuity to both enhance and place this title.

This was also Blindfold’s title, as she was in each issue and was crucial to the overall story arc.

There will be an issue 300 of Legacy but issue 24 concluded this second volume.  Spurrier does have a section of 300 that will involve his Legacy run but that is technically part of volume one with the renumbering.

X-Club 5

Posted by John Klein III on November 9, 2016
Posted in: Review, Websites. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

X-Club 5

Writer Simon Spurrier

Artist Paul Davidson

Colorist Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Cover Dated June 2012

We Do Science, Part Five and Five

Good thing there is the Previous page!  I have issues three and four on my wishlist, but this issue starts right off in the thick of it.

Let me see if I can recap what happened previously from the page and throughout the issue.  There is a Nazi spirit like guy, Schragesturm, and he has this other techno god like being as his captive.

The X-Club members are – Dr. Nemesis, Kavita Rao, Danger and Madison Jeffries.

There was a chemical spill that affected the Atlanteans and Rao is trying to cure them.  She didn’t have much success with a priestess.

Danger is pregnant by the captive god via an energy blast.

Jeffries isn’t up to much except that he has romantic feelings for Danger.

Also, for some reason, they built an elevator from Utopia to space.

Onto the issue :

“Stringstar” Anchor Base.  0.000.  42.837.

Jeffries is carrying Danger, who is in labor.  The would-be father is able to speak to them via a pink computer image.

Danger faintly tells Jeffries that she needs him.  He tells her that he doesn’t got a socket-thingy for her.  I’m sure she meant she wanted his support.  This isn’t the time for sexual tomfoolery.

Meanwhile, the priestess has mutated to a full on sea monster has gone to the base to die fighting Nazis.

Rao has retreated to inside the base.  Dr. Nemesis is laying on the ground.

This is my first introduction to the winner of the Best Breakout Character of 2012 (from the X-Books forums), the Starfish on Doctor Nemesis’ head who reveals all of his secret desires and thoughts.  He doesn’t get as much screen time here but he has some great lines, regardless.

Doctor Nemesis, the charmer that he is, refers to Doctor Rao (they are all doctors, except for Danger – who I can imagine can become a doctor pretty easily as Jeffries isn’t a doctor either) as “Petri-Girl.”  The Starfish reveals that Nemesis finds her to smell nice.  Nemesis wants to know if she has any of the Terrigen Mist left.  Which I only know that to be an Inhuman item, so that’s nice to see it outside of that title and those characters.

Nemesis wants to be injected with the Terrigen serum, so that he can have his mind widen and enter a new realm of being.  Thus, he can fight Schragesturm as a quasi-equal.

We learn that Schragesturm’s big plan is to rewrite history.  Rao is worried as the serum will kill Nemesis.  Nothing short of saving the universe, is worthy of a death of a character of Nemesis’ caliber.  Or so he says.

Nemesis seems to be the star of the series, as he gets some of the best lines – which makes sense as he is the most charismatic of the group.

Meanwhile, Jeffries has been cybernetically linked with Danger, so he is within her mindscape.  Programscape?  I don’t know.  He’s in her mind’s eye.  Optical interface?  He’s there for her, and he’s in the form of a program as well.

In a splash page that looks cool, Danger delivers her baby.  It looks cool but it is confusing with what is actually happening there.

The Between.  The Beyond.  The Abstraction of Exoversality.  Doctor Nemesis is about to confront Schragesturm.  Schragesturm isn’t that concern with Nemesis as he has been in this state longer than Nemesis has and thus, more skilled at being close to godlike.  Schragesturm reveals that he was the reason why the X-Club originally built the space elevator.

Doctor Nemesis belittles Schragesturm with a guess of how lame his master plan is.  He’s going to rewrite history so that Hitler won the war and that ol’ story will happen.  Schragesturm thinks very little of Hitler (who doesn’t) and wants to rewrite history so that Hitler died rather early on and Schragesturm became the leader of the Nazi party.

That is the nice thing about Hitler, you can say all sorts of horrible things – as long as it is about Hitler, no one will bat an eye at it.

Doctor Nemesis sees only one problem with that plan.  It is hard to lead an army with a man’s fist down your throat and he punches Schragesturm to the face!

There is a double page ad for the Honda Civic!?!  Honestly, is this a good use of one’s marketing budget?  Probably kept comics at $2.99 for a while.

Doctor Rao is thinking of what she can do to be productive.  She looks out at the waves and an idea comes to her.  She leaves and in a fun sequence is gone for a panel and comes back and says, thanks.  Great use of a comic page.

