#Original X-Men Comic Preview

[kingdomcomicscenter-blog]

[dispatchdcu]

Original X-Men #1 Review

Original X-Men #1 Review #originalxmen #MARVEL #marvelcomics #comics #comicbooks #news #mcu #art #info #NCBD #comicbooknews #previews #reviews #xmen #hoxpox #houseofx #powersofx #wolverine #reignofx #trialsofx

Writer: Christos Gage Art: Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Frank D’Armata, VC’s Clayton Cowles, JP Mayer, Brad Anderson, and Ryan Stegman Publisher: Marvel Comics Price:$5.99 Release Date: December 20th, 2023 THE OG 5 ON AN ALL-NEW ADVENTURE! Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman and Angel – the first and greatest heroes to bear the X-Men name – once traveled into their own futures and reset the course of…

[the-shinysnorlax]

Miguel O’Hara: A comprehensive reading guide

I honestly don’t know if this has been done yet, and considering that there are multiple different main canons for Miguel, it’s even more confusing on where to start.

To clarify, there is 3 different “Mainstream” universes for Miguel. Earth 928 (The main universe for most Miguel media), Earth-2099, and Earth-6375 (The universe where he’s part of the exiles)

I’m gonna be starting with

Earth-928

(Note: I’ll try to put these in order as much as possible, but due to retcons and other things like Spiderverse it may not be 100% accurate)

Important reads are in bold

-Amazing Spider-Man #365 (Not really important, it’s just a preview of the first issue, but it’s counted as Miguel’s very first appearance so.)

-Spiderman 2099 vol 1 #1-10 (VERY important reads, they set up the universe and Miguel’s origin story)

-2099 unlimited #1-3 (Not really important to the lore, but they’re silly little stories that I have to mention them)

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #11-15

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #16, Ravage 2099 #15, X-men 2099 #5, Doom 2099 #14, Punisher 2099 #13 (VERY important reads, highlights the fall of the hammer arc and shows Miguel’s relationships with other 2099 characters, especially Jake Gallows. Read in the exact order listed)

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #17-22

-2099 unlimited #8

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #23-34

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 annual

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #35-38 (Venom 2099 arc, important read as it introduces Kron Stone properly)

-Spider-Man 2099 special

-Spider-Man 2099 meets Spider-Man (First introduction of Miguel to Peter)

-2099 unlimited 9-10

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #39-43

-Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 #1-5

The following issues have been mostly retconned and are no longer canon. I’m listing them still for sake of continuity (Plus they’re interesting) but they are NOT canon to E-928

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 1 #44-46

-2099: World of tomorrow #1-8

-2099: Manifest Destiny

End of retconned comics

-Captain Marvel vol 4 #27-30

-Superior Spider-Man #17-19

-Amazing Spider-Man vol 3 #1

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 2 #1-12

Note during this time is the Spiderverse event and Miguel is featured in multiple comics that tie into it. I will not be listing them all due to time, plus he was mostly featured in his own comic for it anyways

-Secret wars 2099 #1-5

-Amazing Spider-Man vol 4 #1

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 3 #1-10

-Spiderman 2099 vol 3 #11-16 (I list them separately because this takes place during Civil War 2 and that also has a lot of tie in comics that I will not be listing due to time. But yeah. That’s a thing)

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 3 #17-25

-Amazing Spider-Man vol 5 #32-36

Earth 2099

-2099 Alpha

-Spider-Man 2099 vol 4

-2099 Omega (This and vol 4 are E-2099 Miguel’s origin story. I’m not personally a fan of the writing but it is essential to read if you want to understand the universe)

-Spider-Man 2099 Exodus Alpha, #1-5, and Omega

-Spider-Man 2099 Dark Genesis #1-5

-Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099 #1-5 (The best series we’ve gotten so far of this earth, not really important to the Miguel lore. I just like it lol)

Earth-6375

Note that this is optional to read and I’ve heard some very mixed opinions about how Miguel is written here. If you want to read it, be my guest.

-Exiles #72

-Exiles #75-99

-Exiles annual 1

Honorable mention: Timesplitters 2009-2099 #1-4, Spider-Man, and X Men.

These technically take place in a separate continuity to all 3, but they are important enough that I listed them anyways.

Honorable mention 2: Edge of Spiderverse vol 2

Idk what continuity it takes place in. it is currently ongoing.

Other non comic media

The following is a list of media that Miguel is featured in extensively (Not counting all the mobile games because I mean those are just gacha games and aren’t important to the Miguel lore)

-Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse and Spider-Man across the Spiderverse

-Ultimate Spider-Man S3EP9 and 12

-Spider-Man Edge of time (Personal favorite adaptation of Miguel in media)

-Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions

-Araña and Spiderman 2099: Dark Tomorrow (Not confirmed but likely takes place in E-928 5 years after series ends)

And that’s about it! If there’s any appearances I missed, please don’t hesitate to say something and I’ll fix it as soon as possible.

[baselicoc]

A small spider-man 2099 reading guide

Just watched atsv and wondering where to start getting into Miguel O’Hara? Hate trying to figure out comic timelines? Well hopefully this guide can help a little bit. Please note its far from a definitive guide and could probably use some work but I'm hoping it helps someone out! Also not including spider-verse appearances or those in most other comics, because we could be here forever listing every comic appearance and this is meant to be a quick guide Miguel's original appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #365, but that was more of a preview than anything else. I've split it pre-2000's and post-2000's, but listen to me if you have to pick one comic to read out of all of this make it the original 1992 run. You basically cannot go wrong with just reading 1992. A few have been marked with asterisks because you really don't have to read them but it felt wrong to not include them on the list.

