#old man enjoyers wya?
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teratomart · 1 month ago
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actual art!!!!!!! doing some character concepts for my pathfinder Magus, Thibault Avov... Dobravek?
going for a fusion of high class and dirty adventurer type with an injection of 12-14th century Rus armor and classic fantasy magic runes. I think I'm doing a fine job of it so far but we've only just begun.
I also need to add his 14 other books he keeps strapped up with.
here's his inspirational/reference board. full of good stuff
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flowers for his backstory lore. in-game, he's been forsaken by his family for standing up for his sibling, who was caught up in an arranged marriage they did not want to be in. Thibault, at the expense of it all, stepped in, and denied the marriage in front of the gods, and it earned him permanent stigmatization. he's been wandering for some time now.
hoping to work his flower visualization, which is based off of 1860's victorian flower language, into his textiles for his comfortwear.
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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago
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Ducktales Reviews: The Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades!
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Here I am a day late and 7 dollars short.. because I just bought the lost boys. Scrooge and the kids find themselves in America’s own personal circle of hell Florida to track down the fountain of youth. But with Goldie arriving for the same reason and swiping Finch’s diary, Scrooge and Webby are forced to take off without the boys in persuit while the boys enjoy themselves.. well Louie does, Dewey and Huey fight over whose the older sibling. Meanwhile Scoldie find themsleves magically younger, Webby finds herself crotchety and Rockerduck finds all of them in his quest to get the fountain for himself and be carried around like a baby like Jeeves. Full review with spoilers bellow. 
Yes this is a day late, as I had to stop writing yesterday to do other stuff and to help stablize mom’s internet while she worked, and then had a full day with my best friend watching the bizzare but enjoyable double feature of Hubie Halloween and Tales from the Hood. But i’m back and with a LOT of other reviews to get to this week, two more for regular coverage, a review I didn’t finish sunday due to being really tired, and some reviews in time for next week’s episode, no more time for a big intro. Let’s go. Thankfully did get some of this done yesterday soooo...
It's spring break in Duckberg. So while Violet does her vacation research, Lena throws some things into the local ditch and misses webby, Boyd goes on family vacation with his adopted parents, birth creator parent, and Anthony Fremont without the powers thank god, Beakly goes on her annual grannies gone wild vacation, Donald goes on a boat trip with Daisy with his boys crashing, Della tries to party wtih the young people to show she still has it, Launchpad joins her because he is the young people. Fenton works and Penny.. triest to  reign her girlfriend in because it’s Donald’s week off from trying to get the non-beakly adults to be reasonable. It’s her curse now.
In the actual episode Scrooge has taken the niece and nephews to Florida, the land that gods forgot.. yes gods forgot. They all did. Except maybe Loki because the god of chaos and storytelling really can’t ignore his people. Much as he’d like to. Sadly we don’t get Scrooge and the nephews on jetskis outrunning alligators iwth guns also on jetskis.. both anthro gators and regular animal gators, that still have guns mind because florida. And yes that is a recycled script from my failed Calvin and Hobbes spinoff pitch, Calvin and Hobbes: Miami Nights. Hobbes has a serious coke problem. Also Opus from Bloom County is there.. I mean hew as just supposed to be a guest star but the execs loved him and Berke was like “whatever can’t be worse than the Garfield movies throw bill in too”. But obviously coked up gators, tigers and bill the cat are not what you came to see so let’s move on. Though if it is hit me up. I think we’d get along great.
Anyways instead of Cokehead and Hobbes, we get a bunch of partying college kids, which given Scrooge already hates young people, this is indeed his own personal hell.. much like everyone whose not young or old going to florida. But spring break hotels are super cheap so Scrooge’s need to save money outweighed his need to not be surronded by young hot morons blowing off steam. Though Webby being webby points out the blowing off steam part.. which is nice of her but is probably only like.. half of them the other half being young dumb rich people looking to get laid. Which is also the mission statment MTV’s had since 2000. 20 years of not being about music and counting!
Anyways, naturally their here for a quest, with everyone else gone for the above reasons I made up but sound plausible and entertaining, as Finch’s diaries put the fabled fountain of youth here. As does a cheesy video from the lion owner of the result played by Nestor Carbonell. If that name dosen’t ring a carbonbell, which fair enough it iddn’t for me at first either, his voice probably will for disney fans who grew up around the 2000′s like me. It’s Senior Junior! From kim possible.  
The Late Great Ricardo Montalbon, who I dearly miss to this day,with Nestor as his son, Senior Senior Senior and Senior Senior Junior, which are great names already. Their easily my favorite Kim Possible Villains (Yes I still love Drakken and Shego now hush), and it’s in part because the concept is brilliant: Senior was just a rich man accidently taking all the power in France. Kim showed up to stop him and Ron, her best friend sidekick and later boyfriend and presumably now husband, casually mentioned Senior’s home was the perfect villain lair, and that Senior had the talent for it. Senior took that to heart and spent the rest of the series trying to be the best classical arch villain he could be, trying to adhere to the tropes of one warts and all while his son just wanted to loung around and be young and rich. It was a great dynamic and the two really played off one another beautifully. Hopefully if there’s another reboot nestor can pick up where Montalbon left off with some new hot idiot as his own son. Even if it’s just for the intro you have to admit it’d be great.
So yeah I was happy to have him on board once I realzied this, More on him later I keep getting sidetracked this review and we’re, no joke not even past the intro. But Scrooge needs ice for his back, so the boys have the afternoon off while Webby helps him, because she’s a sweetheart, and Huey’s in charge because oldest.
