Captain America #1The Star-Spangled Avenger’s new adventure take a sci-fi spin. No country. No allies. Steve Rogers is alone in a bizarre dimension packed with new enemies and an amped up old villain
Indestructible Hulk #1 Bruce Banner and his monstrous alter ego working together? Meet SHIELD’s biggest, brainiest new agent!
Batwoman #14The thrilling showdown between Kate and Wonder Woman against the madness of Medusa!
Star Trek #15You’ve got to love Spock in a stache! Yes, it’s time for a brand new adventure in the Mirror, Mirror universe!
Wolverine and the X-Men #21 This may be Thanksgiving week but a terrifying new villain stalks the staff and kids of the Jean Grey School! Frankenstein’s Murder Circus turns Storm, Logan and Bobby into their strangest new showstopppers.
This may be the biggest surprise announcement in the Marvel Now relaunch.
X-Men Legacy #1 takes a complete 180 in terms of concept but it’s never been more appropriate.
Who is Legion:
One the most frighteningly powerful and unstable mutants ever. David is the son of Professor Xavier and Gabrielle Haller and was raised on Muir Island.
He was born with multiple mutant powers.
He suffers from multiple personalities each controlling a different power.
He has the worst haircut and costumes (if you call pajamas a costume) in comics. You think one of his personalities could be a stylish gay man saying ‘oh we’re getting a haircut and makeover!”
David has victimized the New Mutants and X-Men over the years.
David caused major dimensional rifts: Age of Apocalypse and Age of X.
X-Men Legacy #1 courtesy Marvel
Simon Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat and the X-Editors have a huge challenge. How did they do?
X-Men Legacy #1 begins with Legion in therapy and unaware that his father has been killed by Cyclops. David’s interactions with this guru are at times bizarre and moving as he questions his father’s motive for leaving him alone. There is a whole other therapy session going on in this issue! This “complex” may or may not be in Legion’s mind or minds with visuals that reminded me of Prometheus and Casanova Quinn series. There is a key moment back at the Jean Grey School that could be a scary omen from Blindfold, who will be a supporting character in the series.
This is definitely different from every other X-book out there. It’s a bold move to take minor character and give him the spotlight but I’m intrigued. David will try to succeed his father and continue his dream in a way only he could. How that will affect the factions of X-Men and Marvel Universe will make for the drama, fun and wonder of this series.
I’m rooting for you David!
Now if only they would get ride of that dried paintbrush hair!
The evolution of the X-Men books really mutates in February 2013. In the just released solicitations for February 2013 Marvel calls X-Men #41 the final issue with Seth Peck writing a last story of Storm’s “security unit.”
This title was born with “Curse of the X-Men” and the vampire/mutant war. My favorite run was Brian Wood and David Lopez’s “Proto Mutants” saga. Seth Peck just took over with this month’s Domino solo story guest starring Daredevil.
This is the final month of the Marvel Now! relaunch so it seems this adjectiveless X-Men book will not relaunch.
Uncanny X-Men (deja vu?) relaunches this month with 2 issues helmed by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Bachalo. Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magneto and Magik are rescuing and recruiting new mutants to their cause. Are they heroes or terrorists? There is a mole on the team! Who is betraying this team and why?
Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy from X-Men: First Class courtesy Marvel.com
Bryan Singer will direct the next movie starring the Children of the Atom! In the first X-Men movie the team wore leather suits (Cyke even made a reference to Logan about “what did you expect, yellow spandex?”) The dark leather look inspired Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s New X-Men run.
In X-Men: First Class the kids wore the blue and yellow uniforms but will the change of directors mean a change of costume?
Bryan Singer said via Twitter “For those of you wondering…no leather suits.” #xmen
X-Men: Days of Future Past will be based on the classic Chris Claremont/John Byrne tales of surviving mutants from a dystopian future going into the past to prevent an assassination and the events that led to their darker future.
The once and future Beast is at the heart of All-New X-Men #1. Brian Michael Bendis has made a perfect choice in making Henry McCoy the catalyst for a dramatic evolution of the Children of the Atom.