Pre 2000's

Spider-man 2099 (1992): Literally Required Reading. Keep in mind that the last two issues had different writers and are kinda disregarded by just about everyone. Issue #16 starts the crossover event Fall of The Hammer, a mini-guide to which I've included below. The Special and Annual take place in between issues but it's easiest to just read them last.

Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man (1995): It's short, it's sweet, give it a read.

*2099: World of Tomorrow (1996): At the time this was meant to close off all the 2099 plots, theres lots of other 2099 characters in here but a fair bit of Mig.

*2099: Manifest Destiny (1998): Further closure to the 2099 world, again lots of other characters but still a solid read. Basically waves away the last two issues of sm2099 (1992) in a slightly hilarious way and worth reading just for that.

Fall of the Hammer crossover mini-guide:

Spider-man 2099 (1992) #16

Ravage 2099 #15

X-men 2099 #5

Doom 2099 (1993) #14

Punisher 2099 (1993) #13

Post 2000's

*Superior Spider-man (2013) issues #16-19: Largely set up but its cool too

Spider-man 2099 (2014): You can read this without the Superior Spider-man setup but depending on your prior comic reading experience you may be a bit confused. If you're a seasoned reader and used to taking weird comic shifts in stride due to missing some random issues of a completely different comic you'll be fine

Spider-man 2099 (2015): Solid run, I don't have much to say about it honestly

Marvel's 2099 (2019 event): you are better off looking up a separate guide for this one it is not my ballpark

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

man about town interview | spring/summer 2014

for the tweam! click through for my best attempt at deciphering this (maybe impossible to find?) throwback interview

‘’I don’t think I’m scary at all. It was kind of funny watching myself being scary. Because I’m not scary.’’ Says Evan Peters, the up-and-coming up-for-anything actor best known for his extreme roles on American Horror Story, the prestige television series that treats social taboos as map points. For three seasons, Peters has excelled at playing against his offbeat boyishness by amping up his young Malcolm McDowell intensity, with results that fall somewhere between ‘’teen dream in strangler’s gloves’’ and ‘’terrifying Michael Cera.’’ He most recently appeared in American Horror Story: Coven as Kyle Spencer, the good-natured university student who is decapitated and then reanimated with the body parts of his Kappa Lambda Gamma brothers as a temperamental Rocky Horror who beats his sexually abusive mother to death with a trophy.

Over a bold chai tea with stevia, at a restaurant in Venice, California, Peters is lighthearted and dryly humorous, like a young Michael Shannon, with whom he should costar in a successful disturbing family sitcom. He wears black jeans, a well-worn t-shirt under a plaid flannel, and a necklace with a toy dinosaur pendant. He drives a 2004 Pontiac Vibe that he correctly describes as ‘’vintage’’; says that he just feels like growing his longish blond hair into a ponytail, and has a red thumbs-up permanently inked onto the to pof his right hand, that was traced over a nightclub door stamp. At one point, he raises his forearm to show off a temporary tattoo that he received the night before at the castle park family entertainment center in Sherman oaks. ‘’This is a Belle tattoo. It’s not real,’’ he explains playfully of a small portrait of the beautiful young heroine from the animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast. I tell him it’s very pretty. ‘’Thank you. She’s gorgeous,’’ he responds. I ask if Belle is his favorite Disney princess. ‘’Well, I picked her out. There was also Jasmine, Ariel and Cinderella. My other buddies got those.” ‘’What about Belle appeals to you?’’ ‘’She likes the Beast.’’ Peters says.

This summer, Peters appears as the teenage Mutant speeder Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which has proven to be an eventful ??? movie. In October 2012, director Matthew Vaughn – who relaunched the franchise with much needed style and a new cast of young, indie + credible actors – left the film to be replaced by original trilogy director Bryan Singer. As such, fans were already touched when Singer announced that he would retell ‘’Days of Future Past,’’ the seminal X-Men time-travel storyline from 1980, an ambitious plan turned wild when he revealed that both franchises would merge into one. Cut to the 2012 San diego Comic-Con whereby unthinkable feats of scheduling – the sprawling casts of the modern-day first series and the 60’s era prequel (that include expensive names like Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackmon, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Michael Fassbender, and so on). Convened with ??? new additions like Peters to unhinge popular culture. ‘’You think to yourself, ‘’wow, people really, really love this stuff.” And it makes you appreciate it more. It makes you work harder at it.’’ he says about the experience.

Peters’ role in the films is crucial but concise. ‘’It’s a huge, huge opportunity but I always make sure to tell people it’s just one scene. Easy, it's just one scene.’’ Peters says, as if talking down a rearing horse. Quicksilver has already been the subject of film industry chatter regarding lawful usage of the character, who is both the son of Magneto and a colleague of the Avengers, making him fair game for inclusion in both Days of Future Past and the 20n5 Avengers sequel (in which he will be played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass). An Empire magazine Preview of Quicksilver’s costume design was greeted with comparison to Kid Vid, a ‘90’s cartoon form of the Burger King ‘’Kid’s Club,’’ and the news that Peters had been saddled with the Halle Berry “rough wig’’ role. But his fan’s enthusiasm for the project—in which desperate X-Men from a dystopias future try to stave off mutant genocide by altering the present day—is undimmed. ‘’I think it’s the best film of the francise yet,’’ proclaims Peters. ‘’It’s pretty dire. It’s a pretty epic situation. But there’s definitely some humor in there. Its’s just badass, man.’’