Thus we get their subplot for the episode.. or most of it but more on that in a bit: Dewey is annoyed Huey is ALWAYS in charge and always overscheduling, case in point he has an afternoon schedule down pat MOMENTS after they arrive. However given Huey later did his research and has a super analytical and regimented mind, it isn’t a stretch to say he spent their time on the plane planning out things just in case. or that he always doesn’t do that when they have to stay overnight. But what makes it work is Dewey’s frustration is understandable. Despite being barely younger he never gets put in charge, Huey while a good kid can be bossy as we’ve seen as early as season one and has even been condescending with it once or twice. So as a younger brother myself I understand chafing under an older brother all the time.
However, Huey being in charge.. makes the most sense. Scrooge , and i’m HEAVILY betting Donald on the boat to present day and every other adult, uses the oldest excuse as something the kids will follow easily without starting a fight over the simple truth that Huey’s the most responsible and organized out of the three. And by that I mean Dewey fighting over it or being hurt at his mom saying it , Louie would probably be hurt but would probably be fine just fine with having no responsibility or effort to put in. Huey makes plans, looks after his siblings even when not in charge, and thinks things through the most of his three brothers. Sometimes overly so, which I can relate to, but point is he’s the best boy for the job, though I could also easily buy that at least for Scrooge, he genuinely buys into oldest is in charge because he was raised that way. Also this episode didn’t explain how he’s immortal but I’m betting “Battle for Castle McDuck” does so no harm done.
Back on point, Dewey is governed almost entirely by his impulses, which does work sometimes as seen with the season premiere, but has also lead to him nearly being sacrificed 74 times, while Louie can lead, he just doesn’t wanna half the time and would likely weasel out of it. And the episode bears this out with Louie being more bothered with the power struggle interfering in his being lazy time and generally being outside it. He just doesn’t care whose in charge unless it benefits him in some way and right now it doesn’t.
I’ll go ahead and cover this plot since, surprisingly, it ends up dovetailing into the main plot, and it’s easier to get it out of the wya here and cover where they start to overlap when the main plot catches up. So Huey leads them around starting with Lounging which goes well: Louie’s naturally on board and while well bored, Dewey sleeps when he can’t just impulsively jump into he pool.
The tide turns however when after his short dip, Dewey seemingly has a growth spurt and is taller and thus takes overa s big brother and forces them to go ahead and lunch.. which runs into both the old people and the old people menu. It backs up what I thought from the start: huey likely knows what he’s doing, which he does; Obviously in Florida old people eat earlier, so Huey’s scheduling wasn’t just his normal OCD flaring up, but using it to strategically plan when to have fun so they could in a packed resort. It also shows how clever Huey is, as even for something so mundane he plans perfectly. He’s my faviorite for a reason.
Huey eventually gets fed up with it and plays Dewey, but Louie, suspcious of the head of the hotel, instead starts piecing things together... and i’ll save that reveal for when it ducktails into the main plot..l because I couldn’t resist that pun and you know it. Not a bad plot, mildly slight but it sets up it’s connection to the main plot well and has a good conlict.  Moving onto the real meat of the episode, turns out the race.. isn’t that much of a race as Webby outspeeds both Scrooge and Goldie, who bicker over a canteen and their long history of her betraying him and him betraying her for betraying him etc etc. Webby is delighful here as she’s both understandably awkward playing third whell and not at all fond of Goldie which.. yeah you would be too if she locked you in a closet. It’s nice to see the two interact if not by much.  However things soon change when Scrooge and Goldie seemingly get tranformed by the river into younger 18-20 something versions of themselves. Admitley Tennant’s voice for younger scrooge is.. eh, but he still does well enough that you soon stop carring. The designs are great.. and damn if young scrooge isn’t delcious. Seriously it’s only thorugh the magic of network standards that Jodeci’s freak n you isn’t playing over half his scenes. Damn. Him around this age in the comics just looked sorta like donald with sideburns god damn Frank thank you. 
Speaking of thirst with their hormones in place it’s naturally not long before the twos old spark that was smothered under decades of betryal comes roaring back, and the two even almost make out before Webby interputs, getting increasingly injured by the everglades.. as most people do by florida itself really. It won’t let you leave in one piece.  
But things get interesting when Goldie makes a proposal.. ditch Webby for a bit and go find the fountain. As Goldie brilliantly puts it youth’s wasted on the young.. but not them. This is a second chance. While I heard people comment on “why is scrooge’s age suddenly affecting him now”... honestly it really probably isn’t. While he’s likely been old for some time, we’ve seen his back hurt him once or twice, just faking being hunched hurt him. And while it is played up a bit much in this episode, it’s perfectly realistic that his body has good and bad days. My mother does, I do, most people do as they get older. The parts of you that ache and don’t work right tend to wax and wayne in how much they hate you. 
