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New for Patrons: Guide to Kang the Conqueror (including Iron Lad & Rama-Tut)
This week I’m here with an especially rare new guide CK’s Plegeonaut Patrons on Patreon – a guide to a Marvel villain! I find villain guides to be some of the most-challenging to organize, and this villain might be the most-challenging of all because he exists in multiple time periods and has had multiple identities – sometimes all at once! After a lot of puzzling and a lot of reading, I’m proud to present my Guide to Kang the Conqueror!
Kang is one of those characters that my 30+ years of comic reading has suggested is incredibly complicated, but I’m here to tell you that his centuries-spanning history really isn’t as complex as the comics (and some fans) make it out to be.
First things first: Kang is from the future of the Marvel Universe, but not the future of Earth-616! He is from an alternate 30th Century future Earth that was visited by Reed Richards’ time-traveling father, Nathaniel Richards. He inspired young Kang, so he took on his name. Thus, Kang is often also known as Nathaniel Richards (Earth-6311).
How did Nathaniel Richards of Earth-6311 wind up in our present day comics? And what do Iron Lad, Rama-Tut, and Immortus have to do with it? It’s a lot simpler than you might think.
[Read more…] about New for Patrons: Guide to Kang the Conqueror (including Iron Lad & Rama-Tut)
RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 7 – “The Daytona Wind 2” acting challenge, Review & Power Ranking
Welcome to my review, recap, and power rankings of the seventh episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 – “The Daytona Wind 2,” a sequel to last season’s surprisingly well-written melodramatic acting challenge. It was paired with a “Puffer Please” runway theme, where the queens were challenged with making puffer jacket elements look high fashion.
On Season 14, “The Daytona Wind” was a standout episode that helped to solidify the fact that we were watching a cast full of standout performers. However, that wasn’t just because the cast was so great. It was also because they were given a script that made sense and were allowed to act it in a straight-forward way – with jokes inserted later.
If Season 14 was an acting challenge high point, this Season 15 “Daytona Wind” redux was a low one. The queens were saddled with a script that was nothing but Drag Race references that left no room for character choices.
Though some of the humor was inserted later in the edit just like last season, it was the anti-humor of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! I think it’s a tough prospect to deliver a standout performance for that sort of humor if you’re blithely unaware of the style while you are performing.
After Season 14 and All Winners, I think we can all agree that Drag Race is at its best when it sets its queens up for success with strong material and doesn’t try to squash them into obvious archetypes in the edit. Instead, this felt like return to the Drag Race riggory of seasons 11-13, where any challenge could be bent to create any result the producers wanted. That feels unwelcome after getting a breath of fresh air from the franchise in 2021.
Between the painfully awkward challenge and the continued short runtime, this wasn’t an enjoyable episode of Drag Race for me. It also didn’t do much to shake up the existing power ranking divide between the haves and have nots. (The “haves” in this instance are the all-too-obvious group of potential finalists). However, within those two halves of the cast, things did get shuffled a bit – both due to this week’s performances and the news of an impending Lalaparuza Lip Sync smackdown on the next episode.
Readers, start your engines! And, may the best drag queen win! [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, Episode 7 – “The Daytona Wind 2” acting challenge, Review & Power Ranking
Updated: Guide to Silver Age X-Men
I’m excited to share this much-needed guide refresh, especially in the wake of yesterday’s broadcast with Near Mint Condition – which included a key omnibus this page was missing! Welcome back to my uncanny Guide to Silver Age X-Men – covering every major collection format for Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-66, their hiatus years guest appearances, and modern “Hidden Years” stories inserted into that period!
My Guide to Silver Age X-Men hasn’t had a significant update since 2016, although I did stop by to add a few Epic Collections in the past seven years.
Fortunately, the landscape of Silver Age X-Men collections hasn’t shifted too much since the introduction of the Epic line. Yet, there are still new collections to add to the guide. The big news has been the recent initiation of a new line of paperback “Mighty Marvel Masterworks,” plus the recent announcement of an omnibus of John Byrne’s retcon insert series, X-Men: The Hidden Years. There have also been a number of reprinted books along the way, including both classic omnibuses, and they’ve all been added explicitly to the guide.
I added those new collections, as well as gave the guide a facelift to bring it in line with my newer style guides. That means it now includes publishing years, full ISBNs, and links to buy and read digitally.
Many folks don’t hold this Silver Age run in high regard past the initial handful of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby issues. However, I think a lot of it is worth reading for modern X-Men fans. In particular, I’d suggest reading issues #1-6 to see Namor and Magneto’s first meeting, issues #12-13 for Juggernaut’s first story, and issue #14-16 for the first Sentinels story – as well as some of the Roy Thomas and Neal Adams material from issues #56-66.
This Guide to Silver Age X-Men update is just the first of many X-Men guide updates to come, which have been the most-demanded updates from Patrons and the general public alike. I hear you! There are now over 200 guide pages to update, but the X-Men guides will always be the closest to my heart and I know that’s true for many of you as well.
Near Mint Condition show recap: Marvel’s newest trade paperbacks & 40 upcoming 2023 Marvel omnibuses!
I am fresh from co-hosting my first ever Marvel solicits announcement show on Near Mint Condition with the Uncanny Omar and Kurtis from the Epic Marvel Podcast! We joined forces to reveal eight new thick trades recollecting existing material, plus we recapped the staggering 40 Marvel omnibuses that Omar has announced from August through December of 2023.
Altogether, that made for three solid hours of collected editions content, during which we had a lot of interesting conversations about these runs and how they’re collected. But, in case you don’t have three hours, now I can reveal what we talked about!
(I’ll warn you that if you start watching from the beginning you’ll see 10 minutes of technical difficulties that included my blind panic when I realized I was the only host connected to the live stream while I wasn’t wearing my glasses and was connected to the wrong wifi network in my house.)
First, let’s look at the even newly-announced thick trade paperbacks and one new gallery edition. Our show was the first time these books have been announced anywhere on the internet! Then, I’ll recap all 40 of the Marvel Omnibus announcements we dissected at length.