Two long-awaited mini-series come to an end! Can you stand the suspense from not knowing what they are? If not, read on!

Air #4 by G. Willow Wilson (writer), M. K. Perker (artist), Chris Chuckry (colorist), and Jared K. Fletcher (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

Air is still keeping me interested without really dazzling me, but it’s getting to the point where I may have to drop it. Usually I give books six issues to grab hold, and although I admire a lot about Air, there’s a lot that’s not working too. Blythe’s conversation with the masked priest who she thinks is Zayn works well, because we get some good insight into her character and what’s going on in the book. The transition to Mexico City and the new players in the game is awkwardly handled, though, and as the conspiracy grows quickly, it ironically becomes less interesting. I’m not sure if it’s a case of too much, too soon, because we’ve come very far from the weird premise of the first issue, but I also understand that doling out information in a work of serialized fiction is a delicate balance - too little and people lose interest; too much and it become overload. Air is veering toward overload, and it does seem like Wilson needs to slow down just a bit. There’s hardly enough time to process what’s going on, when suddenly we’re shifting continents and plot points and then, just as suddenly, there’s a weird flying machine on the last page. As much as the premise is intriguing, it feels like Wilson is desperate to cram too much plot into each issue.

Perker’s art has some problems, too. His figure drawing is fine, but too often he skimps on the backgrounds, giving the book a strange “nowhere” look. The text says we’re in Mexico City, but nothing about it feels like Mexico City (of course, I haven’t been to Mexico City, but there’s no sense of any place about the pages in Mexico) Perker certainly can do better - Cairo had a real sense of the city and the mysterious tunnels and passages under it - but perhaps the rush of a monthly book is not a good fit for him. Part of the weirdness of the book is that it takes place in “no place” - on bland airplanes - but that sense of unreality that comes from being on a plane shouldn’t extend to actual locations. It’s frustrating, because the first few pages, when Blythe is hallucinating about the winged serpent, work well and feature outdoor scenes that have a strong sense of place.

This is one of those comics that I really want to like. Four issues in, there’s a lot to enjoy about it. But I still have to think about dropping it, and we’ll see where the next two issues go.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#2 and #3, September and October): 8,777 (#2; rank: 194) and 10,061 (#3; rank: 195). That’s weird. A fairly big jump in orders from one issue to the next.

Ambush Bug: Year None #4 (of 6) by Keith Giffen (plotter/penciller), Robert Loren Fleming (scripter), Al Milgrom (inker), Tom Smith (colorist), and Pat Brosseau (letterer). $2.99, 23 pgs, FC, DC.

As usual with this comic, there’s nothing really here except tons of gags that are really funny if you know a little about DC comics (and your enjoyment of them increases the more you know) and are perhaps mildly amusing if you don’t know anything about DC. In this issue, Giffen rips Dan DiDio mercilessly, which is hilarious but sad when you realize how spot-on it is and how DiDio apparently doesn’t care. And I find it the height of irony that facing the page on which Ambush Bug says, “I guess I’m going to have to get used to a kindler, gentler DC Universe,” we get this ad:

Giffen obviously sees the idiocy of DC - why doesn’t DiDio?

Again, this is very funny if you’ve read DC, but probably less so if you haven’t. I like it, but it makes me sad, too.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#2 and #3, August and September): 14,627 (#2; rank: 135) and 13,477 (#3; rank: 150). As I’ve written before, this seems pretty good for an obscure character with no big names on the book. The Giffen factor?

Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #4 (of 5) by Brian Clevinger (writer), Scott Wegener (artist), Ronda Pattison (colorist), and Jeff Powell (letterer). Back-up story by Joshua and Jonathan Ross (story/artists), Brian Clevinger (scripter), and Jeff Powell (letterer). $2.95, 27 pgs (22 for the main story, 5 for the back-up), FC, Red 5 Comics.

Atomic Robo sails merrily along, with the penultimate issue revealing some things (like who’s behind the big Nazi scheme) and, of course, featuring plenty of fighting. There’s not much I can say about it, because it’s just pure, unadulterated, comics joy. Clevinger continues to write wise cracks that flow easily from the action, Wegener continues to draw wonderfully, and it’s all hurtling toward a big-time conclusion. People who complain about all comics being gloomy are obviously not reading Atomic Robo. Maybe they should.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#2 and #3, September and October): 4,925 (#2; rank: 246) and 4,906 (#3; rank: 284). I guess that’s fine - it’s holding steady.

Bad Planet #6 (of 6) by Thomas Jane (writer), Steve Niles (writer), James Daly III (penciller), Tim Bradstreet (inker), Grant Goleash (colorist), and Jason Hanley (letterer). $2.99, 24 pgs, FC, Image/Raw Studios.

Shockingly enough, the final issue of Bad Planet showed up in stores on Wednesday. Bad Planet, you’ll recall, was supposed to be a 12-issue series, but it’s been truncated to six, although the ending leaves the possibility of a sequel wide open. It’s a shame this was so delayed, because it’s a fun, goofy comic full of 1950s-science fiction wackiness, from the deathspiders that have greatly reduced the Earth’s population to the solution to humanity’s problem, which goes back to Nikola Tesla (doesn’t it always?). Daly does a fine job with the art, and although the story makes little sense on a macro level and I can forgive that, the fact that we cut away from important events (like Veronica’s flight to Washington) is weird and halts the momentum of the book. At his blog, Tim Bradstreet explains some of the reasons for the hiatus, and now that it’s “done,” maybe people will discover this book in trade. I can’t really say it’s a great comic, but the creators go hell-for-leather magnificently to bring us this wild tale, and that’s something we should all respect.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#4 and #5, November 2007 and April): 4,575 (#4; rank: 252) and 4,467 (#5; rank: 259). The delay hasn’t hurt this comic, as it has one below!

