"Deadpool: X X Baby"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Deadpool: X X Baby” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Norman Osborn swindled Wade Wilson/Deadpool out of a large amount of money. When Deadpool tried to collect, Osborn sent his covert strike force, the Thunderbolts after him. After Deadpool defeated the Thunderbolts, Osborn sent the Dark Avenger Hawkeye (really the assassin Bullseye in disguise) to take Deadpool out. Bullseye failed. Rather than return to Osborn with the news that Bullseye was defeated, Bullseye chose to pay Deadpool the money that Osborn owed him.

            Using some of the money he came into, Deadpool bought a boat in Vladivostok, Russia. Deadpool called his friend Bob, agent of Hydra to be a pirate with Deadpool. Deadpool planned to rob the luxury resort island Jallarka. After six weeks at sea, Deadpool and Bob finally arrived on Jallarka and met the island’s blind tour guide Kalani. Jallarka was suddenly under attack by pirates led by a man known (not by himself) as Captain Wackbeard. Deadpool agreed to defend Jallarka if Kalani joined Deadpool’s crew. Kalani agreed to Deadpool’s proposition. Wackbeard and his crew boarded Deadpool’s ship while Deadpool and crew were off of it. Deadpool climbed back aboard Deadpool’s ship and faced off against Wackbeard and crew, and while Deadpool was able to reclaim Deadpool’s ship, Deadpool was defeated by Wackbeard. Deadpool and crew then took to the seas to defeat Wackbeard, and Deadpool realized that being a pirate really wasn’t his ambition in life.

            After faking being sick and adrift at sea to board a cruise ship, Deadpool was thrown off the ship after being described as the most wanted and hated man on the planet, after seemingly selling out Earth to the Skrull’s during the Secret Invasion. Deadpool found himself in San Francisco, where he saw the X-Men on TV. X-Men leader Scott Summers/Cyclops spoke out against Norman Osborn, and Deadpool decided that Deadpool wanted to join the X-Men, despite not being a true mutant. Upon arriving at Utopia, Cyclops told Deadpool no. Ellis Kincaid, father of X-Men trainee Cessily Kincaid/Mercury, believed the X-Men were holding Mercury against Mercury’s will, and wanted to free Kincaid’s daughter from the X-Men. Cyclops decided it was not safe to have Deadpool unsupervised and sent Neena Thurman/Domino to be his chaperone and an offer of probationary status on the team. Deadpool decided the best way to ingratiate himself with Cyclops would be to get the X-Men out of their legal trouble with Kincaid by putting Kincaid out of the picture permanently. Kincaid made a television appearance, and Deadpool came to take him out. Domino protected Kincaid from afar, then brought Deadpool out for a drink, where she drugged him and tied him up to wait for the X-Men. Domino overheard part of a conversation between Cyclops and James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine talking about getting Deadpool out of the picture, and mistakenly assumed the worst, but Cyclops’ actual plan was to take Deadpool on a “special mission” to China and ditch him, and Domino allowed Deadpool to escape before Wolverine could get to Deadpool. Kincaid turned to Norman Osborn for protection. Osborn pretended to be offering it but secretly was willing to let Deadpool eliminate Kincaid because this act made the X-Men look bad. Two of Osborn’s H.A.M.M.E.R. agents acted as Kincaid’s escorts. Deadpool went after Kincaid, but Wolverine and Domino came to Kincaid’s rescue. The X-Men then had to stop Deadpool and save Kincaid and look good to the public. After losing X-Men probationary status, Deadpool headed for New York.

            Peter Parker/Spider-Man came upon the scene of an accomplished hit. Spider-Man immediately believed Deadpool to be the assassin, but Deadpool had an alibi. Spider-Man reluctantly agreed to let Deadpool see the crime scene and try to get to the bottom of the assassination. Deadpool recognized the crime scene as being the work of Hit-Monkey, an assassin who was an actual monkey who killed other killers… and Deadpool was on Hit-Monkey’s list. Spider-Man didn’t believe in the existence of Hit-Monkey at first, until at the scene of Hit-Monkey’s next crime scene, and monkey paw print was left behind. Spider-Man went looking for Deadpool and Hit-Monkey followed. Following a shoot-out, Spider-Man took a bullet to the shoulder. Spider-Man brought Deadpool to the Fantastic Four for convalescence, but the heroes turned Deadpool away. Needing to make a change of costume, Spider-Man brought Deadpool to Peter Parker’s apartment. While Spider-Man wasn’t looking, Deadpool stole the Spider-Man costume with the bullet hole in it. Deadpool then used the costume to fake Spider-Man’s death. At Spider-Man’s funeral, Hit-Monkey made an appearance. Deadpool hopped out of the casket, and Spider-Man and Deadpool teamed up to fight Hit-Monkey. Following the fight, Deadpool was taken into custody, but Spider-Man helped Deadpool escape from jail.

            While on the road in rural North Georgia, the bus Deadpool was traveling on was the target of a robbery. Deadpool was defeated by a man with electrical powers calling himself White Lightnin’. Deadpool found a police walkie-talkie at the crime scene and deduced the robbery had been conducted by a pair of cops. Deadpool went to the local police department, where an officer named Darlene pointed Deadpool to Sheriff Dale’s moonshine still, where the sheriff and his nephew Clovis Maines/White Lightnin’ operated out of, encouraging Deadpool to permanently put a stop to the crooked cop’s operation. Deadpool went to the still to combat Dale and White Lightnin’ again.  However, Dale wasn’t the only crooked cop.

            Deadpool found his way to Las Vegas. Upon arriving, Deadpool was slandered on television by club owner Lonzo Toutolos. In revenge for the defamation, Deadpool blew up the club. Deadpool then went to a casino, where he started to win games. The casino owner wouldn’t have that and sent his armored soldier the House after Deadpool. The House fought and defeated Deadpool. After detaining Deadpool, the House revealed himself to be Deadpool’s old ally Jack Hammer/Weasel. Deadpool propositioned an alliance with Weasel, and Deadpool took on the ironed mantle of Wildcard. The House and Wildcard protected Las Vegas from a robbery by supervillain Grizzly, but Wildcard became the most popular superhero in Las Vegas. Deadpool revealed his dual identity as Wildcard to the House’s bosses, forcing them into letting him keep the armor. Weasel felt jealous of Wildcard’s popularity over the House as the hero of Las Vegas. Deadpool suggested Deadpool and Weasel switch identities so Weasel could be the more popular hero. Weasel agreed to the switch. However, Deadpool secretly formed a partnership with Grizzly. Grizzly struck at the counting room of another casino to commit robbery, and the House and Wildcard battled Grizzly. The House then helped Grizzly escape with the money, having Weasel publicly dubbed a criminal. The House and Grizzly committed another robbery, but Wildcard stopped it. Deadpool allowed Weasel to escape, but since Deadpool had revealed Deadpool’s identity as Wildcard to the casino owners, Deadpool was consigned to be the Chief of Security for the casinos, and that Deadpool now had a job.

            Deadpool quit his job and found himself the target of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider, who wished to punish Deadpool for the sins Wade Wilson committed over the years.

            Deadpool found himself in a team up with Steve Rogers, Natalia Romanova/Black Widow, and Marc Spector/Moon Knight against a terrorist. Rogers offered a continued alliance. Rogers, Widow and Moon Knight had all been cloned by the evil Doctor Bong, and Rogers wanted Deadpool to help Rogers’ team stop Doctor Bong and Bong’s cloning operation. However, during the mission into Bong’s laboratory, Rogers and Deadpool got into a fight. Moon Knight came to Rogers’ aid. Bong detonated the lab, attempting to destroy the heroes, and escaped. Rogers, Deadpool and Moon Knight also all managed to escape. Bong then disguised his soldiers as Deadpool when Rogers, Black Widow, Moon Knight, and the real Deadpool came to try to apprehend the evil Doctor.

            Deadpool was approached by vampires, led by Colvin. The opposing vampire Claw Sect had been provided with amulets that allowed them to walk in the light of day, and Mercy General Hospital, the hospital Colvin was the director of, needed protection for the daytime, so Colvin wished to hire Deadpool. Human Doctor Matsuzaki found herself targeted by vampires. Deadpool became smitten with Matsuzaki and fought to protect her, and the rest of Mercy General Hospital, from the invasion of the Claw Sect.

            A blinded Deadpool fought against a faction of terrorists in the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, in the United Arab Emirates.

