Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Comic Book Review: X-Men Prime (2017) #1 – Marvel relaunches the X-Men with Kitty Pryde in charge!

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Yesterday, Marvel kicked off the relaunch of it’s entire X-Men line of comics with X-Men Prime, a one-shot meant to reset the status quo of Marvel’s mutants in the wake of Inhumans vs. X-Men.

This issue represents the first time in many years that I can approach the X-Men as anything resembling a “new” reader. That’s because I’ve barely read a single issue of X-Men in Marvel’s All-New, All-Different era following Secret Wars. I usually trade-wait before reading, and in the middle of trade-waiting I was distracted from my Marvel reading by DC Rebirth and my WildStorm read.

What is X-Men Prime? Is it any good? Will it lead to me reviewing X-Men comics every week from now on?

Let’s find out!

X-Men Prime (2017) #1 (buy digital)

Written by Marc Guggenheim, Greg Pak, and Cullen Bunn with line art from Ken Lashley, Ibraim Roberson, Leonard Kirk, and Guillermo Ortego and color art by Morry Hollowell, Frank D’Armata, and Michael Garland.

Bottom Line: This “Kitty Pryde: This Is Your Life” issue is an easily skippable recap, more about her as a character than about the last two years of x-comics. It would be a fine free comic, but offers little entertainment for a steep $4.99 cover price.

X-Men Prime is an insubstantial read that still manages to make a major change in the X-Men’s status quo. That comes along with a choice that may or may not work out in the end.

The choice is to make Kitty Pryde the leader of the X-Men, which explains why this issue could just have easily been called “Kitty Pryde: The Return #0.”

Now, let me be clear – Kitty Pryde is never disappointing to me. She is one of my favorite characters in all of comics!

That’s in part because Kitty Pryde is the eternal point-of-view character. That’s been true from her beginnings as the X-Men’s teen sidekick through her years in Excalibur and her return as an outsider first to Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men and then to Matt Fraction’s run on Uncanny X-Men. 

Even when Kitty is the heart of a given team, she’s also the rational, grounded character who speaks with the voice of the reader. That’s why it’s fascinating to see her step in to lead dozens of characters we’ve grown to love over the past half century. Can she remain our POV-character when she’s the one in charge of all of the X-Men’s comings and goings? Can she even credibly take charge of characters like Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Magik, and more?

This issue does little to explore that reality. It’s more of a “Kitty Pryde, this is your life” walkthrough that focuses more on her relationships than her (or the reader) catching up on the X-Men’s recent history. It also includes minor scenes of the original X-Men and Lady Deathstrike (more on those below).

The strategy of the main story, scripted by incoming X-Men Gold writer Marc Guggenheim, seems to be that Kitty’s emotional ties to the team are more important than detailing anything that’s happened in the past five or ten years, or giving any hint of what’s to come. Aside from the sparest of recaps of Inhumans vs. X-Men by Storm and an explanation of the unlikely location of the X-mansion, there’s honestly very substance little to this main story.

Despite the lack of content, the story still managed to be an emotional moment for me because it features Ken Lashley as the primary artist on a core X-Men title drawing Kitty Pryde. Lashley was one of my favorite 90s artists on Warren Ellis’s run of Excalibur, my favorite comics title of all time. He still makes for appointment reading whenever he shows up on a current comic. So far he’s not announced for any of the upcoming X-titles, but I have my fingers crossed that he will be the alternating arc artist on the bi-monthly Gold title. and he will be one of the alternating artists on Gold.

More than the dialog, it’s Lashey’s art that reminds us that Kitty is still the heart and rational brain of the X-Men through scenes with Storm, Colossus, Magik, and the teen versions of the original X-Men. It certainly seems she might work as their leader when the issue ends with her saying, “We’re also going to show that world what we are. No mutants. Not freaks. Not homo superior. But heroes.”

Kitty’s words mirror the complaint of many major fans of the X-Men who have been disappointed with their recent status quo. We just want the X-Men to be heroes. Still mutants first, but heroes second before they are an endangered species. [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: X-Men Prime (2017) #1 – Marvel relaunches the X-Men with Kitty Pryde in charge!

New For Patrons: Definitive Guide to Alpha Flight

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I had a day to myself today, and it was partly to reward my Patrons with their Patrons’ Choice poll-winning guide for the month – a Definitive Guide to Alpha Fight, including every appearance from all of its core characters.

Not only does the guide cover how to collect every issue from all four incarnations of Alpha Flight (plus figuring out when to read those pesky annuals and mini-series), but it contains a complete reading order for Heather and James Hudson, Aurora, Puck, Sasquatch, Shaman, and Snowbird, plus orders for Diamond Lil, Madison Jeffries, Marrina, Northstar, and Wild Child during their tenures with the team.

Want access to this guide? Patrons’ Choice guides get picked from a pool of pages I’m not planning to work on for many months, so this one isn’t scheduled for released to the public anytime soon! But, you can be reading it tomorrow in exchange for covering $1.99 a month of CK’s hosting expenses.