City of Dust #2 (of 5) by Steve Niles (writer), Zid (artist), Garrie Gastonny (artist), Brandon Chng (artist), Buddy Jiang (colorist), Leos Ng (colorist), Sixth Creation (colorist), and Chris Eliopoulos (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, Radical Comics.

Radical was nice enough to send me this in the mail, so I get to read two Steve Niles books this week! Whoo-hoo!

I mentioned that the first issue of this had a couple of problems: it was too derivative, and the art was too murky. The art is a bit brighter in this issue, and just that small change makes this a better issue to read. The art (split between a few different people, although the styles are all similar) isn’t great, but the brighter tones of the book help the storytelling, at least. So there’s that.

Niles continues to tell a story of a dystopian future where imagination is a crime, and with the set-up out of the way, he can concentrate on what made the first issue interesting: the actual murder of some guy and the book that Philip Khrome found under the body. Khrome is, of course, under suspicion by the thought police (GBI, they’re called in the book) because he looked at the book, and he’s interrogated by the head dude, Agent Morgan. Niles does two interesting things with this comic: Khrome continues to be a “the system is right” kind of guy, which is far more interesting than someone who rebels instantly because he’s persecuted by said system. I still see a spiritual awakening for Khrome down the line, where he realizes that he’s been wrong all these years and people just need to read, damn it! Maybe that will happen, maybe it won’t. For now, it’s interesting to see Khrome trying to solve the crime without worrying about bringing down the system. The other thing Niles does is set up Morgan as Khrome’s nemesis and then subvert our expectations. It’s nicely done, and lets us know that things are not what they seem. Plus, Niles reveals the bad guys, and although they’re nothing special, it’s interesting how he ties them into the main theme of the comic.

This issue fleshes out the character of Khrome a bit more, gets us into the crime a bit more, and isn’t difficult to read because the art is too dark. Niles, who seems to have problems with endings, doesn’t have any problems with beginnings, and he’s set up an interesting murder mystery. There’s nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned murder mystery!

Sales figures for issue #1 (October): 8,981 (rank: 209). I have to think that’s pretty good.

Dynamo 5 #18 by Jay Faerber (writer), Mahmud A. Asrar (artist), Marcio Takara (artist), Ron Riley (colorist), and Charles Pritchett (letterer). Back-up story by Jay Faerber (writer), Joe Eisma (artist), Paul Little (colorist), and Charles Pritchett (letterer). $3.50, 27 pgs (20 for the main story, 6 for the back-up), FC, Image.

Over in Jay Faerber’s neck of the woods, Dynamo 5 gets a guest artist (Asrar draws only three pages) and a back-up story, but keeps trucking along. Scrap’s replacement team gets into a fight with a group of super-villains and doesn’t fare very well (as you can see from the cover). As usual, it’s simple kick-ass superheroing and supervillaining, but Faerber is able to do that so well that it feels fresh. Even the twist at the end, which comes from Superhero 101 class, hits us like a punch in the gut. It’s very hard to describe how good Faerber’s two ongoings for Image are (although Noble Causes is ending, it’s still around for now), because not every issue stands out as truly superb. There are stellar moments, but even those don’t show up all the time. If I wrote about the plot - supervillains collects other supervillains who match up well against the new Dynamo 5, said supervillains attack, said supervillains beat up Dynamo 5, something surprising happens at the end - you might think, “That’s the scenario of every superhero comic I’ve ever read!” Well, true, but as always, it’s in the execution. Faerber adds so many small touches that make this fun to read, like Timothy Lipinski going all gooey when he gets his people-killing armor back. Okay, that’s not really fun, but it’s something a slightly psychotic super-villain would do.

I’m not sure what’s up with the back-up story. It’s the tale of a private investigator who sets someone up, and it’s a clever little story, but I don’t know if Faerber is going to start a new series with the P. I. (who, interestingly enough, isn’t named, although the title of the story is “Dodge’s Bullets,” indicating that Dodge is either his first or last name). Either way, it’s a fun short story.

As Brian noted, prices for regular Marvel books (”regular” meaning 22 pages of story with no “extra” material) are going up to $3.99. Faerber himself stopped by to explain why Dynamo 5 is $3.50. Considering it’s as good, if not better, than any other superhero comic you can buy, isn’t it time you stopped hoping that Marvel will come to its senses with regard to pricing and checked this out instead?

Sales figures for the last two issues (#16 and #17, September and October): 5,014 (#16; rank: 241) and 4,792 (#17; rank: 287). I guess that’s fine - the drop is odd, but not huge.

Ex Machina #39 by Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Tony Harris (penciller), Jim Clark (inker), JD Mettler (colorist), and Jared K. Fletcher (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/WildStorm.

The frustrating thing about Ex Machina is that Vaughan is ending it with issue #50, but now we’re going to have to wait two years for that to arrive. I look forward to every issue, even weaker ones like this one, and now that Vaughan has hinted about where the book is going (he may have done this in interviews prior to this, but I don’t read interviews, so this is the first time within the comic he’s hinted about the book’s direction), I’m really looking forward to the end. But I have to wait so damned long!!!!!

