An X-Man comeback. A new look for a classic villain. And Battle of the Atom aftermath. Did the future X-Men complete their mission and force the Young X-Men back into the past?
Marvel shared a first look at the X-books coming in November:
Wolverine and the X-Men Annual #1 Jason Aaron and Nick Bradshaw “The Avengers find an unlikely ally against the forces of the Builders—KID GLADIATOR! What has the prince of the Shi’Ar Empire been up to since he left the Jean Grey School?” Continue reading X-MEN BATTLE OF THE ATOM Aftermath Previews
At the end of 007 movies the final line is “…James Bond will return.”
Will Skyfall director Sam Mendes return for duty on Bond 24?
Here’s the mission briefing:
John Logan (who wrote the Skyfall script with Robert Wade and Neal Purvis) is writing the script for the next film. Early reports were that Continue reading SKYFALL Director Will Return?
James Bond may love ’em and leave ’em (or they end up dead) but you can give the action movie fan the ultimate Valentine’s Day gift!
Skyfall is out on Blu-ray February 12th. It seems like just a week ago I was seeing the latest 007 film for the fourth time!
Here’s what I said after I saw it the first time:
Skyfall may be the best 007 movie ever. Sam Mendes has crafted a passionate homage to 50 years of Bond films while creating his own epic that propels the super spy into the future. This adventure is thrilling and emotionally gripping.
Logan goes to Japan in The Wolverine. The berserker mutant trades in his leather uniform for a James Bond style suit in this new image courtesy Empire.
Producer Hutch Parker revealed more about the plot in this new issue.
“We pick up Logan in a very isolated state, full of self-loathing. He is sought out by a young Asian woman for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, who is asking him to follow her to Japan where he is meant to reconnect with someone from his past.
“And what you’ll come to find is that this is someone he spent prison-time with in Nagasaki. And the legacy of that experience – effectively Logan saved him – is that this man is on his deathbed, and is looking to give him a gift, to thank him for the life he’s had.”
“But this gift draws Logan into a very complex and very unexpected world within both contemporary Japan and, to some extent, the feudal history of Japan. He’s so in isolation, so out of his element. It’s a much more powerful distillation of his character than you’ve seen before.”
This week Earth’s Mightiest Heroes relauches with a new creative team, bigger roster and new #1. As we wait for the debut of Jonathan Hickman’s upcoming Avengers roster I was inspired to share my favorite rosters:
Young Avengers In the aftermath of Avengers Disassembled these teens tried to fill the void of the missing heroes. We learned how these kids were connected to Marvel icons, secrets were revealed and they challenged their adult heroes. Patriot, Iron Lad, Hulking, Wiccan, Stature, Hawkeye, Vision, and Speed became a dymanic team devoted to friendship and carrying on the Avengers legacy. Action, emotion, relationships – Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung delivered in every issue from the first series to Avengers: Children’s Crusade – one of the most beautifully written and drawn series ever!
New Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel
New Avengers Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman answered the call in breakout when Marvel’s biggest prison was busted. Brian Michael Bendis made the team Mightier by adding popular favorites Spidey and Logan. Spider-Woman, The Sentry, Echo, Iron Fist and Daredevil were more surprise choices. One epic led to another! Loved all the action, conspiracies and fights but I think I loved the Luke and Jessica romance, the tragedy of Robert and Lindy and the redemption of Jessica Drew most of all.
Avengers #1 courtesy Marvel
Heroes Return In the wake of Heroes Reborn Marvel assembled legends Kurt Busiek and George Perez to return Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to greatness. The lineup was Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Giant-Man, Wonder Man, Wasp, Vision and Warbird (Carol Danvers but in Ms. Marvel uniform.) Firestar, Silverclaw, Triathalon and Justice (Vance Astro) were the new members. A pitch perfect creative team at the top of their game threw the team up against Morgan Le Fay, Squadron Supreme and the ultimate enemy: Ultron!
Avengers #181 courtesy Marvel
Avengers (Korvac+ era) This is a sentimental vote because this was the first comic book subscription I had as a kid. Can you imagine a young geek buying the issue where Michael Korvac blasted the entire team? The massive team was shortened (in part by government liaison Henry Gyrich) to Captain America, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wasp, Yellowjacket, Quicksilver, Beast, Ms. Marvel, Wonder Man and Jocasta. Jim Shooter, David Micheline, Roger Stern, George Perez and John Byrne were among the creators during this mighty era.
