So remember when I said that Marvel would announce its upcoming What If issues long before I’d have this finished? Looks like I was right.

This year the five stories are all based on major events, most of them recent:

– Spider-Man: The Other. Here, Spider-Man’s spidery side takes over. Why he’s wearing the symbiote on the cover, I don’t know.
– Avengers Disassembled. So what would have happened had they not realized Scarlet Witch was behind it when they did?
– Wolverine: Enemy of the State. He’s still under Hydra’s conditioning and he needs to be stopped now more than ever.
– X-Men: Deadly Genesis. No explanation yet, but I haven’t even read Deadly Genesis in the first place.
– Age of Apocalypse. Oh man, I hope they mean the one from the 90’s and not the new one.

Speaking of What Ifs based on Marvel events…

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Man, that is a dated reference. How many of you remember “Gotta be da shoes?” Oh Spike Lee, what are you doing now? This is what Buffy and Matrix references are going to be like five years from now.

I honestly believe that if you were to put Gambit and Wolverine together as a duo, you’d have an unstoppable engine of destruction that would burn through everything in its way.

Add Jubilee and I would read this book. You could have Rogue and Yet Another of Wolverine’s Ex-girlfriends guest star every couple of issues for some good old fashioned soap opera drama.

I would call it “Gambit and Wolverine Make Fools of the Marvel Universe: Featuring Jubilee.” It will sell millions.

Speaking of selling, here’s what I’m picking up from the comic shop today, assuming that everything makes it in. My commentary is in paratheses.

52 WEEK #14 (I’m hooked, what can I say. They’re screwing with the heroes in a way that makes for good reading.)
ANNIHILATION #1 (the lead-in miniseries were quite good, so definitely getting this.)
BEYOND #2 (OF 6) (Sleeper hit, you mark my words. The first issue was excellent.)
FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #28 (One of DC’s best titles, hands down.)
MAN CALLED KEV #2 (OF 5)
MARVEL ZOMBIES HC
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #5 (Pretty interesting story so far, and I hear Jubes is going to be in an upcoming issue!)
ULTIMATE GALACTUS BOOK 3 EXTINCTION TP (Gotta complete the set, and I loved the art.)

This is a pretty light week for me. Only six monthlies. I’m thinking of getting the X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TP, if only for the awesome art. It had a good story, too, so it may be worth the 14 bones.

Next week is going to be serious business for me. I’m getting Batman Animated, Absolute Dark Knight, and Absolute Hush. I love behind the scenes stuff, so Batman Animated is a shoe-in. Frank Miller and Jim Lee are consistently in my personal top five artists list, so their work in Absolute format at 37% off is a steal. I didn’t much like the story in Hush, but I cannot argue with Lee’s artwork, as if my complete and utter infatuation with early ’90s X-Men didn’t tell you that. I even desperately want this book, X-Men/Ghost Rider: Brood Trouble in the Big Easy. I will eventually own every Jim Lee X-trade. I think I’m only short two right now.

(I think I need an intervention, but these books are such a simple pleasure. There’s a great bit where Gambit, Psylocke, and Jubes are tied up on Mojoworld. Mojo is blah blah blogging about how he wants to record X-Men fighting other X-Men. “As if ya don’t get enough footage o’ that?!” Jubilee responds. “Jubilation,” says Psylocke. Jubilee mutters, “why does everyone say my name like it means “shut up?”. How can you not love that? More later.)

I absolutely (see what I did there?) love Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again (a better love letter to the silver age than anything alex ross has come up with), so Absolute Dark Knight is tops.

Also in that top 5 list are Quitely, Romita Jr, Bagley, Romita Sr, Sienkiewicz, David Mack, Tom Grummett, Mike Wieringo, and a bunch of others. As an English major, I am incapable of counting properly.

What’re you getting? This week’s list is located here.

When it comes to doing countdowns of the best What If issue, I’m not the first. A couple years ago, Wizard magazine had their own top ten list. Here is their version:

10) What If Captain America Were Revived Today? (volume 1)
9) What If the Beast Continued to Mutate?
8) What If the X-Men Lost Inferno?
7) What If the Fantastic Four Had Not Gained Their Superpowers?
6) What If Pheonix Had Not Died? (volume 1)
5) Humor issue (volume 1)
4) What If Daredevil Killed the Kingpin?
3) What If the Hulk Went Berserk?
2) What If Conan the Barbarian Were Stranded in the 20th Century?
1) What If the Alien Costume Had Possessed Spider-Man?