As I wrote above, this is a weaker issue, mainly because Monica is such a dull “villain” to the point where she’s not one at all, really. Vaughan’s biggest weakness with this book is feeling that he has to put costumed weirdos in it, even if the book doesn’t necessarily warrant it, and building story arcs around them. Monica’s story could have been told in two issues, tops, but it was stretched out a bit, and that weakened it. Still, Kremlin’s a-doings and the way Vaughan turns the book toward the future help mitigate that a bit. I’m fascinated to see the rest of the series.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#37 and #38, June and September): 14,921 (#37; rank: 131) and 14,973 (#38; rank: 137). Holding virtually steady. Those who buy it are invested, man!

Ghost Rider #29 by Jason Aaron (writer), Tan Eng Huat (artist), José Villarrubia (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, Marvel.

I said I wasn’t going to buy this anymore because last issue was $3.99 with a lousy recap of Danny Ketch’s career as Ghost Rider as the “extra” material. Well, I calmed down and decided to buy this, because I have been enjoying Aaron’s run on the title. Unfortunately, I might drop it anyway.

It’s not that this is bad. Aaron is writing a slam-bang action comic, and Huat’s art continues to look better than it has in the past. But it’s not as flat-out insane as Aaron’s first arc, when we had killer nurses and haunted highways and cannibals. It’s a fairly standard superhero comic, and although Aaron does it well, it doesn’t give me any reason to keep coming back. I suppose if I was more invested in the Ghost Rider mythos, it would be more powerful, but I’m not, so the actual story and writing have to be dazzling, and for the past few issues, they haven’t been. It’s certainly keen to see Danny and Johnny throw down, but beyond that, I don’t get the same sense of danger that I get, for instance, with Dynamo 5 and its big fight. It’s just two really powerful dudes smashing each other, and that’s tough to make interesting.

The end of the issue promises “more Ghost Riders,” as we learned last issue that there are several wandering the Earth. It will come out in December, which means the following month I usually think about culling titles. I doubt if this will make the cut. I miss the craziness of the first arc, which was truly and wildly awesome. Oh well.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#27 and 28, September and October): 23,402 (#27; rank: 105) and 26,993 (#28; rank: 102). A slight boost with the 4-dollar issue that I ranted about. I guess I suck.

Moon Knight #24 by Mike Benson (writer), Mark Texeira (artist), Javier Saltares (layouts), Dan Brown (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, Marvel.

I like how the past two issues have featured Bullseye on the cover, even though the first time Bullseye shows up in this arc is on the last page of this issue. I guess he’s just so freakin’ cool that Suydam had to put him on two consecutive covers!

This isn’t quite as excellent an issue as the last few, but it’s still very good. When last we left our favorite crazy superhero, Venom was about to eat his brain. Of course, he doesn’t, because that would be awkward, but there’s a big fight between MK and the Thunderbolts, and what makes it interesting is that Moon Knight doesn’t really win. It’s his book, after all, so the usual thing to do is make him superhuman and have him mop the floor with his adversaries, which is what writers of, say, the Caped Crusader always do. He does a fine job beating up on the Thunderbolts, but it’s not like he’s whipping them. He’s even in a bit of trouble until S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up. Isn’t that always the way?

As this is the penultimate issue of the arc, we get some set-up for the final issue. Jean-Paul still wants revenge, and Marc actually has to act human a little bit. Frenchie tells a story about his mercenary days, which helps illuminate, once again, a major theme of this book - the consequences of violence and how no one escapes. Marvel has spoiled the end of this arc in the solicitations, which annoys the hell out of me, but it’s still a bittersweet issue, as Marc knows he probably can’t get out of this. We’ll see exactly how this ends.

I guess Bullseye actually shows up next issue and does some ass-kicking. That’ll be nice.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#22 and #23, September and October): 26,380 (#22; rank: 94) and 25,216 (#23; rank: 111). Holding relatively steady, which makes me happy.

Pax Romana #4 (of 4) by Jonathan Hickman (writer/artist). $3.50, 28 pgs, FC, Image.

Pax Romana finally concludes, and it’s not quite as strong as Hickman’s first series, The Nightly News. Despite that book’s inevitably lackluster ending, it was ridiculously bold and a breath of fresh air both story-wise and art-wise. Pax Romana looks great, with that odd Hickman style that is gorgeous to look at, and the story is still compelling, but Hickman never quite pulls it off. It’s always been a 4-issue mini-series, but perhaps it could have used an extra issue, because the characters never quite gel and in order to get his philosophical ramblings into the book (don’t get me wrong - I like the philosophical ramblings), Hickman seems to have sacrificed some characterization and action. Like The Nightly News, Hickman has grand themes on his mind in this book, and one of the characters vocalizes them late in the comic. Overall, the idea of the book - sending people back in time to make sure the world doesn’t fall into barbarism - is fascinating, and although Hickman gets his major point about the nature of people across, he doesn’t manage it with the same flair that he brought to The Nightly News. Ironically, the end of this book probably works better than that earlier one, but the journey isn’t as strong.