TO me it works to sell why this is tempting for Scrooge: A chance to start over, not abandon his family obviously, and given how much nonsense is around his life and how old he is, it’s not a stretch for duckberg to accept he’s younger than his own son and daughter now. Scrooge can buy or earn anything he wants and really is the man who has everything: He has a loving family, a repaired relationship with Donald, Della back after loosing her, a nice and nephews to carry on his legacy, tons of friends, a thriving empire, and tons of mysteries to track down, including recently ones his own idol never could find. He has everything he could want and tons more adventures to go: Bold New Discoveries, old ones to show his grandkids for the first time,  and a cozy mansion. There’s really only two things missing: more time, as even with him and goldie having worked hard magically to stay alive as long as they have, as while they’ve found ways to stay alive, they haven’t been able to stay YOUNG. Sure they’ve added years and years, hell 60′s scrooge only looks somewhat older despite decades having passed, but while they can probably go on for a few more decades, there’s only so much they can do before their time runs out. And the other thing missing from his life quite obviously is goldie. The two clearly love one another.. but scrooge very justifably can’t trust her and can’t have her in his life until she tries to change, and she dosen’t want to.  This.. offers a chance to turn back all of that, to cast aside their bitter history and start over as better people than they were before. Scrooge can have time with his family, time he would likely loose eventually to see THEM grow old. Raise their own families he might not get to see. To see those kids grow up and take on their own parents legacy. And to share it all WITH Goldie. TO have her in his family at long last. Sure he’s leaving Webby behind but he’ll come back and as we see she’s fine if understandably upset. Granted I think they could’ve done more with her leaving her, but the sheer brilliance of this plot I didn’t see coming, the sheer pathos of Scrooge’s second chance makes up for it.  They find the fountain.. but it’s dried up and unconnected to the river. They also find Rockerduck, out of the amber with his frakenstein butler whose clearly now just a mindless monster. which means whoever did his work really did it shoddy as even frakenstein had some intellegence. He’s also being carried around like a baby which I enjoy throughly. Rockerduck does not look plesant, and i’m happy to have him back as I was upset this character only got adapted for seemingly one episode and was pleased to see him with fowl.  They also find a good angle for him: Beisdes the old timey rober baron thing, and looking like Rene Belloq.. he even gets to do the nothing you can’t posses that I can’t take away line which is great and Hodgman is amazing as ever. But yeah besides that, he also gets his comic versions tendency to throw money around and do none of the work himself. The throw money around thing while neat in the comics did need to be reframed, as Glomgold now does it, and so does beaks. But with Rockerduck they found a  nice medium for the two: like both he’ll spend massive amounts of dough. Like Glomgold he likes a good scheme, but dosen’t go to the sheer lunatic lenghts Glommy does: His schemes are more practical, stealing a deed from some unsuspecting trusting townsfolk, or finding some youth water to shore up his plan to freeze himself by getting his apperance back. While no longer young like Beaks, he shares beaks laziness and again tendency to spend money..  but still contrasts the guy: Rockerduck is ambitious in his cons and plans, Beaks is not. Rockerduck has money already to tap into, Beaks is new money and clearly burns through it on a daily basis. The show brillinatly kept what made the mallard a great villian, while reframing what no longer worked.  But yeah Scrooge realizes that if the river didn’t help them what did, and now it’s time to get back to Louie: Whose figured out that Ponce De Leon, mentioned earlier, and the hotel manager are one in the same! Also props for making Ponce an actual lion. Nicely done. Yeah turns out Ponce diverted the water from the fountain to the resot: The tap water there is actually the restorative water, with Scrooge having filled his canteen with it without realizing. As for the old people turns out the fountain runs on equilvent exchange: Some of it’s waters drain youth to create the youth creating part of it. As such the seniors.. are actually the spring breakers, drained of youth and too senile to fight back. And Dewey’s sudden growth spurt was just him being in the pool for two seconds draining his youth.  Naturally though Louie made the mistake of blurting this out and the boys get captured by Ponce who explains why the resort scheme: At first he just lured gullible minions on expeditions but eventually that scheme dried up so he simply modernized by building the resort and diverting the fountain to it., having gallons of youth restoring water stocked up. He traps the boys with a pool ring and while I expect more from them I get leaving them out of the climax. While Mildly annoying.. this really isn’t their story anymore, and the scrooge and Goldie stuff is where to focus. I can let a story slide on some weaknesses if it’s for good reason and really, focusing more on the more engaging main plot with Scrooge and Goldie was the right call. That said the nephews could’ve fought Jeeves or something but i’m getting ahead of myself. This twist is utterly and a great surprise. No notes. 
Back at the fountain having realized what’s going on now, if not the youth sucking part just yet, Scrooge and Goldie race back with Rockerduck and Jeeves in persuit.  Scrooge and Goldie arrive to find De Leon, revealing their on to them if being confused for springbreakers. But once he realizes what’s going on De Leon.. actually offers to cut them in. After all while it means sharing his water as shown the man has gallons of it, and even off spring break likely still has no shortage of young idiots to drain because it’s Florida and he runs a cheap hotel with a pool. But while Goldie’s naturally tempted.. Scrooge isn’t. He’s fine with a second chance.. but not at the cost of other people’s first ones. Sure they might waste it.. but it’s not his life to steal. Naturally a swordfight insues while Goldie darts off to find the water and Scrooge finds himself fighting both De Leon and Jeeves, as Rockerduck cheerfully admits he has ZERO issues with stealing other people’s youth and while he and De Leon don’t formally partner up, it’s not a stretch to say De Leon would be happy with a rich billionare joining in his operation providing both fincial backing.. and possible room to expand and steal MORE youth. 
But before Goldie can run away with the water she finds the boys.. and in a nice callback her previous bond with Louie gets her to crack.. and she realizes she can’t just run out on scrooge again and repeat their history. So she frees the boys,k who are a bit dazed to help, and shoves the bit of water she got down jeeves throat. Though Rockerduck still got some, so he’s back to peak shape, if now having to carry around a baby frakenstien. He exits, and I loved him in this one clearly, even if i’m STILL annoyed it’s taking till next week for FOWL to do much of anything. I mean it’s obvious FOWL told him about the fountain but still, while they’ve set up the members well for the second half, we still haven’t seen much of the actual orignization and it’s grating. But again the rest of the episode is good enough that it swoops over this. This episoide has some minor flaws.. but the core story, big twist and everything is so good and the upcoming climax so emotional, it’s easy enough to forgive. 