Over at Danger and Jeffries, the new baby emerges from the pink image of the father.  It rips the father in two, releasing him.  It reminds me too much of the whole Carol Danvers, stuck in Limbo, and forced to have Marcus’ baby – who was really just Marcus but now he could be born and return to Earth.  Not a great story to harken back too.

http://carolastrickland.com/comics/msmarvel/

While trying to remember if that guy’s name was Marcus, or not, I found this very interesting website.  Figured I would share it.  Such a dark moment in that character’s history.  It makes sense that Marvel would constantly go back to the whole Rogue stealing her powers and her memories thing and not also keep going back to the Marcus situation as that whole situation is a real mess.  Mess, being the nicest word to use.  Claremont tries to ratify it a little with Avengers Annual 10 but ooof, the only way to get away from it is to just forget about it.

Sorry for the random thought there, but Danger’s whole baby situation seems odd.  Maybe if I had read issue four, it may have made sense.

So the reason why Danger got impregnated was that the god that Schragesturm has captured, is locked behind a program it can’t figure out so it sent a request to work around it and that got into Danger and she had to release it.  They use ‘pregnancy’ to put it in terms we would understand.  That’s my understanding of it.

Back in the In-Between.  I sort of like how we keep just checking in on the team.  The team is divided, so our interest is divided.

Doctor Nemesis is loving the situation he is, it is a giant achievement in science and I also could not be happier along with him.

Schragesturm is going on about how powerful he is and Nemesis just wants all of the exposition to stop.

Doctor Nemesis pulls the ol’ ‘look behind you’ trick and of course, Schragesturm doesn’t want to fall for it.  Which I like how the new thing with the trick is to actually have someone be behind the person.  Behind him, is the entity that impregnated Danger and Schragesturm only knows as ‘the entity.’  To the entity, time has no real meaning but he knows that he was held prisoner for quite some time and now, it is pay back.  Schragesturm disappears along with the entity.

Doctor Nemesis returns to his earthly body, shouting, win!  He wins at all science.  He goes on and on about how much better he is than others.  He wants a larger tombstone than Darwin.

Not being content to just say the words aloud, he looks for an audience.  He begins to call Rao “Petri-girl” again when she shushes him.  She just saved his life.  He’s surprised by this as she (being a microscope monkey – maybe the worst insult of all time?) isn’t suppose to have access it grown-up physics toys.  She had the cure for the Terrigen but it wasn’t set to the right frequency, or wave.

If Warren Ellis wrote science like this, I may be a bigger fan of his.

Before injecting him with the cure, he wants to tell her something.  If he had more time, he is sure that he could have grown to tolerate her company.  Such a charmer!  She shoves the syringe into his neck stating, you romantic devil.  They were not this much fun during their time in Uncanny X-Men, so I’m glad they were given this miniseries.  I really must seek out issues three and four.

There is an house ad for Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force storyline, Final Execution.  I own most of them.

Four days later.  Still at the Anchor Base.  Cyclops is trying to give a speech to some gathered reporters.  Behind him are the X-Men and the members of the X-Club.  Did the reporters really have to be flown to the base?  Couldn’t the presentation be done closer to shore?  I guess the X-Men couldn’t be on shore so this was the next best thing.

Cyclops makes the mistake of stating that he can’t really explain all of the complexities of what happened.  This gives Doctor Nemesis the opening he wanted and he pushes Cyclops aside.

His explanation of what happened is genius –

That an extra-conceptual entity which was held captive by their secretly fascist allies has now returned to its native plane, taking with it all trace of existentially problematic pollution and sealing the dimensional fracture behind it. ‘Just another boring day at the office’.

Thanks to UncannyXMen.net for the paragraph assistance!

http://uncannyxmen.net/comics/issue/x-club-5

He has more to say but since people are taking the mic, Rao wants to add that she had divine inspiration.

Cyclops tries to reclaim the press conference but the word ‘divine’ sets off Nemesis.  He and Rao start having a conversation behind Cyclops that can be picked up by the microphone.  Clearly, Cyclops did not rehearse what was going to happen today.

I wonder why it took four days?  Do reporters wait for all of the bodies to be taken from a site before agreeing to go to a location?  That doesn’t sound right.

We learn that Rao’s cure did work for all of the Atlanteans.  She cured all of Neptune’s divine realm.  A line that I sort of read and moved on from but now I get her divine comment.  The God of Freshwater and the sea, Neptune, inspired her with the waves.

Doctor Nemesis tells her that he doesn’t believe in any of that sentimental nonsense.  The starfish pipes up next, stating that Nemesis wishes he could believe in that as science can be scary.

Rao finds it cute that Nemesis has decided to keep the starfish.  He claims it is so he can study it but then the starfish reveals that Nemesis gets loney.  Or Roney, as we say at Klein Manor.

Cyclops tries to reclaim the press conference again but Danger takes the podium.  She has decided to claim the base in the name of all inorganics.  The base shall be a sanctuary for artificial life.  Sounds like a case for Matt Murdock!

Danger states that her child is the Stringstar (which I’m sure the reporters have ceased recording at this point).

Cyclops can’t say anything but to mutter that this isn’t what he agreed too.

