nickjenkins's Profile

It's really irritating that the users on this site most devoted to reviewing X-Men are hate-readers who don't even pretend to be acting in good faith. Because of their bs, I was tempted to rate this one-shot higher than I think it deserves, just to even things out a bit, but I won't. This issue is very skippable. If you are hoping to read the Age of Revelation event but also are a bit stretched financially by the enormous number of tie-in series, you should know that this one-shot has three stories, and only one seems likely to matter to the overarching event: the first one, which is written by Al Ewing. Ewing takes us back to Arakko, which is where the action of his (awesome) X-Men: Red series took place. It gives us a few glimpses of the ways that Arakko has developed in the years since the Genesis War, which took place at the same time that Orchis was making its move on Earth. I would love for Marvel to just give Ewing a new on-going series set on Arakko, but unfortunately this brief tale didn't give him enough room to do anything truly interesting. There's a big reveal at the end that I won't spoil, but if it does come into play in another series, it's also not something that will require explanation or exposition. The second story is about Hulkling and Wiccan, and if you are fans of them, you may enjoy it. I' don't have any strong feelings about them, as the only things I've read where they appear have featured them only marginally, so I would not be a good judge of whether this story does them justice or not. The third story allows Ryan North to fit the Fantastic Four into this event, but not in a way that seems like it will make any difference to the bigger plot. Again, if you are looking to trim the number of Age of Revelation comics you're buying, skipping this issue is very reasonable.

A twist too many imo, crossing the line from "oh!" to "oh brother." There's a certain vibe in this series that didn't do it for me-it seemed like Ewing wanted this to be Emma Peel's adventures rather than Janet Van Dyne's.

Corsair's more of a lech than a rogue-I'm not looking forward to him sticking around. The best part of the issue was Perrikus's dialogue with Adani.

While the action of this issue was supposed to leave the heroes feeling deflated, that was my feeling, too. It's also bugging me that Steve looks like George H. W. Bush after years of steroids.

Promising, but leans heavily on prior knowledge/interest in the character.

Crossjack is the Tom Jones of superhero comics. (The Henry Fielding character, not the singer.)

I've enjoyed this series tremendously, but the last couple or three issues have felt like treading water. It feels like either I have forgotten where the plotlines from the first 10 or so issues were going or the writers have junked them, or maybe the writers have forgotten them. Jack is in a weird status where he seems to feel he's been somewhat redeemed, but he's not making any progress in external ways and he doesn't seem to have an idea of what he wants to do with the self-confidence he's built up. He's no longer really trying to solve a mystery now. He's just reacting to imminent dangers, and when he does, the conflicts don't have enough action to be cool or enough emotional heft to be meaningful. Also, I'm just plain tired of Farmington; there's been too much weird stuff going on in this one small town-surely there's other weird stuff going on somewhere else that we can check out. I really hope that the series gets back on track.

Would love for Ewing to give us some more clarity about what the flip is happening.

This is likely my fault rather than Gillen's but Etienne is the only character whose power set I feel like I understand. This may be a series that will be much more enjoyable when it's collected in an omnibus.

I thought this issue was an improvement on the first Giant-Size. I enjoyed Rod Reis's work in New Mutants and I thought he acquitted himself really well here, especially in some of the smaller panels that focused on characters' reactions and expressions (close-ups, in other words). The story didn't have to squeeze in so much but Lanzing and Kelly also integrated the Legion stuff into the classic story with less difficulty, or rather they seemed to be able to move more easily in step with the narrative momentum of the original plot. I still don't entirely understand Kamala's mutant power, but I'm also not really bothered.

Thunder War has been built up so much at this point that I'm not sure it can deliver, but I'm hopeful.

I found Issue 1 meandering and a bit too easily satisfied with itself, a bit glib, which is not a trait I would have expected from Camp. I still want to know more about this world, but my excitement has dropped considerably for Issue 2.

I thought Camp couldn't top #2. I don't think this does, but it's not far off.

Although I've seen people reference The Omen and The Exorcist as inspirations for this series, I'm wondering if Jerome Bixby's classic short story "It's a Good Life" might also be in the mix. At any rate, it's a very promising beginning and I'm glad to be on board for the ride.