So speaking of that climax we get one hell of a swordfight with Scrooge and Goldie versus Ponce before Ponce ends up in the pool as he deserves but is determined to take Scrooge with him. So we get Goldie’s moment of truth: She could leave scrooge the drown, go about her day and take the water for herself.. or decide it’s not too late.. that even with her clean slate gone.. she can still change and still have a future with scrooge, stop betraying him for his own gain and start enjoying their time together instead. She makes the obvious choice, diving in in a beautifully shot sequence to save him. Ponce withers to death which is sad, as I really would’ve liked to see him again, but fitting.  With the villian gone it’s time to wrapup loose ends! The ducks hand out the youth water, using up all but a few drops left to restore the spring breakers and hte natural order, Scrooge happy in his decision. Dewey decides to cede being the bigger brother back to Huey , and offers Webby some and in a great gag, she explains she just had a bad day she didn’t get her youth sapped.. though I feel she did in an earlier draft, but a quick pop of her back gets her back to normal. Though having her be an old lady was hilarious and it was nice to have a youth swap plot that didn’t have a roll reversal.  To close things out Scrooge laments Goldie probably ran off again and leanred nothing.. only to be plesantly suprsied when it turns out while she is leaving for more adventure, she didn’t want to say good buy.. and it’s clear she’s changed. While her last apperance showed some cracks forming, while she did take the loot she did go back to save Louie and vice versa, here we see a genuine change. She’s realized, and it feels entirely plausable, that even if she can still scam other people and probably will.. she shoudln’t keep hurting scrogoe like this and her feelings for him outweigh any beinifit from treating him like garbage. Having a clean slate for a moment gave her a persepctive, and even if the slate’s back to full.. it’s not too late to fix things. So she kisses him passionately he happily reciporcates and i’m totally on board. I only didn’t ship this version fo the two because this goldie.. was not a godo person.  Granted I do like her better than the comics version. While Comics Goldie is not BAD persay, she lacks some agency. She’s still cool, what with her shotgun and take no fucks attitude especailly in her youth, her just.. waiting for scrooge instead of getting after him feels.. weird to me. Sure the man’s stubborn but it didn’t fit her personality to just wait for it. Here there’s a valid reason they aren’t together despite a clear attraction: Goldie is out for herself. She’s the catwoman to his batman, which was a good metaphor really: Scrooge too is a grumpy guy who fights evil and has traveld the globe and has a massive extended family includling children he teaches to fight crime and his own adult children and is richer than god. But more than that Goldie is selfish, untrustworthly and loved money more than Scrooge.. here.. she realizes while she’ll likely still be stealing shit, because hey it’s her calling, she loves him more than doing crimes and that it’s not a clean slate they needed. .it was abetter her. I didn’t support them because frankly she wasn’t in a good place for an actual relationship. Now she is, he is and it’s sweet to see. A good note to end the episode
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Final Thoughts:  This ep was a bit uneven in places, not knowing what to do with the kids at times but as i’ve made clear i’ts excellent with the scrooge and goldie core really working well and Janney and Tennant bringing their absolute best to this one. Easily one of the season’s best. Not much more to say. If you liked this tune in each week for more ducktales coverage, and I intend once the hiatus begins to try and do one episode a week still to catch up as hopefully this isn’t the last season it might very well be. Next week Darkwing owns the night! I had planned a full darkweek.. but my busy monday and some other stuff got away from me. Still I have two darkwing themed reviews planned: Drake’s introdcution in the reboot with “Duck Knight Returns!” and the very first darkwing episode, chronlogically anyway, “Darkly Dawns the Duck.” Until next week, Let’s Get Dangerous!
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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago
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Hickman’s X-Men One Year In: Part 2: The Dawn of X
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And we’re onto part 2. Since it took me a while to talk about Hickman’s Series outside of Giant-Size and the setup here, that’s in part one if your curious, I split this little retrospective into two parts, with this part here talking about the rest of the books. This isn’t to say they aren’t great, many of them are, it was just easier to do this as a two parter so with HIckman himself out of the way how did his hand picked batch of talented writers handle the lofty status quo he set up?Find out under the cut. Pax Krakoa baby. 
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Mauraders Okay just to get this out of the way this is my second faviorite x-book running, after X-Men itself and it often equals it and far and away the best tile of the run and restored my faith in Gerry Duggan.  Duggan is not a bad writer and I blame the messy finish of his otherwise awesome guardians run with infnity wars on marvel trying to cram other characters into it and then a weird mash up idea that while cool, kept the guardians out of their own damn event and from confrting a now mad gamora, but that and deadpool made me forget the guy is a good writer and can do great things. Maruaders however won me back to him with intrest.  A unique concept, the x-men as pirates helping ferry goods to krakoan allied states and ferry trapped mutants from hostile ones, is fucking awesome. The only thing missing is nightcrawler and it’s clear hickman has other plans, though I still feel he shoudl’ve been on the boat as he has both the relation to kitty pryde and pirate pedgree that fit in perfectly.  Speaking of kitty after years of writers misusing her due to having a crush on her as a kid and shoving her into half baked romances with peter quill and her ex peter rasptuin, the latter failing so badly that marvel pulled the plug on their wedding because fans clearly didn’t want it, and battling my own reluctance ot see her front and center again, Duggan makes good use of her again: Kitty is given the unique hook of the portals not working for her and no one, even her old friend Doug after he gets back, being able to figure out WHY. Though I do hope Doug does show up here and explain it more, as him being kitty’s best friend once is rarely brought up since he got back and it’s silly it hasn’t been. But rather than take this on the chin Kitty strikes up a crew consisting of big sister Storm, first class graduate x-man, badass gay and kitty’s friend and ex iceman, bishop who reluctantly joins as her bishop more on that in a second and the best of them by a mile: Pyro. The original, finally brought back and given some intresting backstory: he was the first mutant brought back and felt good about it..t ill he realized that despite sacrificing himself to save a, if your familiar with the various cartoons this will be baffling but trust me, reformed senator kelly as Pyro himself was dying from the legacy virus, only to find out they did him first because they considered him expendable basically and naturally was upset over that, drunk a bunch of the liquor kitty smuggled in, for logan naturally, and passed out and then joined in on the rescue mission that formed the team because why not and stayed because it was a great offer.  Speaking of offers with a new purpose, Kitty accepted her old enemy Emma Frost’s offer to be red queen, which includes a seat on krakoa’s council and was basically emma’s way of saying fuck you to her old cohort who she was forced to bring back on to handle the seedier side of Krakoa’s dealings via his underworld connections, sebastian shaw. Emma is the fincical  backbone of krakoa, having the shipping connections to get the flowers in and out and now having kitty to handle the stuff she can’t and do some of the shipping, as well as again tell Sebastian, who naturally wants both gone and is pissy at Emma being so far ahead of him, wants gone. And while he’s seemingly succeded with kitty I not only have every expectation that while ressuection is failing to work on her she’ll be back, but that trying to murder one of the most beloved x-men whose consdiered family to among others three of krakoa’s captains, bishop after this series, four of their council, five if you include Doug whose best friends with both his left arm which is also a deadly space robot and the very place they live on. The only reason he’s not going to die 80 times in increasingily horrifying ways is because the five can’t take on that kind of workload and one murderous ass beating from half of krakoa and krakoa itself is close enough. 
