Uncanny X-Men

Uncanny X-Men : 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228
Annual : 10, 11
Fantastic Four vs X-Men: 1, 2, 3, 4


Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice, Marc Silvestri, Art Adams, Jon Bogdanove

All of these were collected in Essential X-Men volume 7.

I managed to pick this up on sale at my local comic book store (Comics Ect. in Elizabeth Street). It was sat on a shelf by the counter on special. I do have a lot of the issues in my collection seperately.

Uncanny X-Men 217 holds a special place in my heart as it was the first ever issue of Uncanny X-men I ever read. These stories lead up to the fall of the mutants story line, where the X-Men 'die'. 

We start these books with a trip to the Mojoverse. Just some background: Mojo is a large slug like creature that runs his own TV channel in an alternate dimension. He uses his shenanighans to shrink the X-Men back into babies. Of course the X-Men get out of this scrape and gain the addition of Longshot, who is not actually a mutant but a cloned creature created by Mojo. He is always included as an X-men but I feel his membership should only be honourary.

The X-Men tangle with Malice. She has an incorporal form and can posses other people by inhabiting a body. This is shown by a small choker appearing on the victims neck.

Dazzler, an actual mutant and budding rock star, takes on Juggernaught. This is one of the X-Men's toughest foes and poor Dazzler gets owned. Luckily Jugs is a big fan and does not murder the crap out of Alison. This was my first issue and was a great introduction to the book.

In this story Storm has lost her powers due to her partner/lover Forge. Yes, these things happen if you're an X-Men. She tangles with three veteran mutants and manages to get up despite the lack of weather based abilities.

We have a brief sojurn into FF vs X-Men where Doom and Richards argue over how to save Kitty Pryde, who received injuries in the Mutant Massacre (which happened just before these issues). Eventually they decide to stop being whiny bitches and save the poor girls life.

The stories build to the Fall of the Mutants. The Trickster faces off against Roma, the guardian of the gates of reality. If he wins, well, bad shit is going to go down. As his pawns he uses the Second Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who get re-named Freedom Force and are given a government mandate to be dicks. Of course the outcome is the peak of the story so instead of spoiling I'll go to my review  of the books.

As you may know Chris Claremont wrote the books for many years (1975 - 1990 off the top of my head). He writes the books really well, getting into the head of each character and giving each of them their own goals and purpose. There is a big weave as relationships develop and the team builds and sinks. The artists change but they all match the story quite well. Claremont also stacks the roster with female characters. As a fourteen year old reader it was really easy to get into the books and the characters hooked me. The stories stand up to re-reading and I have a thirst to get the books before this one and read the ones after, which is what every good comic book should do. I recommend these stories, which you can pick up more easily in a collection than the old classic issues, which can get pricey.

Movies for the Year

As well as reading comic books a lot I also watch a lot of movies. I usually try to go once a week. My tally for the year is twenty, so I failed completely there. Over once a month is good I suppose.

I will rate the movies out of five. Just so you know I always judge the movie on the context on which it is made. So while 'Creed' isn't the greatest slice of film making ever made it is a fantastic boxing movie.

I have tried to list them in the rough date order in which I saw them.

Ex Machina - 4/5. Domhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac fight over a replica android. Beautifully shot and well acted, it was taught and delivered. I really liked this movie.

Mr. Holmes - 4/5. Ian McClellan is a very old (90+) Sherlock Holmes trying to write his memoirs and also bond with his house keepers son. Really well done.

Avengers: Age of Ultron - 4/5. The Avengers have to tackle a new menace, one that has come from an unlikely source. Well shot, packed with gags, great action sequences. They really did another great job on this one. Enjoyed it from start to finish.

Pitch Perfect 2 - 4/5. The Bellas are at the top of their game when it all goes wrong. Can they climb back up? Funny from start to finish and warm without getting schmaltzy PP2 was another fantastic movie I really loved.

Mad Max: Fury Road - 4/5. Adrenaline filled orgasm of dust and blood. Really loved this movie.

Spy - 3/5. Melissa McCarthy takes over from Jude Law in the spy business. Solid comedy throughout. Very enjoyable.

Sicario - 5/5. Taught thriller about America's response in the 'Drug Wars'. Gripping, edge of your seat violence. Never fails to make you feel in danger. My movie of the year.

Aloha - 2/5. Bradley Cooper is a milatary contractor with a mixed past trying to move forward in his life. Although this has some good point, overall this one left me flat and wondering what the point was?

San Andreas - 2/5. Dwayne Johnson is a rescue pilot in San Fransisco determined to save his family in the face of the greatest earthquake to hit the world. Large, noisy with seeming never ending waves of disaster. The film grew ever more cheesy as it went on.

It Follows - 4/5. Horror movie about a presence that tracks and kills young people. Shot around Detroit it's worth watching for the cinematography. I get lost in a lot of horror but this one worked. Worth a watch.

Jurassic World - 2.5/5. Chris Pratt warns against making super dinosaurs but nobody listens. Pratt is great and the action sequences are good too but overall I had to throw my brain out of the window to like it.