Jeffries goes to Cyclops that they have an Utopia and AI should have one now.

Cyclops tries to remidn Jeffries that the entire project was about breaking down communication barriers.  Cyclops isn’t sure how they will do that with machines.

X-Club 5 Magik

Which is a silly question in a world with Danger and the Vision.  Jeffries, instead of saying all of that, just gives Danger a sweet makeout session.

I like how happy Magik is there.

Do Jeffries and Danger have a relationship?  I know, now, that Warlock is trying to flirt with her in All New X-Factor but I’m not quite sure what happens to X-Club after this.

I know Doctor Nemesis leaves to join Cable’s X-Force after Schism.

So that’s two of the four members.

X-Men Legacy 9

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

271088_20130505222129_large

Writer Simon Spurrier

Penciler Tan Eng Huat

Inker Craig Yeung

Colorist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then nameless mutants again.

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

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

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

An ad for Iron Man 3, so great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-Force Volume Four Issue 14

Posted by John Klein III on May 3, 2015
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

X-Force V4 14

Writer Simon Spurrier

Artist Rock-He Kim

Colorist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Joe Sabino

ForgetMeNot gets his first cover!

Marrow narrates the issue.  We get a recap of what has been going on since last issue and what has been happening with her.  Marrow lost her powers.  She gave up her daughter, who she named Sarah, and now has a form of her powers.  She was lead to believe that how this all came about, is the reason why Fantomex is now super evil.

While Marrow is recapping her life, she is also describing what Fantomex is doing.  One day, he is killing six Balinese supermen.  The next, eight Norwegian Flott-Spies.  He is going around the international spy community and killing their agents.  Which I don’t get, I thought they had him hooked to a fantasy machine and he was at their base.

Marrow now knows that she isn’t responsible for this, so now she is full of rage, which is making her sloppy now.  She notices an intruder.  Who turns out to be . . .

X-Force V4 14 ForgetMeNot

It was’t until this page when I noticed the art wasn’t done by Haut.  I next thought it was a new colorist but the art is by Rock-He Kim.  I sort of like it.  He makes ForgetMeNot look like he is still on model but that he also looks like he could be a big time character.  Maybe that is only hopeful thinking on my part.  There is something about him, that I really dig.

ForgetMeNot states that he has a message from Hope.  Marrow describes him as a memory-blurring boy scout, which sounds like a decent description.  Hope wants some company, and she wants Marrow to be that company.

Marrow doesn’t know how to respond to someone in a coma.  Marrow touches Hope and she now has Marrow’s bone growth power.  Hope gets out of bed and starts a video on a nearby computer.  Cable made a video for Fantomex to watch.  Cable has been pointing Fantomex at the targets he has been striking.  He’s been using him to kill bad people of the world, also why X-Force hasn’t been able to defeat him.  They are not even trying.  At least, not Cable – the rest seem to be trying their best.

ForgetMeNot pushes Psylocke, who had forgotten he was in the room, toward Hope, giving her telepathic powers.  She forces the team to recall memories and feelings of family.  Also, she broadcast their location to Fantomex.  Cable doesn’t like the idea of not making the plays, Marrow throws a metal spike through his head.  He’s only a clone, though I forget why he has an unlimited amount of clones – and why only one clone is active at any given time.

The team know they are going to lose to Super-Fantomex.  ForgetMeNot tells them their is a plan, and Domino is reminded he is in the room.  They just need to weaken Fantomex.

There is a two page ad for Black Vortex, I’m so excited about this event.  Wave One – Alpha 1, Guardians 24, Legendary Star Lord 9 and All New X-Men 38.

Fantomex arrives, he looks gigantic and has even larger wings.  The team attacks.  While he is distracted, ForgetMeNot puts a teleporter on his back and they are in Doctor Nemesis’ lab.  ForgetMeNot places Hope’s hand on Fantomex’s butt and Doctor Nemesis bodyslides the threat.  It appears that Fantomex was teleported into the Sun.

The team is concern now, as nothing will kill Fantomex.  Someone tells them that, trust, is the key.  Hope is now in an Angel-like body.  Hope takes command of X-Force.  She absorbs Doctor Nemesis’ supersmartness and now wants to cure both Cable and Fantomex.

In what she believes is her final moments, Marrow wishes she was friends with Psylocke and Domino.  Psylocke fastball specials Marrow.  She slices and dices Fantomex to smithereens.  Marrow recovers, she wants to dance and makeout with her co-lady members and is willing to skip the dancing.

Fantomex is rebuilding himself, ForgetMeNot tells them to back off.  As the issue ends with a squadron of Cables running out.