Emma is easily one of the books best parts, being written back as she should: An anti hero who while quick with a cutting quip, truly cares for her charges, and mutantkind as a whole and has grown from the monster she started as or even the kind of person who’d use a therapy session from a desperate man having issues opening up emotionally after apocalypse used his body as a rental car to convince him to fuck her.  And yes that’s how things started with Scott and Emma and yes it’s really fucked up and yes the story treats it as such, though I still wish Scott would get actual therapy, but as Linkara recently pointed out in his House of M Review the Marvel and DC universes weirdly lack therapists for the most part and thus it was left on my mind the last two weeks.. and yes I know DC tried but when your final product at trying to serious tackle mental health is heroes in crisis.. I award you no points and god have mercy on your soul.  But while Emma and Kitty get the lions share of the focus the rest of the group is enjoyable, well done and intresting, if not given many arcs to themselves, but still have enough character moments to counterballance that. The standout of the rest of the crew is easily Pyro, taken from “why is he still dead despite being super popular and used in a heavy role in X2 that’s garnered fans of that version to this day and bafflement he became a foot note in the next movie and used in every adaptation” to fun side character with a skull on his face and a love of booze and setting things on fire. He’s finally given the respect he deserves sorta and while I hope more is delved into his ressurection angst, he’s a ton of fun and it again makes me wonder why it took 20+ years to bring him back, but i’m glad the right person did it. The rest of the crew are fun with Bishop being another standout.  That being said part of the reason there isn’t a lot of focus is simply because in additoin to our brave crew the book is juggling a LOT of characters.. the morlocks and calisto, both given a proper treatment after wya too long, jumbo carnation a minor character from morrisons run who was introduced in the same issue he died is emma’s designer, shinobi shaw and christian frost, the latter I question why a main relative of one of marvel’s a-list mutants who was one of marvel’s earlier gay characters hasn’t been used in a big way till now but no time like the present, Sebastian and the people he shares his big bad spot with Homines Verde aka those tweens who ran the hellfire club during jason aaron’s run because the man is nuts and who I only seemd to liked, brillinatly revamped as a racist replacemnt for the hellfire club and so far a clever threat. The book is just stuffed iwth good characters, beautiful art, and a great tone that combines spectacular humor with really good story and worldbuilding. It’s also a nice contrast to hickman’s stuff: don’t get me wrong I love hickman’s writing style but it’s nice to have something JUST as good.. but with a cheerier tone and less weariness to it, while still not lacking weight. I can’t wait to see where this goes.. it’s a pirates life for me. 
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Excalibur:  Like most of the dawn of X-Line outside of fallen angels, more on that in a minute and even then that had an intresting new directoin for betsy braddock, I was pumped for this one. A team I loved: While I struggled to find a run I loved with Claremont’s run having Brian Braddock be a raging dick whose terrible to his girlfriend and gets away with cheating on her and Claremont not really bothering to explain Saturnyne or other characters and their history with Brian well to us yanks who never had the chance to read those tales.. though why stories by alan moore and chris claremont haven’t been republished properly or in epic collections is beyond me. Warren Ellis, who I now loathe for being a scheming weasel who treated women like garbage, had a decent run with plenty of warlock, in a weird phase where he thought he was doug, Moira and Wolfsbane stuff I loved.. but also had 30-40 something pete wisdom shacking up with 18 year old at most kitty pryde, with Pete at the time being basically Warren Ellis badass self insert character, and given recent revelations i’m pretty sure he damn well knew kitty was just 18 and even if he didn’t having his own fanfic character deflower her is just all kinds of EWWWWWW. He also had Colossus, fresh of being a villian for a while for understandable reasons, nearly beat pete into a coma in a jealous rage over the ex.. the ex he dated while she was still a minor, and left because HE , and editorial, was uncomfortable with it for damn obvious reasons. I can see why fans like to see her as bisexual and pair her with Illiayna.. I mean why the fuck not? They have better chemistry than most of he hetrosexual intrests and are paried because of that and not because the writer wanted to make out iwth kitty as a teenager and forgot “oh yeah she’s fictional and i’m 40!”  Christ thank god for Gerry Duggan.  But yeah moving on from that I was still pumped as a magical x-men book with Besty Braddock now captain freaking britan, and apocalypse on the roster. And rictor and jubille? nad rouge and gambit I guess.. I don’t knokw if they fit but whatever. Sign me up. The actual result is a mixed back. I do like Tini Howard’s work here to a point: Betsy gets good character stuff and theres actually good tension from the fact that the new captain britan is no longer primarily a british ctizen, and the book brought back a character I felt marvel needed to do more with: Jamie. if you don’t know, Jamie is betsy and brian’s, her brother and the former captain britian, older brother who went insane due to his powers and thus just goes around in his underwear convinced reality isn’t real and he can do what he wants and the tension with Jamie refusing to have anything to do with his brother for no good reason is really good. Rictor and Apocalypse are likewise good sensable additons: Rictor turns out to be a natural to being a druid which is a nice twist and makes sense given when he lost his powers the biggest issue with that was loosing touch with earth after having a connection to it be a vital part of him for years. Apocalypse as an ominus chess master slowly securing magic for mutantkind with some goal we’re about to get answers to is really investing and adds a layer to his character, that much like doctor doom he’s as much sorecer as he is scinetest and given the guy’s immortal, it dosen’t feel like it was pulled out of nowhere.  