Quicksilver is a departure for Peters in some ways if not others. Both X-Men and Horror Story are tight productions that take extensive precautions to protect story lines. Peters says that he did not receive the full script for X-Men until arriving at the Montreal location days before shooting. Horror Story pages are often delivered the night before a scene. The short lead time can demand a ??? almost improvisational acting process. ‘’The minute we get the script, plans are cancelled, dinner is cancelled,’’ he says about working on Horror Story. ‘’Some of it you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I have to do that?’ Screaming and crying, realizing that my whole body is pieced together and I’m not myself? I’ll probably have to work on that.’’

Peters owes his career to television. ‘’I was watching a lot of TV and I kind of wanted to be on the TV and in movies. I love movies and TV,’’ he says, and cites inspirations like Joaquin Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, George Clooney, JIM Carrey, Chris Farley, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and the millennial teen comedies Even Stevens starring Shia Labeuof and So Little Time with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. ‘’That sort of stuff. I just really wanted to be a part of it and loved acting and performing.’’ He moved to Los Angeles with is mother when he was 15 years old, and steadily won work in television, on shows including Phil of the Future (2004) and One Tree Hill (2008), and in movies like the independent films Clipping Adam (2004), his first big break, and later Kick Ass (2010). Being cast as Tate Langdon in the first season of American Horror Story in 2011 was his tipping point, playing a Skull Boy-faced high school shooter in a latex catsuit who rapes his girlfriend’s mother to please a ghost. He has since become one of the five main players to appear in all three season of the series, sterling company that includes Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and Frances Conroy.

Now the world gets to enjoy a lighter side of Peters, like when he appeared on a 2011 episode of the G4 networks Attack of the Show and blithely volunteered that he was working a a rap song called ‘’I’ll Tap That Fucking Ass.’’ He laughs off a request to recite a verse. ‘’I can’t. That never materialized. I tried but it was too much pressure. It was just a concept. I was just trying new ideas,’’ he says, and then volunteers a different musical direction. ‘’It’s called ‘Natch Snatch.’ Like all natural snatch. Big bush. Snatch. Cause it’s nice. You know, ‘girl, you’ve got that natch snatch.’ It’s another nice concept. Probably on the same album.’’ Peters laughs in agreement at the suggestion that he is a kook in the best sense of the word. ‘’I get called a weirdo sometimes,’’ he admits ‘’But it’s like, I don’t feel that weird. I don’t feel that different. I look at everybody else and I’m like, ‘’you’re a fucking weirdo, too. You like all of your shit. I like my shit.’’ Why does one have to be weird and one have to be normal? It doesn’t make any sense to me.’’ Meanwhile, he seems to be successfully negotiating his public and private persona. ‘’I’ll try to be myself as much as I can but you obviously can’t be who you are at home in your skivvies eating donuts. You can’t be that.’’ He explains, before confirming that guy exists, with his tongue sort-of-in-cheek. ‘’You bet he does. Yeah, definitely watching New Girl. Crying.’’ But while Peters seems fairly comfortable in the public eye, fame no longer interests him. The development is not unrelated to his intense, closely-watched relationship with fiancée and two-time costar Emma Roberts (on coven and in the 2013 ?? Adult World) ‘’When I was younger I was like, ‘’That would be awesome!’’ now I don’t particularly love it,’’ he says ‘’Emma gets paparazzi a lot, and because I’m with her we get paparazzi, so it’s kind of a weird thing that I don’t love. But it’s so small in the big picture of all the positives that come with this job that I can’t really complain about it.’’ he may be surprised by the attention he and Roberts receive, but he is hardly self-ptying. ‘’Honestly, it’s not that bad. If you don’t set up a Google alert on yourself and go out searching for it then you’re not going to see it. So I don’t see it.’’ Roberts has already endured the Hollywood learning curve that Peters is now experiencing. ‘’She gives me advice, like cut your hair. She likes my hair to look nice,’’ he says, and laughs. ‘’She’s been around and knows the ropes and how to play the game very well. And she has incredible social skills. She can talk to anyone and everyone loves talking to her. I’m not that good at that stuff so she kind of helps me out with that.’’ I wonder what guidance she offers him. ‘’You’ve just got to be personable and talk to people, even if you don’t want to. Put on a happy face and buck up. Grow a pair of balls. Don’t be a little wuss.’’ Petersa says, and laughs. ‘’I mean, she doesn’t say that, but you know what I mean.’’ 

Next for Peters is Lazarus, opposite Olivia Wilde, Donald Glover and Mark Duplass a 2015 feature from director David Gelb, known for the documentary Giro: Dreams of Sushi. Peters describes the project, about a team of brainiacs working magnanimously to reanimate the dead, as a “contained Sci-Fi horror thriller” as it mostly takes place in one laboratory setting. He plays the party animal scientist. Peters encouraging sidesteps the questions of his involvement in the next season of American Horror Story, to be set in 1950 and the present day, for which Jessica Lange is practicing a German accent. ‘’I don’t know what I’m allowed to say so I’m going to say no comment,’’ he says.

‘’At the end of the day it is acting. You want to go with the biggest, weirdest, boldest shit and see if you can actually do it and go there,’’ Peters concludes, ‘’I’m very curious about everything. I feel like I don’t know that much. I’m trying to learn it all and figure it all out.’’