            Okay, we have the plot synopses out of the way, it’s time to focus on my individual segments of the review. As always, we’re going to start with my own personal opinions about the book. I will say that I found this book to be highly enjoyable. I had a fun time reading it. I liked Deadpool as a pirate. I thought it was funny how Deadpool didn’t make Bob first mate, Deadpool made Bob be a parrot. And it was an interesting idea to have a blind tour guide. I enjoyed Deadpool trying to join the X-Men, particularly Cyclops’ response. I liked how Osborn played his game to manipulate public opinion against the X-Men by using both Kincaid and Deadpool as puppets, I thought it was brilliant writing. Spider-Man/Deadpool team ups are usually entertaining, and I feel like the one in this book definitely was. I loved Hit-Monkey, I thought he was a unique threat, you don’t usually see superheroes fight animals like this one. The dirty cops issue had twists I did not see coming and I thought that it was well written. I enjoyed reading Deadpool becoming the hero of Las Vegas, and I was shocked when Deadpool pulled a double-cross on Weasel and teamed up with Grizzly, then screwed them both over, but I guess that’s just typical Deadpool. And I was amused how he backed himself into a corner there and wound up with a job. Deadpool’s encounter with Ghost Rider was an interesting one to me, especially the outcome of Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare. I was surprised when Steve Rogers actually asked Deadpool for a team up, and I thought their mission was an exciting read. I loved the concept of vampires secretly running a hospital, and the Claw Sect were an interesting group of vampires. I also love how Deadpool calls every vampire a Dracula. Finally, Deadpool’s Pool-o-Vision did not work like Daredevil’s radar sense, but it made for a difficult handicap for Deadpool to work with, and he did it well. While I found the stories to be amusing and entertaining in general, some of the jokes, to me, just weren’t funny. I’m not saying it was because they were offensive or inappropriate, I just didn’t think they were anything that invoked humor in me. I also felt like Deadpool’s warped way of thinking wasn’t always likeable at times, particularly his fixation on killing Ellis Kincaid. Moving on, we’re going to discuss the art. I did not particularly enjoy the work of Shawn Crystal, Tan Eng Huat, or Philip Bond. However, I loved the work by Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi, and Bond Dazo, whom I feel did phenomenal work. The next thing I’d like to talk about is the title. In general, an Epic Collection is titled after an issue or storyline title. “X, X! Baby!!” was a caption on one of the covers, rather than a title. I found this to be an exceptionally odd choice. There were plenty of titles that the editors could have chosen from for this Collection, and they chose to disregard all these choices in favor of a quote on a cover and remove the punctuation marks. I feel like a few of the titles of storylines would have worked as titles for the Collection, such as “Want You to Want Me,” “Tricky,” or “I’m Your Man.” “Want You to Want Me” was the longest story arc in the book and the one to feature the Collection’s titular caption on the cover of one issue, so I’ll settle on “X X Baby” being an adequate title for this volume. As for the cover of this volume, it features Deadpool in his X-Men uniform in front of the cover of “Giant-Size X-Men” #1. This issue was the debut of a new team of X-Men, and I feel like the significance of that issue does not match the significance of the story of Deadpool trying to join the X-Men. Also, this cover is an edited version of the cover of “Deadpool” #17, and I feel like if the editors had used the original cover, which features Domino and Emma Frost next to Deadpool, it would be a better representation of the actual story in these issues. That said, this book was an entertaining read and a fun experience and in general, I enjoyed my time consuming it.

            Next up on the docket of topics we need to cover is accessibility. Now, if you’ve never been to one of the seven dozen or so other times, I’ve already explained my meaning of using the word “accessibility” in application to a graphic novel, you may not know what I’m trying to say. So, if you’re a newb to a Tim Cubbin review, allow me to explain, and if you’ve been to one of my seven dozen or so other reviews, please bear with me while I go over it once again. When I say “accessibility,” I mean can a person who has never heard of Deadpool or read a Marvel Comic before obtaining this Collection, then read the story, and understand everything they have just read based solely on the material contained in just this book and this book alone? I would say that the answer is a relative yes. This Collection really doesn’t rely on outside knowledge. While this is marketed as Vol. 2, and it does directly continue from where the previous volume left off, the storyline is a fresh start, and I feel like not having read the previous volume is too detrimental to understanding this particular volume. All the issues in this Collection come from one series. There are no events occurring during this Collection and there are no tie in issues or crossovers. As such, I feel like this book has a relatively high accessibility rating. If you’ve never read a Marvel Comic before and are looking into starting, this volume is not a terrible place to jump on at.

            We’ve now come to the point where I give my numeric score. My scores are done on an extremely simple system. I score on a scale of exact whole numbers ranging from one through ten. One is the lowest score I can give, and that means that reading this book was so bad, I wish I could go back in time and erase the period of consuming this book from my memory to never have experienced this absolute abomination of literature and art. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if I score a book at a ten, that signifies sheer perfection, and the time I spent reading this book were some of the best hours of my life and when I have reason to reexperience this book, I will be in absolute bliss. When I score a book, I focus on four things: if the story was completely enjoyable; if the art was consistently visually appealing; if the title was an accurate description of the contents within; and if the cover properly delivered on the promise of what it showed and adequately represents the book. So, after careful consideration, taking into account that we have: a story that was enjoyable, yet had a lack of amusement where humor was expected; art that was, for the most part, enjoyable; a title that was questionably adequate; and a cover that didn’t quite match its significance, when I give this book a score, we’re looking at… seven! It was a decent read, but it had visual flaws, and the title and cover didn’t quite live up to the essence of the book’s content.

            Continuing forward, we have my recommendation segment. This segment handles two separate questions. The first question I answer is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is regardless of the first question, beyond the obvious answer of fans of Deadpool, Marvel Comics, or the creative team, who are the fans of particular genres, characteristics, or styles of literature that would find this book most appealing? The answer of my first question is a resounding yes. If you’re reading this review right now and based solely on the words you’ve spent the past few minutes reading you want to read this book, I’ll tell you to hop onto your favorite online retailer, or check out your favorite book store, local comic book shop, or public library, or hit up some friends who are into Marvel, and try to find a copy of this book. As for who should be reading this book, I’d say readers who enjoy stories about mercenaries would enjoy this, fans of pirates might enjoy it, people who enjoy vampire stories could find this entertaining, and people who like literature with crude jokes might find something amusing with this book.

            Okay, we’re at the point where I’m just about ready to wrap everything up. I’ve been at this for several hours now and I need to move on with my life. Before I go, there are a few final things that do need to be said. I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now. In that time, I have posted over 190 times. If you enjoyed reading this post, check out timcubbin.blogspot.com for more content from me. If you go way back, you’ll find I’ve written short stories, poems, essays, articles, and editorials. I’ve also written over seven dozen other reviews of Epic Collections just like this one. I’ve also reviewed some prose novels, comic book events, and manga as well. Right now, the primary focus of From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin is to review Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. I purchase every one of them as soon as I can after it is released and if possible, put up a review as soon as I can after I finish reading it. If you liked this review, there are similar reviews you might like. Search for “Deadpool: Magnum Opus” “Deadpool: In Wade We Trust” “Deadpool & Cable: Ballistic Bromance” “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn’t it Bromantic?” “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us” and “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip” for more Deadpool content if you have some more free time to spare. You can also keep checking back for more upcoming posts. I post on a very frequent basis. My next review will be “Iron Man: The Future” and you can expect to see that within the next four weeks. That is a rough estimate, it will most likely be sooner than that, I just have to give a wide timeframe, so I don’t give false hope. But definitely keep checking back for it, because it will be up soon. If you liked this post, feel free to follow me. Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you. Interact with me on whatever platform you found this post on. I’d totally love to hear from you guys, my readers, I’d totally value your opinions. Everything said by me on this blog is my opinion and I don’t expect anyone to agree with me on what I say, and if you have read this book and feel differently about it, please let it be known to me, I’d like to know what you think of this book. That’s really all I have to say for now. I’ll be back soon, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"New X-Men: Planet X"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “New X-Men: Planet X” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Following the attempted murder of Emma Frost/White Queen, Scott Summers/Cyclops left the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and the X-Men. Cyclops sought comfort at the Hellfire Club as he dealt with the strains Emma put on his marriage with Jean Grey/Phoenix. Logan/Wolverine wished to learn about his past, and Wolverine’s meeting with European criminal Fantomex gave Wolverine a lead on a Weapon Plus facility called the World in England that might shed light on Wolverine’s history before Wolverine became Weapon X. Fantomex himself was the program’s Weapon XIII. Wolverine challenged Cyclops to a drinking game, the stakes being if Cyclops won, Wolverine would allow Cyclops to disappear, while if Wolverine won, Cyclops would accompany Wolverine on his fact-finding mission to the World. Wolverine won, and Wolverine, Cyclops, and Fantomex set out for the World. Upon breaching the World’s outer perimeter, the trio discovered a camera that recorded a group of Advanced Idea Mechanics agents’ encounter with the latest Weapon Plus project, Weapon XV, a part-man/part-machine hybrid being. The trio then encountered the remnants of the A.I.M. unit, after a fire fight, took the A.I.M. unit out. The trio then entered the World, a place where time could be slowed or accelerated or stopped altogether. At the moment they entered, time was on pause. As they explored, time restarted and the trio were attacked by a car-cop, part of the World’s security. After taking the car-cop out, the trio came face-to-face with Weapon XV. After the trio took a beating from Weapon XV, Weapon XV escaped the World and headed for the Weapon Plus orbital base. Cyclops, Wolverine and Fantomex followed Weapon XV into space in Fantomex’ parter/vehicle E.V.A. While exploring, the trio fought Weapon Plus agents and placed charges to blow up the Weapon Plus base. Following the planting of the charges, the trio found their way to a computer. Fantomex was able to access it, providing Wolverine with his history and ten minutes of access before the station blew. As Cyclops and Fantomex made their escape, E.V.A. was attacked, and E.V.A.’s psychic connection with Fantomex left Fantomex weakened. Cyclops was able to help Fantomex escape. When Weapon XV found Wolverine, Wolverine blew up the station.