Still, Hickman continues to be an impressive voice in comics, both with his astonshing artwork and in the themes he examines in his work. I hope he does more work, and I hope he speeds up a bit. Waiting for his comics is frustrating, to say the least.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#2 and #3, March and September): 4,794 (#2; rank: 239) and 2,889 (#3; rank: 300). Who says delays in books don’t hurt sales?

Scalped #23 by Jason Aaron (writer), R. M. Guéra (artist), Giulia Brusco (colorist), and Steve Wands (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, DC/Vertigo.

Aaron focuses on Dino Poor Bear in this issue, as he rides around the reservation doing his “job,” which consists of giving drugs and guns to various people and collecting their money. It’s a typical issue of Scalped, in that Aaron captures the essence of dirt-poor living and things build slowly to two incidents of horrific violence that leave their mark on Dino. As we’ve seen, Dino will never leave the rez, but he still clings to the notion that he will, which makes his life, as sad as it is, a bit more pathetic. He’s not working toward anything, and he has a (relatively) clear head on his shoulders - think of the people who don’t have clear heads! Aaron has done a fine job showing the absolute despair the people on the rez live with each day, and by now, he doesn’t even make much of an effort - just by showing Dino go about his daily life is enough. Maybe, just maybe, Dino realizes in this issue that he has to change. But I doubt it.

I have read on-line that Scalped is a lousy representation of Native Americans. I don’t know if it is or not - I have not met many Indians, so I can’t speak to that. I do know that the reservations in Phoenix aren’t much better than the fictional one in this comic, so he’s onto something there. But that’s a topic for another day. I won’t say much about that, but I will say that whether or not Aaron is accurately portraying a Native American experience, he is accurately portraying a poor experience. The people in this comic are desperate, and they act desperately. They often act stupidly, but Aaron has done a nice job showing why they act this way. That’s part of why this book is so gripping.

Sales figures for the last two issues (#21 and #22, September and October): 7,029 (#21; rank: 216) and 6,964 (#22; rank: 241). This is why I switched to the single issues. Anything to do my part!

Uncanny X-Men #504 by Matt Fraction (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Justin Ponsor (colorist), and Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 22 pgs, FC, Marvel.

I appreciate Terry Dodson’s drawing style with regard to women, because he makes them a bit more zaftig than your usual comic artist, but what’s up with Emma’s waist on that cover? I know the fur is hiding some of it, but it looks hideously thin compared to her bust. Weird.

Anyway, this is much more like what I was hoping for when Fraction came on board the X-Men express. Brubaker isn’t even credited in this issue, so perhaps he’s completely off the book? Either way, Fraction isn’t quite back to form totally, but this is much better than the previous arc. Does Dodson make that much of a difference? Maybe.

Fraction almost completely ditches the annoying identifying(...)

Never mind wicked stepmothers, ugly sisters and evil witches. As London's pantomime season gets under way for the Christmas season, there is a new villain in town – the banker

The Captain Marvel film seems to finally be moving forward again, if this Variety item is anything to go by. Get Smart's Peter Segal has set a first-look deal at Warner Bros., and as part of the deal the studio acquired the John August-scripted Captain Marvel which Segel is still in line to direct.

The film was originally set up at New Line, but we all remember what happened there, so Marvel fans will be relieved to know he's got a new studio to call home -- and one that all his DC friends are at. I'm curious about the title switch ... are they going to retitle it Captain Marvel, and risk everyone being confused as to which comic brand he belongs to?

The last word we had on the project was precisely a year ago, when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson signed on to play the villainous Black Adam. Variety makes no mention as to whether he's still attached. I hope he is, the fans chose him! You can't recast after a stunt like that.

Considering it has a script, a director, a villain, and a studio, all Shazam/Marvel needs is its hero, and it could be on the big screen before Warner Bros decides what to do with Superman. I'm not the biggest fan of the character, but he's a perfect one for the kids, especially in this era of dark and gritty superheroes.

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Family Films, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek

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As I’ve said in the past, I get a fair amount of mail. A lot of it is from former students who want to ask about one comics-related point or another.

Just for fun, and to give you an idea how our odd little pop-culture backwater looks from the outside…here is a series of letters between me and Rachel.

Rachel is a cartooning graduate, and now she is an occasional TA-slash-intern for me at the art studio. This ever-lengthening correspondence has been going on for the last week or so and finally I said to her, “You know, I might as well do this as a column,” and she graciously agreed. So here it is.

It started with Rachel sending a note that she was no longer obsessed with Spider-Man. That was over. It was time to put away childish things.

Now, she was all about The X-Men.

As it happened, I needed a model for my portrait class down at the studio that week. So I sent Rachel a note back suggesting that if she’d be willing to come by the studio and sit for my students for an hour or so, I would hook her up with some X-Men books, and I’d throw in the Birds of Prey DVDs I’d been promising for a while, as well. (Over the years, I’ve discovered that when I employ students for odd jobs, using the barter system is more fun for both of us, and a better deal for the kids than cash money.)

Rachel did a fine job modeling for the drawing class and certainly had earned some cool swag. I gave her some X-Men trades I’d had around the house that were superfluous for me, that I thought she would enjoy.

(And also that I considered to be “the good stuff.” I reasoned that if Rachel was going to collect X-comics, I owed her a proper start. She has the rest of her life to read crap like Inferno or X-Cutioner’s Song.)

A little while later she sent this note, which I answered point-by-point.

*

Hi Greg,

I am totally in love with the X-Men comics you gave me!! I especially like the Neal Adams book.

I had a few questions though.

