1992′s Where Are They Now?

I started my X-Men fandom back in 1991 when my brother picked up Uncanny X-Men #275 (featuring my all-time favorite cover), and then had me buying them just three issues later.  1991 was a big year for the X-Men franchise, as the three big titles – Uncanny, New Mutants and X-Factor all went through major changes.  With the release of the cartoon shortly after, the X-Men became an even bigger sensation for young fans, even for a line that had for some time been THE book of the comic scene.

A lot of my time in late-91 and most of 1992 hanging out a small local comic shop about three blocks away from my house hanging out with the local solicitor, a guy I only knew as Steve.  Steve had opened a comic and card shop along with a small art gallery in a building next to Louisville’s Clifton Pizza, which is why to this day I associate the smell of a sit-down pizzeria with comics.  Steve was an amazing contributor to my fledgling comic fandom, one of the three people that _ my love of comics (along with my older brother and my friend’s Aunt Jane – who was my comic mentor).

I spent many a dollar in Steve’s shop, and he gave me numerous deals that helped me build my collection of both comics and cards.  For the entire summer of 1992, I spent dollar after dollar on packs of the first-ever X-Men trading card set.  This 100-card set (not counting the bonuses) was drawn completely by Jim Lee, and reflected all of the X-Teams, even Excalibur.  This card set let me learn about all the X-Men characters, in a time when Al Gore had yet to develop the Internet.  Back then, you had to read the issues yourself or find some kind of resource to get your knowledge.  And this one was mine.

At a dollar a pack, I spent most of the summer of ’92 piecing together this set.  Steve was nice enough to buy back my doubles as I slowly but surely worked on the entire set.  In fact, two weeks was spent looking for two cards to finish the set – Shatterstar and Danger Room Gambit – until one fateful day I bought one pack that had BOTH cards in it.  I was one happy camper.

In fact, my biggest regret of the numerous lost pieces of my youthful comic collection is that I managed to lose this set somewhere along the line.  It was probably pitched or given away by my mom, but I can’t really blame her as it likely took place during my down period of comic fandom in the early 00′s.  I could actually buy the whole set now for not that much, but I can’t say I have the money for it right now.  (If any reader would like to…just saying, ha!)

But I occasionally go back and look through the set, via a site of scans at comiccovers.com, and reminisce about the fun I had collecting them.

But today when I did so it dawned on me that there are some characters that were highlighted back in this boom period of X-Men that have been lost into character limbo over the years.  After all, it’s been over 2 decades since this set came out.  So let’s look at some of the featured characters from this period that have been largely forgotten over time.

This preview is the best there is at what it does

Preview posted by joblomovienetwork

Well, first impressions are that it looks better than X-Men Origins:  Wolverine.  Of course, you wouldn’t think it’d be difficult to make one better, but if they made one that bad, then they can make another.  Not much else to say about it.  It’s just a preview after all.  You all have any thoughts?

Dear Uncanny Avengers,

I can’t say I’m that inclined to give you the normal Dear John letter we associate with dropping a title, especially since I only gave you about three issues.  So let’s just say that it’s not you, it’s me.

Oh, not good enough for you?  Fine.

When Marvel announced the aftermath relaunch of the Avengers and X-Men lines (again), it felt like there would be a merging of sorts between the two, and I didn’t really like that at all.  After all, I’m an X-Men fan and I’m used to them being the red-headed step-children of the Marvel Universe.  That’s a part of their whole deal – “the world that fears and hates” them schtick.

So the whole AvX made the Avengers realize they had no idea what the X-Men had been doing and they mistrusted mutants, even the two they had who were supposed to show how beyond that they were.  And thus you were born, Uncanny Avengers, as a place to show mutants and human heroes working together – the bridge between the Avengers line and the X-Men line.

Except you aren’t really that, are you?  You see, you’re not enough of an X-Men book to keep me interested.  It’s basically a six-hero team, split half and half between Avengers and X-Men.  Except the three X-Men heroes you’ve picked are Havok, Wolverine and Rogue.  Havok hasn’t been a member of the X-Men team in years, and in fact he was off in character limbo for most of that time until Mike Carey got around to getting you back into the mainstream, only for you to head off to X-Factor (not that there was anything wrong with that).  But Havok, even as so-called leader of the team, doesn’t have an X-Men connection to keep everyone happy.  Which is a part of his selection – he was a government man and therefore trusted.  A figure head, if you will.  And that didn’t particularly interest me.