Marvel Database states that ForgetMeNot joins the team with this issue, so I’m getting this until it is cancelled, which sadly will be after the next storyline.  I guess Marrow implies that, when she called him ‘the new guy,’

X-Force Volume Four Issue 13

Posted by John Klein III on March 18, 2015
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

X-Force V4 13

Writer Simon Spurrier

Pencilers Tan Eng Huat and Kevin Sharpe

Inkers Craig Yeung and Norman Lee

Colorist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Joe Sabino

ForgetMeNot’s Third Appearance!  Can we go for a fourth, please?!

This issue gets confusing, with how Hope’s coma and the MeMe program thing are related.  It probably makes sense for those who are following the series completely, which is how you should do it but I’m a crazy person.

Fantomex apparently turn bad in the two issues we don’t own.  The team put a hallucination-horsepipe on his forehead, so now he thinks he won and accomplished all of his goals.

MeMe is talking to a voice on a speaker.

Cable and Marrow are interrogating Mojo, in an almost human body.  Rereading the recap page, apparently MeMe is really Hope, mimicking the real MeMe’s powers.

MeMe follows the recording to the source.  Psylocke and Domino are sparring.  Doctor Nemesis is enjoying his coffee.

X-Force V4 13 ForgetMeNot

The voice belongs to . . . ForgetMeNot!!!  He’s back from the dead and with no explanation.  He now is sporting a chest plate like Iron Man from the films.

ForgetMeNot gives this big ol’ speech about how Hope is just some girl.

Cable wants Mojo to explain how they can get Hope out of her coma.  He walks away for some more tools.  Mojo reveals that he experimented on Marrow and that she gave up her baby.  Marrow kills him.  Mojo may actually be Volga, I’m not sure.  They don’t use any names.

ForgetMeNot explains to MeMe how Hope lost her way back to her own head, she can’t get back as MeMe is currently preoccupying that space.

Five hours later.  The team gathers to say their goodbyes.  It is too late for MeMe, she has deactivated herself.

Domino references a Badoon, how does she know that alien race?

Issue ends with ForgetMeNot with his hand on his head, I don’t think he is happy with how this all worked out.  I imagine he was hoping Hope would wake up as soon as MeMe shut down.

I imagine he will be in issue 14.

I don’t know, I had a hard time following this issue.  Usually I can jump in and out of a series but with Spurrier’s writing, everything needs to be read.  Though I was able to follow his X-Men Legacy that way but I read enough of those to stay current.

X-Force Volume Four Issue 10

Posted by John Klein III on January 12, 2015
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

X-Force V4 10

Writer Simon Spurrier

Penciler Tan Eng Huat

Inker Craig Yeung

Colorist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Joe Sabino

So I bought this issue due to X-Men Legacy 300’s ForgetMeNot being in it.  I really liked that character and I was worried we were never going to see him again.  Then we got him in this issue.  I decided I was going to collect every appearance of the guy.  There’s something about a character who only will ever make two appearances that I like that to say that I own every appearance of.

I like that ForgetMeNot got the cover treatment.

I forgot how great of a writer Spurrier is and I am surprised that I missed Huat’s style.

In the previous issue, X-Force has caught onto the fact that there is a villain out there who is tracking all mutants.

The Team of X-Force is – Cable, Psylocke, Marrow, Fantomex, MeMe and Doctor Nemesis.  I have also missed Doctor Nemesis!

X-Force V4 10 ForgetMeNot

SHIELD Hellicarrier Pericles.  Scuttled, Stripped, Deserted, Upcycled.  Now the X-Force HQ.  The issue opens with X-Force chasing ForgetMeNot.  He hides behind a wall and the team instantly forgets why they were running as hard as they were.  In what will be a terrific and funny running gag, they want a coffee break.

We see the back of ForgetMeNot’s head, and he has a giant scar on the back of his head.  The scar / old skin, is from how he must have gotten free of the security fly paper system that the Jean Grey School has.  X-Force is watching a video of Doctor Nemesis made of himself, instructing them to locate the mutant who you forget once you can’t see him.  Imagine the Silence from Doctor Who but its only one guy and he’s a nice guy.  I like how video Doctor Nemesis anticipated Marrow was going to speak up.  Marrow is in super rough shape.  She wasn’t in great shape when she was part of the 35th Anniversary Team along with Kitty and Kurt but now she is even farther gone.  Present Doctor Nemesis saw a note to watch this video and now they are.  They were able to figure out that they have an invisible man problem due to the usage of toilet paper.  ForgetMeNot is listening to all of this, so he hears that they are looking for him.

Video Doctor Nemesis flatters present Doctor Nemesis, I love this guy so much!  Doctor Nemesis mentions that they have watched the video six times now.

Cable gives direction to the team.  Fantomex hears breathing in the ventilation duct, which is where ForgetMeNot is.  ForgetMeNot finds a whole in the wall and hides behind it.  The team forgets what they are doing and wants a coffee break.

The cleaning robots spot ForgetMeNot, they remember him.  They tease him a little.