In the aftermath of Avengers vs X-Men, new mutants are being born, other mutants are evolving and a war of mutants is building that could make Schism seem like a kindergarten scrap.
In the Marvel Now Henry McCoy is painfully mutating again and he may not survive the experience – to borrow a Marvel marketing line! Cyclops (with fellow fugitives Emma Frost, Magneto and Magik as his strike force) is brazenly attacking humans to save newly manifested mutants.
Fearing the future is the theme of this issue. It’s been a long time since new mutants have been introduced. Bendis crafts two compelling moments reminding how that “first time” is so frightening for the mutant.
Bendis captures what the essence of the X-Men’s mission has always been about: fighting prejudice and fear. The writer creates two sympathetic young mutants thrust into a world that fears and hates them and what will be a tug of war between the revolutionary (Scott) and the teachers (Logan, Kitty, Henry, Ororo.) I want to know their stories and see which side they will follow.
All-New X-Men #1 courtesy Marvel
Back at the Jean Grey School – Bobby, Storm, Kitty and Hank watch in shock as their former friends (ok, maybe not Emma) violently sweep in to rescue and recruit. The revolutionary Cyclops is forcing them in a no-win scenario. Original students Hank and Bobby share a bond and inspire an idea that ignites the series: maybe the secret saving the future is in the past?
Bendis takes us into the past at a precise moment when the young students are in a crisis and one future X-Man is questioning his faith in Xavier’s dream. The issue does not play the way I pictured it would but I was still entertained and intrigued. The creators have given us the new status quo and the threat to the future. This issue is a wonderful moment for those who love the X-Men or are looking for that perfect “jumping on” point. This is it – welcome to the new world of the X-Men…hope you enjoy the experience.
By Editor
Bendis captures what the essence of the X-Men’s mission has always been about fighting prejudice and fear. The writer creates two sympathetic young mutants thrust into a world that fears and hates them and into a tug of war between the revolutionary (Scott) and the teachers (Logan, Kitty, Henry, Ororo.)
All-New X-Men #1 finally arrives with a time twist to the mutant universe. Professor X’s five original students are thrust into their future – our Marvel Now – and are in for a future shock. Professor X is dead. Cyclops killed their mentor. And Hank McCoy is a blue furry beast.
Brian Michael Bendis talks with Marvel.com about the young man would become an Avenger, beloved monster, and the X-Men’s resident genius and often moral compass.
“We’re meeting the X-Men at a crossroads for the Beast. He is the most frustrated with his mutant powers, and with his relationship to the humans. He doesn’t like, or find it funny or a challenge that humans are, to quote Ali G “racializing” on him. So we actually meet the younger Beast at a time when he’s out of there, he’s leaving, he’s had it,” Bendis says of the teen Beast, “And I think that represents a lot of the team as well. It wasn’t like the Avengers where everybody goes “yay”; with the X-Men, they’d do something and everyone would go “boo.” How much of that can you take?”
Even the young McCoy was somewhat deformed looking but what will his reaction be to seeing his future (blue furry) self?
“I think you’ll see in the very first issue, literally just the fact that his blue, furry self shows up. Younger Beast is saying, “I have to see what this is, I have to follow it.” As a scientist, how do you not follow this? He goes, “all right please show me.”
How did the original five get to the present and how do the Henrys affect the teams?
“Beast has a lot to do with why this story happens, so it’s going to be a very important storyline for Beast, and all of the Beasts that there are in ALL-NEW X-MEN. On a smaller level, here is the Beast who realizes that he has done this to himself, this alteration to this mutation, and has made some bold choices, some of which have been successful, and some that just haven’t. He’s going to be faced with that.”
For the entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link.
Storm has joined the teaching staff of the Jean Grey School but new villains appear to be delivering a lesson in cruelty and death in this week’s Wolverine and the X-Men #20. Frankenstein’s Murder Circus is coming to Salem Center. From the issue cover it appears Logan, Ororo and Bobby have been forced to join the freaky carnival.
