Greg Land

Crushing Comics S01E080 – X-Men: Nation X and X-Necrosha

March 5, 2018 by krisis 1 Comment

I’m down to just three more bricks of comic books, but this first one is huge – it’s got over a half a dozen X-Men hardcovers inside! In the first of a three-part unwrapping, I dig into X-Men: Nation X and X-Necrosha, and discuss why this might be my favorite modern period of X-Men comics.

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

Episode 80 features X-Men: Nation X and X-Necrosha, covered in guides to Uncanny X-Men and X-Force, respectively.

The Pull List: Batman, Brave and The Bold, Damnation, Maestros, Mighty Thor, Punks Not Dead, and more!

February 25, 2018 by krisis Leave a Comment

Doctor Strange: Damnation #1, art by Rod Reis

I know it seems impossible, but The Pull List has grown even bigger this week for the third week in a row! That’s because I finished catching up to present on a number of DC and Marvel books, plus I picked up five smaller press books.

DC Comics
- Batman #41
- Batman & the Signal #2
- The Brave and The Bold #1
- Damage #2
- Deathbed #1 (Vertigo)
- Justice League #39
- Milk Wars – DC Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye / Swamp Thing Special
- Super Sons #13
- Superman #41
- Trinity #18
Image Comics
- The Further Adventures of Nick Wilson #2
- Ice Cream Man #2
- Maestros #5
- Redlands #6
- Twisted Romance #3
Marvel Comics
- Astonishing X-Men #8
- Avengers #681
- Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan #5
- Doctor Strange – Damnation #1
- Generation X #87
- Infinity Countdown Prime
- Mighty Thor #704
- Tales of Suspense #102
- The Incredible Hulk #713
- Venom #162
- X-Men Gold #22
Smaller Publishers: Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW, Vault Comics, Zenescope
- Belle Beast Hunter #2, Zenescope
- Heathen #6, Vault Comics
- James Bond: The Body #1, Dynamite Comics
- Mata Hari #1, Dark Horse / Berger Books
- Musketeers #1, Zenescope
- Punks Not Dead #1, IDW Publishing / Black Crown

Pick of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Issue of the Week:
Mighty Thor (2016) #704

A bloody, thrilling, heart-rending comic. Aaron has somehow amped up the drama in each of the last three issues as we hasten towards a potential Ragnarok at the hands of the Mangog and Jane Foster’s death at her own hands if she takes up the mantle of Thor just one more time.

Yet, beyond those looming disasters there is still Makelith’s war on the Ten Realms. Mangog is just one facet of that. Even in the dimness and tragedy, Aaron finds shining moments – Jane with her friend in the cancer ward, a father and son joined in battle, and a mother casting aside a snake that has wounded her before.

All the while, Dauterman and Wilson are turning in a quality of artwork never seen before at Marvel comics – truly, one of the pinnacles of art at Marvel in over 75 years of publishing.

This story has officially become the best Thor story in my eyes, and it just might be Marvel’s best longform story of all time. I’d place it alongside Mark Gruenwald Captain America and Chris Claremont X-Men at this point.

Best Small-Pub Issue of the Week:
Punks Not Dead (2018) #1, IDW Publishing / Black Crown

An utterly madcap introduction to Punks Not Dead (and, for me, to Black Crown comics, which are edited by Shelly Bond distributed by IDW). This book is part Injection, part Sid and Nancy, and a little dash of the more lighthearted issues of Sandman.

It follows a teenage boy and his scam artist mom as the kid picks up some kind of supernatural echo of the deceased Sid Vicious in a dingy airport bathroom. Meanwhile, the beleaguered Department for Extra-Usual Affairs is busy putting minor demons out of the closet at 10 Downing Street with a staff of one.

This book is funny, unique, and looks freaking brilliant. Artist Martin Simmonds is simply incredible, drawing a real-seeming Britain with amped up color and clever use of cut-and-pasted patterns to ground it in real, textured reality. I am in love with this book, and will not only be keeping up with it, but also checking out other titles from Black Crown. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Batman, Brave and The Bold, Damnation, Maestros, Mighty Thor, Punks Not Dead, and more!

Comic Book Review: Weapon X #1 by Pak, Land, Leisten, D’Armata, & Caramanga

April 13, 2017 by krisis

One of our household’s favorite movies, The Prestige, starts and ends by explaining the steps of a magic trick.