The problem is the other half of the cast.. dosen’t really work. I fucking love Jubilee, a faviroite of mine as an xman despite not being a huge 90′s x-men cartoon fan, just feels kinda shoe horned in. Her son becomes a dragon and she worries about him constantly, but her worrying about her son possibly not being a mutant on mutant land could be done in any other x-book, and fraknly I feel her personality would fit better with the maruaders, and it’d be intresting to see kitty and her on the same team since both really haven’t interacted. Here she just feels like “well tini wanted jubilee and no one else did soooo I made her son a dragon to justify getting her”. I feel more could be done and hope Tini has better plans for her. Rouge is one of my faviorte x-men and All New X Factor and Kelly Thompsons work with him and Rouge made me like Gambit again, and I DO love their marriage and it was a way better idea than the one Guggenhiem had planned.. but while the idea of Rouge being reborn is intresting and all, she still dosen’t really get to do much and like Jubilee just feels weirldy out of place while Remy has that plus he’s annoying, as while he’s the only one rightfully supscious of apocalypse he also won’t shut the fuck up about it for five minutes. Ig et where he’s coming from  but it dosen’t make him less annoying. These aren’t bad characters, but sof ar they just feel weirdly out of place in a magic based book and unlike Rictor tini hasn’t made any of htem but Rouge feel in place. 
That being said I could ignore that more.. but the villians are also week. So far at least, as the return of Satyurne has given the book it’s first good antagonist.. but what I feel drags the book down the most from it’s potential is the bad guys; Morgan Le Fay is the first antaognist, being mad at apocalypse’s intrusions and corrputing Brian.. but her motives are just so boring: She wants power and to rule, she hates mutants... while “hates mutants” is a qualifier for every other antagonist so far, she just feels bland.. Tini just dosen’t make her feel like a good antagonist and it’s a shame as mutant hater or not she’s something DIFFRENT from the throngs of mutant hating conspiracies, mostly from russia in the other books... she’s just so bland it dosen’t work. And after her is Cullen Bloodstone who as far as I can tell is written out of character.. haven’t read his book but I had both a friend confirm it and having read his marvel wiki entry, it just seems like an odd turn to have him be a racist asshole. But even with all my problems and underwhelm here.. I still WANT the book to get from okay to amazing, and feel it genuinely has the potetial. I’ve seen books sharply improve after a rough first arc, Duggan himself showed me that with his Guardians run. Sometimes it just takes time for something to truly blossom and I have a feeling even with my issues, with x of swords coming up howard’s going to flip it all on it’s head and leave me standing there gasping like a moron. I have hope for that. And if nothing else the book is at least UNIQUE. And not in a trainwreck way: by giving mutants a piece of the magic pie and having them tackle far weirder threats, it’s at least doing something new and it probably lands for other people if not me, and if nothing else it does brian 80 times better than the claremont run did. not a high bar but I do like the character and it’s nice to see him take such an intresting path, and the same goes for Betsy. Tini’s still got magic to do, and I have a feeling it’s going to take me by storm very soon. 
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Fallen Angels: Now for the other half of the coin as it were. Some fans weren’t happy about Betsy getting her old body back, and yes Psylocke wasn’t orignally asian but a white british woman bodyswapped iwth a japanese assasian and yes that’s as ludicrious and unteitonally offensive as it sounds, because horrible implications of said Body Swap or not, Psylocke was one of the few asian superheros of note. So to compromise , Hickman and co decided to split the diffrence: Betsy would come back and get a rank up to captain britan, while Kwannon, said assasian, would take over as Psylocke. Hence Excalibur above and fallen angels here and I was excited about it. The Body Swap thing went on a decade too long and this way fans got the character they knew as Psylocke in another book while the face they recognized would finally get some fleshing out. I was excited about that and while probably the least excited about this book of the intitial 5, it did have an intresting lead, two characters I did like (Kid Cable I grant was only under hickman who turned him from that brat version of cable who killed the one I really love to a good character in his own right), and an intresting antagonist in a sentient machine.  In practice it was okay. The best I can say is that writer Brian Hill DOES do a great job taking a mostly minor x-character and really fleshing her out and making her engaging and Kwannon’s quest to save her daughter is really compelling.. but the premise of those who don’t fit with krakoa dosen’t work with the roster given. Laura Kinney is not only sticking with the x-23 name after dropping the wolverine mantle for no reason previously, something Hickman fixed as soon as he realized how fans felt for her apperance in the main book, while Cable feels nothing like the far more fun version from Hickman’s X-Men and later Duggan’s Cable. Add in Husk and Bling who do deserve to be on a team but feel out of place here, and it just.. is okay. The book has an intresting angagonist and a great lead, but just dosen’t work as a team book and would’ve been better off being JUST about kwannon herself, who is far and away the best part about the book and i’m glad she got fleshed out. Not TERRIBLE but nothing special and it’s a shame given the antagonist, whose name I can’t even remember at this point, is intresting and ties into mutantkind’s greatest enmies being man and machine accoridng to house and powers.. basically a decent concep twith a flawed execution. Maybe hill’ sbatman and hte outisders run is better. I need to get on that. That being said the premise and idea is so far being done well in Hellions which we’ll get to, even if I’m being cautious really getting into the book with Zeb Wells track record. But more on that in a bit. 
