New comic day hangover

Welcome back, friends.  With the brand new X-Men event launching this week, I would feel just terrible if I slacked another week, so we’ll play catchup.  For this edition, we’ll be looking at…

• Age of X: Alpha in which we get a new present in which there were never X-Men…except for the X-Men gathered.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #17 & 18 in which a new threat shows up to replace the threat just beaten.
• New Mutants #21 in which Zeb Wells’ run on the title ends well.
• Uncanny X-Men #532 in which the X-Men still have the sniffles.
• X-Factor #213 & 214 in which a member quits the team, but not the book.
• X-Men #7 in which the X-Men become heroes.
• X-Men Legacy #244 in which we get a Blindfold adventure.  How fun.

There will be a jump, and then there will be SPOILERS.  I’ll even tell you which member of the Fantastic Four died.  Let’s do this.

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!

New Comic Day hangover

Let’s get right to it.  This week, we’re looking at…

• Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #3 in which a lot of talking is done.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #10 in which we learn what Max Lord is up to.
• Uncanny X-Force #1 in which the badass team gets relaunched with a not-so badass name.
• Uncanny X-Men #528 in which Hope does exactly the same thing as the last two issues.
• And X-Men Legacy #240 in which we get a kidnapping and a wedding.

There will be details past the jump and they will have SPOILERS in them.  You have been warned.

New Comic Day hangover

Yeah, I know that three weeks ago I said “hiatus complete” but I had some extenuating circumstances over the past couple weeks.  Two weeks ago I was too lazy – my bad.  Last week, Casey and I travelled to Chicago for the Wizard World Comic Con and the hotel I was staying in charged $12 for internet access.

But enough excuses.  Let’s make up for the lost time and hit the big list!  This week we have…

Astonishing X-Men #35 in which the story that took forever ends with a disappointing whimper.

Booster Gold #35 in which Booster realizes his trip in the past is not as innocent as he believes.

Justice League: Generation Lost #7 & 8 in which the JLI attacks Checkmate.

New Mutants #16 in which we get the back story of the hellish soldiers.

Uncanny X-Men #527 in which Hope goes after another new mutant.

X-Factor #208 in which Wolfsbane finds out her bf is shacking with a dude.

X-Men #2 in which Blade pops up for the vampire story.

And finally, X-Men Legacy #239 in which we meet Indra’s fiancée.

Please be warned there will be SPOILERS in the reviews following the jump.  I no longer feel bad.

Hiatus complete and the New Comic Day hangover

Hello, there.  It certainly has been a while, hasn’t it?  I took a much-needed break to get my thoughts together and to avoid bitching and moaning about the lack of X-News at Comic Con (all the new X-stuff came at C2E2).  With that break, I’m about two weeks behind on my comic day reports, but since I had zero books this week, I am not taking a moment to get caught up.  So let’s take a look back.

• Justice League: Generation Lost #6 in which the story takes a break to hop to the future.
• Uncanny X-Men #526 in which the X-Men start looking for new mutants.
• X-Men: Legacy #238 in which Rogue and Magneto head for India.
• New Mutants #15 in which the team takes a beer break.
• X-Factor #207 in which the cover gives away something not in the story.

Even though these stories are a week or two old, I’m still obligated to toss up a SPOILERS warning for the content behind the jump.  Let’s begin.

New comic day hangover

Last week was pretty rough for me, and it was Friday before I actually picked up my comics. I also picked up my girlfriend’s so I have an extra issue to comment on this week. So bonus! Enough rambling – here’s this last week’s list!

Legion of Super-Heroes #2 in which I have decided to drop the book.

X-Factor #206 in which the tie-in to Second Coming ends.

X-Men Legacy #237 in which the X-Men actually start winning.

Avengers #2 in which I don’t see the point of so many Avengers books.

There will be SPOILERS within.  Ye have been warned!

New Comic Day Hangover

Second Coming keeps chugging along over in the X-Books, and that’s actually all I’ve got this week.  But, unfortunately I failed to hit the hangover last week, so I’ll be fielding those as well.  So these weeks, it’s:

Booster Gold #31 in which Booster spends an issue sulking about a dog and making his sister cry.

New Mutants #12 in which the X-Men lose someone to complicate the plot.