            Charles Xavier/Professor X planned to step down as headmaster of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, leaving the school under the guidance of Jean Grey. Cerebra, the X-Men’s mutant detection device, located Cyclops and Wolverine in space. Jean left for space in the X-Plane Mark 3 to pick up Wolverine from space, while Emma Frost and Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast went off to pick up Cyclops. Xorn had a lesson with the Special Class, Angel Salvadore, Barnell Bohusk/Beak, Sooraya Qadir/Dust, Basilisk, Earnst, and Martha Johansson. Dust fled the class to converse with Professor X. Dust suddenly attacked Professor X. Xorn came to Professor X’s rescue, but Dust destroyed Cerebra. Dust attacked the Special Class before Professor X and Xorn were able to subdue her. Jean found Wolverine, and the two realized they were on Asteroid M, former base of the X-Men’s greatest enemy Erik Lensherr/Magneto. The X-Plane was destroyed, and Asteroid M was knocked out of orbit, headed towards the Sun. Beast and Emma’s X-Plane was also blown up over the Pacific Ocean. Xorn attacked Professor X, revealing himself to actually be Magneto, and disabling the Professor’s ability to walk, a gift Magneto had granted using Nano-Sentinels. Magneto destroyed the Xavier Institute and then New York City, redubbing it New Genosha. Magneto deputized the Special Class, Esme Cuckoo, and Mortimer Toynbee/Toad as the heads of his new Brotherhood of Mutants and staged a mutant uprising. He kept Professor X incapacitated in a tank. Magneto planned to use his powers to reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles. He used the mutant performance enhancing drug Kick to boost his powers. As Wolverine and Jean headed for the Sun, Wolverine killed Jean to instantly spare her the pain of their inevitable deaths. Magneto placed Beak in charge of exterminating the remaining humans in New Genosha, a task Beak did not wish to do. Basilisk spoke out of turn, and an accidentally enhanced magnetic pulse from Magneto ended Basilisk’s life. Magneto attempted to end Beak, but Beak managed to escape Magneto’s wrath. Beak was discovered by the resistance, headed by Cyclops and Fantomex, and including Dust, and the Stepford Cuckoos, Phoebe, Mindee, and Celeste Cuckoo. As Esme revealed her romantic feelings for Magneto, Magneto rejected Esme’s advance. The Phoenix Force saved Jean and Wolverine from their deaths and Phoenix brought the two back to Earth. Phoenix found Beast and Emma floating on the wreckage of the X-Plane in the Pacific Ocean. The United States government planned to drop neutron warheads on New Genosha, coded only to destroy mutations and leave all surroundings intact. The resistance attacked Magneto’s base. Fantomex injured Toad and released Professor X. Magneto attempted to take down Fantomex, but Cyclops came to his rescue. Cyclops took out his anger at Magneto with an optic blast. Esma turned on Magneto, and Magneto released a Magnetic pulse on Esme. Beast tried to talk the President out of dropping the neutron warheads. Esme died in Emma’s arms. Beast attempted to neutralize the Kick in Magneto’s bloodstream to weaken him. Phoenix and Professor X confronted Magneto. As the X-Men prepared to take down Magneto once and for all, tragedy befell the team.

            Grieving from the fallout of the battle with Magneto, Cyclops lost heart for the X-Men and left the team. Without him, Beast tried to head the school. Under great stress, Beast tried Kick. Unknown to Beast was that the drug was the aerosol form of Sublime. Continued use of the drug supplanted the Beast’s persona, turning him into a mad scientist. 150 passed and humanity was nearly extinct. The Phoenix Egg was discovered on the moon. Tom Skylark and his Sentinel partner Rover were tasked with bringing the Phoenix Egg to the Institute. On his trek, he was attacked by Beast’s creations, the Crawlers. Rover took them out except for one that managed to teleport inside of Rover. Tom met with E.V.A. at the Institute. The Crawler that hid inside Rover had been spliced with genetic codes from Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, and the Crawlers were able to multiply inside the Institute. Tito Bohusk/Beak tried to help Rover and E.V.A. destroy the Crawlers, but the Crawlers were able to teleport away with the Phoenix Egg. The X-Men (Wolverine, E.V.A., Beak, and Cassandra Nova), Tom and Rover prepared to fly to Beast’s laboratory in Transatlantis. Beast forced the Phoenix Egg to hatch, releasing a reborn Jean Grey. As the X-Men fought an army of Crawlers, Tom and E.V.A. had an intimate moment in front of Rover. This caused a distraction for Rover, and Rover was destroyed. Beast implanted himself with Phoenix traits, an act he had promised to perform on his loyal servant Apollyon, the U-Man. The X-Men faced the reborn Phoenix, and Wolverine was able to reach the Jean Grey inside of her. Beast faced the X-Men in a final battle, and the fate of the universe rested in the hands of Jean Grey.

            Okay, we have the plot synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to my individual segments of this review, shall we. We’re going to start, as I always do, with my own personal opinions on the book. I will say that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve been a reader of Marvel Comics since 2001, and New X-Men was actually one of the first two series I ever subscribed to. I looked forward to getting the new issues every month, and this series has been a favorite of mine for twenty-five years. Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men is one of my top three all-time favorite comic book runs to this day. This conclusion was just fantastic, and I was completely blown away. Reading this book again twenty-two years later was still just as good as it was the first time I read it. I remember being totally shocked when it turned out that Xorn was really Magneto. And I loved how Jean truly became Phoenix at the end of “Planet X.” The final showdown between the X-Men and Magneto in this book was totally epic. And I loved the dystopian future in “Here Comes Tomorrow.” Beast’s transformation into Sublime was a great twist. These stories were, in my opinion, peak. As far as the art goes, I have a love/hate for Chris Bachalo’s artwork. It’s unique, and I kind of like it, but it is a little wonky. Phil Jimenez and Marc Silvestri did bang up jobs on their penciling. In general, I liked the artwork, but Bachalo’s work was a little off-putting at certain points. Next up in things I critique about Epic Collections is the title. The editors had a few choices, including “Assault on Weapon Plus,” “Planet X,” or “Here Comes Tomorrow,” but the main arcs did tend to have subtitles, so the editors could have run with one of those as well, or else pulled a rando title from out of nowhere for this book that they thought would be good. That said, I thought “Planet X” was the best choice of titles for this book. It was the longest story arc in the Collection, and I feel like it fits the book as a whole as well. Finally, I’m going to talk about the cover. It’s actually very simple, just Cyclops shooting off an optic blast. Was it the best choice for a cover for this book? I’d say it wasn’t. I feel like there were other covers in this book that would have been more perfect. That said, it’s not a bad cover. Cyclops does play a major part in this book, so his gracing the cover seems appropriate enough. Unfortunately, I do have to question how he’s firing an optic blast if he’s not pressing the studs on either the sides of his visor or in his palms. Plus, I do feel Cyclops’ face does look a little odd. But I’m not going to fault the cover on technicalities such as these. Overall, I thought this book was fantastic, and I really loved it.

            Next up on the docket of things to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know I’ve talked about this over seven dozen times at this point, and every time I do a review, I have to explain it, so to the people who have read reviews by me before, bear with me while I explain to my newbs just what exactly I mean when I talk about accessibility. So, I’m going to pose a question here: is this book accessible? What I mean by that is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about the X-Men pick up this book, read it, and understand the story as it is presented with no outside knowledge of the stories before, around, or during the time of the issues contained in just this volume? I will say the answer to that question is no. This Collection is marketed as Vol. 3 and directly continues from stories started in the previous volumes. However, I feel that if you want this book to be accessible, you just need to read the first two volumes of New X-Men as presented in Modern Era Epic Collection format (“E is for Extinction” and “New Worlds”). I feel like Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men was self-contained, and it was where I started reading comics knowing almost nothing about the Marvel Comic Universe of the X-Men. It doesn’t directly cross over into other series or tie into other storylines or events from the time. On its own, I will say that this particular volume is not a good book to choose as your first book if you’re trying to start reading Marvel Comic books, but this series is a good series to get into Marvel Comics with if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and you’re looking for somewhere to start your journey into the Marvel Universe.