[cinder-no]

THE RAFT: ACCEPTING NEW INMATES

The Raft is a villain focused character server for Marvel fans of all varieties. Whether you're a fan of A-listers like Doctor Octopus or the niche Z-lister, there's room for you here! We have a selection of general channels for chatting and sharing, character and team specific channels, media channels like #comics and #movies, and a host of bots to help out. We're also accepting #suggestions for new bots/channels/features, so if you feel anything is missing, feel free to ask!

Categories and channels list/preview under the read more.

Intake #intake 📢announcements ✅rules #roles #bots #suggestions General #general #art #alternate-universes #chatbots #cosplay #edits #gaming #headcanons #memes #merch #mess-hall #music #original-characters #roleplay #shipping #writing Ant-Man #mad-thinker Avengers #absorbing-man #answer #beyonder #boomerang #centurius #chemistro #corruptor #count-nefaria #crossfire #cutthroat #doctor-demonicus #dracula #foolkiller #graviton #griffin #living-laser #night-shift #radioactive-man #ruby-thursday #scarecrow #shockwave #taskmaster #titania #trapster #ultron #whirlwind #the-wrecking-crew Captain America #armadillo #batrocs-brigade #crossbones #madcap #porcupine #the-serpent-society #slug #vermin Captain Marvel #nitro Daredevil #bullseye #bushwacker #elektra #jester #kingpin #man-bull #mister-fear #purple-man #rose #stilt-man #typhoid-mary Fantastic Four #doctor-doom #galactus #molecule-man #red-ghost Ghost Rider #centurious #doghead #international-contractors-unlimited #the-lilin #orb #pao-fu #verminus-rex #wallow Hulk #abomination #leader #madman #speedfreek #the-u-foes #zzzax Iron Man #blizzard #blood-brothers #cobalt-man #controller #crimson-dynamo #ghost #mandarin #whiplash Punisher #jigsaw Spider-Man #big-wheel #black-cat #chameleon #coldheart #doctors-octopi #electro #the-enforcers #green-goblins #grizzly #hippo #human-fly #hydro-man #jack-o-lantern #kraven-the-hunter #lizard #man-wolf #morbius #mysterio #panda-mania #prowler #rhino #sandman #scorpion #screwball #shocker #stunner #silvermane #spot #symbiotes #tombstone #vulture #will-o-the-wisp Sub-Mariner #tigershark Thor #crusader #grey-gargoyle #loki #mister-hyde X-Men #barbarus #blob #bloodscream #dragonfly #juggernaut #magneto #the-marauders #mastermind #mister-sinister #the-nasty-boys #roughouse #sabretooth #sauron #toad Media #comics #cartoons #movies #shows #videogames Voice Channels #vc-general #vc-gaming 🔊General 🔊Gaming

[keepsmagnetoaway]

X-Men: The Hidden Years 8 (July 2000)

John Byrne & Tom Palmer

Remember when I kept complaining during First Class that it didn't do enough to interlink with the existing stories, and didn't take advantage of the interesting possibilities of being a prequel comic? Well, I take it all back.

So finally some of the various strands of this book have reunited when three of the X-Men return to the Professor: but now we have the Fantastic Four in the mix too. Oh and because this was canonically true in this period, I guess, Sue Storm is absent, replaced by Crystal, one of the Inhumans, who like all the Inhumans has weird-ass hair. If there's a Marvel team I like less than the Fantastic Four, it's the Inhumans. Why are they all here? They're here to chew gum, do some space bullshit and listen to more flashbacks, and they're all out of gum.

This issue is mostly focused on this one strand, but that only makes it all the crazier when we get literally four panels of Angel's separated-from-the-others plotline in here, along with three panels of the still-going-nowhere Candy Southern plotline and five of Ka-Zar hanging out with Lorna and Alex. Lorna is admittedly serving cunt.

The main plotline, though, sees the FF and the reduced X-Men go back into space to deal some more with the Z'Nox, the evil aliens who Xavier had to psychic away from Earth in the waning days of the original series: Reed Richards, in his usual annoying way, has determined that they're still a threat and shown up with a hyperspace ship that transports them to the other side of the galaxy in seconds to go and, I dunno, do genocide to the Z'Nox or something.

As mentioned before, I don't really think X-Men is or should be a space opera book - there are elements of this stuff that work but readers don't come here for pure sci-fi and the incorporation of these elements is always realy rushed as entire galactic civilizations get introduced and dismissed in a few pages. This issue's last page takes a wild turn, however, as we're apparently getting into a little retroactive sneak preview of the Phoenix Force. Hmmm.

[orangedodge]

Excited for Eve L Ewing on X-Men. I really enjoyed her work on Champions, despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding it, and I've wanted to read more of her writing. (But I'm so far behind on Black Panther--I haven't even finished the Coates run--that it's going to be a huge project to catch up).

And the actual concept sounds an awful lot like a Mekanix sequel, with Shadowcat returning to Chicago once again, living anonymously and away from the X-Men as a barista, until something arises that requires her attention. (It goes unremarked in the previews, but I assume she's also living under a fake identity, given that the last time we saw her she was walking door-to-door executing fascists, until the world ran out of fascists, and that's obviously the kind of thing that forever interferes with plans for a quiet and uninteresting life.)

Not completely sure how I feel about Emma as the co-star of what again, feels a lot like Mekanix volume 2, but I do like how that relationship is carrying over--and I think there's something to be said for the two ex-teachers who arguably cared the most about actually teaching (albeit definitely not the two who cared the most about the actual students), finding themselves in that role again now that they've both left the Xavier/Jean Grey school behind.

