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Crushing Comics S01E055 – Why I can’t meditate + X-Men: Fall of the Mutants

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As I unwrap today’s book, I talk about my inability to meditate in the traditional “relaxed mind” version of meditation. For me, meditation comes from engaging my brain in something. For some people that’s a zen koan, but for me it’s more like alphabetizing books or organizing files.

The book I unwrap after all that musing is X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, the “crossover that was not.” I explain how it began the unravelling of the main X-Men team and how it marked the highlight of Louise Simonson’s run on X-Factor.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 55 features X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, covered in the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont.

Crushing Comics S01E054 – X-Men Inferno & Operation: Zero Tolerance (+ the vicarious thrill of natural disasters)

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As I unwrap I talk about the combined thrill and terror of living through natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. I always said that Philly was relatively immune to such apocalyptic events, but now I live right on a fault line (and right on the water).

Then, I open what might be the most sought-after X-Men hardcover today – Inferno! Is the story worth all of the hype and high prices? I walk you through how it came to be, including a brief history of Madelyne Pryor, and speculate if it was Chris Claremont’s way of “fixing” his master plan after the debut of X-Factor. (I have much less to say about Operation Zero Tolerance.)

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 54 features X-Men: Inferno and X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance, which are covered in the guides to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and X-Men (1991), respectively.

X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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(Note: This post was originally scheduled for June but is being stickied to the top of the main page during the week of November 27th so current readers don’t miss it! Regular updates continue, below.)

X-Men fans who know the team from cartoons and movies are familiar with that single title acting as an umbrella to all of the various incarnations of the franchise.

That’s about to change in 2018. Fans will get their first taste of a X-Men spinoff title with the release of New Mutants, a movie based on the third generation of young mutants at Xavier’s school who were spun off into their own title in 1984. Either that film or Deadpool will likely lead us to another movie named X-Force, which would show off a more-proactive, bloodier version of X-Men on film.

Those spinoff titles – “new” and “force” – are explicit in describing what their teams represent. That’s one of many reasons why the film franchise is skipping over another X-Men spinoff title: X-Factor.

X-Factor (1986) #1

We might eventually see an “X-Factor” movie or TV show thanks to a 2006 incarnation of the title, which envisioned it less as a team and more as the motley crew staffing a mutant detective agency.

What we probably will never see is an adaptation of the original X-Factor, which was dedicated to reassembling the original comic book X-Men – Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Jean Grey returned from the dead. That’s because the film series has always been smart enough to realize that those five characters are a boring combination that’s quickly dominated by the Cyclops/Jean relationship.

If the original X-Men are so boring, why were they reassembled? And, is it worth reading about over thirty years later? Those two questions are answered by the #31 vote on this year’s Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibus ballot.

(Note that this post was published in November, as the originally scheduled post was interrupted by coordinating my move to my new home in New Zealand).

X-Factor, Vol. 1

X-Factor, Vol. 1 is tied as the #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes and collect all of these issue right now as detailed in my X-Factor Guide

Past Ranking: X-Factor was #13 last year, making it one of the biggest drops in rank in 2017.

Probable Contents: Fantastic Four #286, Avengers #263, X-Factor #1 to 26 or 32, plus Annuals #1-3.

Creators: Written by Louise Simonson with Bob Layton and Walt Simonson. Penciled by Jackson Guice (#1-7) and Walt Simonson (#10-11, 13-15, 17-19, 21, 23-31, & Annual 3) with Marc Silvestri (#8 & 12)

Can you read it right now? Not entirely, and what you read will be in an hodge-podge of formats. The whole run isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited! Visit the X-Factor Guide for the full story.

What’s in the X-Factor, Vol. 1 omnibus?

X-Factor marked the first time the original five X-Men were reunited in over a decade.

It was a clever solution to a non-existent problem, but also very nearly a dead-on-arrival dud. Even though it turned out to be good, I’m still convinced it was the first big misstep of the X-Men franchise.

Let’s start at the beginning.

The year is 1985. Jean Grey is still dead. Cyclops represents the “old guard” in Uncanny X-Men and is increasingly unnecessary to the team, though he continues to get pulled back into their adventures despite starting a new life (and family) with Madelyne Pryor (later decided/revealed to be a clone of Jean!). Angel, Beast, and Iceman are roughly half of the New Defenders in a title headed for cancellation. [Read more…] about X-Factor, Vol. 1 – The #31 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

X-Factor by David & DeMatteis – The #37 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

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The X-Men and their various teams have gone through many reinventions in the decades since their birth, but I’d argue one of the most successful of them all was Peter A. David (PAD) writing X-Factor from 1991 to 1993.

This is an X-Men run that remains as delightful for entrenched fanatics as it is for brand new readers. Even if PAD was already cemented as a household name for comic fans thanks to his lengthy run on Incredible Hulk, he was the first author to ever focus on Polaris and he turned Multiple Man into such an enduring fan favorite that he spawned another 100+ issue run on X-Factor over a decade after this one ended!