I was worried that this team wouldn't have much to do and would be quite tangential to the main action of the Fall of X. I'm very pleasantly surprised that this is not the case!

This issue puts a lot of pieces on the board, but it seems like Hickman has a plan. On another note, it really bugs me that so many Marvel fans will pass judgment after one issue on whether Hickman has "done his homework" on the characters' histories. They're also so possessive, acting as if the writer is playing with *their* toys and playing with them incorrectly. The idea that fans are the ultimate arbiters of what is "in character" or "canon" and writers just have to color within the lines that fans have set is rapidly ruining almost all popular culture. There's more than enough comics in the world to read-if you don't like what a writer is doing with one of your favorites, go re-read an old issue or try something you aren't pathologically attached to.

I was skeptical when I read the solicits for this series about how they would get Laura to a place where she'd be not only on Revelation's side in this event but also taking the mantle of Sabretooth. I really liked Schultz's Laura series up to this point, though, and gave her the benefit of the doubt that there was going to be some continuity in characterization. My skepticism was answered, as I think Schultz efficiently accounted for what seems to have been a complex and difficult journey on Laura's part. It may be the case that some readers will not like Schultz's ideas about what happened to Laura in the "X" years separating Age of Revelation and the status quo/main continuity stories, but I don't think it's valid to say that Laura is "out of character" or that Schultz didn't explain the intervening years well enough (and I expect more explanation will be on its way in the next issues). I'm looking forward to seeing how Laura navigates between her feelings of duty to mutants as a whole and her more intimate connections to her wolverine family.

I was eager to see some of the team members who have not yet appeared, but it's probably best for them to be introduced more gradually. I'm neither for or against the Natasha/Bucky romance, but more importantly it seems like they have complementary skills as team leaders but also differing m.o.'s, so it should be interesting to watch that play out.

I thought the choice to position Thor as the hero to challenge the others to explain why they should continue to resist Doom's rule was a smart decision. There has always been a tension in Marvel comics between the way pro-democracy rhetoric in most comics sits side-by-side by treatments of monarchy or even autocracy that present that form of rule as a legitimate and potentially even beneficial system. Kingship is presented as difficult, but not fundamentally wrong as a political regime. Tony splutters a bit when Thor puts him on the defensive-he finds it difficult to justify why monarchy ought to be rejected out of hand. This difficulty is relatable: we are not often called on to explain what the merits of democracy are in concrete terms; because democracy has been ideologically so dominant, our reasons may amount to abstractions and clichés. It will be interesting if North can work through that difficulty not by crafting a better speech but by embedding a defense of democracy in the plot. If Doom's rule seems to be working even better than democracy, what are we not seeing that could make us reassess?

Cyclops's mini-monologue was the highlight of this issue for me.

Robin is cracking me up.

Although this issue was rightly focused on Emma, there were a few panels that acknowledged the conflicted feelings that Kitty must have been experiencing as she saw Emma laid flat and near death. Just because Kate is my favorite character, I wish she had been given some more space for those feelings, although in the middle of an emergency she seldom wastes time emoting. Perhaps in the next issue, Emma and Kitty will get a moment to process and reach an understanding closer to that which they reached on Krakoa before Kate was appointed captain of the Marauder.

I really loved the banter here, even if the resolution was a bit of a cliché.

Just brilliant, what the comic book medium is made for, what it does best.

Inevitably it can't be as exciting and intriguing as the first issue, but the introduction of the Columbia student is really promising, and the rollout of the mythos is being perfectly portioned out.

Its setup is maybe a little derivative, but you can feel that this series is going to make the absolute most of its influences and add on something for good measure.

This two-parter (issues 6 and 7) really came out of nowhere and I enjoyed the heck out of them. Love seeing writers trusting that their readers can handle a left turn.

The art is simply breathtaking. This feels like a classic in the making, a miniseries that I’ll want to own not just as floppies but when it’s collected as a deluxe edition.

Incredibly powerful and original.

This issue, like much of the past few issues, is plainly set-up for some big confrontations down the road. This Sinister Six that Fisk has gathered and his suggestion that they make the hunting of Spider-Man a game suggest we are in for a lot of fun.

Vying to be my favorite current ongoing.