Uncanny X-Men: Poptopia

The X-Men are back in London. No, the mutant superteam Excalibur hasn't reformed. Though an original member of the group is one of the heroes visiting England. Cerebro, the X-Men's mutant locating super computer has registered a large population of mutants underneath the streets of London. Nightcrawler, Ice Man, Archangel and Wolverine are on a mission to offer membership to their brethren. However, they'll need to offer sanctuary as an enhanced madman is on the hunt for these 'genetic freaks.'

The X-Men also have a secondary agenda: retrieve the AWOL member of Generation-X, Chamber. After a catastrophic encounter that lead this new generation of X-Men fractured, Chamber fled to London, hoping to find himself. Instead, he finds himself as the British tabloids latest subject when he catches the eye of pop superstar Sugar Kane. 

This volume is book-ended with 2 solo stories. Jean Grey and Wolverine must address their complicated relationship when they are transported into the fracturing mind of a brand new mutant who is enamored with the militant ways of Magneto. Then Warren Worthington, III learns that his family run mega-corporation has invested in a place called the X-Ranch. It's pretty much what you think. The X-Ranch is a sordid bordello where wealthy homo sapiens spend a ton of cash to get their kinky licks in the arms of a harem of seductive homo superiors. 

Published in 2001, this era of the X-Men occurs after Grant Morrison's revamp of the Children of the Atom. Those really cool black with yellow trim uniforms are still in service. Only now everyone looks like they're a cross between a model for American Eagle and a goth frequent shopper at Hot Topic. 

For the most part, the art is really good. Only the costume and character design is too cyberpunk. And there's one issue where the guest artists tried to emulate the fantastic Bill Sienkiewicz and just failed miserably. Joe Casey's plots are good. But the dialogue needs work. Who used the phrase 'What's your major malfunction?' back in 2001. It's an example of how the dialogue was about 20 years too late to appear in a Marvel comic book. 

I found this book at a thrift shop where I don't think I paid more than $2 for it. The UK Sun stylized cover really caught my eye and the price was nice, of course. 'Poptopia' was like riding a roller-coaster. Only it wasn't because of the level of action. Instead, there were extreme moments of superior quality dipping into depths of really bad comic book creating. I'm one to talk. I'm sure that Sean Phillips and Ashley Wood, among others, are much better artists than I will ever be. However, I also felt like a very good portion of this collection of X-Men comics wouldn't have met the standards of former editors Stan Lee or Jim Shooter 

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Thor #38 (2023 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

The Destroyer roams the Earth once again!

Loki, along with Karnilla, have decided to have a little bit of fun. They've removed the soul of the Asgardian ally Tarene and placed her essence into the armor of the Destroyer. Try as she might, Tarene is unable to control the destructive rage of the Destroyer. 

Sensing something is wrong, Thor approaches the Manhattan mayhem with caution. This results in the thunder god losing control of his trusty hammer Mjolnir to the Destroyer, making the creation of Odin even more indestructible! As 60 seconds count down, Thor reverts back into his moral form of EMT Jake Olson?!

When Thor first appeared in the pages of 1962's Journey Into Mystery #86, Thor's mortal secret identity was that of crippled doctor Donald Blake. Odin had placed Thor into the broken shell of a healer in order to teach his arrogant son a little humility. Years later, Thor Odinson becomes fused with the mortal body of architect Eric Masterson. After a brief time in exile, Thor seeks to take a leave of absence from his heroic responsibilities and entrusts Masterson to wield his hammer in the thunder god's stead.

When it comes to EMT Jake Olson, things mirror the complex relationship of Batman and gangster Matches Malone. With Matches Malone, only Batman knows that the criminal is really dead. So the Dark Knight masquerades as Malone when he needs to infiltrate the criminal element for information and clues. In the pages of Thor, Jake Olson is killed in an explosion in which only a couple of close friends know. Needing a new identity to hide from the Dark Gods, Thor takes on the fallen man's identity with help of Marnot, one of Odin's trusty ravens. 

Dan Jurgens pens this 2001 issue. Underneath the battle of Thor and the Destroyer, Odin is faced with a difficult choice. If the ruler of Asgard allows the Destroyer to kill Thor, a prophesied golden age of peace for the entire universe will be ushered in by the Designate Tarene. If Odin interferes and gives Thor the victory, a future in which the Odinson becomes a despotic ruler will become Thor's destiny. 

Stuart Immonen was the penciler and inks were done by Scott Koblish. 

The cover was by Barry Windsor Smith. It's a stunning image of Thor's hammer creating a diamond-patterned rainbow. It looks like the colors are wrong. But if you start with the center image of power, radiating an intense yellow hue and then work your way out, the viewer will notice that the colors follow ROY G. BIV correctly recycling back when the palette goes from indigo to red again. An absolutely keen eye to detail here!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #30 (A Thor Story) of the 2023 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Two-Fisted Science

If I wasn't such an admirer of Richard Feynman, I think I would have been annoyed to no end with this graphic novel. Two-Fisted Science is a 2001 anthology series devoted to anecdotes and historical accounts of some of the world's greatest scientists. Galileo, the eternal rivals Sir Isaac Newton & Robert Hooke and Niels Bohr are featured in this collection featuring the talents of Steve Lieber (Whiteout), Jim Ottaviani (Hawking) and Colleen Doran (Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir). But the big star of this book is Feynman!

Two-Fisted Science is 128 pages, plus material on both inside covers. There's an entire section that's over 50 pages long starting Feynman, plus a story that is spread out through the whole book in multiple parts. That means about 75 pages of this book is devoted to the bongo-playing, safe-cracking renegade of the Los Alamos division of the Manhattan project. Over 50% of a book about different scientists through is history is about 1 Nobel Prize winning physicists!

Again, for a fan of Feynman, I don't mind the extra attention on him. But that really throws off the pacing of this book. I think the multi-parter alone would have been just fine to keep things on track. Lots of anthologies do this in order to have a running thread that helps keep readers grounded to the central theme of the collection. Lots of anthologies will also have a single section that might be devoted to just one person or event. Either literary device is perfectly acceptable in the execution of a collected work. But not both. 

Quite a bit of the Feynman material seemed familiar to me. I've read a couple of books about him as well as the Manhattan Project. I had thought maybe that would explain the deja vu. However, upon checking through the archives of this blog, I've discovered that one of the books I've read, Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb, was written and illustrated by a team that featured Ottavini, Lieber and the creator of the segmented Feynman story, Bernie Mireault. I've got a feeling that some of the material of that book was used here. However, I don't own a copy of Fallout, so I am not really sure. But I really think I've read some of this material before!

A very good read. It was just unevenly edited and may have featured material previously published elsewhere. And let's be honest here- isn't that EC Comics homage cover just freaking gorgeous? 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.