I've seen some criticism of the concept as representing a regression for Kitty, but I see it more as the continuation of her longstanding pattern. For decades now she's been the one who just goes really hard for a short period of time, during particularly rough times for the X-Men, before burning out completely. And then she goes away--usually to Chicago--to reset, until something comes up, that tells her she can bare it all again. That was what happened when Genosha was destroyed, and she crashed (leading into the original Mekanix); and after AvX and it's various followups, when she had to quit the JGS and take on a reduced role, after the planet almost exploded too many times; and after her Guardians of the Galaxy run when she was living alone back in Chicago until Ororo asked her to start teaching again; and arguably at the start of Dawn of X when she was drifting alone until she needed to form the Marauders. (Ultimate Comics also pulled that twice, both times that she quit the team, though she seems to have been from Queens and not Chicago in that universe).

I think it's a good hook for using her character. It strikes me as a natural extension of her status as one of the most grounded (in the real world) X-Men, that she spends most of her time away from them doing other things. And having the character take long breaks like this addresses the fact that she's meant to struggle with depression and PTSD, so it's a pattern that I think one would expect to develop. And there's also Kitty's role within the X-Men as a franchise to consider, where she's always been the one who "can pass" if she wanted to, and faces exclusion/scapegoating from her community because of it; and where it's always shown to not really be true, because of the life she leads, and because she's not constitutionally capable of not standing up when it matters.

I am curious about why she's a barista now instead of a bartender, unless it's just because she's living anonymously so she can't go back to the same job. The obvious answer could just be because she needs to interact with kids who are significantly younger than her, and a cafe is a more workable venue than a bar. (Hopefully it's not because of blowback to the "Marauders made Kitty an alcoholic" thing that consumed The Discourse for the last four years)

[racefortheironthrone]

The 2023 Hellfire Gala stacked its tragedies higher and higher, after the initial party crashing, in parts similar to the Red Wedding. What are your thoughts on the event?

Anonymous asked: What did you think of the Hellfire Gala 2023 one shot and specifically how the new team of X-Men were treated?

I would recommend first listening to Gerry Duggan's interview on the Cerebrocast podcast, because I think he gives some important context for the artistic intent behind the 2023 Hellfire Gala.

Then I'm going to talk about some spoilery/speculative stuff after the cut. You have been warned.

Introduction

So let's start with my overall impression: the Hellfire Gala was really tough to read and I found myself reading in chunks of a few pages at a time and then putting it down, because either I was dreading what was about to happen or needing a minute to process what had just happened.

None of that makes it bad comics, because it's very clearly intended to be tough to read - as a recapitulation of the original Mutant Massacre which originally ended with the X-Men decimated, spread across the world, and faking their own deaths in order to strike back from the shadows, this event is supposed to put our heroes in the absolute worst position possible, "put their backs to the wall" as Duggan put it, to see how they get out of it. And I do think there are both textual and metatextual clues for how they get out of it.

The Prelude

Just to start with everything that takes place before things start to go to hell: as previewed, it is revealed that Kamala Khan is both a mutant and an Inhuman, as she is restored to life by the Five. Following up from some of her increasingly cryptic comments in Immortal X-Men, the FCBD Uncanny Avengers one-shot, and Rogue & Gambit, Destiny is trying to GTFO to avoid the Massacre but Mystique wants to stay and help Rogue, which causes a fight and ultimately leads to Mystique's seeming death (although we never see the body).

After Professor X expositions a bit of Ms. Marvel's new status quo, we get an interesting scene between Ms. Marvel and Rasputin IV in which we learn that in Rasputin's future, Kamala is a figure of legend as both a mutant and Inhuman and something of a hero of Rasputin's (following the theme of Rasputin as fangirl). What I find a bit strange is that the Sins of Sinister timeline took place before Kamala's death and resurrection - so how is it that Rasputin knows about her as a mutant? Also, I'm a bit confused when it comes to the mention of the "breeding pits," because I don't remember those being mentioned in the SoS timeline and instead the chimeras seemed more purpose-built rather than mass produced.

To weaken resistance to their plans, ORCHIS sets off their distraction attacks at the Treehouse, D.C, and the Brooklyn Bridge, which cause Cyclops, the Avengers, and Rogue to leave right before everything goes down. (This is a better explanation for "why didn't the other heroes help" than we've gotten in a while - ORCHIS has worked out contingency plans, and those plans are setting up Uncanny Avengers.)

The X-Men Vote

Here we get to the first big gut-punch moment of the event: the new X-Men team is voted on and revealed, and it's a lineup that a lot of people were really excited about: it's the most diverse X-Men team since HOXPOX (half poc, half women of color, and the first elected human X-Men), and it features a good mix of well-known characters like Jubilee and Juggernat as well as more niche fan-favorites like Frenzy and Prodigy.

Then Nimrod drops in from terminal velocity and wipes out almost everyone on the team, and for some fans it felt like a very charged slap in the face, given the rise of far-right violence against minority communities and how that's evoked by these dead mutants of color. Leaving aside that I think it's a very deliberate invocation of that by the creatives, I can understand why people are upset by these deaths (and indeed, the deaths of Bobby, Jean Grey, Mystique, Lourdes, et al.). A lot of characters that we all care about died in gruesome, painful fashions - and I think it's ok for people to feel bad about that.