In the Neal Adams book, there is no Storm, Wolverine, or Rogue in the group. Why is that?

The Neal Adams book is taken from the stories that ran in the FIRST version of the X-Men. Those were published in the 1960’s.

Then, later, the title was revived with a new, more international roster.

It’s all explained here.

So Alex is Scott’s brother?

Yes.

Why isn’t Beast blue?

It was before he mutated further. The character’s history is explained here.

I would appreciate if you could help me understand.

Thanks,
Rachel

You should have one more book coming, The Dark Phoenix Saga, that falls between the two I gave you at the studio, in the overall X-chronology. Julie and I found it at a Goodwill and decided you needed it, so it’s in the mail.

Really, though, if you want to get caught up, you should get the Essential X-Men books… they are great big phone-book-sized reprint volumes that give you twenty to twenty-five comics’ worth of stories in each book.

They’re in black-and-white, which puts off some people, but if you just want to read the stories that’s your best bet. They’re cheap.

–G.

*

A couple of days later Rachel called the house to say thank you, squealing with delight about The Dark Phoenix Saga and how much she loved it. Shortly thereafter we got a note that her e-mail address had changed from spideyzgirl@…. to j.thedarkphoenix@…. I couldn’t resist and sent her a reply saying I’d noted her new address, adding, “Book must have been good, huh?”

Which led to this e-mail, that I again answered point-by-point.

*

I’m gonna try and get those Essential books - they look really cool!

So, the girl with the green hair is Lorna, and her powers are magnetism, right? I wonder why Alex Summers wasn’t in the movies. Probably not enough time for him, I guess.

Alex Summers really hasn’t been in the COMICS that much when you look at the last forty-plus years of X-Men.

But Wolverine: Origins comes out in 2009!! I’m so excited!

I’m hoping you mean the movie, because the comic wasn’t worth getting that excited over.

For that matter, the Wolverine of the comics really was disliked by many people at the beginning. He started out as a Hulk villain.

And later when he was drafted for the new X-Men he was primarily the guy that nobody cared for, the agent of discord on the team. Marvel used to get letters saying “And kill off that obnoxious Wolverine.” The star character in the revival was Nightcrawler because Dave Cockrum really liked drawing him. And in fact there was a point when the Wolverine character was getting so much hate mail that they were thinking of dropping him from the book.

When John Byrne took over the art from Cockrum, one of the things he wanted to do as co-plotter of the book was ‘rehabilitate’ Wolverine… that is, make the fans like him more. Part of it was that Byrne was Canadian himself and didn’t want the only Canadian superhero at Marvel to go away, and part of it was that Byrne thought it would be a fun challenge, taking a hero so despised and seeing if he couldn’t get the fans to come around. So Byrne began, very subtly, to slant stories toward Wolverine. (In those days, Marvel’s artists had a lot more control over a story, because the art was done from a brief outline rather than a script. Then the writer would come in and write captions and dialogue based on the penciled art.)

If you look at the Dark Phoenix book you will see that in play.

Wolverine gets most of the cool action shots, Wolverine gets a big dramatic cliffhanger, it’s really Wolverine Comics co-starring the X-Men.

And it worked. Wolverine became a star.

Except I almost got the Dark Phoenix saga taken away by my Spanish teacher, because I was “reading too much in class.” I told her I couldn’t help it, and she let me keep it with a warning.

Boy, THAT takes me back. I actually HAD books taken away. My parents were very annoyed with me about the whole book thing. (”Why don’t you go play outside? Why do you have to spend every penny on books?”) Mine were Star Trek books and James Bond books and Batman comics, though. The Batman stories that really blew me away at that age were, oddly enough, by a young Neal Adams, who partnered with Denny O’Neil on a run people still talk about today. Ra’s Al Ghul, from Batman Begins, is an O’Neil/Adams villain.

I know I’ve already thanked you - but I seriously realllly appreciate the books. The movies got me hooked, but the books are also really incredible!

Plus, Professor Xavier and Scott don’t die in The Dark Phoenix Saga, which is nice, because whenever I watch those scenes in X-Men 3 I start bawling. And I like it better that Jean realizes she has to kill herself to stop Phoenix, rather than having Wolverine kill her which is really sad.

Something that caught me off guard, however, is that in The Dark Phoenix Saga, Wolverine is short. And sort of “spooky,” as Kitty says. And obviously has no relationship with Jean. So I wonder how that whole Jean/Scott/Logan movie triangle came to be.

Well, first of all, bear in mind that model’s wages in an art studio run anywhere from $15-20 an hour and that’s about the same dollar value of those books in a used bookstore. So it wasn’t really a ‘gift.’ You earned them, that’s your pay for an hour’s work at the studio. (The BIRDS OF PREY shows, well, I’d been promising to burn a set of those for you for years, that was just guilt.)

As for the rest… Wolverine IS short. He’s named for a small snarling rodent and that was the key to his visual.

Now, actor HUGH JACKMAN is tall, but as writer Len Wein (the guy that actually created Wolverine) likes to say, “I don’t mind, because Jackman plays him as being short and pissed off,” and it’s true. Jackman nails it so perfectly that none of us really mind that he’s way too tall.