Skyfall may be the best 007 movie ever. Sam Mendes has crafted a passionate homage to 50 years of Bond films while creating his own epic that propels the super spy into the future. This adventure is thrilling and emotionally gripping.
A list of deep cover agents is lost. M and MI6 are humiliated then attacked. Bond is left for dead. The spy resurrects himself when the mission gets personal.
Daniel Craig completely owns Bond now. His 007 is a cool, confident, clever killer with a ruthlessness in the field and in the bedroom. The creators let Craig take Bond into his past to see what made him the perfect recruit for MI6 and explore a part of Ian Fleming’s creation we’ve never seen on-screen.
Let’s just crown Javier Bardem as the new ultimate Bond villain! Silva brushes aside Auric Goldfinger, Doctor No and Rosa Klebb. The cyberterrorist has an M obsession and a fatal attraction to Bond. You can see shades of Red Grant, Hannibal Lecter, Anton Chigurh and the Joker madly swirling into Bardem’s performance. Just when you think you know Silva’s next move he violently switches stalking like a predator towards his endgame.
Let’s move on to the Bond girls.
Judi Dench is the silvery queen of steel as Bond’s boss. The villain’s plot is not grounded in destroying the world or money. It’s personal. M is under fire from an obsessed terrorist, an arrogant superior (superbly played by Ralph Fiennes) and an onslaught of bureaucrats who want her to hang. Dench is perfection whether giving orders to leave an agent for dead, staring down government investigators or dodging bullets from the unhinged villain.
courtesy 007.com
Naomie Harris and Daniel Craig share some of the best on-screen chemistry since Sean Connery and Honor Blackman in Goldfinger. Eve is a gorgeous, resourceful field agent who is not just 007’s eye candy. She is crucial to his survival and future.
When 007’s adventure takes him to Shanghai and exotic Macao he encounters the exquisite Berenice Marlohe as Severine. The stunning French actress portrays the mysterious bad girl perfectly. Bond peels away the gorgeous layers of this haunted women tied to the villain.
Skyfall marks the welcome return of Q to the Bond series. This is not your father’s Quartermaster with an arsenal of impossible gadgets. Ben Whishaw portrays a young, snarky, brilliant computer genius with echoes of the Mark Zuckerberg seen in The Social Network and the biting wit of the classic Q (the late Desmond LLewelyn.)
James Bond jets from Istanbul to Shanghai to Macao to the London Underground to an island of the dead with thrilling chases, fights, seductions, and revelations. 007 changes the game and the action hits home when he lures the villain to the Scottish Highlands for a brutal version of The Most Dangerous Game. The climax is action and emotion packed with pitch perfect performances by Craig, Dench, Bardem and a scene stealing Albert Finney.
Let’s bow to Sam Mendes now. You can sense the director’s love and knowledge of the franchise. Mendes and writers John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade fill Skyfall with clever winks with classic lines, moments and icons of the series. You can enjoy the film as a 007 virgin but if you’re an obsessive like me you will absolutely delight in all the references to the Bond legacy. Mendes celebrates the past while creating a modern thriller that moves Bond into the future.
I can’t help but think but compare Daniel’s first and latest Bond films to Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy. Casino Royale was Bond Begins. Mendes has given us James Bond Rises in Skyfall. But this is not the end. James Bond will return.
A huge congratulations to the cast and crew of Skyfall. Ian Fleming, Albert Broccoli, Bernard Lee, Desmond LLewelyn and Lois Maxwell are raising their martinis to you.
This review/post reveals key elements of AvX: Consequences #4 and #5.
Seriously.
Here is comes.
AvX: Consequences #5 courtesy Marvel
Kieron Gillen wrapped the second volume of Uncanny X-Men but he has more mutant stories to tell that propelling fan favorites into the Marvel Now. Gillen’s Extinction Team have been the stars of AvX: Consequences. This 5-part epilogue to Avengers vs. X-Men reveals how the Phoenix Five are facing the consequences of their actions while possessed by the cosmic entity.