However, I'm not as devastated as I could be, because I know these characters aren't really dead for good - and I don't mean that in the "no one stays in comic books" long-term sense. Part of this has to do with how I interpret the ultimate fate of the Five and the population of Krakoa, but also part of it has to do with the fact that I've seen solicits and previews for forthcoming Fall of X books, so I know that some of the characters we see dead are appearing soon in major roles - Iceman's got a solo book, Jean Grey's got a solo book, Juggernaut's on the cover of a forthcoming issue of X-Men, etc.

I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that the X-Office did not go through the rigamore of an X-Men election and putting together a team lineup to not use there characters in Fall of X. But it's meant to be a surprise when they suddenly turn up to save the day.

Two minor points involving a status quo to people's powers: when ORCHIS attacks, it is revealed that Magik's powers have been interfered with by Dr. Stasis' nanite infection (as part of ORCHIS' focus on cutting X-Men off from teleportation), and Iceman gets jabbed with what seems like a similar device by Nimrod (which helps to explain why part of his storyline for his upcoming book seems to be him having trouble with his powers).

Forced Surrender and Survival

It's at this point that Dr. Stasis and Karima make a dramatic tango entrance and reveal their masterstroke: they reveal the killswitch that Stasis and MODOK have built into Krakoan medicines, and use that to force Xavier into surrendering and mind-controlling mutantdom into leaving Earth.

Even though Duggan et al. have been foreshadowing this for some time - we've known Stasis had been fucking with the meds generally since the first Gala, we've known about the killswitch for a couple issues of X-Men, etc. - the twist that it would be used not just to blacken Krakoa's reputation but to blackmail Xavier into using his telepathy against Krakoa is a very good one. By taking millions of human lives hostage, ORCHIS is essentially forcing Xavier to undergo a real-life trolley problem experiment, counting on his very empathy and humanitarianism to win them the day.

(My one critique is that it's not really explained why Xavier couldn't use his mutant powers to mind-control Stasis and MODOK and prevent them from activating the kill-switch in the same way that Jean Grey does a bit later. I think the storytelling reason is that they don't want to repeat the Jean Grey/Moira beat, but it is awkward and ungainly that Xavier is uncharacteristically passive compared to later in the story and it's not explained why.)

This then kicks off a series of dominos:

Jean dies, and Scott is taken away in another dubious ambulance - we know from solicits that Jean is doing some sort of rebirth/time-travel stuff in her miniseries, so that makes sense, and Cyclops is apparently going to be a prisoner of ORCHIS. This also has the effect of reserving the spotlight entirely for Synch and Talon as the new leaders of the X-Men, as Jean and Scott are not going to be active drivers of the plot.

In a very good plotline, Jean chooses Firestar as a retroactive undercover agent within ORCHIS, playing on Firestar's reputation as someone with a rocky relationship with mutantkind - but without any clear way of proving her true loyalties to surviving mutants.

This is a key moment that has really important context for what comes next: as the mind-controlled mutants walk into the gates, Mother Righteous does something to alter their destination and traps Krakoa's Atlantic island in one of her magical lanterns. This is very important, because among those who go through the gates are the Five - and depending on what you think happens to them, that really affects what you think of the death of the X-Men lineup or the broader Fall of X scenario. (Notably, as this happens, Destiny turns to the camera to tell Mystique and us the reader that this is the only way for mutantkind to survive, which is an important bit of signposting to reassure the audience that the writers are playing fair rather than doing a screwjob.)

Those mutants who are going to be the main characters in Fall of X, whether it's Kurt in Uncanny Spider-Man, Emma et al. in Immortal X-Men, Synch and Talon et al. in X-Men, the whacky Limbo crew in Dark X-Men, and so forth, are distinguished from the rest of mutantkind by their red triangle defense that Gerry Duggan borrowed from Al Ewing. (I like linking the Red Triangle to the letters of the word resist, that's an instantly iconic bit of worldbuidling there.) Interestingly, some of the characters who you would have thought would get the red triangle training - like Ilyana and the crew from Realm of X - stil go through the portals and others it's left ambiguous.

With psychic assistance from Emma Frost, much of the cast of Fall of X manages to escape to New York City, although Lourdes is killed in the process of teleporting them to safety- once again returning to her original origin and death in Classic X-Men. Emma finds out that mutants have been locked out of the gates to keep them from escaping and to keep them divided at the cost of her nose, but for some mysterious reason Kate suddenly can pass through them and winds up in Jerusalem. Note the emphasis on surviving characters being scattered and divided - so that they can reunite in Rise of X.

The Genocide that Didn't Happen

And here we arrive at the denoument: having held his shot for some reason, Xavier tells Rogue to smash Moira and flee the Gala, only for him to find out that he has been made the unwitting and unwilling agent of mutant genocide - fulfilling Magneto's prophecy, Xavier's completely understandable attempt to save millions of hostages seemingly led to the deaths of all 250,000 mutants on Krakoa. We end with a complete existential destruction of Charles Xavier, as he is left alone and bereft on Krakoa's Pacific island.

(Interesting that ORCHIS' plan seems to have left the home island at home, so that Krakoa itself is still alive and where we left it.) I say seemingly, because Xavier only thinks that the Krakoan people are dead. As we have seen, Mother Righteous has her own agenda and altered the gates - we know that some mutants who went through the gates ended up in Vanaheim, and others ended up on the Atlantic island in Righteous' pocket dimension...including the Five. And as long as the Five live, so too does Krakoa. I again will bet dollars to donuts that we will see mutants who died at the Gala brought back to life by the Five at a dramatic moment to take their places in Fall of X and Rise of X (because comics never stopping cuts both ways).

