Holiday Tales to Astonish #1

I must have been really good this year. Or Marvel must have gotten tired of me complaining. Because this year, the House of Ideas released not one, not two, but 3 Christmas specials!  

Holiday Tales to Astonish #1 was the first one that I read. It's regular cover by Luciano Maher elicits memories of that pair of tabloid sized holiday specials from the 1970s. It really got me right in the holiday feels. Thankfully unlike those classics, of which I'm still on the hunt for one of them, there's no reprints here. Instead, we get 3 great all-new seasonal stories that represent Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's.

The Fantastic Four star in the Christmas themed story. Don't worry, Ben Grimm is still a member of the Tribe and his faith is represented at the beginning. However, the Festival of Lights is saved for story #2. In the opener, Reed Richards is getting reports of traces of plutonium popping up in Manhattan. Investigating a possible nuclear weapon being armed, the FF instead run into Doctor Doom, dressed as Santa Claus and playing the role of the Grinch by stealing toys from the boys and girls of the Big Apple.

The middle story goes back in time to the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era of the Uncanny X-Men. It shows Kitty Pryde's first Hanukkah at the Xavier School. Don't worry, classic Hanukkah issue Uncanny X-Men #143 is still canon. We just catch a glimpse of what transpired during the other 7 days of Hanukkah. 

The final story occurs on New Year's Eve. When his girlfriend comes under the weather, Miles Morales gets invited to a different countdown to the New Year party by folks he didn't realize considered him a friend. When the Peter Parker Spidey and Hydro-Man interrupt the festivities, Miles learns an important lesson about the personal sacrifices a superhero has to make. 

All three stories were exceptionally written. The art varied. Pat Olliffe is definitely a graduate of the John Byrne school of uncanny art. It felt like an lost tale from one of the greatest partnerships in Marvel history. Dylan Burnett's work on the Spider-Men story was fair. It has more of that teen graphic novel look to it. Not as detailed but still pleasant on the eyes. But what in the world happened on that Fantastic Four story?

Phil Noto was the artist. Normally, his work is amazing. Noto does stunning work on the various Star Wars titles he contributes too. Especially his covers. Maybe that is more of his forte, because the art for the opener was a hot mess. Look, I know that I don't read that much modern Fantastic Four. But what is up with Johnny Storm's porn star mustache? Just because Mr. Fantastic can assume very fluid shapes, that doesn't mean that he should always be drawn like that. And I know that Wolverine is short. But he's not a midget. A lot of long-established Marvel fans criticize the current offerings of art as really bad. I tend to be more forgiving. However, with the first story, along with some of ads for upcoming 2025 projects, I could see what they're talking about.

Speaking of 2025, I cannot wait for the 5 What If... Galactus one-shots coming up in January. They look epic!

Great reading. Varying art. 100% holiday themed. Thank you Marvel for putting out an honest to goodness holiday special! It was a great gift for the fans and I hope it's a tradition that continues for years to come!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

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.

Marvel and DC Present The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans #1

This is a book that I've seen numerous times online, having been purchased by others. Yet, I never once found it in the wild. Man, would such posts make me jealous! So you can be sure when I finally did get a chance to buy a copy, I promptly declared it was mine and added it to my pull pile.

This X-Men/New Teen Titans crossover continues the Phoenix Saga. But the main baddie chosen for this story is one that just seems unlikely. Darkseid, in yet another attempt to bring his Anti-Life Equation to fruition, has traded some powerful tech with the morally ambiguous Metron. Yet, up until 1982, when this book was published, the New Gods of Apokolips were never considered to be major foes of the Teen Titans. Yes, Deathstroke, the Terminator is involved in this plot. But he's a hired hand of Darkseid's and not the mastermind behind everything. I guess writer Chris Claremont (X-Men Vs. Dracula) really needed a powerful villain in order to bring Jean Grey back from the dead. 

That resurrection isn't a spoiler. You can see that Dark Phoenix has returned on the cover! The real mystery that I won't spoil, is whether or not the entity that has returned is Jean Grey or not. 

The most interesting thing about this story was how both the X-Men and Teen Titans exist in the same universe. I was expecting some sort of inter-dimensional tear in the fabric of reality bringing the two biggest sellers of DC and Marvel together. But I had forgotten that Superman and Spider-Man were a part of the same shared universe in their crossovers in the 1970s. 

It would be a dozen years before DC and Marvel would produce another crossover. The 90s were full of them because Marvel was close to folding and needed the sales boost such epic meetings brought with them. Nowadays, the Marvel and DC universes seem as far apart as the East is from the West. But I know in my heart that the boundary between both worlds is separated by the mere width of a single page. 

Featuring art by Walt Simonson (Fantastic Four) with inks by Terry Austin and a roster of over a dozen A-list characters, this epic was a true all-star event. Considering how beloved this book was and the fact that a reprint was issued in the mid-90s, I can't believe that it took me over 40 years to find my copy! Was it worth the wait? Visually- yes! But the story gets a little busy and Claremont really tries too tug too tight on the heart strings with Scott Summers in terms of the return of the Dark Phoenix. That overtly soap opera feel of the Uncanny X-Men is what put me off that series after a while and the book's ending sure does get soapy... I mean sappy.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

X-Men: Battle of the Atom

 A few months ago, I noticed that both the collected volumes of Marvel NOW series All-new X- Men and Uncanny X-Men were missing a couple of issues. Battle of the Atom is the work that collects those missing issues. A couple of issues of Wolverine and the X-Men ( along with the 2-issue miniseries of Battle of the Atom) are contained within this volume as well. I assume that those issues are missing from the Wolverine trades, but my library doesn't carry that series, so I'm not sure if this is the case.