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X-Force: Time to make noise, bad guys leave us no choice.. you know the rest. But yeah X-force. The concept here grabbed me, having X-Force rather than just be the black ops squad but be literal black ops for krakoa, was really great and fit the brave new world.. what worried me was the writer, Benjamin Percy. Now a lot of x-fans probably knew him from the much beloved “Wolverine: The Long Night” podcast, which i’ve heard is utterly fantastic as is it’s followup.. but I hadn’t heard it, and had only heard of Percy from DC comics where under his belt was an okay teen titans run and a not very good and politcally unsubtle green arrow book. And i’m not against politics in comics it just wasn’t done at all well there and the “oliver queen looses hif ourture due to a shadowy conspiracy thing” was already done better by jeff lemire. So yeah I was going to give this a chance but figured like those books it’d start strong and then peter out.  I. Was. Wronnnnggg. X-Force is easily one of the best of the dawn of x and uses said premise well. It started a bit roughly, mostly becasue the first arc idnd’t make clear x-force didn’t exist yet but was a great origin story: a squad of military commandos working for a shadowy consirtum who become x-force’s big bad, plunge onto Krakoa and massacre a bunch of mutantas and assinate charles xavier. He comes back, though it’s trickier for obvious reasons, but it’s clear from this, and from wolverine and kid omega’s sucessful investigation and finding domino, that this can’t go on and thus X-Forces is formed; The intellegence and black ops arm of Krakoa and the one arm of it’s goverment exempt from the ‘dont’ kill humans rule”. What followed was nearly a years worth of fast paced adventures with good character stuff: Wolverine is in his element, kid omega, while I had my doubts due to quinten being way overused , turned out to be a perfect choice basically being a more compitent teenage sterling archer, cocky and loving this but also really good at his job, while Domino gets a great arc dealing with her trauma over her mutalation and having some of her power stolen by the shadowy masked dickheads while Colossus deals with his trauma over what went down when he rescued some Russian mutants, with the book slowly building up new threats and towards a showdown with Russia, something that’s also been built up by conflicts in Wolverine and Mauraders, which again makes the world of x feel more like an actual world instead a bunch of comics in one cast herd.  Jean Grey is good for intellegence, though by now seems to have noped out as she couldn’t take the toll, it’s not for everyone and most notably after 5 or 6 years of being treated worse and worse and written worse and worse and becoming a bigger and bigger piece of shit Beast is FINALLY put in the right spot: his darker turns aren’t ignored but he’s back to being an actually intellegent hero as X-force’s director, still a bit greasy but now for good reason and without a god complex or some such bullshit and with a tiny bit of his humor back. Not much else to say really, X-Force is well paced, enjoyable and gritty, getting the spirit of the team at it’s best down right while doing something fresh with it. 
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New Mutants (Ed Brisson) Last one, New Mutants is the odd duck of the dawn of x line in terms of how it was launched. Fallen Angels ended up being a mini series both due  to Hill being busy and it’s cast being needed elsewhere but will presmibly get a follow up later, but it’s not the ONLY mini series in the line with Fantastic four/x-men, the giant sized one shots and now Empyre: X-Men all debuting in wave 2. New Mutants however is the first book to change writers and said writer STARTED in the middle of hickman’s run, partly due to scheduling delays but even before that it was partly by design and those issues haven’t been collected yet, with hickman’s short run being collected first. So you have a run that builds off what Hickman started but with it’s own ideas that started insidei t and suprisingly it .. really works.  While I do think there are better books in the line Brisson’s new mutants is enjoyable, combining humor and character work. New Mutants focuses on the sextant, which was first brought up in hickman’s run, the series of habitats for younger mutants on krakoa that the new mutants look out for, and while the original new mutants are in space, Armor decides to try and bring some old friends in to join in paradise with the help of Glob Herman, that big pink guy with a visable skeleton and eyes, and Maxine and Manon, who in the tradition of layla miller were created for an event and not great htere but turned out amazing under the right writer.. who I think also wrote that event but whatever, a pair of empaths and telepaths who have trouble grasping the right ethics for using their powers.  The four go to get one of my faviorite x-men back: BEAK! I missed him even if he’s weirdly suddenly repowered. Beak and his wife Angel only haven’t joiend in with their kids because his dad’s sick, and things soon escalate when a bunch of criminals try holding them all hostage and it’s up to boom boom, bored since everyone left her alone, to save the day! After that we deal with Magik rangling them and the team’s new mission statment: not wanting ot mess up again like she did with beak, who did join them but not without loosing his dad and then his memory of his dad thanks to the twins misguided efforts, Armor still wants to try welcoming new mutants in with the vetrans help, and thus we have our puprose: focusing both on how these younger mutant 20 somethigns of various ages from early to late work together to make a better world nad help their own get back to this world. it’s intresting.. I’m not in love with it like mauraders or x-force, but it’s still pretty good and their first big foe so far, DoX, a blog that well.. doxes mutants that haven’t arrived yet, seems to be intresting. Not much to say just pretty good and and better at mixing comedy and character stuff, and getting the cast right. Ed Brisson had already proven himself on old man logan, but this cements him as one of the hottest new x-writers around and i’m glad he was given a book here. He’s also succeded in making me actually like Glob Herman so that’s a plus. 