The love triangle with Jean and Scott and Logan goes back to the earliest days of the revival– the Dave Cockrum years. Remember, Wolverine was the team malcontent, the guy that created discord and tension. The love triangle was just one more way for that to happen. In fact, a lot of the reason so many fans hated Wolverine in the early days was because of that triangle and the idea that Logan might somehow break up Scott and Jean. People forget sometimes that it’s FICTION and that writers put their characters under pressure for a reason. The more tension you have, the more suspense there is about how it will all work out, then the more interesting the book is and the more engaged you are by the drama.

Really the love story with Scott and Jean went through so many wild freaky twists and turns, and taken as a whole makes both of them look so badly-behaved, that it’s best not to think about it as a complete history. Fans tended to forgive them because we all so loved the two of them as a couple, and the Dark Phoenix story was such a powerful love story that it overshadowed everything. We just KNEW they were in love, and the fact that they sometimes acted crappy to one another (Scott, especially, behaved very badly over the years) …well, that didn’t really ‘count’ in our heads as we were reading, we always forgave everything if they would just get back together.

The movie people wisely went back to the earliest days of the book for their story material, before there were thirty more years of convoluted comic-book soap opera history layered on top of it. The best way to read the X-Men is to just kind of cherry-pick your favorite era and concentrate on that. Because there have been A LOT of bad X-Men comics out there.

Also, Rogue is not there. Which makes me sad. Because she is my 3rd favorite character. (1st: Jean, 2nd: Wolverine, 3rd: Rogue, 4th: Scott).

I guess you really have created a monster, as you titled your email, because now I’m really obsessed - more than I was with Spider-Man, believe it or not.

Well, the good news is, there are lots of books out there for you. Julie and I were at Half-Price Books in Southcenter last night and saw the first three Essential X-Men volumes for about four dollars each, along with a bunch of other X-stuff.

The Essentials are the easiest way to play catch-up but there are lots of other books too. There are prose X-Men novels as well. Here’s a PARTIAL list. Some of those are comics and some are prose. Click on the book cover to find out more about a particular book.

I’m partial to the ones by Christopher Golden, in particular: CODENAME WOLVERINE, and the MUTANT EMPIRE trilogy.

You can see more about those here.

As for Rogue, she came later, and her story is very different from the movie one. You have to understand the movies are very streamlined and condensed and tend to mash up stories together that took place years apart in the comics. The first movie was an original story that kind of tried to do everything, it had references to every era of the book and the team roster was a sort of “Greatest Hits” cast culled from the forty years of publishing. X2 was a kind of riff on GOD LOVES MAN KILLS but incorporated a lot of original stuff from the first movie and added Lady Deathstrike to replace Anne Reynolds. X-Men 3 grafted together Dark Phoenix and ASTONISHING X-MEN: GIFTED and threw in Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. And so on.

Truthfully, I lost interest in the X-Men comics in the 90’s– Marvel did so many spin-offs and tie-in series that it became impossible to keep up. Every so often something catches my eye still– I liked GENERATION X while it was around, and that even got a movie. (A bad made-for-TV one, but still kind of fun, you see it bootlegged at shows a lot.)

I enjoy the X-Men movies a great deal and do still sometimes pick up an X-comic. I quite liked Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men, as well as Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men.

But mostly I’m a Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne guy, Essential X-Men volumes one, two and three. My X-Men are the ones in the three books I gave you, of which God Loves, Man Kills was the newest. But every generation has their particular favorite run and their particular favorite team lineup. I imagine that as you keep reading and watching movies and so on, you’ll arrive at a Dream Team of your own.

–G.

*

By now it was starting to get away from me. Answering Rachel’s questions was reminding me how much I myself had loved the Marvel mutants once upon a time, and her enthusiasm was contagious… I’d start out to write a quick answer and it would turn into a little mini-essay. It must have been entertaining for Rachel, too, because in a day or two this note arrived, which I have again answered. It was about halfway through replying to this that I thought, “Hell, this all might as well be a column,” and got Rachel’s permission to put it up here.

*

I have more questions!

1. In the first book you gave me, it looked like Lorna and Bobby were going out, but in the very beginning of the Dark Phoenix saga, it seemed like Lorna was with Alex. What happened there?

Years passed. Different writers come on a book and each new one has a different idea about how things should go. That’s really what happened.

But I imagine you want the in-story reason. In this particular case, as I recall Bobby had a thing for Lorna but she really only had eyes for Alex. I think there have been times when she starts to relent and maybe give Bobby a second look, but nothing serious ever came of that.

Iceman does a hell of a lot better in the movies with girls than he ever did in the comic. In the X-comics, what I remember is that Bobby Drake was a little bit of a sad sack, someone who was always getting his heart stepped on. He was the classic case of the guy who always ends up being ‘just friends’ with a girl. I think in recent years they’ve been a little kinder to him, but he still seems to have a lot of girls leaving him or being revealed as villains or something. Nothing like the movie where there’s two different girls fighting over him, that’s for sure.

2. In the 2nd movie, when Professor X is being mind-warped by Stryker’s son (isn’t his name Jason?) to kill all mutants..That seemed very similar to Jean being mind-warped by Jason Wyngarde (who was really Mastermind, the illusionist guy) in the Dark Phoenix saga. Am I just being paranoid or is that the same person?

Well, here you get into a whole thing about adaptation and what that all means. Does Jason Stryker have the same power as Jason Wyngarde/Mastermind? More or less, I suppose, though nobody ever tried to extract anything from Mastermind’s glands and drip it on people’s necks for purposes of mind control. (I don’t think so, anyway. You have to remember I haven’t been keeping up with every X-Men comic since 1975. In spite of what my students think, I don’t actually know everything about comics.)