First, comes “The Pledge,” where we are shown something ordinary. Then, comes “The Turn,” when the magician takes the ordinary and makes it do something extraordinary. The best magic comes with a third step – “The Prestige” – where you bring back the ordinary, if you can.

Comic books are a lot like magic tricks, in that way. Every new series or story arc is a Pledge based on the creators and characters you can see when its announced. What happens within its issues is The Turn. And, whether or not the story returns its many pieces to where they can be used again in the future is The Prestige.

(Some fans love a good Prestige, while others see it as a cheat – but that’s a conversation for another time.)

As comic book magic goes, the Weapon X didn’t engender much excitement in readers when it was announced a few months back. Greg Pak isn’t a high-selling author on his own, penciller Greg Land is tolerated (at best) by most fans, and the title looked and sounded like another take on X-Force with its cast of Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Domino, and Warpath. Weapon_X_2017_0001

Is this book more than meets the eye?

Pak has never been a creator to give us a weak Turn. This is the man behind Planet Hulk and who used Dazzler to explore a whole multiverse of X-Men in X-Treme X-Men.

Greg Land is one of the most reliable monthly artists in Marvel’s stable, always on a standout book that are rarely destined for poor sales.

And, the cast is a mysterious mix – all hunter/killers, but without an obvious through-line between them all.

There’s going to be a major Turn here. I’m sure of it.

Weapon X (2017) #1 (digital)

Written by Greg Pak with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Jay Leisten, color art by Frank D’Armata, and letters from VC’s Joe Caramanga.

CK Says: Consider it.

Weapon X #1 is a solid opener to an intriguing new mutant mystery that feels less like a superhero comic and more like a bloody game of cat and mouse.

The mice in the game are Old Man Logan – an alternate future Wolverine stuck in our present – and his longtime foe and former fellow soldier, Sabretooth. Sabretooth had been on and off the straight and narrow recently, but this issue finds him holed up in the woods hundreds of miles from civilization.

That’s not too different from Logan’s location at the start of the issue, but the story doesn’t linger on the why of their chosen isolation. Instead, author Greg Pak quickly shifts the focus to on the cats in this game of chase.

They’re an upgraded version of the traditional half-human Reavers from the late-80s portions of Claremont’s run -regular people that are undetectable to the enhanced senses of our pair of clawed mutants, but beneath their skin these pursuers are killer robots prickling with blades.

Their sudden appearance is clearly tied to a very angry Lady Deathstrike, held in captivity in a lab that’s very interested in our other cast members.

(As for how she got there, it was teased in X-Men Prime).

Why is Deathstrike held captive? Why is a secret program out to capture Wolverine and Sabretooth? And, what do two very different mutants – Domino and Warpath – have anything to do with it? [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: Weapon X #1 by Pak, Land, Leisten, D’Armata, & Caramanga

Collecting X-Men flagship titles (2010 – present) as comic books as graphic novels

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting X-Men flagship title comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Collecting X-Men: A Definitive Guide. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through April 2019.

X-Men Flagship Titles

In 2011, Marvel ended their longest-running and highest-numbered title when they cancelled Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 1 with #544 to make way for a split in the X-Men between Cyclops and Wolverine.

In retrospect, the move didn’t make much sense. The subsequent Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 2 was still written by Kieron Gillen with a similar tone and cast – just less Wolverine and Kitty Pryde. It was by many accounts (including mine) one of the best runs of X-Men ever written. Sadly, that tile would also see cancellation 20 issues later, along with the end of Avengers vs. X-Men.

In the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel relaunched their entire line with nearly every creator shuffled onto a new book. In the shake-up, Brian Bendis hopped from the Avengers franchise to the X-Men franchise, taking over Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 3 and adding All-New X-Men to the mix as a second flagship.

That book of time-shifted young X-Men (and new cast members in Uncanny) pulled focus off of a vibrant new generation of X-students cultivated in the past decade and sent the flagships into a spiral of recursion where most of the plot was about the new characters being mad about the plot. Like a three-year-long episode of Seinfeld, almost nothing of significance happens during this run.

Bendis promised a lengthy run on X-Men, but another creator shuffle after Secret Wars in 2015 saw him depart the franchise for Iron Man in the All-New, All-Different Marvel.