   I was really excited to finally get this book as I have waited forever for it. I had requested that my local library carry this book since before Thanksgiving and it took until late last month to finally arrive.  But it was worth the extra wait.

    Pressure mounts for the original X- Men to return to their own time. With no one to trust, Jean Grey and Scott Summers make a run for it. But on their tails are a group of X-Men claiming to be from the future. They to want to see the original Children of the Atom returned to their proper place on the timeline.  Only this group of X-Men  more vindictive and cunning in pursuit of their goal, leads Wolverine to smell a rat and do something he never thought he'd do in a million years- team up with the present's Cyclops band of mutant freedom fighters in order to save and protect the first X-Men from being wiped out of existence.

   Battle of the Atom was an epic adventure that pits multiple X-Men teams from across the decades. The only team missing it seems is the Giant-Sized X-Men team created by Chris Claremont in the mid-70s.Written by Brian Michael Bendis, with Jason Aaron and Brian Wood, this trio actually gives Claremont a run for his money on this. The artwork lead by Frank Cho and Stuart Immonen was really good too. However, the last two chapters seemed to have a different inker as the art didn't quite look as clean as the rest of the book.

    Essential reading and a must to complete your Marvel NOW X-titles run, especially if you are collecting only the trades.

  Worth Consuming

  Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

   

Uncanny X-Men: First Class, Volume 2: Knights of Hykon

   The First Class adventures of the Uncanny X-Men come to a close in this digest volume. The mystery of the people on the surface of the sun is solved when the self-proclaimed Knights of Hykon arrive on the planet earth seeking to make it their personal war games arena. The X-Men are caught in the middle of two warring factions that have a tendency of destroying the venues they play in. Once the Knights are finally disposed of, secrets about Jean Grey's new Phoenix powers will be revealed and the team will be left in tatters.

    The following story is a sequel to a two-part story first published in two issues of Uncanny X-Men from 1978 (and it's reprinted in this volume as well.) In the new tale, Banshee returns to his native Ireland and his ancestral castle after a dear friend is found dead in the family library. The deceased, which happens to be a leprechaun, is believed to have committed suicide. But former Interpol agent Banshee thinks foul play is involved. Along with Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, the Irish X-Man will conduct an investigation that will explore the vast annals of Irish folklore and magic.

  UXM: First Class finished quite strongly in my mind. But like I mentioned in my review of volume 1, I think the series focus on Banshee, Nightcrawler, and Colossus, as opposed to more popular characters such as Storm and Wolverine, was the nail in this comic's coffin. The stories were extremely well written and the art was fantastic. The Chris Claremont/ Dave Cockrum classic tale was also excellently well done. And why wouldn't it?! Those guys are masters of their craft. I just hate that that story ended with a darn cliffhanger.

    Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Uncanny X-Men: First Class, Volume 1: Hated and Feared

 In 2006, Marvel crafted a series of untold tales about the original X-Men titled 'First Class.' The series only lasted 8-issues but it was such a hit, it spawned at least two further sequels as well as a few one-shots. Marvel naturally saw dollar signs and continued to produce more X-titles under the 'First Class' moniker. Wolverine starred in two solo titles that produced over 20 issues. After those successes, Marvel decided to explore its historically most successful line-up of mutants- the original Uncanny X-Men.

   This title stars Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, and Storm. It reveals some of that team's never-before-revealed adventures that take place after X-Men #101 when Jean Grey becomes the Phoenix. Here, the team is having trouble jelling. Cyclops longs for the day to lead his original teammates again. Professor X and Moira McTaggart are attempting to gauge Jean's new physic potential. And the other members of the team are trying to adjust to their lives as superheroes that face more scorn than admiration.

     During these episodes of growing pains, the team will travel to the Inhuman refuge of Attilan to defend Nightcrawler, whose being tried for blasphemy, a charge that if found guilty brings a penalty of death. Then Banshee's past comes back to haunt him when he spies what may be the ghost of his late wife. Lastly, Storm and Jean Grey have a ladies night out that results in the girls being held hostage AND forced to break into Nick Fury's helicarrier! Along with a mysterious trio spied dancing on the surface of the sun and a Giant-Sized special that explores the individual origins of the Uncanny X-Men, this volume was pure fun and excitement.
 
   Why this series didn't take off like the other 'First Class' titles is beyond me! The art was eclectic but each artist's style was classic. The writing was just as good and with scores of cameos of several key secondary players of the X-Men series during the late 70s was the icing on the cake. The only reason this series lasted just 8-issues is that it seems to focus more on Banshee, Colossus, and Nightcrawler instead of proven fan favorites Wolverine and Storm.

   But if I had to choose my top 10 favorite mutants that trio would all rank on that list. In other words, I liked it. Maybe the only thing this series needed was the masterful pen of Chris Claremont, who without him, the X-Men might have been a footnote in comic book history.

Like the Vulcans say "only Nixon can go to China."

   Worth Consuming.

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.