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Fantastic Four/X-Men The first title of wave 2 and easily one of the best, right up there with mauraders nad probably JUSST behind it and ONLY because i’ts a mini series, giving the X-Men their first real step into the rest of hte marvel universe. Sure the 4 had cameoed in the first issue and there’s been mentions of krakoa in other books and one off issues but mostly Krakoa really hadn’t impacted anything.. but that first issue also set things up with Scott’s conversation with Sue Richards
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Yeah and in case those who haven’t been aware of what’s going on with the FF lately and either remember franklin as a 6-11 year old or wondered why the hell he was suddenly a teen when they read this crossover, it’s actually simple; At the end of secret wars the Richards family was put on a bus, also so marvel could shove the ff as a proper team out the door due to the whole fox rights thing, and when Dan Slott had brought them back.. and cleverly had more time pass for the richards than for the 616 proper, so he could age Franklin up to his late teens and Valeria up to her early ones, allowing the richards children to actually age since Franklin’s age always had to stay vauge due to marvel’s vage and wobbly time scale. This way they get both consitant ages and more agency.  But the return also came with a price as Franklin, who if you didn’t know is so powerful he can create whole universe and shape the sturcture of the universe, had his powers break saving his family, and thus since he came back, he’s onlyg got so much of them left in the tank before they run out entirely, and it’s been an issue for him in Slott’s run as he worries about being the normal human in a fantastic family and comes to a head here, though rather than Hickman himself, who as mentioned last time has a marvelous track record with the family or FF series writer dan slott Hickman choose a wild card for this, though had both Hickman and Slott’s permission to do whatever he wanted: Chip Zdarsky, a modern marvel for marvel who’d writtne the four in marvel two in one but for some reason didn’t get the main book and this book makes me hope whenever Dan Slott bows out he gets his turn and while this is his first x-men work, Zdarsky proves he’s just as good here as is in most of his work on Howard the Duck, Jughead and Star Lord.. a weird selection I know but all classics. 
With this power outage, Franklin is worried his dad is, at least subconciously, not really trying to help him and to make matters worse teh x-men show up to offer their help.. and Franklin his birthright. The arguments made by both sides are great and I will be covering the series in full soon but in a nutshell the four dont’ want to give up their son/nephew, Reed dosen’t trust Xavier and feels he wants to use his son’s powers while the x-men feel it’s franlin’s choice and he’s old enough to make it, he belongs with them and he’ll be safer there. It also works because Franklin understandably isn’t swayed by either as neither is reallyt alking to him more at him, especially his parents .. and only tries the gate when Kitty Pryde, the two  bonded back in the 80s and a young franklin stopped her from comitting suicide long story but really moving, is the only one to tell him it’s his choice. This dosen’t go quite well though since Reed Richards, father of the year, decided to make a device to mask his son’s mutant gene and no one, including his own family, is happy about htis.  Naturally Franklin, with Val’s help, runs away.. and then as if it couldn’t get worse DOOM shows up wanting to help so now it’s a three way dance between them for hte fate of franklin. The series has gorgeous art form the dodsons a really damn compelling story and great setup for further stories for both lines and feels like the best of both franchises. It’s the x-men’s first huge impact on the rest of the marvel universe,a nd it feels like it with the ending showing that and showing this might not be the last time both sides crossover. It’s everything you could want from a crossover and i’m only being so brief because I want to review it soon as a huge fan of both groups. Easily one of the best x-men stories of the line and one of the best stories for both groups period. 
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Wolverine:  We’re onto the final two, and Percy’s second book and the first solo.. and it’s logan again! Makes sense though: Wolverine only just came back from the dead, and while both is daughter and alternate future self carried the woverline banner for him, the original hasn’t gotten his own ongoing in some time. And so far.. it’s pretty good> the first issues a bit messy due to it’s lenght, but overall the book is intresting and has Logan graple with being the best at waht he does and if he can be better or if he deserves paradise while also delivering a compelling solo mission teaming Wolverine up with a federal agent who resents mutants. it also does some good world building, explaning why Krakoan drugs have things like wait lists (they want to control production closely both to avoid having the flower taken away and for quality control), and expanding the russia subplot while using Dracula of all people as a major antagonist, which is clever especailly since this isn’t his first rodeo with the x-men. Just a fun book wiht loads of promise.
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Hellions: NOt much to say here as it’s hard to judge after two issues, buti f nothing else this series brought back the delightfully batshit Nanny, who just with last weeks issue offered to nurse Greycrow (who had his name changed from scalphunter because of course marvel did why wouldn’t they) and falling down. It combines humor with an odd but well thought out cast and makes Alex Summers intresting without making everyone else assholes, a hard but earned feet. If it continues to be good.. I dunno, especially since i haven’t been impressed by any of zeb wells other works especially his new mutants run, good god that one’s am ess, but so far he’s winning me over with a clever concept and roster full of deep cuts.  Final Thoughts:  I won’t be covering Empyre: X_men, though I did enjoy it and i’l save that one for next time. For now this has been a hell of a year of x-men comics, with even the weaker books still having something intresting and none being outright terribule and only one had a bad grasp on some of it’s cast and for a line this big and expansive, that’s a gold medal achivment. After YEARS of stasis the x-men have finally risen again better, bolder and stranger than ever. IS every book A+ gold star etc etc, no, but what’s important.. is that it’s all DECENT. There’s enough standout books to make it work but as i’ve made clear what isn’t the best of the best is still good or decent. There’s nothing bad, no one phoning it in or not giving an effort, everyone is trying thier hardest and succeding on SOME level even if not completely and that.. that’s truly amazing and I look forward to more of it as this line continues. Pax Krakoa and hopefully i’ll see you again. 
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