In his place, Cullen Bunn took over Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 4. After a long streak of wrapping up soon-to-be-cancelled series for other writers, Bunn improbably struck gold on a menacing take on Magneto in his first ongoing series. He brought that villainous tone to Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 4.

Meanwhile, All-New X-Men, Vol. 2 was back under the direction of Dennis Hopeless (who had written the young X-Men before on X-Men: Seasone One). A third, brand-new title – Extraordinary X-Men – launched under the pen of Jeff Lemire and tied in closely to the current plot of the Inhumans and their Terrigen Bomb being poisonous to mutants.

After the resolution of the Inhumans thread in Inhumans vs. X-Men, Marvel relaunched the X-Men flagships with “ResurrXion” and a bevy of new X-Men titles, including a new twin pair of non-Uncanny flagships.

X-Men Gold was effectively “Uncanny,” with a Claremont-esque classic team of Kitty, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Rachel Grey, among others. Meanwhile, Cullen Bunn continued his Magneto thread into the All-New X-Men cast with X-Men Blue. Nearly a year later, Phoenix Resurrection returned Jean Grey to the cast of X-Men, and she launched a third flagship with X-Men Red. And, finally, the period wrapped up with five X-Men Black one-shots focusing on major X-Men villains.

Finally, in November 2018, Uncanny X-Men returned with a bang – as a 10-part weekly story arc called “X-Men Disassembled.” [Read more…] about Collecting X-Men flagship titles (2010 – present) as comic books as graphic novels

Collecting Uncanny X-Men #394 – 544 comic books as graphic novels

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting Uncanny X-Men comic books via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2018 with titles scheduled for release through April 2019.

Uncanny X-Men #394 – 544 (2001 – 2011)

The X-Men franchise reached a crossroads in 2001 that would forever alter its direction, but also usher in a decade of substantial runs penned by just five authors – all of which was collected upon initial release starting with issue #410!

That’s why I think of this final decade of Uncanny X-Men as “The Collected Era”

In 2001, the black leather costumes of the first Fox X-Men film now existed in the public consciousness, but X-Men comics of the period were a hard-to-parse mess of neon spandex. Not only that, but Marvel’s newly-launched Ultimate Spider-Man reimagining of Spider-Man for the modern day was proving to be massively popular. An Ultimate X-Men followed at the beginning of 2001.

Together, these two changes allowed Marvel to experiment with the core of the X-Men franchise. Writer and actual psychedelic warlock Grant Morrison reimagined X-Men (1991) as the sci-fi, leather-clad, and frequently absurd New X-Men. Meanwhile, X-Force metamorphosed into X-Statix under the guidance of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred.

What’s often forgotten is that Uncanny X-Men also relaunched at the same time. Twice, actually! First, Joe Casey took the reins for a similarly leather-bound an slightly-absurdist take on X-Men. Then, midway through Morrison’s run, Uncanny swapped to author Chuck Austen.

Austen’s run is often reviled for its soap opera elements, as well as for deeply unpopular moments for Nightcrawler and Angel. Despite that, it remains very much in the Claremontian tradition of constantly churning conflict and romance, often introducing wild concepts from far outside the X-Men’s typical range of influences.

Chris Claremont himself would return as Austen’s replacement with The New Age in 2004. While opinions remain split on this run, it’s certainly more popular than his prior return on “Revolution.” New Age finds Claremont intermingling new toys and old favorites, writing a team that includes Storm and Rachel Summers but also including Bishop and X-23. His run crossed the House of M event that would decimate Marvel’s mutant population, though he did not deal with the fallout.

Ed Brubaker took over from Claremont with an audacious change in direction, following up on his Deadly Genesis mini-series by taking a core of X-Men to space for Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire and then steering them towards a rebirth from the ashes of Messiah Complex.

Though Brubaker wrote for an arc following Messiah Complex, the following era of the X-Men in San Francisco mostly belongs to Matt Fraction. Fraction reimagines Uncanny X-Men less as a team and more as a society of mutants, with nearly every heroic mutant passing through the background panels of the book at some point in his run. He writes to the considerable crescendo of Second Coming, a resolution of the remaining threads of House of M.

Finally, Kieron Gillen gradually takes over from Fraction over the course of a year. Gillen slims down Fraction’s massive cast to one foreboding “Extinction Team” lead by the increasingly revolutionary Cyclops. His run continues into the next volume past the punctuation of Schism through to the following run of Uncanny X-Men, Volume 2.

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