            Moving on, I’m going to give this book a numeric score. I know some of you might consider this the most important part of my reviews, but I feel like to some of my readers, every one of my segments might be what they consider my most important segment. Now, of course, it’s important to go over how I score a book. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If I score a book as a one, that means that this book is one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life and reading it was actually an experience that was physically and emotionally painful. However, if I score a book as a ten, that means that this book is one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life and the hours I spent reading it were some of the best few hours of my life. To be honest, I don’t usually give out tens simply because a ten means this book was perfect and I could find no flaws or things to complain about. I primarily base a book’s score on the story, but since this book is a graphic novel, I’m judging this book on art as well. Also, I take the title and cover into consideration, if I feel they properly apply to this particular book. So, taking everything into account, the score I feel I am going to give this book is… a nine! I loved the story, I thought the title was perfect and that the cover is adequate to represent the contents inside this volume, but I did feel that Bachalo’s artwork was a little wonky here and there, but overall, this book was truly exceptional and I thoroughly loved reading it.

            Finally, I’m going to give my recommendation segment. This segment answers two separate questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is, regardless of if I would actually tell you to read this book or not based on my personal feelings, whom do I feel is the target audience, beyond the obvious of fans of Marvel Comics, the X-Men, or the creators? The answer to my first question is a resounding yes. If you’re reading this review and are so intrigued based solely on the words I have just spent the past few hours tying that you now want to read this book, I will say go to your preferred online retailer, your nearest bookstore, your favorite comic shop, your local library, or your Marvel obsessed friend or family member and try to get your hands on a copy of this book and read it at your earliest convenience. As for who I feel the perfect audience for this book is, I’d say it’s best for people who love stories about infiltration of secret facilities, near-catastrophic disasters, and post-apocalyptic futures. If you read this book, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog site, or a comment or tweet on the social media site you found this blog post on about your feelings about this book. I’d love to hear your opinions. Everything I say on this blog is my own personal opinion and I am not trying to force my feelings on you. I leave it up to you to feel how you want to about anything I say whether you want to agree or disagree with me. That’s the beauty of being human is that we all have our own opinions about everything, and I totally encourage you to have yours. If you read this book and think it’s horrible, I’d love to hear from you about your thoughts about this book and why you thought it was so bad. And if you loved it, I’d love to know your favorite parts of this book. I’d love to have a community vibe going here, although no one seems to want to do that yet, but I’m always hoping it will happen, so please feel free to start things going if you want to say something, you’re welcome to it.

            Okay, we’re getting to the point where I’m just about ready to sign off. There are a few things I do have to say before I sign off. The first is that I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now. I’ve done over 190 posts, so if you have some more free time, check out more content on timcubbin.blogspot.com and see what else there is to like. I’ve done several kinds of posts, such as shorts stories, poems, essays, articles, and editorials. My primary focus at the moment is reviews. I’ve done reviews of prose novels, manga, comic book events, and a lot of reviews of graphic novels. Right now, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released and if possible, put up a review. If you liked this review and have some more time, feel free to check out my reviews of “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” “New X-Men: New Worlds” “Astonishing X-Men: Gifted” and “Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable” for more X-Men content. I post on a very frequent basis. My next post is going to be “Ultimate Fantastic Four: Frightful” which will be posted on this site within the next two months, but you can probably expect it to be a lot sooner than that, I’m just giving a rough estimate based on my availability to get the book, how long it takes to read it, and when I’m free to draft the review, but if you want to see more of my work, keep checking back until it’s posted. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Ultimate X-Men: World Tour"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Ultimate X-Men: World Tour” as presented in Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection format.

                They are the X-Men – sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them. Led by Professor Charles Xavier, young mutants Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Colossus, and Iceman use their mutant abilities for the betterment of mankind as a whole. Weapon X, the covert government program that turned mutants into living weapons, is no more. Despite their capture, the X-Men helped bring it down and regrouped at the X-Mansion in New York’s Westchester County. As headmaster of the School for Gifted Youngsters, Professor X was pleased with the performance of his students, and things were quiet at the academy. But not all mutants had been fortunate enough to have been rescued by Charles Xavier. Some survived by their wits alone, with nobody to whom they could turn. Each day, they faced the scorn and fear of the human world – and sometimes, of themselves. One such mutant was Remy LeBeau.

                A little girl witnessed gangster Hammerhead murder her parents and barely escaped herself. Remy LeBeau used his powers as street performance on the streets of New York City. He thought he was going to be having a good time, until the little girl came to Remy and asked Remy to use his magic to bring the little girl’s parents back to life. Remy told the little girl Remy didn’t know that kind of magic but offered to protect the little girl for a little while. That night, when they went to sleep in an abandoned subway train, the little girl was taken by Hammerhead’s goons. Hammerhead’s goons left a note for Remy, telling Remy not to come looking for the little girl. Remy began shaking down New York City’s underworld, searching for information on how to find the little girl. During his search, Charles Xavier came to Remy with an offer, but Remy refused to hear it. Remy’s search led him to Hammerhead, whom Remy had to face off with to spare the life of the little girl and also for Remy’s own survival.

                Professor X wrote an article, detailing his world at his school and about his students, the X-Men, hoping to alleviate the anti-mutant tension. Professor X revealed to Peter Rasputin/Colossus that Magneto, the mutant terrorist whom the world believed had been neutralized by Professor X, was alive and living as Erik Lensherr, with mental blocks convincing him he was an ordinary human. Erik was working with special needs children and in a romantic relationship with a nonmutant woman. Colossus was unsettled by this. Fred Dukes/Blob was chatting online with Henry McCoy/Beast, pretending to be a closeted mutant female who was romantically interested in Beast. The Brotherhood of Mutants’ continued terrorist attacks led the magazine that Professor X’s article was to be published in to reconsider, and the article was scrapped before it hit the pages of the magazine.

                David Xavier, son of Professor X and Moira McTaggert, human geneticist and ex-wife of Professor X, who had been kept in a hidden school/hospital for mutants on Muir Island in Scotland funded by Professor X’s generous secret benefactors designated for mutants who could not go public due to the nature of their mutations, escaped before his dying body failed him by transferring his consciousness into one of Moira’s doctors on staff. Professor X published a book, and to promote it, held a world tour, bringing the X-Men along with him. While in London, the X-Men broke up into groups to compete in assignments to help the disadvantaged in order to earn their grades. Despite their work being lower profile, Beast and Scott Summers/Cyclops came out on top. While at their hotel, Colossus disappeared overnight with two unknown people, headed for Russia. Moira called Professor X to tell him David had escaped and trashed the hospital. S.T.R.I.K.E. agents Dai Thomas and Betsy Braddock had been dispatched to investigate the situation. Professor X, Bobby Drake/Iceman, Beast, Ororo Munroe/Storm, and Logan/Wolverine flew to Muir Island, while Cyclops and Jean Grey/Marvel Girl flew to Russia to search for Colossus, whom Professor X believed may have been kidnapped. The X-Men tracked David down to a Burger King in Aberdeen, where David had been jumping bodies due to the bodies’ inability to sustain David’s life energies. David jumped into Wolverine, whose healing factor made it so he would not deteriorate from David’s powers. David used his reality warping powers to defeat the X-Men but was unable to withstand Agent Braddock’s telepathy. David left Wolverine’s body and disappeared, but Wolverine found himself gravely injured. Cyclops and Marvel Girl found Colossus in Saint Petersburg. Colossus had left the X-Men because he felt neglected and unable to believe in Professor X’s dream. In Berlin, Professor X spent time bonding with Agent Braddock. A submarine was downed in Barent’s Sea, trapping the sailors within. Colossus rescued the sailors in the submarine and realized he could find his place in the X-Men after all. Professor X realized that after leaving Wolverine, David had jumped into Agent Braddock’s body and the woman he had been talking to was actually his son. As Wolverine, Iceman, Beast and Storm were driving to the airport to reunite with Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Colossus, they encountered David, who was holding Professor X and Moira hostage. The X-Men combatted David, now calling himself Proteus, who used his reality warping powers to destroy the sites Professor X and the X-Men were planning on visiting along their book tour. The X-Men were nearly defeated, with Iceman gravely injured. The outcome of this conflict left Professor X with doubts of his dream.

                Professor X penned a letter to Cyclops, announcing the disbandment of the X-Men and Professor X’s plans to remove the mental blocks on Magneto, but an unexpected encounter led Professor X to realize the validity of Professor X’s dream. Cyclops and Marvel Girl became romantically involved.