Minions 2.5/5 - Kevin, Stuart and Bob help their clan by seeking a new villain for them to work for. Family fun but without Gru, the jokes dragged for me and there was no centre to the film. Still it was fun in a lot of places.

Southpaw - 3/5. Jake Gyllenhaal is a boxer who loses his wife and his title. He fights to get one back. Good in a lot of sections there is a huge plot point that annoyed me for the rest of the film. The boxing was good but, without spoiling the film, the title is wrong. Worth watching for Forest Whitaker's turn.

Terminator: Genisys - 3/5. Emilia Clarke takes over as Sarah Conner and is helped by origional Terminator Arnold trying to defeat Skynet. Although this wasn't warmly recived it hit a lot of high points for me. Enjoyed it from start to finish.

Ant-Man - 4/5. Paul Rudd tries to rob Michael Douglas and end up becoming the titular hero. Yhis one hit my sweet spot and while not massive enough to be the best SH movie, it's my favourite of the year. Warm and heroic. Glad to hear Ant-Man will be in Civil War.

Fantastic Four - 1/5. Miles Teller leads his friends to become a super team after gaining mysterious powers. This started okay then changed movies 2/3 of the way through. Ended as a disaster. I hope Fox give up the FF license and let someone else try to make a movie with them.

Black Mass - 4/5. Johnny Depp with a wonderful turn as James 'Whitey' Bulger. Crime and corruption in Boston. Gripped me from start to finish, even though I knew the story pretty well.

Spectre - 3/5. Daniel Craig has his fourth outing as Bond in this follow on from Skyfall. Enjoyable through a lot of the film it does drop the ball on a few things. It seemed a logical end point for Craig as Bond but the word on the street is there will be a fifth follow up.

Creed - 4/5. Michael B Jordan is Adonis, Apollo Creed's illegitimate son. He teams with Sly's Rocky to become a pro boxer. Really enjoyed this. Avoided many of the traps of later Rocky movies and Sly was really good. maybe as good as the original.

Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens - 4/5. I finished the year with the most anticipated film. Disney's take on Star Wars. They included the original cast well and the new characters . The new guys are wonderful and made the movie for me. The plot is a re-hash of Episode 4 and I didn't like the 'Big Bad', which stopped it being perfect. Still, I've been 4 times already and I'm making plans for number five. So excited for the next movie.


 So best of the bunch was Sicario. Favourites were Ant-Man and Star Wars. It Follows was a left field choice worth checking out.

That's 2015 wrapped up. I'll try and run through what I'm looking forwards too in 2016.

Planned Reading for the Year

This isn't much of a plan and it's subject to change at a moments notice.

I am planning to get some supplies, dividers, short boxes and new long boxes, and do a big sort through on Australia Day.

(Which is on 26th January and celebrates Australian Federation in 1901 if you're interested)

Then I will lay out my planned reading for the year. I have a stack of TPB to read:

I have the following issues I'd like to get too:

X-Men volume 3 - I have the first few issues then a huge hole before I have the last few in the series. Not sure whether to finish collecting or read some of them first.

Avengers volume 1 - Which was the first book I started collecting waaay back in 1987. The obvious thing was to start with these issues.

I'll be looking to add to this list because right now it's a bit shit really. 

Reading List for 2016 - Current Books.

A Force

All new all different Avengers

All new X-men

Daredevil

Extraordinary x-men

Gotham Academy

Groo (Limited series)

He-Man

The Kitchen (Limited Series)

Low

New Avengers

Silk

Squadron Supreme

Uncanny Avengers

Uncanny X-men

Velvet

I also pick-up Rat Queens, Black Magick and Ringside, although I haven't placed them on my order as yet. I've also found New Wolverine isn't on my list either, which I need to rectify.

I dropped:

Amazing spider-man

Ultimates 

As I wasn't enjoying them.  

Final Crisis

DC




Writer/Scripts    Grant Morrison
Artist    J. G. Jones , Marco Rudy
Penciller    Carlos Pacheco, Doug Mahnke
Inker    Jesus Merino , Christian Alamy ,Tom Nguyen ,Drew Gerasi ,Norm Rapmund ,Rodney Ramos
Walden Wong , Doug Mahnke
Letterer    Rob Leigh , Travis Lanham , Rob Clark
Colorist    Alex Sinclair, Pete Pantazis , Tony Aviña



I started this book 3 times before finally using a bookmark and tracking where I was. We start the book with Metron giving Cro-Mangon man fire before vaulting forwards to today. In the present a hero collapses in a smoking pile. Orion has been murdered and Green Lantern has to find out who the killer is.

After this start I was expecting a detailed murder investigation type book but I should have probably read Crisis on Infinite Earths story first to get an idea of what to expect in one of these multi-verse type stories. Basically as each sub-plot unfolds we are led into a series of realities, time-lines, Universes and alternate takes on the DC characters. 

Lots of plots and lots of focus points made this a hard story to follow for me. Plus I always had the sense that the multi-verse story line meant that who ever was killed would simply be resurrected at the end of the story.

There are some high points and the art is always beautiful but overall I never really connected with this story.