In Chapter 4 Cyclops submits himself to Tony Stark as a cosmic lab rat. Scott has been playing the martyr but is he really playing possum to outwit the genius?
Abigail Brand of S.W.O.R.D. has been keeping secrets. She’s hiding fugitive members of the Phoenix Five and she reveals that she’s more than a green haired alien. I really hope Brand might pop up in Gillen’s upcoming Iron Man run.
If you’re wondering about Hope and Namor’s roles in the Marvel Now this is the issue! Hope and the King of Atlantis share an exchange in the underwater ruins of Utopia. In one line Gillen captures the personality of Namor and why I love him so much.
Storm and Colossus fought it out in Brian Wood’s final issue of X-Men but here Peter and Ororo share a bitter reunion. Colossus may be free of his demons but his former little snowflake left him filled with hate. I know that Peter will be part of Cable and X-Force and I can’t help but think of when Nathan recruited a rage filled Warpath to join his first incarnation of the team.
Wolverine comes back to prison to deliver sad news to Cyclops. I really enjoyed this encounter. After the bitter fallout of Schism and AvX I think Gillen is setting the stage for a reconcilation between Scott and Logan. (I wrote this part of the post before I read issue #5)
I think the most exciting plot springboard is when the fugitive Magneto finally makes his appearance. Erik is back playing the role we all know he can do best: the villain.
This week’s final chapter picks right up with a new mutant unholy trinity: Magneto, Magik and Danger. The clues have been there the entire series but I wanted to believe Scott Summers was accepting his role as the martyr and on the road to redemption.
Logan said it best when he tells the Avengers, “Scott is gone.”
Magneto, Magik and Danger stage a daring jailbreak and execute Cyclops’s severe punishment on his prison tormentors. Scott leaves a note for Logan. The letter sums up what Kieron Gillen has pulled off: the role reversal of Wolverine and Cyclops. The bad boy who did the dirty work to keep mutants safe is now the heir to Professor Xavier’s legacy of teaching young mutants. The former golden boy is now the self-appointed and ruthless defender, protector and avenger for the mutant race.
All-New X-Men #1 courtesy Marvel
From the preview art for All-New X-Men #1 we know Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magneto and Magik will be part of Brian Michael Bendis’s Marvel Now X-Men era. Marvel has teased another Bendis book (with Chris Bachalo on art) with the simple word: Uncanny.
From the finale of AvX: Consequences #5 it looks like my theory of an Avenging X-Men may not be that far off! You may have read my earlier op/ed about how AvX should have been called Operation Hate Cyclops. This week’s finale may cement the hate for some of you.
All-New X-Men #1 courtesy Marvel
All-New X-Men #1 is out November 14th. Maybe we’ll find out then?
The Wolverine solo book is ending this December but don’t bet on a Logan solo title being left out of the Marvel NOW reboot. Who will take over Wolverine? The teaser for Savage by Frank Cho supports the fan theory that Cho will steer Logan’s solo adventures in 2013.
Remember back when Wolverine starred in the Marvel Comics Presents book which gave us the classic Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith. Back in the day there was excellent one shots like The Jungle Adventure by Mike Mignola and Blood Lust by Alan Davis.
Logan is already starring in multiple X-Men and Avengers books in the Marvel Now so why not a Wolverine book with arcs in the past, present and future with rotating all-star creative teams?
Origin #6 courtesy Marvel
These ideas pop into my mind:
Paul Jenkins (Origin) with a tale of James Howlett in Alberta.
Mike Carey (X-Men Legacy) takes Logan to hell with Doctor Strange.
Jeff Parker (Hulk, Dark Avengers) with Logan as a mercenary in Wakanda
Paul Cornell (Excalibur) with a Logan on assignment with MI-13 and Spitfire in WWII.
John Byrne (Alpha Flight, Wolverine) crafting a long-lost Patch story in Madripoor.
Mike Mignola (Hellboy) returning to The Jungle Adventure one-shot of Logan versus Apocalypse in the Savage Land and the child he left behind.
Chris Claremont and Frank Miller returning the era of the Wolverine in Japan adventure in time for Hugh Jackman’s next film The Wolverine, based on that story.
I’m sure we’ll soon see plans for a new ongoing Wolverine solo book but a geek can dream of a more anthology book with the best of the best writing stories of Logan being the best there is!