                Kitty Pryde had manifested her mutant powers of intangibility and was unable to control them. Theresa Pryde, Kitty’s mother, contacted Professor X to tell Professor X about Kitty’s situation. Professor X met with Theresa and Kitty and accepted Kitty as a student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Children, under Theresa’s condition that Kitty was not to go on any missions or be a superhero. Iceman’s family filed a lawsuit against Professor X. Senator Andrew Border Turk took an interest in the case and became the public face of the lawsuit against the X-Men. Marvel Girl’s visions of the Phoenix returned. The Brotherhood pulled off an operation in Pakistan, in which they disarmed the country of its nuclear arsenal. The members of the Brotherhood became disillusioned with Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch’s leadership strategies and prepared to oust Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch as heads of the Brotherhood. Cyclops and Colossus were picked to go on a mission to the Savage Land after the Pentagon lost communication with the members of the United States military stationed in the Savage Land. Wolverine and Cyclops got into a physical fight over Marvel Girl. As punishment, Professor X picked Wolverine instead of Colossus to go with Cyclops on the Savage Land mission. Beast let slip in an instant message to Blob, who was pretending to be a closeted mutant female, that Magneto was alive. Cyclops and Wolverine found that Kitty had stowed away with them on the X-Jet to the Savage Land. Professor X’s response was to expel her from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The Brotherhood, without Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, planned an ambush on Beast to learn the location of Magneto. Iceman was asked to testify against Professor X and the X-Men. Cyclops and Wolverine discovered the Savage Land’s computer had achieved self-awareness and planned to overthrow the planet. Professor X’s secret benefactors, the Hellfire Club, arranged a gala to meet with Professor X and the X-Men. Professor X, Storm, Colossus, and Marvel Girl attended the gala. Professor X learned one of his benefactors was Sebastian Shaw from Shaw Industries. The Hellfire Club’s agents attacked and incapacitated Professor X, Storm, and Colossus. The Hellfire Club summoned the Phoenix and used Marvel Girl as it’s vessel. The Phoenix was not happy with Shaw trying to command it and went out of control. Professor X was left to face the Phoenix and save the mind of his student. The Brotherhood attacked Beast and went in search of Magneto to remove the mental blocks.

                Okay, now that we have the synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to the Tim Cubbin segments of this review. First off, we’ll start with, as we usually do, my own personal opinions about this graphic novel. Let’s begin by evaluating the stories. I absolutely loved these stories. “Thief in the Night”/”Wild Card” with Remy LeBeau was actually my favorite story in this collection, I really enjoyed seeing him do everything he could to protect the little girl from Hammerhead. “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way” was an interesting way to get a glimpse into the personal lives of the X-Men. “World Tour” was exciting, I really enjoyed this interpretation of Proteus. “Registration” was a great epilogue; I liked how it explored the relationships between the characters. “Hellfire and Brimstone” was also a great storyline, I especially enjoyed the part at the end with Phoenix, and I loved the introduction of Kitty Pryde, and I also liked how it very slightly loosely reinterpreted “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” one of my all-time favorite comic book stories. However, I did have a major problem with this graphic novel, that being the graphics. The artists failed to consistently appeal to my visual palate. I did not like the way Esad Ribic drew Remy’s face, it didn’t look natural. There were times where I liked Adam Kubert’s work, but much of the time, his characters’ faces just didn’t look right. I especially disliked Chris Bachalo’s drawings of Proteus and Iceman. I kind of appreciated where Kaare Andrews was going with his artwork, but I don’t quite approve of the execution. Moving on, let’s discuss the title. I felt like “World Tour” was the ideal choice for a title for this book. Despite “Hellfire and Brimstone” being the longest storyline in the book, I still thought “World Tour” was a better fit. It just seems to capture the essence of the book better. Finally, we’re going to talk about the cover. It features the X-Men poised for action. I feel like it’s a great cover. What I do find odd is that it comes from nowhere within this collection. I honestly don’t know where it comes from, none of the issues in this book have this cover, but I do like it. So, when looking at this book, reading the story was enjoyable, but the artwork detracted from the experience a great deal.

                Next up we’re going to discuss accessibility. I know that I’ve been over this over seven dozen times at this point, but every time I do a new post, I have readers who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before, so I have to explain what I mean every time I do it, so I’m doing it again. What I’m posing here is this: is this book accessible? When I say this, what I mean is, can someone who knows absolutely nothing about the X-Men or even Marvel Comics in general decide to take this book from wherever they find it, read it, and be able to understand it as it is written, with no outside knowledge? This collection is marketed as Vol. 2, and it does pick up exactly where Vol. 1 left off. Reading this volume without having read the previous volume is not going to be easy. That said, Vol. 1 did not end in the middle of a storyline, and this book does not feature any events or crossovers, and only contains issues of “Ultimate X-Men,” so while not having read Vol. 1 leaves a lot of blanks, I don’t feel it is absolutely essential to being able to read and enjoy this particular volume. Also, this is part of the Ultimate Universe, which was relatively new at the time, and there really is not a lot of backstory at this particular point, so not having read Vol. 1 is only missing twelve issues of a new Universe. However, if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and are looking for a place to start, I would not recommend picking this book as your first choice, I would recommend reading the first twelve issues of Ultimate X-Men (2001) first, then you will be fine reading this book as your next option.

                Next up, we’re going to reveal my numeric score. While this is one of the key points of all my reviews, I don’t necessarily feel it is the most important part of the review. After all, everyone has different values, and each segment of these reviews has different meanings to all my readers. Readers come for the synopsis so they can learn what this book is about, some might say that’s the most important part. Others may say my recommendation paragraph is the most important because it makes them decide if they actually want to read the book or not. Everyone feels differently. Anyway, let’s discuss my scoring system. It’s fairly simple: I score on a scale of exact whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If I score a book at a one, that means it’s a flaming pile of trash, and every remaining copy should be rounded up, placed in a pile, and lit up, then all the print plates should be deleted so this horror can never be recreated and is wiped out of existence permanently. Okay, that’s a little extreme, I’d never actually condone book burning, I’m just being extra. All I’m saying is it’s horrible. If, on the other hand, I score a book at a ten, that means the book is absolutely sheer perfection, perfect in every way and one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life. Now, a ten requires a story that is thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, artwork that consistently appeals to my eyes, a title that fits the story perfectly, and a cover that is a great representation of the content inside the book. So, you can probably guess that this book is not getting a ten due to my assessment of the art. While this book did have a great story, title and cover, the art still detracted from the experience of enjoying this book. Still, I do have to give this book a pretty good score. So, everything in the metaphorical blender, the score that comes out when thoroughly blended is… an eight. I thought reading the words was enjoyable, despite not reading the imagery, but I still don’t find myself able to fault this book too terribly for that.

                Next up on our agenda is my recommendation segment. This segment answers two questions: do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers, or to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught up in a conversation with me about this book? The second question is, regardless of if I would tell you to read it or not based on my preferences, whom do I think is the ideal audience for this book? In response to question number one, my answer is yes, I do recommend this book to you. If you are reading this review and now, based solely on the words I’ve just spent the last few hours writing, you want to read this book, I would tell you to hop online to your preferred online retailer, your favorite bookstore, your local comic store, your public library, or check with a Marvel loving friend or family member and get your hands on this book as soon as you possibly can. To answer question number two, we’re going to look past the obvious answer of X-Men and Marvel fans, and I’ll say the best audiences for this book include teenagers, who can find themselves able to relate with the teenage superheroes, and fans of international action stories.

                Okay, we’ve covered all the key points of the review, we’re just going to do the wrap-up. Anyway, I’ve been doing this blog for over five years now. I’ve posted over 180 times. Keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for all kinds of content. I’ve done several kinds of content on this blog. I’ve posted short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials. I’ve also posted over seven dozen reviews just like this one. I’ve reviewed prose novels, manga, and comic events. The priority of this blog currently is to review Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections. I purchase every one of them as soon as I can after publication and try to get a review up as soon as I can after reading it. If you liked this post, feel free to search for “Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People” if you want to read more about “Ultimate X-Men.” Expect my next post to come up within the next two months after this posting, it will be “The Amazing Spider-Man: Sins Past” so if you liked this post and want more from me, keep checking back for that one soon. That’s all I have to say for now. Until I post again, Tim Cubbin… out!

"New X-Men: New Worlds"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “New X-Men: New Worlds” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            The X-Men are a team of mutant outreach workers who fight for the peaceful coexistence between the two species of both baseline human beings and those born with mutations that set them apart from normal human beings. Their base of operations is the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, located in Salem Center in New York’s Westchester County. There the X-Men teach young mutants both a regular education and how to use their gifts to protect themselves and benefit human and mutantkind. They were founded by Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X, and include Scott Summers/Cyclops, Jean Grey-Summers/Phoenix, Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast, James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine, Emma Frost/White Queen, and Xorn.

            The presence of a “monster” from “Mutant Town” was sparking riots in New York City. Xorn, who grew up in China and had been jailed since his mutation emerged and had been considered a monster himself, went to Mutant Town to investigate. He found a woman and her son, the “monster,” a young mutant who was ten days away from reaching his genetic potential. After his mother died, the young mutant went on a rampage, and the cops stepped in, and during the confrontation, the young mutant was never able to transition to his true form.