Brightest Day #0 in which a bunch of formerly dead people do stuff.

and then…

X-Men: Legacy #235 in which the event GETS REAL!!!!

X-Factor #204 in which Second Coming interrupts an ongoing storyline.

Blah blah blah blah SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP blah blah blah.

On Necrosha

Although it occasionally has been hard to admit, I think that Chris Yost and Craig Kyle have been a good thing for the X-Men line.  Sure, their teenage slaughter in the pages of New X-Men was a bit hard to swallow, and the initial arrival of X-23 felt overly shoehorned in, but since that point, they’ve been more hit than miss.  So when the Necrosha event was announced, it seemed like it would be a good thing.  Many events had led up to this, and now we’re getting the payoff.

But Necrosha, unfortunately, came off as a bit of a mess, both as a story in X-Force as well as a “crossover” in general.  Calling it a crossover at all is a stretch, as though the brand name appears with both X-Men: Legacy and New Mutants, X-Force politely ignores both books in the effort to tell its own story.  As for them on their own, they take opportunities to push themselves forward and do absolutely nothing to help the main plot of the story.  Of course, the main plot of the story doesn’t really do many favors for the main plot of the story.

Necrosha’s entire build-up is a bit of a mess in itself.  When X-Force first debuted, the villain Bastion (from the easily forgotten Operation: Zero Tolerance mess) returned complete with no aspect of his original personality.  He took the opportunity to conveniently resurrect a group of mutant-haters from X-Men history (Stephen Lang, Bolivar Trask, Cameron Hodge, William Stryker, Graydon Creed) through use of the techno-organic virus and set them back into their former roles in society.  That actually has nothing to do with this story, other than that separate characters used the exact same means to resurrect countless mutants for this story.  The two are barely related to one another, if at all.  Just wanted to mention that.

X-Check

We’ve moved past Messiah CompleX and into Divided We Stand – so let’s take a look at the X-Books on my plate and see how they’re doing.

Uncanny X-Men
Obviously in a phase that you could call “rebuilding” but actually just killing time before July’s issue #500. But as far as bridging filler goes, the San Francisco story is very good fun. This apparently will set up the X-Men’s new base of operations, so that’s neat. The Wolverine/Colossus/Nightcrawler story builds on an oft-forgotten relationship between Storm’s team during the Paul Smith/John Romita Jr. era of the 80s, and it’s good to see the three working together. With Storm off being married and Kitty Pryde apparently out of the picture, these three are the last of this core group, and they make a good trio. This has been quality stuff.

X-Men: Legacy
I recall a book called Excalibur (vol. 2) that was focused on the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto as they tried to rebuild Genosha – and if memory serves correctly, it wasn’t very good. Whether or not Mags stays in the book, the first issues of Legacy have been very good, with an interesting look into Xavier’s past, and finally fleshing out one of the most overlooked characters in the X-Men, which is even stranger being that he’s the CENTER of the whole thing. Those familiar with all these X-Events that are being flashed back to (such as myself) have to be loving this.

Astonishing X-Men
No, I’m just kidding. This book’s last Whedon/Cassaday issue hasn’t come out yet. That’s next month.

X-Factor
Here’s a book whose entire premise was torn asunder through House of M and Messiah CompleX. While some titles would flail about desperately seeking direction, that has become the point of X-Factor and its being done very well. You can’t help but love all the members of this team, and desperately miss (as they do) Layla Miller. Solicitations say the book’s getting Longshot and Darwin on its cast, and I have to say I’m excited.

X-Force
Do I really need to go on another rant about X-Force? It has a cast with claws and knives so they can stab people. Stab, stab, stabby, stabby, stab. Blood, death, good for them. There is apparently a move at bringing back some older baddies (Bastion, Magus) but I have ceased caring. The book’s apparently a hit, though. Bah – should have read The Order instead.

Young X-Men
After only one issue, I really want to see where they’re going with this one. It’s obvious to me that the last-page setup is not what it seems, so we’ll just have to see. I’ll give an update on this one next week after issue #2 comes out.

So where does that leave us? In pretty good shape, I’d say. Things are looking to get more focused when Uncanny hits 500 and Astonishing launches under Warren Ellis. It’s a good time to be an X-Men fan, if you ask me.

(I don’t read Cable, New Exiles, or either Wolverine book and the First Class titles don’t really fit here, so they’ve all been skipped.)