So what we have is something that feels like a genocide in terms of its emotional impact on the reader and the psychological impact on Charles Xavier, and that certainly hearkens back to Hickman's recontextualizing of mutant genesis with the dramatic focus on Xavier and the helmet (he's even kneeling in water again), and the population of Krakoa falling to one...but that isn't actually a genocide. The overall purpose is clear: just as one is supposed to put one's toys back in the box for the next writing team, it's also important not to play so rough with your toys that you end up breaking them.

At the same time, I have to admit I feel kind of a way about playing the symbolism of genocide in a comic fakeout sort of way. I know that it's going to result in a triumphant moment and it follows on from HOXPOX using resurrection to promote the idea of reversing genocide as a liberatory act of science-fiction, but I think it's fair to say that it left me a little raw and I feel like the X-room is going to have to do some aftercare to soothe their audience.

[monsieuroverlord]

Bleeding Cool released the solicits early this month!

source here

We even have a quick preview of Marvel Voices: Pride this year!

Mystique and Destiny Wedding!

(renewing their vows, perhaps? It would be cute having their son officiate a vow renewal)

Marvel Voices: Pride #1 (2024 oneshot)

written by Kieron Gillen, Yoon Ha Lee, M. Louis & more to be announced, artists to be announced, main cover by Jan Bazaldua, variant cover by Russell Dauterman, and two more variants to be announced

"WEDDING EXTRAVAGANZA! Mystique and Destiny are one of the most beloved – and longest running – gay couples in history. Somewhere in their 100+ years together, the pair married, but we've never seen the event on the page. This year MARVEL'S VOICES: PRIDE makes history with Marvel's first woman-to-woman wedding in a story by superstar X-Men scribe Kieron Gillen! And with a couple as complex as these two, you know there's a lot more to the story. We promise party crashing! Villainy! Romance! In the classic tradition of FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3 and X-MEN #30, this anthology will be a must-read for every comics fan. Featuring the Marvel debuts of award-winning writers Yoon Ha Lee (Ninefox Gambit, Machineries of Empire) and M. Louis (Agents of the Realm), and much more talent to be announced!"

Ultimate X-Men #3

written, art, and main cover by Peach Momoko

"• Maystorm's origin! Mei Igarashi was a regular girl until she discovered her unusual abilities and her hair changed from brown to white… • And how she came to idolize a mysterious freedom fighter in Africa who also harnesses the power of the storm!"

X-Men '97 #3 (of 4)

written by Steve Foxe, art by Salva Espin, cover by Todd Nauck

"DANGER ABLAZE! Powerful new foes descend on the X-Men, endangering not just our merry mutants – but any innocent civilians caught in the crossfire! Will humanity's improved opinion of mutants survive the chaos – and will one member of the team find herself pushed past her limits? Find out in the penultimate installment of the official prelude to the hit new Disney+ TV show!"

AND they're releasing a NYX Gallery Edition Hardcover (a.k.a. Laura Kinney's introduction to the comic book world)

written by Jose Quesada & Marjorie Liu, art by Josh Middleton, Robert Teranishi, Kalman Andrasofszky & Sara Pichelli, cover by Josh Middleton

"Headline! Meet a pack of New York City gutterpunks – including the girl destined to one day become the All-New, All-Different Wolverine! Yes, X-23's journey of hardship begins in NYC, where Xavier's dream has failed a group of young mutants. These wayward angels with dirty faces must rely on themselves for everything from food to shelter to love. Just as the X-Men battle for their lives against super villains, these kids face their own fight for survival in the cold, harsh city that never sleeps against the backdrop of their species' nigh extinction. The world of the X-Men hits the streets in this gritty and offbeat different series – now looking better than ever before on the oversized pages of a Gallery Edition! Collecting NYX #1-7 and NYX: NO WAY HOME #1-6."

[graphicpolicy]

Preview: Ultimate X-Men #3

Ultimate X-Men #3 preview. Maystorm's origin! #comics #comicbooks

[dispatchdcu]

X-Men Blue: Origins #1 Preview

X-Men Blue: Origins #1 Preview #Xmenblue #xmenblueorigins #origins #nightcrawler #sinsossinister #sinister #MARVEL #marvelcomics #comics #comicbooks #news #mcu #art #info #NCBD #comicbooknews #previews #reviews #xmen #houseofx #trialsofx #destinyofx

X-Men Blue: Origins #1 Preview: THE DEFINITIVE NIGHTCRAWLER ORIGIN STORY! This is the one you can’t miss, True Believer! You think you know how the beloved blue devil came into this troubled world? You think you know the tale of his mendacious mamma Mystique? You don’t! Mother and son reunite in a mold-shattering tale that exposes secrets held for decades and redefines both characters forever. A…

[comicbookclub]

Marvel Preview: Original X-Men #1

Read a preview of Original X-Men #1 from Marvel Comics, written by Christos Gage with art by Greg Land as the OGs return.

[briandavidgilbert]

i love going thru recommended comics reading order lists because itll be like "okay if you wanna read modern x-men heres the best place to start. and if you want a bit of a preview leading up to it you can check out these issues. but really they fit better if you read the entire age of apocalypse storyline so you might as well read that too and while you're at it here's a few issues you can read so you'll get the references in there and it's always good to go back to the original appearance of this character to get the full context" and then all of a sudden you're in the silver age of comics reading uncanny x-men #1 and beast isn't even blue yet

[litcityblues]

Not Just Nostalgia, Marvel Is Back?

They've still got it.

Maybe?