            As part of his mutant outreach program, Charles Xavier opened the X-Corporation, a worldwide agency of X-Men teams. Professor X and Jean Grey-Summers went to visit one of the offices in Europe as part of Professor X’s lecture tour. This team consisted of Theresa Rourke/Siryn, Monet St. Croix/M, Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, Julio Richter/Rictor, Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, and Leynia Petrovna/Darkstar. Jean informed the team of a gene-hazard involved in a trainwreck in the Channel Tunnel leaving one hundred and fifty-one people trapped in the wreckage. While the team was dispatched, Jean asked Professor X to talk to the Phoenix to learn if her new powers were a threat since the last time the X-Men dealt with the Phoenix, the force turned malevolent and caused destruction on a cosmic level. They were interrupted by the arrival of Fantomex, a European mutant criminal seeking sanctuary, and a military unit sent to apprehend him. He informed them the gene-hazard on the train was Weapon XII. Cyclops turned to Emma Frost for marriage counseling. Professor X and Jean helped Fantomex escape from the military and retreated to Fantomex’ home, where Fantomex tried to sell Professor X information on the Weapon Plus Program, the operation that created Weapon XII and gave the X-Men’s own Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and wiped Wolverine’s memories of his past, but Professor X refused to be bought. Fantomex had been on a quest to kill Weapon XII. He, Professor X, Jean, and the European X-Corporation team were able to end the threat of Weapon XII, but Darkstar did not survive. Afterwards, Jean allowed Fantomex to escape after learning Fantomex himself was actually Weapon XIII.

            Warren Worthington III/Archangel was teaching a flying lesson to several students at the Xavier Institute, including Barnell Bohusk/Beak and Angel Salvadore. Beak was unable to fly, and Angel offered him motivation by giving Beak a kiss. Although unable to fly, and although Angel had been put up to it, this caused Beak to develop feelings for Angel. Cyclops and Emma’s counseling sessions began to turn into more than just counseling.

            Professor X, Jean, Ororo Munroe/Storm, Ruth Bat-Seraph/Sabra, Neal Sharra/Thunderbird, and Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver went to the ruins of Genosha, the former mutant island homeland that had recently been destroyed by Cassanda Nova’s Sentinel attack. Unus, one of the refugees hiding out on Genosha, reported seeing ghosts and a green-haired woman, leading Professor X to believe Lorna Dane/Polaris, daughter of Erik Lensherr/Magneto, the President of Genosha, might be somewhere on the island. The group searched for Polaris and found she was going insane, causing magnetic fields, and replaying voice recordings of people’s last moments alive on the island before the destruction. Polaris was building a monument to her father and played the last words of Magneto as Professor X and Jean calmed Polaris down.

            Wolverine went to Afghanistan to find a newly discovered mutant named Sooraya Qadir. Professor X and Jean flew to Mumbai to meet up with them and the Mumbai office of X-Corporation. At the airport, Jean prevented Lilandra Nerimani, Professor X’s wife and Shi’ar Empress, from assassinating Professor X. Lilandra believed her husband to still be possessed by Cassandra Nova, who had recently corrupted the Shi’ar Imperium. Due to this, Imperial Sage Araki annulled Professor X and Lilandra’s marriage and cut all ties between the Shi’ar and the planet Earth.

            Mutant fashion designer Jumbo Carnation died in Mutant Town, apparently murdered by a group of human teenagers. Beast and Cyclops investigated the crime scene where Beast discovered a Kick inhaler, a drug that temporarily boosts a mutant’s powers. The Xavier Institute was getting ready for Open Day, where humans would be invited to tour the school grounds and interact with the mutant faculty and students. Promising student Quentin Quire learned he was adopted and began undergoing a secondary mutation, greatly impacting his sense of identity. He became extremely rebellious, began using Kick, and sporting a provocative new haircut and fashion statement. Xorn was assigned to teach the Special Class at the Xavier Institute, Angel, Basilisk, Beak, Martha Johansson, Ernst, and Dummy. He began by taking them on a walk in the woods around the Xavier Institute. Quentin assembled a gang of students, and they began dressing the same, using Kick, getting matching tattoos and attacking humans outside of Mutant Town. Xorn and the Special Class were attacked by the U-Men, a group of human fanatics who harvest mutant organs and then implant them into themselves in the hope of gaining mutant powers. They managed to win the fight. Cyclops and Emma’s relationship continued to intensify. Quentin and his gang knocked out Professor X the night before Open Day and used a helmet on him to inhibit his telepathic powers. They caused a riot at Xavier’s on Open Day, attacking the humans who had come to visit. The X-Men fought the gang Emma Frost’s prized students, the Stepford Cuckoos, joined the fight, using Kick to boost their telepathic powers, and stopped Quentin, but not all of them survived using the drug. Following the conclusion of the riot, the school year came close to wrapping up. Professor X announced he would be stepping down as headmaster of the Xavier Institute. On Prizegiving night, Angel revealed to Beak that she was pregnant and was afraid the two of them would be kicked out of the school. Jean discovered what her husband and Emma had been up to. She was not happy to say the least. Jean and Emma had a psychic argument, and Cyclops fled the Institute. Emma admitted to Wolverine that she had fallen in love with Cyclops. Beast came to check on Emma later, only to discover she had been shot while in her diamond form and shattered into millions of pieces. Professor X called in Lucas Bishop and Sage, mutant investigators, to try to solve the crime. Everyone in the school was a suspect. The outcome of the investigation led to the uncovering of an even deeper conspiracy going on within the Xavier Institute right under the X-Men’s noses.

            Okay, I feel that wraps up our overview of the synopsis. I tried to include as minimal spoilers as I could for this review as I don’t want to make it superfluous for you to read the book if I tell the entire story including the ending in this review, so I’m giving you a teasing reason to want to read this book so you can find out some of the bigger surprises, like who shot Emma. Anyway, you’re probably wondering now what I’m going to say next. I know some of you have read my reviews before, I’ve done over four dozen of them at this point, so there’s a good chance that some of you reading right now aren’t new to this blog. Anyway, at this point, I’m going to tell you my thoughts on this book. Okay, so I’ll start by saying I’ve been reading Marvel Comic Books regularly for almost twenty-five years now, and I read these issues when they first came out back in 2002-2003. Let me say, Grant Morrison’s run on “New X-Men” is actually up there as one of my all-time favorites. So last year, when the first volume of “New X-Men” as a Modern Era Epic Collection was announced, of course I was thrilled. Unfortunately, I had to wait a full year for volume two, and I have a feeling Marvel intends to do another full year wait for volume three, which is a pain because this book does leave the reader hanging, not everything is resolved at the end, there’s still the conspiracy that isn’t solved, Cyclops has fled, there are a few other loose ends, so a year long wait will be torture to get the conclusion of Morrison’s run on the series, and I remember thinking back then that waiting a month for the next issue was torture every time I finished. But hey, there are plenty more Modern Era Epic Collections coming out between that time, so at least I’ll have other series to read. Anyway, I thought Morrison was a brilliant writer. That first story about the “monster” in Mutant Town was just devastating, my heart broke while reading that issue. The X-Corporation story was great, too. I loved the scene where Professor X met with Phoenix. Fantomex is a character I have always enjoyed. I loved the X-Men team Morrison put together that looking back was basically the team Peter David took and used for his “X-Factor” series a few years later, which is another one of my all-time favorite comic book runs, and with David’s passing, I hope Marvel decides to use his run on the series as a Modern Era Epic Collection series, I would totally love that. I liked how Morrison decided that when Wolverine was called “Weapon X” he was actually Weapon Ten, and that there were more Weapons in the Weapon Plus program, I loved that whole development and it led to a lot of great stories in the time after that. I loved the story with Polaris, especially how she replayed Magneto’s last words, I thought they were immensely powerful. I loved how Morrison shipped Cyclops and Emma Frost, I actually liked them together better than I did Cyclops and Jean Grey. The confrontation scene between Jean and Emma was fantastic, in my opinion, by the way, the way Jean totally tore Emma apart, and I loved Emma’s reveal that she had plastic surgery to make herself pretty. I loved Xorn’s Special Class of misfits, Dummy was funny, but I honestly don’t feel like it’s appropriate to discuss him on this blog, you’ll have to read the book if you want to find out about him. I loved the “No-Girl” jokes, especially since eventually she actually really did exist. Quentin Quire has always been a character I’ve enjoyed over the years, he’s gone on to have some really great storylines and has been a very entertaining character and Morrison did an excellent job creating him the way he did. I always loved the Stepford Cuckoos, they’ve also had great stories throughout the past two decades. I loved the story of Emma Frost’s demise, that really kept me going for months when it first came out, I remember waiting for so long for the truth to finally come out, and when it did, I was blown away, but the big reveal doesn’t actually happen in this book, so if you’ve never read it before and you read this book right around the time of me writing this review, you’re going to have a long wait to find out. I loved Angel and Beak’s storyline, their bizarre relationship was entertaining, especially at the end of this book. Beast had an unusual storyline that I don’t feel is appropriate to discuss, but it made for a few good laughs. There was so much I loved about this book. But there is a major problem with this book for me, that being the artists. This book had six artists, and I did not like a single one of them. This book for me was a visual disaster. I wanted to love this, the story was so good but looking at this was just absolutely awful. This just ruined the book for me. Also, I caught a mistake in #135 with the art. In the teachers’ meeting scene on one page, Jean Grey-Summers is sitting in a chair wearing a skirt with bare legs, and on the next page, she is wearing pants. This is one of those minor details that they probably later thought no one would notice, but it did not escape me. Also, Emma’s outfit changed many times over the course of this book, none of them honestly being appropriate to wear in a school for teenagers. Some of the artists also did a terrible job drawing Beak, one in particular made him look even more unnatural than he already should. If this book had different artists, this book could have potentially been more appealing. But as far as Morrison’s work went, the book was great, I loved that, but the art just ruined something great.