Of course, having Rogue was an interesting choice.  Besides the main core of characters, she is one of the best-known members of the X-Men line and has even had her own book for the past few years.  But really, I’m tired of Rogue.  I’ve been reading her book and I feel like I need a break from her.  Not a hooking point.

Then there was Wolverine who has largely become an Avengers character anyway, especially with him going anti-X for most of AvX.  So what if he was right?  He’s already stepped away from his own school now that Storm has taken over as headmistress and he follows the major heroes with the Avengers anyway.

And the Avengers part?  Captain America and Thor are appearing in Avengers, which thanks to my roommate Casey I’m keeping up with.  And Scarlet Witch?  Meh.

So you may be perfectly fine, but you just don’t have my interest enough to warrant dropping $4 all five times a month Marvel’s schedule puts you out.

So stay well and I wish you all the best.

-Jacob

Ultimate Spider-man – 6/17/12 – “Freaky”

This week, we only got a new episode of Ultimate Spider-man, titled “Freaky.”  Hell, there wasn’t even an Avengers re-run this week.  Just Ultimate Spider-man reruns.  With that this isn’t actually Marvel Universe.  It is, however, an Ultimate Father’s Day Marathon.  Now, you may be asking what Spider-man has to do with Father’s day, but clearly you’re not remembering the close relationship that Peter Parker has with his father.  Wait, Spider-man is an orphan you say?  Hmmm…guess he’s not the best thing to use for Father’s Day, but no one is really.

Spider-man comes across Mesmero, who is robbing a diamond store by controlling other people’s minds.  Mesmero tells the people to attack Spider-man.  Spider-man is able to get away from them when Wolverine shows up.  He demands to know what Spider-man has done to these people.  Wolverine gets attacked by people, becomes frustrated enough to attack them, but Spider-man stops him.  Wolverine opens up a fire hydrant and hits people with water.  This brings them back to their senses, during which they blame Spider-man.  Wolverine recognizes Mesmero’s scent, and grabs him.  Wolverine convinces Mesmero to release his hold.  Afterwords, Wolverine and Spider-man nearly come to blows after insulting each other, but Nick Fury gets in their way.  At school, the rest of the guys on the team try to let Peter show them his homework, but he lectures them.  While Peter is sitting in class, Mesmero switches Spider-man’s and Wolverine’s minds.  They both wake up and freak out.  (For the purpose of simplicity, I’ll refer to the characters by whose mind is doing what.  So, when I say Spider-man, know that it’s Spider-man in Wolverine’s body.)  Spider-man calls Wolverine, and tells him that they switched bodies.  Then Sabertooth attacks him.  Wolverine tells Spider-man to just run.  Spider-man tries to convince Sabertooth that he’s not really Wolverine but it doesn’t work.  Wolverine says that he’s coming to him, but Spider-man tells him to stay in school because he can’t afford to miss.  Eventually, Spider-man is able to escape.  In school, Wolverine is not getting along with Spider-man’s teammates, hits on Mary Jane, and beats up Flash.  Spider-man arrives at school, and Wolverine asks him what happened to Sabertooth.  Spider-man says he lost him, but Wolverine says that you don’t lose Sabertooth because he’s a tracker.  Sabertooth then shows up, finally realizing that they did in fact switch bodies. 

X-Men in Video Games: Part 4

Let me tell you one thing, and I’m being completely honest.

X-Men, the 1992 arcade game, is incredible.  Despite what I may say in the rest of this post, the game is fucking incredible – and I try not to drop the f-bomb around here unless I’m really serious about something.  It’s my favorite X-Men game ever and I hope to one day own a copy of the 6-man cabinet.

There.  Now that we’re clear on that point – this game is a crazy hot load of mess.  But it’s the quirky kind of arcade mess that you likely never noticed in your youth, or simply didn’t care about.  Like where Shredder banished the Ninja Turtles into prehistoric times in Turtles in Time, yet still sent Foot Soldiers after them.

X-Men is an entire game of sending Foot Soldiers into the prehistoric past to defeat your enemies whom you’ve already defeated.

But let’s not dwell on the negative.  There’s a lot of positive to this game.’

Panel of the Month

The Panel of the Month for the month of April 2012 comes from Wolverine & the X-men, written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Chris Bachalo.