X-Factor (1986) - #71X-Factor by David & DeMatteis is the #37 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes, and visit the Guide to X-Factor to learn how can you read it today.

Past Ranking: Up one spot from#38 in 2016.

Probable Contents: Collecting X-Factor #71-83, 87-105, & Annual 8-9 (and maybe #106 along with Excalibur (1988) #82, X-Force (1991) #38.

Yes, that pushes past the PAD material. I’ll explain more below.

See Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 2: 1991 to 2001) for a map of the remainder of the series.

Creators: Written by Peter A. David (#71-89, with Shana David & Skip Dietz), Scott Lobdell (#90-95 with Joe Quesada), J.M. DeMatteis (#92-105), & Todd Dezago (#103-106).

Line art by Larry Stroman (#71-81 with Tom Raney, Kevin J. West, Brandon Peterson, & James Bosch), Rurik Tyler, Marc Pacella, Jae Lee, Joe Quesada (#87-92 with Aldrin Aw & Jan Duursema), Terry Shoemaker, Paul Ryan, Greg S. Luzniak, Jan Duursema (#97-106 with Greg S. Luzniak, Bryan Hitch, & Roger Cruz), Chris Batista, & Mat Broome.

Inks by Al Milgrom with Clifford E. Van Meter, Andy Lanning, Jeff Albrecht, Mark McKenna, Terry Austin, & Steve Moncuse.

Colors by Glynis Oliver with Mike Thomas, Kevin Tinsley, Brad Vancata, Marie Javins, Ariane Lenshoek-Pinheiro, Tom Smith, Matt Webb, Carlos Lopez, and Joe Rosas.

Can you read it right now? Not entirely. You can get through #92 with current collections, but then there is a gap until #106. The same is true for Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

Peter David wrote the perfect first issue with X-Factor #71.

I’ve read this run several times, and along with many voters on Tigereyes’ secret ballot I would say it’s amongst my favorites. Yet, at the time in 1991, the announcement of this cast and creative team supplanting the original five X-Men largely written by Louise Simonson in X-Factor drew a reaction more like “Uh, I guess it could work?” [Read more…] about X-Factor by David & DeMatteis – The #37 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 4: 2008 to 2015)

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This is the end, my friends! The last in a series of four posts covering how Marvel could cover every X-Men comic book in omnibus volumes.

This post covers every X-Men series from Messiah Complex to the end of Marvel Now in an effort to give you maximum ideas for the The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, where you vote for the comic runs you’d most like to see in an oversized format. Monday I covered all of X-Men from 1963 to 1991, Tuesday I reviewed 1991 to 2001, and yesterday I broke down 2001 to 2008.

With 21 more omnibuses from Messiah Complex to AvX and another 10 from Marvel Now, this edition brings our grand total of potential X-Men volumes to 113 possible omnibuses – which begs the question: How many of these could we possibly see in our lifetimes before books become completely obsolete and comics are downloaded directly into our brains?

At Marvel’s current rate of only a handful of X-Men omnibuses a year, it’s never going to happen.

Yet, with most Marvel omnibuses selling between 1,000 and 2,500 units in their first week, it makes me wonder how many of these books we could see if Marvel abandoned the outdated Direct Market model for determining their pre-order volume and sell-through.

Picture this – in October 2017 Marvel partners with Kickstarter plus one of the big online comic book sellers as a distributor to introduce the new “X-Men Omnibus Club: Year 1.” [Read more…] about Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 4: 2008 to 2015)

Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 3: 2001 to 2008)

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I’m back with a third installment of the ultimate X-Men omnibus mapping, finding a way to squeeze just about every issue of X-titles into a cohesive bookshelf of handy omnibus volumes.

Okay, they’re not actually all that handy. Most of them could probably be wielded as a deadly weapon.

Today’s era begins with Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men starting on #114 in 2001 and ends with the final issue of Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, which is the last thing that happens to any X-Men prior to Messiah Complex. Of course, there are a lot of other series contained in that material – you’ll immediately note that neither of those historic runs address a single issue of Uncanny X-Men!

Every one of those issues is covered in this post. Why? To give you ideas for the The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, where you vote for the comic runs you’d most like to see in an oversized format. Monday I covered all of X-Men from 1963 to 1991, and yesterday I covered 1991 to 2001.

There are 25 potential omnibus volumes in this material! Many of their contents are high debatable, but that’s part of the fun – collected edition mapping is a contentious pastime. Heck, I don’t even agree with how Marvel does things half of the time! If you have a correction or disagreement don’t hold back – sound off in the comments below.

Now, prepare to be fully educated in the seedy underbelly of this period of all-star X-Men writers, including some books I am sure you never knew existed unless you are a superfreak of a walking Encyclopedia-X like I am.

[Read more…] about Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 3: 2001 to 2008)