            Anyway, I’ve gone on for quite a while, let’s move on to some other topics. Next up on our agenda is the accessibility segment. I’ve said this over four dozen times now, but I have to say it once again because I know some of you are newbies to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin and have no idea what I mean by this. Anyway, accessibility simply means if a reader who knows nothing about X-Men can pick up this book and comprehend all the details they are reading. So, this is Vol. 2, and I will tell you that if you haven’t read Vol. 1 “E is for Extinction” you will be very lost. This is a direct continuation from there, picking up on many threads from the previous volume, so not reading that is very harmful to accessibility. I will tell you if you haven’t read “E is for Extinction,” don’t even try to read this book. However, if you have read the previous volume, this book is fine to read, this has no direct ties to any other series or events from the time and is completely self-contained, so continuing from there is no problem at all, and Vol. 1 is highly accessible, it’s where I started reading twenty-five years ago, so feel free to follow in my footsteps. If you want to start reading Marvel Comics or X-Men after reading this review, start with “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” then move on to “New Worlds,” it’s a good jump on point.

            This has been pretty lengthy at this point, so I’m going to move on to our next segment, which is my numeric score. Now, everything that goes with a numeric score has a specific scale. My system is extremely simple. I score on exact numbers between one to ten. One is the worst score I give and means this book is completely unreadable and I hated every second I spend consuming it. Ten is a score of perfection and is not a score I give very often. My roommate often says “Tim, why don’t you give books a ten?” and I reply “I can’t give out a score of a ten to a book with flaws, it has to be perfect to get a ten,” to which he replies “but there’s no such thing as perfection,” to which I say “that’s why I don’t give out many tens.” To get a ten, a book has to have a story that I find no problems with, and the art has to be consistently visually pleasing. As far as the story goes with this book, I would really love to give this book a nine. I don’t quite feel the story was complete perfection, but it was absolutely amazing. But we have the art, which was consistently displeasing, so for that, I have to deduct points. And unfortunately, in this case, that really hurts this book. I found very few panels in this book that I actually enjoyed artistically looking at, even though I loved reading the story. So, I’m just going to move on to giving this book a score since I’ve been rambling on for a while now and you’re probably getting tired of me. So, taking everything into account, the fantastic story but the horrible art, we put it all together and I throw out to you… a six. I really wanted to like this book, and for the most part, I enjoyed reading the story, but the art was just so horrendous that reading this was slightly unpleasant.

            Next, we’re moving on the my recommendation section. In this segment, I tell you, my reader, if I personally recommend this book to you, and if I do or don’t, who I think should be reading this. So, as far as if this book gets the Tim Cubbin personal recommendation, that is a resounding yes. Story wise, this book is fantastic and a delightful read, if you can get past the art. If you are a fan of X-Men, I totally recommend reading the “New X-Men” Modern Era Epic Collections. I feel like Morrison did a fantastic job and any X-Men fan should read this amazing run. If you’re a fan of Grant Morrison, definitely read this, his work on this series was stellar. I’ve never read anything else by Grant Morrison personally, so I can’t speak for him as an author, but I feel like if you’ve read his work on anything else before and enjoyed it, you should definitely read “New X-Men,” I feel like it’s a fantastic series and deserves a read. If you’re a Marvel Comics reader, I think this should definitely be on your queue of things to read.

            Well, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, this has certainly taken up a lot of my time, so how about we all move on with our lives in just a wee bit. First, I do have a few more things of note before I sign off. Okay, I’ve been doing this blog for five years at this point, and as I’ve said, I’ve done over four dozen other book reviews just like this one, so if you enjoyed reading this, check out timcubbin.blogspot.com for plenty more book reviews. I’ve posted on this site over 160 times, I’m sure you’ll find something else you’ll like. I’ve done a review of “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” so if you liked this review, please check that one out if you haven’t already. I will tell you I post of a very frequent basis, Marvel puts out at least one Modern Era Epic Collection a month, and I buy every single one of them and try to throw up a review as soon as I possibly can. I have a few I haven’t reviewed yet, I might remedy that someday, I’m not totally sure. One book I didn’t review since I spent too much time after reading it before attempting to write a review, it centered around multiple Marvel events which I never read so I didn’t fully understand it, and the details just left my mind before I could review it, but if another volume of that series comes out, you can expect that review to come out. There are a couple of other series that might not get other volumes and I didn’t have this laptop at the time I read them, so I couldn’t write reviews at those exact moments, so I’m not sure if those will get reviews, but who knows, I might decide to go back and fix that. I also collect Marvel Ultimate Epic Collections, and I review those. So, every month, there’s probably going to be something to read. I’m expecting another delivery today, but it’s running late, so I’m not sure when I’ll be getting it, but you can expect to see a review of that one sometime in the next three weeks. If you’re into other styles of reading, I’ve also written a few short stories and poems, plus I’ve done editorials, essays, and articles, so you can check those out as well, if you’re so inclined and have some time to kill and want to continue hanging out with me. If you think this review seems pretty professional, I have a degree in journalism, but due to cruddy life circumstances, I can’t get a job in the field and am relegated to working as an Instacart shopper at a local grocery store instead of getting paid for blogging as was my dream job, but you have to go with what life gives you, so I do these reviews for free to feel like I’m somehow using my degree. I will continue to post for as long as I can, so that’s likely to be a long time coming. So, expect me to keep coming back and I hope you become a fan of me and keep coming back too. So, I’ll say goodbye for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Ultimate X-Men: The Tomorrow People” as presented in Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection format.

            In response to the anti-human terrorist attacks committed by the mutant terrorist Erik Lensherr/Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants on New York and Washington, the United States government launched the Sentinel Initiative, giant robots to hunt and kill anyone possessing the mutant gene. Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X gathered a group of young mutants to counter Magneto and prevent him from starting a war that could lead to the extinction of both mutants and regular humans: Scott Summers/Cyclops, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl, Henry McCoy/Beast, Ororo Munroe/Storm, Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, and Robert Drake/Iceman. At the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children, Professor X gave these young mutants a safe haven, an education, and the training to use their powers to benefit mankind. Magneto and Professor X had once been the best of friends but had had a bitter falling out, leading Magneto to believing Professor X dead. After seeing the young mutants called the X-Men in action on the news, Magneto came to the conclusion that his old friend was behind the scenes and called in Logan/Wolverine to find Xavier, infiltrate his camp, and end this potential opposition to Magneto’s plans. Magneto tipped off the government organization Weapon X of Wolverine’s location. Weapon X was a program that had abducted Wolverine, erased his memories, given him an adamantium skeleton, and used him as a killing machine, an organization that only Wolverine had ever managed to escape from. Weapon X recaptured Wolverine. Professor X discovered Wolverine using his Cerebro machine, a device that amplified his telepathic powers and allowed him to locate other mutants and sent the X-Men to rescue him. The X-Men were successful in their mission, and Wolverine returned to the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children along with the X-Men, but he made the youngsters uneasy. Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, made up of his children Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, along with Blob, Toad, and Mastermind, kidnapped the daughter of the President of the United States of America and brought her to Croatia. The X-Men went on a rescue mission, and while they were able to successfully rescue the President’s daughter, the Brotherhood escaped, and Beast was gravely wounded. Professor X and Marvel Girl performed experimental surgery on Beast to save his life, but this procedure turned his hair blue. Much to Cyclops’ dismay, Wolverine and Marvel Girl began a romance. Cyclops had romantic feelings for Marvel Girl but never actually acted upon them. Feeling neglected by his crush, scared for Beast’s near death, and anger for Professor X’s willingness to put the X-Men at such great risk just to save one human, Cyclops left the X-Men and went to the Savage Land, Magneto’s mutant paradise hidden in a tropical jungle in Antarctica. Cyclops began going on missions with the Brotherhood but refused to cross the mortality line. Meanwhile, the X-Men got an invite to the White House to discuss the suspension of the Sentinel Initiative. The talk was successful, but the Sentinels would be sent on one final mission: to eliminate Magneto’s camp in the Savage Land, which the United States government had been able to locate by tracking the X-Men’s Blackbird Jet landing when Cyclops abandoned the X-Men. After the decimation of the Savage Land, Magneto reprogrammed the Sentinels to hunt and kill anyone without the mutant gene and led them on an assault on Washington, D.C. The X-Men had to fight the Sentinels while Professor X and Wolverine fought Magneto to prevent his war from threatening the extinction of both humans and mutants. Following the fight with Magneto, the X-Men had an encounter with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch as they tried to make their escape from Washington, D.C.