X-Force watches the video again, and Cable directs the team the exact same way again.  Psylocke and Cable are a pair.  They lose ForgetMeNot and instantly want a coffee break.

Fantomex finds ForgetMeNot and threatens to kill him.  ForgetMeNot runs away but bumps into Cable.  ForgetMeNot gets Cable’s gun and threatens to kill Cable but Fantomex beats him to it.

I’ve checked and ForgetMeNot isn’t in issue nine or eleven, so I’m not sure how he got onto the Hellicarrier or why he doesn’t want to be seen.

Doctor Nemesis shows up, he drunk an experimental hypercofee so now he is cosmically sober, he is the antidrunk.  But he comes off as drunk.  He still isn’t immune to ForgetMeNot’s power.

ForgetMeNot is found by the cleaning robots.  They are invisible too, so that’s how they see him and remember him.  They explain to him that everyone on X-Force is a tad crazy.  Turns out, Psylocke is having sex with Cable’s clones, not all of them, just the odd number ones.  So she’s had sex with two of the three men on the team.  If anyone is keeping track.

The cleaning machines tell ForgetMeNot where the teleporter is.  It is right next to where Doctor Nemesis is taking a nap.  ForgettMeNot sees their objectives on the screen.  Apparently the villain they are after, is tracking every mutant.  X-Force thought if they can find a mutant who is invisible to all tracking, they could use that mutant to become visible, have the villain track the mutant, have the mutant turn invisible and follow the bug back to the villain’s headquaters.

ForgetMeNot agrees to do it.  He puts the suppressor on, so now he is visible.  He cracks a joke about how, “this is the least climatic creative-use of super-powers I’ve ever been involved with.”  So the bug bites ForgetMeNot.  We see the villain has located the new mutant.  He reminds me of Arnim Zola but in a gimp costume.  So there’s that.

Doctor Nemesis puts a tracker on the bug.  ForgetMeNot takes off the suppressor but the bug is able to still track him.  So now there is a hiccup in the plan.  Fantomex knocks out Doctor Nemesis.  He also reveals he could also see ForgetMeNot, which is pretty messed up.  To make matters worst, Fantomex solves the problem they face.  The bug won’t go back home until what it is spying on is dead.  So Fantomex straight up shots dead ForgetMeNot.  Poor guy only got to make two appearances!  If he makes a third, please let me know.

Issue ends with Fantomex telling an awakening Doctor Nemesis that they are now able to locate the villain.

The really messed up thing is that the cleaning robots are just going to dispose of ForgetMeNot’s body and no one is going to remember him except for Doctor Nemesis and Xavier, whenever he returns.

X-Men Legacy 300

Posted by John Klein III on March 16, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

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Writers Simon Spurrier, Mike Carey and Christos Gage

Pencilers Tan Eng Huat, Steve Kurth and Rafa Sandoval

Inkers Craig Yeung, Allen Martinez and Jordi Tarragona

Colorists Jose Villarrubia, Rachelle Rosenberg and Ulises Arreola

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Nice cover by Clay Mann!  I really like how Xavier is at the forefront as when Legacy was added to the X-Men title, it was his solo book then it became Rogue’s then David’s.  Which is why they are position in the forefront.  Very clever!

I am calling it now, ForgetMeNot is the character debut of the year!  If not, has to be in the top three.

This was a fun issue.

Issue opens with a gal, who isn’t named at all in the issue, is trying to break into the Jean Grey School.  The school’s defenses have her locked in place.  ForgetMeNot is the X-Man that shows up to try to free her.

His real name is also not revealed.  I suppose the reason these two are not named, is so that this tale is forgotten in a matter of time.  That is my theory.

She doesn’t recognize her rescuer.  That is because his mutant ability is to make or have people forget about him, as soon as they take their eyes off of him.  The X-Men’s answer to Doctor Who’s The Silent.  He can’t control it, as he can’t get anyone to train him for any amount of time.

ForgetMeNot has been on the team for six years.  I like how he has the Morrison era uniform motif.  That was probably the last time anyone saw him long enough to get him a uniform.

He makes a fun reference to how his place in the official X-Men roster history is always forgotten.

The gal is wearing a motorcycle helmet.  He takes it off, as there are no masks at the school.  Which, when you think about it, no one besides Wolverine wears a mask these days.

She was wearing the helmet due to the scarring on her left side of her face.  Her origin is pretty tragic.  A stupid football player boy tried to rape her, his friends just laughed, she finally punched her way free.  On her way home, the jerk found her.  He threw chimcals at her, causing her lost of vision in the eye and the scars.  She has had seven operations, and her face isn’t getting better.

The football player was only in jail for six months.  Five thousand people signed an online petition to get him freed, while she is forced to be the town freak.

Her parents can’t stand to look at her, and everyone else can’t help but stare.