I love that Storm is on the faculty and this image by Nick Bradshaw takes me way back to the Chris Claremont/John Byrne Uncanny X-Men era when Mesmero hypnotized the X-Men into thinking they were part of his traveling circus. Continue reading Storm Joins Wolverine’s X-Men
She’s the girl we all love. Jean Grey is the beautiful and tragic one that got away…until now.
Jean and the other original X-Men are brought into the Marvel Now in this week’s All-New X-Men #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen. Imagine Jean’s reaction when she learns now her life and death and life and death has turned out.
Jean’s return has been teased for years but the idea of the original pre-Phoenix Jean was a surprise (to this geek anyway.)
Bendis talked with Marvel.com about how he sees this Jean Grey of the past.
“I think she’s the quintessential X-Man. I think that’s why everyone gravitates to her so much. Her powers are unique; her powers are something she has to work on, something she has to control. Every time her powers build, it sets a new set of problems for her, and at the same time, a new set of goals and challenges that make her a better hero, And we know, as fans, that she has met with tragedy a couple of times, because of the rocky road of the mutants and the X-Men. In this story that I’m telling, we’re going to meet a Jean that is fully aware of everything that has happened to her, more than any of the other X-Men, and now we get to see how that information will inform her choices as a human, and as a mutant, and as a person, and as a girl going forward.
It’s a very interesting challenge as a writer. I literally cannot stop writing her. It is absolutely fascinating. We know that Jean is a sweetheart, and we also know that Jean has an incredible edge to her. How will that edge manifest itself, knowing everything that she knows about the destiny of her life?”
All-New X-Men #5 courtesy Marvel
This is perhaps the biggest reveal – this Jean is not just pre-Phoenix but this is Jean before her mutant power manifested.
“I don’t want to spoil too much, but when we meet Jean in this story, she is specifically brought here when she’s not telepathic, so it would make it more palpable for her to understand what’s happening. But the event of bringing her here unlocks her telepathy earlier than it had prior. She gets a shock to the system discovering that Scott Summers killed Professor Charles Xavier, and that she had died. She is witness to everything at once, so it’s not just elements of her life that is shocking her, it’s the accumulation of all of it.
It’s literally like reading a Wikipedia page as fast as you can. It’s not just the facts of her life, but it is experiencing all of the emotions at once. Love from someone like Wolverine that she cannot reciprocate, to discover the rise and fall and rise and fall of Scott Summers, all of this happens to her in a flash. That I think is going to be the most shocking thing. It’s literally just her seeing Scott Summers standing next to Magneto. Remember, when they were 16, Magneto was Hitler. That’s what we’re gunning for.”
All-New X-Men #1 courtesy Marvel
I loved this next question and response because I remember the relationship between Jean and Ororo during the Chris Claremont era. How will young Jean react to the modern-day X-women like Storm who was adult Jean’s closest friend.
“And that’s not a best friendship that teenage Jean can reciprocate right now. But what you do get is her gravitating very strongly to Kitty Pryde because they are very much of the same cloth. And that’s what I’m saying: Jean Grey is now Jewish because I’m writing her [Laughs]. No, I’m joking. But it’s not just the other females. It’s a smorgasbord of species and mutations. Remember the original five X-Men, they’re all still pretty human looking, but walk into the Wolverine and the X-Men book, and half those kids are alien looking, if not full on alien. So it certainly is an eye opener.”
Bendis talks about how knowing Jean’s future history is part of the challenge of writing this young Jean in the Marvel Now.
“She is the one that everyone wants back the most, and what’s great about this situation. She is the most interesting of the group. They’re all interesting, but because she will have the knowledge. Even if she tells them, “here’s what happens to us,” they’re not going to feel it like she feels it. She is just so interesting to write, Most of us that have read a Jean Grey story know that her dark side is a real thing, and seeing her pushed to limits like this will be interesting for people to see. Will she hold it together? Does she want to hold it together?”
All-New X-Men #1 arrives this week! For more of his interview here’s the Marvel.com link.