Video game review: X-Men Destiny

There’s this odd thing about comic-based video games.  There is rarely any kind of solid expectation to how one might turn out, especially based on previous history.  Even when historically your franchise’s games have been crap, like Spider-Man for instance, suddenly a game can come out like the first one on the original PlayStation that just knocks it out of the park.  And then you can tweak and update your formula and get it perfect, like the movie-based Spider-Man 2, and then manage to screw it up come Spider-Man 3 to where now you’re trying to rediscover the magic in alternate dimensions.

The same goes for the X-Men.  Activision stumbled upon a winning formula when it came out with X-Men Legends and the follow-up was even bettr, but the system was pushed over to the Marvel U proper and the X-Men got stuck sitting around with nothing to do (not counting the movie tie-in).  Finally, Activision decided to go back to the X-Men franchise with developer Silicon Knights this go-round, and shift up the format from the popular Legends series to something new.

Much earlier in the year, I was pretty damn excited about X-Men Destiny.  Sure, they were dropping the format used in the two X-Men Legends games and going more with an “action RPG” approach, but still it seemed pretty neat to me.  Even the thought that you wouldn’t be playing as any of the actual X-Men, but rather a new mutant recruit that would be fighting alongside the X-Men as you learned to use your mutant powers.

My initial thought was Dragon Age: Origins in which you start off as a basic character with a selectable origin and fighting class and eventually expand with other side characters that can fight along side you (with commands available) as you go through the massively large story complete with twists, turns, and tons of options that have a huge effect on the overall story of the game.

Seriously, go play Dragon Age: Origins if you haven’t.

Under advisement of Comicdom Wrecks! co-conspirator Casey, I decided against dropping $60 on the title (as if I had that kind of money to toss around) and instead hopped over to one of the Redbox terminals and dropped $2 to play it for a day.  And it’s a good thing too, since it only took me six hours to beat the damn thing.

After the jump I’ll go into detail about the game, including my likes, dislikes, and the overall sense of blah to the deal.

New Comic Day hangover

Big week for me this week as Marvel has decided to throw out every single X-Men team book as well as the first two chapters of Age of X all in one day.  As well, I’m going back and covering the titles I didn’t get around to reading two weeks ago.  So pull up a chair and get comfortable, kids – this, the 23rd edition of the hangover, is going to be a long one.

This week we’ll be looking at:

• Astonishing X-Men #36 in which the team heads to Japan.
• Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #5 in which the big threat ends.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #19 and #20 in which someone gets kinda killed.
• Uncanny X-Men #533 in which the X-Men still have the sniffles.
• Wolverine and Jubilee #2 in which Jubes didn’t kill anyone.
• X-Factor #215 in which we deal with some relationship issues.
• X-Men #8 in which Spider-Man appears, just like everywhere else.
• And finally, X-Men Legacy #245 and New Mutants #22 in which we start the Age of X.

Talking, discussing, nitpicking and SPOILERS after the jump.

X-Men in Video Games: Part 2

Sticking with the Nintendo Entertainment System, we’ll be jumping ahead to 1991 at LJN’s second attempt to get the X-Men right with the first solo adventure of Wolverine.

The plot on the box sums up the plot perfectly – it’s Wolverine in a mega-battle with arch-nemesis SABRETOOTH.  But being that this is a 1991 NES game, there’s no way the game could simply get by without a silly plot, so for that we head to the game’s instruction manual.

The plot is simple.  Wolverine (decked out, fittingly, in a Wolverine suit) has washed up on a mystery beach and walks inland, finding a massive structure with the word WELCOME on the door.  Wolverine enters and we have ourselves a game.

New Comic Day hangover

It’s been several weeks since I’ve picked up my new comics, so I’ll be going through the backlog on this, my 20th edition of the New Comic Day hangover.  20?  Really?  Where does the time go?

Anyway, this edition we’ll be looking at…

• Booster Gold #38 in which we get a trip to the past to set up a continuity issue.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #13-14 in which we get a whole lot of Captain Atom.
• New Mutants #19 in which we get more torture.
• Uncanny X-Force #2 in which Wolverine pisses off Angel.
• Uncanny X-Men #530 in which the mutants get the sniffles.
• X-Factor #211 in which we get back to Las Vegas.
• X-Men #5 in which we are still fighting vampires.
• X-Men Legacy #242 in which the rebuilding of San Francisco gets underway.

As a side note, I know I said I would be dropping both Uncanny X-Force and Booster Gold but since my comic shop had already ordered  me copies of these issues before I dropped them from my pull list, I did the decent thing and went ahead and picked them up.  The same will happen with next month’s issues.

Anyway – reviews (with SPOILERS) after the jump.  Let’s get to it!