Heartbreaking

She has always been a fan of the X-Men.  She is hoping to join the school, so she wouldn’t be the most interesting person in the room.  I get the impression that she isn’t a mutant, not that it matters.

The more she struggles with the force field, the more it tries to trap her.

He decides to take her mind off her current situation by telling her about his tenure with the team.

These pages were drawn by Huat, so I imagine Spurrier wrote this section.

This next section deals with ForgetMeNot’s time during the Age of X storyline, so this section has to be written by Mike Carey with art by Kurth who was the other artist.

The main thing is that it is nice to see the Age of X character designs again : Basilisk (Cyclops), Berserker (Warpath), Legion (no real redesign but nice to see him make an appearance in this issue), Legacy (Rogue), Magneto and of course, the Tempo Cadre – Frenzy and Nightmare (Pixie with those bad arse bat wings!)

Even here, ForgetMeNot isn’t remembered past the initial moment of being seen.  He gives Magneto the idea of having someone go to the border of the battlefield.  Which is what Katherine Pryde does in the original story.  But she doesn’t do it for Magneto and gets in trouble for the pictures she takes, which were all blank as there is nothing that exists beyond the border.

Back in the present, ForgetMeNot is trying to free the gal by wiggling her free.  He then starts the tale of how he tried to actively lose his powers.

This section is drawn by Cage and Sandoval.

First we get a moment where he explains away any X-Men victories that seem to have come out of nowhere or whenever a dumb happenstance occurred and the X-Men turn things around at the last minute or come back from behind.  It was all before ForgetMeNot took charge of the situation or got behind enemy lines.

ForgetMeNot, there has to be another name for him!  Reveals that Xavier made a big point to mentally remind himself, once an hour, that ForgetMeNot exists and is living at the mansion.  Once Xavier died, ForgetMetNot is sad as now no one remembers him past the initial moment.

X-Men Legacy 300 Kitty tombstone

We see Kitty and Storm at Xavier’s tombstone.  Sandoval draws a nice Kitty.  That tombstone, instead of a fancy one, they should have added some security so that Red Skull wouldn’t have such an easy time to steal Xavier’s body.

ForgetMeNot recalls Weapon Omega’s ability to steal mutant powers (and absorb them enough to kill them – most of the time).  Weapon Omega and Mimic are helping some hurricane relief efforts (doing some actual good, which I like to think that most mutants – when not fighting other mutants or on some X-Team – this is what they do).  ForgetMeNot shows up, has a nice conversation with these two heroes.

They bring up the point of the difference between having the power of not being seen and the sad reality of not being noticed.  At least he knows he isn’t being seen due to his power.  How will he feel that once his power is gone, after a lifetime of having no one notice him, once they can see him – they still don’t pay him any attention.  What is a worst situation?

While thinking about it, the Uncanny X-Men show up and we get Sandoval drawing Magik, which is also pretty nice.

Once the X-Men forget that Mimic and Weapon Omega are there, they leave.

Weapon Omega and Mimic try their best to keep their eyes on ForgetMeNot as he is debating if he wants to risk his life to lose his power.  But since he is only sitting there and thinking – it is hard to keep their attention and eventually they look at each other and forget about him.

Which is an odd aspect of his powers, wouldn’t they remember seeing him once their eyes see him again when they look around the room?

Back to the present, ForgetMeNow finally gets her out of the flypaper and gets himself stuck.  She wants to go get help and as soon as she turns around, forgets about him.

On a better note, she calls her mother, and tells her she is coming home.  She feels better about her life and is ready to restart fresh.

Issue ends with him stuck on the fly paper defense grid.  Which, really, there has to be a second protocol and someone needs to walk that parameter.  I really want to see ForgetMeNot in a panel after this issue as that is one horrible way to die!

X-Men Legacy 24

Posted by John Klein III on February 22, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

X-Men Legacy 24

Writer Simon Spurrier

Penciler Tan Eng Huat

Inker Craig Yeung

Color Arist Jose Villarrubia

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Look how amazing Mike Del Mundo’s cover is!  Love that if you shave Legion’s ridiculous hairstyle, he sort of looks like his father.

Now, due to Hastings’ inability to actually keep track of their comic shipments, I don’t have issue 23, so I had to add it to my Wishlist as well as play catch up with this issue.

This issue opens with the conclusion of David and Blindfold’s mind sexcapades.  They tell each other that they love each other.

Once done, it is now on to the conclusion to this wonderful series.  One of them will not survive this final confrontation, as it has been predetermined since the beginning of the series.

Blindfold has to stop David from taking control of all mutant minds in the world and he has to stop her from stopping him and knowing true power.  He is on a course he cannot stop.  Blindfold is capable of stopping David, but she can’t bring herself to do it so now it is up to him to either stop himself or continue with his destiny.

David and Ruth are in his mindscape.  He is down to his core personality and the Weaver, the final personality that has yet to be absorbed.  David can’t bring himself to kill Ruth or watch as she dies so he closes his eyes.  David goes on about how he rules him.

