X-Men: July 2009 Archives

If you went crazy for the trading card sets that Marvel released in the 1990s, then I’m sure you’ll remember the work done by the Brothers Hildebrandt (Greg and Tim) on various Marvel characters.  They also contributed some Marvel Swimsuit pieces featuring the X-Men.

Here’s Cyclops and Jean Grey on vacation.  I think this picture is proof positive that Jean had plastic surgery sometime during the previous decade.  An untold story!  Scott’s mind does not appear to be wandering.  For a long time, this was the sacred romance in the Marvel universe.  It took Grant Morrison to break them apart.

We all know Rogue and Gambit can’t ever really get it on, without Rogue sucking the life out of her lover.  The Hildebrandt’s are really cruel here having Rogue tease Gambit with what he can’t have.  I think I’ve read somewhere that Mike Carey has devised a way for Rogue to control her powers now?  I can only follow Matt Fraction’s book. 

Check out more Marvel paintings on the Brothers Hildebrandt’s website.  Nuff said.

The best thing from the Marvel Swimsuit issues were the faux advertisements.  Take these two, from Marvel Swimsuit 1991:

The Beast, drawn by George Perez, selling Ultra-X shampoo!  Seeing this reminds me that I prefer the Beast in his blue and furry form.  After reading Dark Avengers #7, do you think it’s possible Marvel will revert him back?

If you’ve ever given a dog a bath, you’ll know how much hair comes out—it can clog your drain if you do it in the bathroom.  The amount of hair the Beast would shed…OMG.  Probably there would be hair all over his bedroom and lab as well.

Wolverine, drawn by Mike Zeck, selling Macho speed stick deodorant!  Notice that it’s misspelled “deoderant”.  Never thought about superhero sweat until reading this ad.  The Marvel Universe must be a very stinky place indeed.  Nuff said.

In 1981, Brent Anderson provided this nifty wraparound cover to the X-Men Marvel Comics Index.

I love this cover because it features the classic X-Men on the left in their yellow and black uniforms.  The new X-Men are gathered around Charles Xavier on the right.  The logo is used as a prop for Nightcrawler to dangle overhead.  Terry Austin did a superb job on the inks, and they corralled Steve Oliff for the coloring.

Brent Anderson was the artists of the classic God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel.  He illustrated many other Marvel comics, including Ka-Zar and one of my favorite non-universe series, Strikeforce Morituri.  Check out Brent’s website.  Nuff said.

No matter how critical you are of Marvel (and judging from the message boards on various websites, fandom is very critical), you've got to admit that Marvel has their shit together about shipping comics.

Captain America #600 was released on June 15th and now Captain America Reborn #1 was released on July 1st.  There were many covers released for this one--my favorite was the Bryan Hitch cover that you see above.

The story by Ed Brubaker weaves together a lot of dangling plot threads from the regular Captain America series.  In the conclusion of the Red Skull arc, we saw that Arnim Zola had attached Sharon Carter to a crazy device.  I was left with the impression that this machine had something to do with Steve Rogers...and Reborn proves that I was right.  The device was a Doc Doom style time machine designed to bring Steve Rogers back from the past into the present.  Sharon upset their plans in that story, and now Rogers is unstuck in time--shades of Slaughterhouse Five, as Brubaker mentioned in a tweet this week: "Trying to remember if Vonnegut wrote Final Crisis or Lost... or was it Slaughterhouse Five?"

This is a really top notch comic book, with great artwork by Hitch and Guice, and superb color.  The opening scene of Cap in World War 2 (on D-Day) makes me think that there isn't that much difference now between the Ultimate Cap and the regular Marvel 616 Cap.  I also liked how this story involves the rest of the present Marvel Universe, including HAMMER and the Dark Avengers.

I'm wondering if the secret to Captain America's return is to pull him out of the past into the present?  That would kind of push the big reset button, having Cap experience that fish out of water feeling all over again.  Lots of problems to solve there, although I am sure Brubaker could pull it off.  I could be wrong--Marvel tried this stunt with Captain Marvel during Secret Invasion.  I was excited about that gimmick as well.  I guess I'm easy--any excuse to bring my favorite characters back and I'm happy.

Marvel's cosmic event, War of Kings, has also been well orchestrated, with new chapters being published every one to two weeks.

War of Kings #5 propels this story to its climax.  Lilandra really is dead and riots are erupting all over the Shi'Ar homeworld.  Vulcan's megalomania has threatened his throne--now his allies, such as Talon (from Darkhawk) are ready to withdraw their support.  On the other front, Black Bolt has decided to end the war by launching a T-Bomb (Terrigen powered) at the Shi'Ar.  It's a crazy plan.  The bomb will uplift the Shi'Ar and somehow this will transform them into a peaceful society.  And Black Bolt has to commit suicide in order to launch the bomb.  It's crazy, but really imaginative.  You have to give Maximus a lot of credit!  He's become my favorite nut in the Marvel U.

On the very last page of this issue, we are teased with the big showdown we've been waiting for, when Vulcan finally meets Black Bolt.  Next issue we'll see those two powerhouses duke it out.  It should be a great fight, although Vulcan seems much more powerful than Black Bolt.  Wouldn't he win easily just by dragging the Inhuman king into outer space, where his voice would be useless?

We've certainly seen a lot of Matt Fraction's X-Men recently--almost one new issue every week!  Last week's Uncanny X-Men #512 was an excellent done-in-one story about the Beast's team travelling back in time to discover the origin of the mutant species.  And causing the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in the process! 

Uncanny X-Men #513 is a good first act to the war between Norman Osborn and Scott Summers.  This is really a great excuse for Fraction to turn Cyclops back into bad-ass Mr. X-Man.  However, in this chapter, Cyclops pretty much watches the TV coverage of Osborn's mutant crackdown on TV.  He even applauds Osborn for being an excellent chess player.  Hopefully he will spring into action in the next chapter.

Chapter 2 of Utopia (the Dark Avengers vs X-Men event) introduces the Dark X-Men: Emma Frost (now wearing black instead of white), Daken, Cloak, Dagger, and Namor were all evident from the cover.  The Angel looking dude is really Cal Rankin (surprised that he is still alive), and if you think about mutant shape-shifters, you will realize who is impersonating Charles Xavier.  I have to believe that Emma has a plan for undermining Osborn--why else would she bring the Sub-Mariner on her team?  Namor has got it in for Osborn as well.

There are many cool elements in the Utopia storyline.  Setting it in San Francisco, where people protest at the drop of a hat, makes it a natural place for people to protest for Mutant rights.  The initial mutant confrontation with the Dark Avengers takes place in the Castro district.  A curfew in San Francisco?  No way that people would obey that.  Simon Trask is also running around, turning people into human Sentinels.  But worse than Sentinels--Norman Osborn may be the greatest enemy the X-Men have ever faced.  Because he's not only using force against them, Osborn is also using public opinion and political forces.  He's worse the Magneto.  Fraction has really concocted a great threat here, let's see if he can pull off a good second and third act as well.  Nuff said.