Song of the Day: “It Don’t Hurt” by Sheryl Crow

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Today I woke up late, skipped my breakfast and run to barely make it to the gym with EV in tow, returned home to read to her and practiced our French, and managed to serve us both a fresh lunch while planning out meals for the week.

I’m exhausted.

I don’t want to be writing a blog post. I want to be laying in the middle of the floor and falling asleep while watching Drag Race. 

Yet, here I am. That’s because, while my frequent mantra of achievement may be “WWMD?“, when it comes to the words that motivate me to make it through my day it’s not Madonna I turn to.

It’s Sheryl Crow.

Those words are from “It Don’t Hurt,” a rather marginal, Dylanesque single from Crow’s third LP, The Globe Sessions. It’s a song about fooling yourself into feeling something.

The electric man looks good today
Maybe not, well I’m trying hard
Trying hard to feel that way
The electric man’s a good place to start

Stick with me for a minute here. This is about more than fucking the electric man, but it’s absolutely about arousal.

Sometimes nothing feels good. You don’t have to suffer from clinical depression to feel that way. Maybe you’re exhausted. Maybe you’re bored. Maybe you’re heartbroken. Maybe it’s just one of those days when your brain feels completely drained of all intent and motivation. A lying the middle of the floor sort of day. A playing idle games to pass the time sort of day.

No one can be Madonna – or, to use a more modern example, Beyoncé – every minute of every day. Especially because we don’t have massive empires to take care of things like our meals, our laundry, and our taxes.

On those days when I can’t get up the interest in anything, I think about Sheryl Crow and those lyrics.

Electrician by Stephanus Riosetiawan

“Electrician” – Stephanus Riosetiawan, 2006. Some rights reserved.

The electric man was not looking particularly good that day. He might not have ever looked good. Not to her, anyway. Maybe even if he did look good he didn’t look good to her because he’s the exact opposite of her type – too thin and wiry if she likes a muscular guy, or too short and stout if she likes her men tall and long-limbed.

It doesn’t matter. She is going to convince herself the electrician looks good. She is going to to subvert the flow of the chemicals in her body, little hits of dopamine, and instruct her brain to get interested in the electric man as he squats low to repair a broken outlet.

She’ll do it because you have to start somewhere, sometime. You have to put your stake in the ground at some point, and no one patch of sand is better than the next. If the electric man is in front of you, you go with the electric man. Maybe if you can feel aroused looking at him you can feel aroused about something you really care about.

I use the electric man litmus test on myself when I am feeling hopelessly listless. Can I get excited about something utterly mundane? Can I throw myself into organizing our DVDs or building an awesome race track with EV? Can I find a little passion in my body for something inane, since I can’t seem to summon it for something important.

The answer isn’t always yes. That’s fine. We’re in command of our bodies, but we’re not always in total control of those chemicals in our brains. If we can’t get excited about the electric man, maybe we’re missing something – a bite to eat, some more sleep, or even intervention from a professional.

But if you can get aroused over that electric man then, damnit, you know you can find your way back to your passion.

Was the thing I was most looking forward to today writing a blog post about a Sheryl Crow song I don’t even really like all that much? No. Yet I’ve been meaning to write a post about that specific verse for at least three years now. Now that I have, my listless brain is awake and alive and I’ve managed achieve something.

And that’s why the electric man is a good place to start.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S09E01 – “Oh. My. Gaga!”

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Oh happy day, it’s a new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race!

That’s cause for celebration in my house (well, mostly just for me, but still), but coming from a stellar season of All Stars, I can’t help but wonder: Can this season of brand new drag racers possibly stand up to what many fans have called the best season of Drag Race of all time?

I don’t know, but a good way to get things off on the right kinky book is to book Lady Gaga as the guest for your first episode.

When I first heard that Lady Gaga would be on the premiere of Drag Race, my fervent hope was that they’d go for the BBC Adele impersonator trick, gussying up Gaga as a lower-rent drag queen version of her high class drag queen self to try to fool the other contestants. The episode played at that for a moment, but it’s real use for Gaga was much more clever – they used her as the best possible judge of drag the show has ever featured. Short of commentary from RuPaul herself (which usually comes only in the workroom), we’ve never seen this level of consistently incisive candor from a single judge before.

But, enough about Mother Monster – how did all the little monsters fare under her tutelage? Read on for my RuPaul’s Drag Race Season Nine Week One Power Rankings.

If you want to read more each week, please leave a comment and share on social media, okurrrrr? It’s the only way I can know someone is out there listening, henny.

[Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S09E01 – “Oh. My. Gaga!”

New For Patrons: Definitive Guide to The Flash

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While the little one naps (and I recover from a nasty bug seemingly felling everyone from our gym all at once) I launched a Complete Guide to The Flash (all four of them!) to CK’s Crushing Comics Club Patrons.

Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, and the short-lived tenure of Bart Allen – it’s all covered from Flash Comics in 1940 through the present day! This guide should be available to the general public in May to coincide with the end of the third season of The Flash on CW.

Head to Patreon to become a supporter of Crushing Krisis. Chip in as little as $1, or get early access to guides for the price of a single comic or cappuccino every month! We’re currently only $2 away from Patrons covering all of the monthly costs to host and serve CK!