David wonders what would have been if his life was a little different.  If Xavier stuck with his mother, Gabrielle Haller.  He feels like he could never live up to his father’s example nor could he do anything about it.  David could never match, be or impress Xavier.  Legacy is another word for burden.

He realizes that he has to stop complaining and has to start doing the mature thing.  We get a nice panel recapping with images what has come before, we see Pete Wisdom, Abigail Brand and his fist fight with Cyclops.

Ruth hears a voice in David’s mind, the voice that forces her to speak in dialogue that isn’t readable at all.  She thinks she is dying and goes toward the voice.  We get an awesome splash page of Xavier, from the afterlife, beautifully drawn and colored.  Xavier says something that every son wants to hear and every father needs to say more often, I’m proud of you son.  Since reading this comic, I’ve said it to my two month old every day and plan on doing so.  I swear, it almost brought a tear to my eye.  This moment here is going to cement this comic as my favorite and I can’t imagine what will knock it out of consideration but I will have to update my list.

This brings out the Weaver to David.  Weaver states that Xavier is proud of him and David states that his father is proud of him.  Weaver implies that it is David who is the split personality and not the Weaver.  With this, they are merged and finally, David is whole.  Now that they are merged, David can touch all of reality and time.

This is where I get confused over what happens and what doesn’t.  He has all of this power and needs to figure out what happens next.  he states it is no effort to restore the dead, so we see Abigail Brand waking up, Chamber’s power coming back and that young lady holding her head.

He asks where he should stop.  Should he bring his mother back from the dead?  Should he bring Ruth’s brother back to life?  I take it that he doesn’t restore those individuals.

We see Magik, and how David helped her kill the Elder Gods, which resulted in Illyana being put in the X-Brig on Utopia but still on Cyclops’ Extinction Team.

David is tempted to burn all of reality away and start anew.  He recognizes that he is not a god but he’s not arrogant.  He’s not a judge nor an acolyte.  He has come to a decision.

He realizes what it means to be a grown up.  It isn’t about accepting responsibility but when to step off.  He is going to rewrite history so that he was never born and let history sort itself out.  Ruth shouts for him to stop.  David states this great line, stories are stronger than time and space.  Lives still matter whether they happened or not.

It looks like David turns to camera and tells us that this isn’t an unhappy ending, this what has to happen.  It isn’t a defeat.  That’s old thinking.  He doesn’t want to live in a universe where he can’t rule himself.  With that, he is out of the timestream.

So if he is never born does that mean the Elder Gods are not dead and Illyana spent all of that time in the brig for no reason?  Does that mean Age of Apocalypse never happened?

Pixie enters Ruth’s room and tells her she needs to come out.  We enter the scene at the time when Xavier had just died.  Pixie doesn’t know who this David that Ruth keeps talking about.  Ruth starts repeating, no, over and over.  This freaks out Pixie and she leaves her alone.

We enter Ruth’s mindscape and we see that there is a piece of David that still exists in her mind.  Which is going to be weird for anyone in the room with her but she will probably learn to not respond to him aloud.

Issue ends with Ruth stating that she rules her, which is awesome.  We get Haut’s version of Oya, Quentin Quire, Genesis and Kid Gladiator and I like his style on these characters.

The final message is – The things that stay with you forever are the things that come to an end.

Issue ends with a letter from Simon Spurrier, which is very nice.  Also, Mr. Spurrier, I just want to say thank you for a perfect 24 issues.  I know I didn’t read nor buy every issue but the ones that I did, I enjoyed the most every week they came out.  I know there was no chance for this title to be considered a core title but when the core titles were off on crossovers or directions that were not amazing, this title was always on point and amazing.

X-Men Legacy 22

Posted by John Klein III on January 25, 2014
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

293484_20140115180044_large

Writer Simon Spurrier

Artist Khoi Pham

Color Artist Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

David is still fighting the combination of Luca and the Gold Xavier Fiend.  The fiend turns into a giant concrete monster and sets off all of these missiles.  Actually, the fiend takes control of a near by battleship and then uses that to transform into a giant monster.

X-Men Legacy 22 Magik 1a X-Men Legacy 22 Magik 1b

Apparently, David at some point called for reinforcements.  Those who showed up – Pixie, Chamber, Lila Cheney, Agent Brand, Frenzy, Beast, Storm, Wolverine, Doop, Psylocke, Magneto, Sydren, Goldballs, Tempus, Triage, Emma, the Cockoos and Magik.

David is impressed that they are all heroes.  The heroes start taking out missiles.  I do enjoy seeing Cyclops’ current display of his optic blasts, with the circle flare at the base.

Once the missiles are taken care of, the fiend is all that is left.  He is in the form of a man again.  Both Wolverine and Cyclops come to David to know what to do next.  David says “to me my X-Men” it is cool how it is broken over three panels.