Is it the same guy? Maybe Bryan Singer and the movie people named him “Jason” as a little nod to Jason Wyngarde, maybe even the character started out to be “Mastermind,” but as characters, they’re nothing alike.

In the comics, Mastermind was kind of a weaselly little coward who used his power to make himself suave and sophisticated, and his main concern always seemed to be insinuating himself next to some hot girl….the Scarlet Witch, Jean Grey, whoever.

For that matter, X2 took quite a few liberties with Stryker himself.

God Loves, Man Kills was originally published in the 80’s, when television preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were really starting to build a following, and a lot of their message was about us vs. them: whichever “them” they happened to be picking on at the moment, the televangelists were always demonizing their opponents and scaring people. Nowadays these TV ministers are looked at mostly as jokes, but in the 1980’s they were extremely powerful public figures. So it’s a pretty easy leap from that to creating a televangelist villain who is scaring people about mutants.

Now, in the 2000’s, it’s been the government that gets a lot of mileage out of scaring people and using that fear to justify doing bad things in the name of ‘protecting’ citizens. Today the natural leap isn’t from televangelist to X-villain, it’s from obsessed government official to X-villain. So Stryker got a makeover for the movies.

The beauty of the X-Men concept is that it’s infinitely adaptable. There are always going to be groups of people that are afraid of other groups of people because they’re different. And that kind of fear always leads to prejudice and hatred. Those conflicts are very easy to build X-Men stories on, because the whole premise for the book in the first place is “feared and hated by the world they’ve sworn to protect.” Any time you have fear and hatred you have potential story material for the X-Men.

3. Did Jean, Scott, and Professor X really die in the comics? (Obviously, I know Jean dies in the Dark Phoenix Saga). I’ve heard that X-Men 3 pretty much veered away from the plot of the comics, and was wondering if the deaths happened as well.

Honestly? Nobody ever really dies in the comics.

It’s kind of reached the point where everybody snorts and says “Yeah right,” whenever a character gets killed.

Cyclops, the Professor, and Jean have all been ‘killed’ or presumed dead several times, and so have most of the other X-Men. Really at this point I think it’s easier to keep track of who hasn’t been presumed dead for at least a couple of issues.

Now, as of right now this minute as I write this? Jean is dead– she was resurrected and then killed off again, once or twice since the Dark Phoenix book you have. Scott is still around. Professor X is still around but I think he’s not playing a big active role at the moment, he’s retired or in hiding or sulking or something. But sooner or later he’ll be back, as will Jean. Jean’s really easy to revive, since the whole schtick of a phoenix is ‘resurrection.’

I kind of like Jean Grey being gone, myself; I think it diminishes the heroism of her sacrifice to keep bringing her back from the dead as though she’s just been down with the flu, like death’s just occasionally inconvenient. And I enjoy what writers have done with Scott and Emma Frost. Grant Morrison, especially, just took Emma’s character and ran with it.

The idea of the X-Men’s resident boy scout romancing such an unrepentant bitch, and how they are each adapting to one another as she tries to be good and he occasionally lets himself be a little bad, is really a lot more interesting to read about than the swooning True Love of Scott and Jean.

…but that’s just me.

Because it’s comics, no one stays dead, and there is always going to be that group of fans that wants Scott and Jean back together no matter what. So I imagine sooner or later she’ll be back.

4. About Rogue’s history being different - I heard she was raised by Mystique??

Yes, that’s correct.

Really the movie Rogue is nothing like the comics Rogue, except for her powers. Rogue in the movies is a lot more like the original Kitty Pryde, a teenage girl who joins the team and ends up forging a special friendship with Wolverine. Which in turn made it odd when they decided Kitty would actually have a real role in the third movie.

Rogue in the comics began as a villain, and her path to becoming one of the most popular members of the team was too convoluted to even try to recap here. I will cheat and link you to this page instead.

Marvel Comics, as a whole, tends to get a lot of mileage out of reforming villains. (Remember, even Wolverine started as a Hulk villain.) Just in the X-Men books alone I think Magneto, Emma Frost, Rogue, Mystique, and Juggernaut have all been ‘reformed’ at least for a little while. So far, with Rogue and Emma, rehabilitation seems to have stuck.

5. Speaking of Mystique. She, Nightcrawler, and Beast are all blue. Are they related at all?

Ha! This just goes to show that everything occurs to everybody, sooner or later.

Yes, Mystique and Nightcrawler are related. She is his mother, though he didn’t know it for years and years, she abandoned him and he was raised by gypsies in a traveling circus. This was all eventually told in one of those big shock-revelation stories done after both characters had been around for a while. And I believe the reason this storyline was done is because someone thought “hey, they’re both blue.”

Now, the Beast, Hank McCoy, is a slightly different story. He originally started out looking human, just sort of bulky and Neanderthal, and he was one of the five original members of the team.

In the 1970’s, when I was about your age as a matter of fact, he got his own series in Amazing Adventures.

This is the one-hundred and eighty-first in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous one-hundred and eighty.

Let’s begin!

COMIC LEGEND: Marvel once did a special G.I. Joe comic made up of a comic by Todd McFarlane that was deemed unacceptable by Marvel only a few years earlier!