Does this list coincide with my list? Not very much. Only two of those issues make it into my top ten. Three of them aren’t even on my list in the first place (I already talked about why #7 sucked). One of them is in this article.

Back to the real list. Read the rest of this entry »

Man, I totally didn’t have time to whip up that post I promised you yesterday. It’ll probably come later Saturday. I’ve been busy busy with both welcoming back a friend who just came back into town and some super top secret writing projects that I will be sure to share when I’m sure that I’m able to. Non-Disclosure Agreements make for great teases, but poor fun!

Believe me, though. I will definitely explain to you guys why not only does Jim Lee draw the definitive X-Men (he is to X-Men what McGuinness is to Superman and Romita Sr/Jr is to Spider-Man), but why the early 90s X-Men are some of my favorite X-books. The accompanying image is yet another bit of evidence that Gambit is awesome. He caught a bullet and tossed it back! It’s from X-Men #1.

Want to know something super-nerdy? I bought the X-Men: Mutant Genesis trade (it collects X-Men 1-7), and I realized that I practically studied these books way back when. Some of the coloring errors, like where color leaked into dialogue balloons here in this excerpt were fixed, but Beast is still blue from his feet to his teeth in that first big spread of the X-Men, and there are really only a handful of skintones: White, Asian, Black, and Stubbled. The cover has been recolored or retouched, too. I knew this from memory.

I love the X-Men.

It’s time to begin. Er… now that I’ve done two prelude articles before starting this off, I now realize that I don’t have anything to say for an intro. I could always go over the history of the series. Yeah, let’s do that.

What If first started in 1977 with the issue What If Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four?, based on the very first issue of Amazing Spider-Man. The series lasted for seven years until ending with issue #47, What If Loki Had Found the Hammer of Thor? For the most part, the quality remained about the same.

Several years after cancellation, a special was released called What If Iron Man Had Been a Traitor? While not exactly a classic, it seemed to have helped bring the rebirth of the series as volume 2 started the very next year, 1989. Volume 2 followed the same structure of the first volume: Uatu the Watcher would go on a monologue about who he is and what he does, followed by spelling out just what the issue’s story is about. Like I mentioned a couple articles back, this is a good way to learn Marvel history. Me, I just found out Shang Chi’s backstory days ago. Before that all I knew about him was that he’s some martial artist guy without fear and his name makes him sound like Shang Tsung and Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat did the Fusion Dance.

I can’t be alone in this, can I? Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so I have to say something here.

A lot of people seem to think that Magneto, the X-Men’s arch-enemy, is a stand-in for Malcolm X, while Charles Xavier plays the Martin Luther King, Jr. role. Charles is the peaceful integrationist, while Magneto the reactionary firebrand, one willing to bust a cap in the collective human skullpiece. He’s been called a “reverse racist.” Is there a direction racism is supposed to go in?

Stop it. This is both disrespectful and part of the ongoing demonization of Malcolm X. It’s got to stop. Magneto is a charismatic man who talks a good game, but won’t hesitate to kill a gang of people if it suits his purposes. This is the Malcolm X figure in Marvel Comics? A killer? That isn’t what “By any means necessary” is about.

C’mon guys. Not to denigrate his accomplishments, but we’re shown pages upon pages in text books of Martin, who is a peaceable man, then a couple paragraphs on Malcolm that basically boil down to “He didn’t like white folks much.”

No. That is not the business. It’s not right, and only education can fix that. Here is Wikipedia’s article on Malcolm X. It’s a good starting point. From there, read the Autobiography. See what the man was actually about before making comparisons between him and a murderer. Look at his life after Mecca. It isn’t as simple as Malcolm X bad, Martin Luther King good. That’s a false dichotomy that is practically taught in schools nowadays. It’s untrue.

Magneto is Magneto. He is a killer, sometimes a sympathetic one, but a killer nonetheless. Malcolm X is Malcolm X. He was a troubled man, and sometimes a great man, but a man nonetheless.

Please. Stop using this comparison. Even if it’s in the comics, it’s wrong and hurtful.