There is a narly splash page of the heroes attacking something to the right.  Was this suppose to be a double page spread?  The narration captions of David are reflecting his quote of the year winner, I rule me.

The fiend is back to the battleship monster form.

Sydren detects a change in David, of course having to say it aloud. Brand is running at him and takes a blast.  All that is left is a green glove or a hand in the glove.  Could Spurrier really kill off Brand?  I know she hasn’t been used as much, so she could be on an okay to kill off list.  Nice touch having Beast nearby to witness her death.  Were they still dating?  I really like how Pham draws Beast as he takes in her death, he looks like a nice mixture of cat face and gorilla head.

Magneto tries to compliment David, and he quickly dismisses him – stating he is not his father, even though he quoted Xavier’s ‘to me my X-Men.’

Karasu Tengui was another hero who showed up, but I don’t know her.  She is straight up smashed to death.  David makes it a mantra that he is not his father.  Even though he just sent a child to her death.

David asks Wolverine and Cyclops if they can work together.  They hesitate, he takes it has a yes, and tells them to keep the monster busy.  David is taking the fight inside his mind.

Chamber gets killed by a blast.  Are these characters really dead, or is David going to bring them back once this story is over?  I can see Chamber being allowed to be killed, Brand seems okay if it is done shockingly – which it was and I believe Spurrier created Karasu so he can kill her anytime.

The heroes destroy Luca’s monster body and he dies.  Once he is dead, Blindfold is healed.  She no longer is broken and has her full power for the first time.

The heroes catch their breath.  Frenzy is sad over Chamber’s death.  They were close during Age of X, which she was one of the few to keep those memories.  That story turned out to be a Legion story.  Nice touch, as that was a Mike Carey story so Spurrier didn’t have to reference that story.

Blindfold’s astra form appears at the battlefield.  She explains what happened.  Also, she takes off her blindfold, she has eyes now.  Also, she is going to go by Destiny now, her mother’s name.  She is on her way, she can project herself for the time being.

Inside David’s mind, he is fighting the Gold Xavier.  He beats him to the point when he can’t maintain the Xavier appearance, now he looks like a gold goblin.

David comes back to the battlefield but turns into the World Worm, that the series has been building to.  Ruth is going to have to deal with David, which has also been foretold.

Can only imagine I will get the next issue, as they have to still be at the scene so Magik should still be there.

. . .

My new Top Ten is for 2014 is :

1.  X-Men Legacy 22

2.  Uncanny X-Men 16

3.  Savage Wolverine 13

4.  All New X-Men 21

5.  Wolverine 13

6.  Cataclysm 3

I need to buy buy four more comics to make ten.  I am slated to buy two comics, All New X-Men 22 and Marvel Knights X-Men 3.

X-Men Legacy 21

Posted by John Klein III on December 29, 2013
Posted in: Review. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

X-Men Legacy 21

Writer Simon Spurrier

Penciler Khoi Pham

Inkers Khoi Pham with Jay Leisten

Color Artist Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of X-Men Legacy 20, I see from comicbookdb.com that Magik shows up in that issue, though I have my suspicions that whoever copied the character list from issue 19, didn’t edit characters out but I can’t get confirmation one way or another.

Thus, I have no idea what happen in the previous issue.  From the recap page, Shadow Phoenix (there is probably a better name for the entity) lay seize to David’s mind and he merged several of his personalities into his main one.  Turns out, there never was a Shadow Phoenix, Aarkus the Aetheric tricked him into taking control of his own mind.

Issue opens with the merged entity consisting of Blindfold’s brother and the Xavier personality from David’s mind that escaped.

We see David losing a fight to this merged entity.  The entity is punching David over and over again.  We see characters in the background, such as Iron Man and Captain Marvel.

Inner David looks bad arse with how he is multi-colored and fiery hair.  He is gathering the smaller personalities easily but the bigger ones are keeping to their own.   Ruth tries to encourage David, but she wants to work with him.  He is distracted with trying to become whole.

Pixie comes by Ruth’s room and try to check out on her.  We see that David is at Ruth’s bedside.  Then he goes back to his fight.

Then we get this great moment when the entity reveals that due to the way it was created, that he sort of works as David’s son.  Except that he doesn’t have any daddy issues that hold him back.  He also doesn’t care about those he hurts in this adventure.  So not only does he not have daddy issues, he isn’t trying to redeem himself either.  He is pure power.

X-Men Legacy 21 Magik

David’s ‘son’ punches him in the head, and we get the panel that got me to buy the issue.  Within this character bubble, we get : Magik , Abigail Brand, Beast, Magneto, Doop, Cyclops, Storm, Emma Chamber, and Wolverine.

“Son’ doesn’t have any master plan or anything silly like that, he just wants to kill as many as possible before it ends.  That’s a villain that can only be stopped by death.