STATUS: True

Reader Billy Ray asked me about this a ways back (towards the end of last year), but I could not really help him out, as I did not have the issue in question either until recently.

As it turns out, this certainly was quite an interesting situation.

Some readers might recall that Todd McFarlane was slowly breaking into Marvel Comics in the late 1980s, and among the work he did was a fill-in issue of G.I.Joe, specifically #60.

What is NOT as well known, however, is that McFarlane actually drew the NEXT issue, as well!

For whatever reason, though, McFarlane’s issue was deemed unacceptable, so venerable veteran, the late, great Marshall Rogers was brought in to draw the issue, and that was G.I. Joe #61.

Rogers WAS asked back, as he would go on to draw two more issues of G.I. Joe in the next couple of years.

By 1994, the title was no longer the top seller it was in the mid to late 80s, when it was routinely Marvel’s top selling comic book (it even had a spin-off comic, G.I. Joe Special Missions). So with #155, Marvel ended the book.

However, in the time between #61 and the book ending at #155, a funny thing had happened, the young, inexperienced fill-in artist, Todd McFarlane, had gone off and become a major comic book artist superstar!

So now, somehow, the same pages that were considered unacceptable in 1987 were good enough to be published, for the first time, in a G.I. Joe Special, coming two months AFTER the cancellation of the series!!

Here’s the Phil Gosier drawn McFarlane homage cover.

Here, for your amusement, is a side by side comparison of five pages from McFarlane’s unaccepted take on Larry Hama’s script and Marshall Rogers’ accepted one.

Rogers did seem to do a better job.

All in all, though, it’s a weird situation through and through.

Thanks to Billy Ray for the suggestion!

Now, for something a bit different this week.

I’ve gotten enough suggestions involving Madelyne Pryor that I could get four or more urban legends just out of covering the story behind her creation and subsequent usage, but at the same time, it is a bit difficult to answer ONE of them without, in effect, answering ALL of them, so I’m just going to answer all of them at once here.

COMIC LEGEND: The Madelyne Pryor in Avengers Annual #10 was the first appearance of the Madelyne Pryor who married Cyclops.

STATUS: False

COMIC LEGEND: Madelyne Pryor was meant to be Jean Grey with amnesia.

STATUS: False

COMIC LEGEND: Madelyne Pryor became a clone of Jean Grey in an attempt to deal with the whole “Cyclops is married to Madelyne while hanging out with Jean Grey” deal.

STATUS: True

COMIC LEGEND: Madelyne Pryor and Cyclops were intended to stay married and live happily ever after.

STATUS: True

As has been established in more than one installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed (here and here, for two), Chris Claremont likes to work in the names of people he’s fond of into his comics. I think it’s a neat little thing he does.

However, his fondness for doing this has led to some confusion when it comes to Madelyne Pryor’s origins.

Claremont was a fan of the folk band, Steeleye Span, and of their popular lead singer, Maddy Prior.

I do not believe Claremont was a personal acquaintance with Ms. Prior, but I could be wrong there.

In either case, in the pages of Avengers Annual #10 (one of the first comics written specifically to address what a writer found to be a bad story by a different writer - in this case, Claremont addressing his distaste for how Carol Danvers was written out of the Avengers), Claremont featured a young girl named Madelyne Pryor as a minor background character.

A few years later, Claremont introduced a new character named Madelyne Pryor as a love interest for Scott Summers, Cyclops.

The two characters were not meant to be the same people - just the same name. That said, I’m sure someone will ultimately come up with a way for them to be the same person. Claremont actually even joked about the confusion in an issue where he had the little girl show up again (wearing the same clothes) as a mental manifestation by Pryor, only singing one of Steeleye Span’s more popular songs!

When introduced, Madelyne Pryor caused a lot of anxiety among the X-Men for her great resemblance to Jean Grey, as well as the fact that she had been in a plane crash at the same time Jean died in outer space.

However, Claremont’s intent with that stuff was strictly to be a really weird coincidence, so Cyclops and the X-Men would always be left wondering, “COULD she be Jean?” But in Claremont’s intention, she was not related to Jean Grey at all.

Claremont’s plans were for Scott to marry Madelyne and have a child and be in, more or less, retirement from that point out, only showing up for major events/emergencies (similar to how Claremont used Alex and Lorna and others during the early days of the All-New, All-Different X-Men). Claremont got to start the first part of his plan, the marriage and the baby part, but events out of his control led to his plans not working out.

Marvel decided to bring Jean Grey back from the dead and put her on a team with Scott Summers and the rest of the original X-Men. Part of that story involved Scott flying away from his family when he hears Jean is alive.

To Claremont, this was a major problem (and most readers agreed that it did not make Scott look too cool).

So ultimately, to deal with a story that he had no part of, Claremont decided to play along and help out X-Factor by revealing that oops, yes, Madelyne WAS a clone of Jean Grey. And now she is an evil villain named the Goblin Queen!

And bam, now she’s dead, so Scott and Jean can be together without having to feel bad - Scott’s wife was not REALLY his wife - she was a clone designed to marry him so that they could bear a child together, and now she’s dead anyways, so smooth sailing on the Scott/Jean love boat!

Maddie is (perhaps) appearing right now in Uncanny (perhaps) back from the dead! Good timing, as Jean is currently dead!

Thanks to Mike (who asked a couple of these), Jason and a few other readers over the years that escape my memory for the Maddie suggestions!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

See you next week!