On a lighter note, look for a new post tomorrow. It’ll be about X-Men: Mutant Genesis and why the Jim Lee-era of X-Men is a classic one. I’ve got a couple deadlines for paying work staring me in the face, but I love you guys so I’ll make time! You may even enjoy it. It’s got Gambit catching bullets, once again proving that he’s awesome.

If I’m posting on this here comics blahblahblog, I try to ensure that we’re working with snark-free waters. Not these Snark Free Waters, but similar in spirit nonetheless. Personally, I feel that comics are too awesome to waste sniping at each other and the creators. If I have a grievance, I’ll air it out professionally, courteously, and in a coherent manner. If I can at all help it, you’ll never hear the words “(author) is a hack” come out of my mouth. 99% of the time that word is thrown around, it’s completely untrue, and there’s really a better way to say “I don’t like this guy’s work.”

So, in the spirit of the idea that comics are freaking awesome and we’re all freaking awesome for reading them, even you in the back with the bad haircut, I’m going to present to you a Cool Comics Love-In. It’s a snapshot of what I like in comics right now, be they single issues, series, or other, and you better like it, too, or else I’ll and hopefully you’ll dig it as well. Let’s see if I can do these three or four at a time, once or twice a week okay?
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I finally finished it. 176 issues of What If and I’ve finished reading them. My list of the 100 best is put together and the series of articles will commence.

But first… let’s just take another look at some of the issues that won’t be on the list. Some of the really bad ones.

Before I start, I’ve been asked about the clichés included with the series. In the last article, I mentioned the bit about Reed Richards being a borderline psychopath, but what else is there?

1) Spider-Man dies. A lot. Of course, this is to be expected. After all, he shows up in many, many issues. It’s the law of averages in effect here.

2) Kingpin dies. A super lot. What I said about Spider-Man doesn’t apply for Wilson Fisk. If he’s in the comic, there’s a 95% chance that he’s going to die. Then again, it’s a wonder why he’s still alive in regular continuity.

3) Loki is a puss. I can’t recall a single issue where Loki comes out a winner. Then again, there is a chance that he survived Marvel Zombies, so he has that going for him.

4) Hulk depressed! If the Incredible Hulk is the main character of a What If issue, the chances are very good that this isn’t going to end well. There are a couple exceptions.

Now to the crap. Read the rest of this entry »

“What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time.”
–Grant Morrison

I’m not usually one to complain about comics companies “destroying” characters. In fact, I think it’s kind the kind of stupid invective that gives comic fans such a negative fanboy image. “Destroying” is a loaded term, and there’s much, much better ways to express your feelings on the matter. This may be my attempt at that, or my attempt at putting my foot in my mouth. U DECIDE.

I do think, however, that comics companies can make/allow some fairly terrible narrative choices. Turning Xorn into some kind of Jerry Springer-esque twin brother was one. Actually, every time Xorn has been mentioned outside of Morrison’s New X-Men has been a mistake, I think. Identity Crisis left a bad taste in my mouth, despite Rags Morales’s excellent art. I liked the scene where Batman and Robin are trying to get to Tim Drake’s house before his dad dies. That was powerful, but the death of Jack Drake? Bleh. He was a cool dude. Mark Millar turning the New Warriors into patsies? Bah, Doom says.

So basically what I’m saying is, not everything comics companies do is great. Big surprise, huh? I once read a comment Keith Giffen made about the death of Blue Beetle. He said he wasn’t mad about it, and that his only feelings on the matter were “I would’ve done it differently.” I think that’s all any fan can really say. “I would’ve done it differently.” Mark Waid once said something like “Comics is the only industry where 90% of your audience thinks that they can do it better than you.” It’s true.

Long, rambling introductions aside, DC screwed the pooch on the Batbooks when they made the main man overly angry, right? Well, what about the satellite titles? Catwoman went from a must-read book to “Peace out, homey!” all in the space of one issue for me. Batgirl has renounced her title and is pretty much a villain now.

I am okay with one of these things, but I do not like the other. Let us begin, then.
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Whatever happened to John Stewart?

Why is he the only Earth-based Green Lantern who isn’t headlining in a book?

Is Hal Jordan going to be in the big JLA relaunch and in his own title?

Think on these things.

Post coming later today/tomorrow about how DC screwed the pooch on the Batbooks!