Look, as soon as I found out that they were keeping the original intro to the animated series, I knew I was going to sit down and watch X-Men '97. I can't say that I owned any of the comics- though I do remember checking them out from the library, but those opening credits are engrained in the brain of a generation.

(Honestly, in the 90s, The X-Men were amongst the most visible Marvel properties in terms of their place in the general pop-cultural zeitgeist. I'm sure die-hard comic people probably would disagree with that but from my memory of the halcyon days of my youth, there was a period where it was Batman and The X-Men and not much else. Oh sure, you had Billy Zane in The Phantom and Alec Baldwin in The Shadow-- and there was that early 90s attempt at a Fantastic Four movie that I remember seeing a preview for, but the pop cultural power of The X-Men should not be underestimated and the potential for Marvel-- should they get any future movies right-- is unlimited. But I would posit this: The Claremont run in the 80s + the Animated Series in the 90s is what made the Fox Franchise of X-Films possible.)

So, I was excited just for the opening credits alone. But I got intrigued when I found out that this show wasn't a reboot or a reimagination, no, it was picking right up where the original animated series had left off in 1997.

BUT THEN, I started watching this show. And y'all... I will freely admit that there is a heavy dose of nostalgia that comes with watching this show, but y'all... this might turn out to be a profoundly stupid take, for right now, I'm willing to put my money (kind of) where my mouth is and say that, maybe, Marvel might... just... be... back?

I mean, don't get me wrong: I listened to a ton of episodes of Jay and Miles X-Plain The X-Men back in the day, so I have enough of that floating around my brain to know that they are drawing pretty heavily from the source material and, more to a point, doing so well. Part of that might be down the medium-- animation allows them to do cooler things that you would expect from live action (like the Phoenix emerging from the water in the finale to give bad guys the business- or the whole sequence where Gambit does his thing-- if you've seen the show, you know. You know.). But somehow, throughout ten episodes, they managed to create a story arc with real stakes, real tension, and one that winds up being better than any of the X-Men movies I've ever seen.

The series opens a year after Gyrich's assassination attempt on Professor Xavier. He is presumed dead (but actually left Earth with the Shi'ar as we find out later.) His death has led the X-Men to be legally sanctioned by the United Nations and we see them intervene to save a young mutant, Bobby da Costa from the anti-mutant group Friends of Humanity, who have somehow gotten their hands on Sentinel technology.

They start to search for the inventor of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask, but are interrupted by a surprise. Turns out that Xavier's last will and testament has given control of the team and the school to none other than their old foe, Magneto.

Instantly this sets up points of tension that run throughout the whole season. Jean and Scott want to leave to have their baby, but Scott is reluctant to do so, as he doesn't want to trust Magneto. The mystery of the Sentinel tech and why Bobby was targeted plays out. There are twists, there are turns, there are sacrifices, the stakes are real, and the payoff is earned. But those first episodes set the entire season up beautifully. I can't say that enough-- if you don't get the first episodes right, nothing else works. Everything else flows out of that and I honestly don't think there's a character-- with the possible exception of Morph, who is just kind of there-- but even he gets a moment in the finale-- who doesn't have a storyline/plot development/character growth. Whether it's Storm losing her powers defending Magneto from an assassination attempt and finding them again with the assistance of Forge. Or Scott and Jean having a baby (Nathan, who becomes Cable) only to find out that Jean isn't Jean but a clone, and then the REAL Jean comes back. Oh and Xavier's alive, well, and engaged to a Space Bird Empress and it's all so magnificent and all so perfectly X-Men, especially when we get left on one hell of a cliffhanger for the second season.

I love the little things about this show-- the glimpses of other Marvel heroes. Captain America shows up. Iron Man is seen. Morph briefly changes into The Hulk-- they are embedding The X-Men into the MCU and they're doing so perfectly. I

I am old and crotchety but I love the fact that this show surprised me. I didn't expect an animated show to have the same quality of storytelling and writing- and you could argue that it's been better than any of Marvel's recent cinematic offerings by a wide margin. I love that this show isn't afraid to kill its darlings, sometimes literally. I love that it doesn't shy away from any of its source material and I hope hope hope they have the good sense to continue this formula for the second and hopefully subsequent seasons.

The casting is also excellent: it would have been too easy for a studio the size of Disney to start with all new voice actors but instead, we get Adrian Hough reprising his role as Nightcrawler from the Original Series along with Cal Dodd (Wolverine), Lenore Zann (Rogue), George Buza (Beast). Jennifer Hale returns to voice Jean Grey from Wolverine and the X-Men, but her performance was based on original series voice actor Catherine Disher. Ray Chase takes over as Cyclops from Norm Spencer as do Mathew Waterson (Magneto) and Ross Marquand (Xavier) who replaced David Hemblen and John Colicos & James Blendick all of whom have died. (Interestingly, the original voice actor for Jubilee, Alyson Court, preferred not to return- hoping an Asian-American voice actor would take the role, which went to Holly Chou-- but they found a way to work her into the show as well.)

Overall: This is easily the best thing Marvel has done maybe since Infinity War-- which might be the hottest of takes, given the quality of shows like Loki and Wandavision, but it really does come close to being that good. I'm sure eventually they're going to get around to making an X-Men movie and if they can bring half the quality of this show to that movie, we're going to be in for one hell of a show. My Grade: **** out of ****

[comicbookclublive]

Marvel Preview: Ultimate X-Men #3

Read a preview of Ultimate X-Men #3 from Marvel Comics, written and drawn by Peach Momoko as Maystorm's origin is revealed.