            Following their battle with Magneto, Professor X attempted to help Wolverine find Weapon X, but every location they were able to find was abandoned. Meanwhile, the X-Men gained popularity the world over. While on a press tour in Japan, a Weapon X asset called Rogue was able to obtain the X-Men’s location for the organization. Weapon X assets attacked the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children and abducted Professor X and the X-Men. Nick Fury, a high-ranking Agent of the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. went of a mission to India to uncover an illegal genetic experimentation facility but was captured during his mission. While in Weapon X captivity, the X-Men were trained and experimented on, causing Beast to become completely blue and furry. The X-Men also formed a bond with Weapon X asset Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, a teleporting mutant. The X-Men were split up into two teams, one to rescue Nick Fury, one to finish the mission Nick Fury had started. Weapon X forced Marvel Girl the kill the head scientist behind the illegal genetic experiment to spare Cyclops’ life. Wolverine allowed himself to be captured by Weapon X, but he had been implanted with a tracking device that he had arranged with the Brotherhood so they could find the location of Weapon X and come to the X-Men’s rescue. The United States government was planning to shut down Weapon X, but Colonel Wraith did every underhanded trick he could to ensure this did not happen, including trying to use Professor X’s telepathic abilities to the gain of Weapon X and eliminating high ranking members of the United States government. The Brotherhood arrived at Weapon X, and the Brotherhood, the X-Men, and the Weapon X mutants fought back to escape their captors and end the corrupt agency’s activities towards abusing mutants once and for all.

            Okay, so now that we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, let’s get to the personal Tim Cubbin part of a Tim Cubbin review. The first thing I always do is tell you, my readers, my thoughts on the book. These thoughts on graphic novels pertain to my enjoyment of both the stories contained within the pages of the book and the artwork. This can often be a very mixed bag. Sometimes a graphic novel will have a wonderful story but have terrible art, as some of my regular readers may know, and I am very fussy about art. But we’re not going to start on the art, of course, we’re going to start on the stories. So, I will say that I found these stories highly enjoyable. These actually go back to 2001-2002 when I first started reading Marvel Comics regularly and this was actually one of my entry points into X-Men, so this series has some very treasured memories. I am rather partial to the series. It was perfect for me back then because this was a brand-new universe where all of Marvel history had been discarded, and this was a fresh start, and I didn’t know all the history of the X-Men comics. I really had only been watching “X-Men: Evolution” and the first “X-Men” film, not even the original cartoon at this point, so my X-Men knowledge was very limited, so a new origin series was great for me to jump on with and opened the door for more of my foray into the mainstream X-Men comics. I was also comfortable getting into this at the time because the writer, Mark Millar, made the decision to set the main cast as teenagers, close to my actual age at the time, so I found I could relate to the characters better, more so than to the mainstream X-Men, who were mainly aged as adults. I liked the choices of the cast of characters, as well, I thought both the teams of the X-Men and the Brotherhood were extremely well-rounded and complimented each other perfectly. I also enjoyed how they chose other well-known characters but made them assets of Weapon X instead of placing them on either team, I found that to be quite interesting, including Rogue, Nightcrawler, Sabretooth and Juggernaut. And I liked Mark Millar’s decision to make Nick Fury African American, I thought that was an interesting choice back then, and it was a decision that carried through into the future of much Marvel lore, including film and animation, and as all Marvel Cinematic Universe fans know, this decision eventually led to the casting of the great Samuel L. Jackson as the role of Nick Fury in the MCU. I will say that I disliked the actual shipping of Marvel Girl and Wolverine happening, which was always played on in several of the other X-Men multiverses, I thought it was wrong of Millar to do, especially considering the massive age gap of Wolverine being a full-on adult and Marvel Girl being nineteen. I did, however, enjoy the shipping of Beast and Storm, I thought that was actually a good pairing in this universe. I also liked Millar’s decision to give the Scarlet Witch a crush on Cyclops, even though it never actually went anywhere. I did find his writing of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s relationship to be a little creepy, however, their brother/sister relationship can practically come to relate to a comparison to Jaime/Cersei in “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which is something that I never could get behind. Granted in this book it was just hinted at, and I am getting a little ahead of myself here and should be containing myself just to this book in particular as this is what I am reviewing, and I am sorry, but I cannot help myself, so I’m going to shift back to this Volume in particular. I also loved Millar’s decision for Wolverine’s conversion, having him going from working for Magneto, then going to infiltrate the X-Men for the purpose of eliminating Charles Xavier, then going on to actually believing in Professor X’s dream, ultimately leading him to turn on Magneto in the fight in Washington, D.C. And I also loved the artwork provided by Adam Kubert, I thought their work was brilliant, and it was consistently pleasing to view while going through the story. I will say I disliked the decision to give Jean Grey short hair, it made her look like something I’m not going to say in this blog, but I thought the design was awful. However, I honestly have no further complaints about the artwork. All-in-all, I will say that I was highly satisfied with this graphic novel. I will also say that it has been many years since I last read this, so rediscovering these stories was a true delight and I’m pleased with Marvel’s decision to make Ultimate Epic Collections and will continue to purchase and review them if and when Marvel feels like releasing them. At the moment, there are no further plans for second volumes of any series in the Ultimate Epic Collection line, but hopefully that changes soon because this was a period I highly enjoyed and would love revisiting this age of Marvel Comics.

            Next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now, I know all my regular readers know this by now, I know I have a few fans who love reading my work, but I also know that some of you have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and need me to explain the word as I use it. Simply put, “accessibility” means how easy it is for a person to pick up and read this book and completely understand what they are reading, no matter how much previous knowledge they have on the subject matter. Basically, what I’m saying is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about Marvel Comics or X-Men in particular buy this book, read it, and fully comprehend the entire story as it is written. I will say that this book is completely accessible to any reader. If you are a person who had heard of the X-Men or are looking into getting into X-Men comics and don’t know where to start, this book is absolute perfection for this purpose. I will say any reader can just pick up this book, having no prior knowledge about Marvel and be able to understand the story as it is written. This was the launch of a brand-new universe with all-new history where there was no backstory, and this was a full-on origin story, so if you’re looking for a place to start reading Marvel with an interest in the X-Men in particular, this book is a perfect jump-on point and accessible to any new reader.

            Next up, we’re going to get to the most important part (in my opinion) of a Tim Cubbin review: the numeric score. My scoring system is extremely simple: I score on a scale of one to ten. One is the lowest score I can possibly give, and it means that this book should be avoided at all costs. Ten is the best score, and that means that it should be bought by anyone who has the money to afford this book because it is one of the best things I have ever read. Now, it takes a lot to get a ten from me. That has to be sheer perfection, and I very rarely feel that that is possible, so basically when I review anything, it starts sitting at a score of a nine with very little possibility of going higher and a most like possibility to go lower, and even giving a book a nine is something that I very rarely do. That said, this book was extremely good, well-written and well-illustrated, but I still did have my gripes. Automatically, this book wasn’t getting a ten, and with my complaints, I do have to deduct from the score. Again, though, these gripes don’t seriously harm my opinion of this graphic novel. So, taking everything into account, the well-written story and the illustrations that I thought were sheerly brilliant, throwing them all in my figurative blender, then turning it on to the highest setting and leaving it on until everything is fully blended, then pouring out this score into my figurative cup, we are looking at… an eight! I just don’t feel like I can give a score higher than that, but at the same time, I feel no reason to give it anything lower, so an eight is, in my opinion, the perfect score I can give.

            Next up, we’re going to go to my recommendation section. This comes with two components. The first is: do I actually personally recommend this book to you? The second is: regardless of the fact that I like it or not, for whom do I think this book is best? To the first matter, as you can probably guess, the answer is yes, I recommend this book personally. As to the second, like I mentioned previously, if you are looking into getting into Marvel or X-Men and don’t know where to start, I’m telling you that you should get your hands on this book, it is the perfect place to start. And if you are an X-Men fan from just the movies or cartoons or video games and are interested in starting to read comics, again, read this book as soon as you can, particularly if you liked games like the “X-Men Legends” or “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” series, these are a great compliment to those. If you’re already a fan of X-Men and have never read this series or the first twelve issues of the original “Ultimate X-Men” series, I highly recommend this book to you. And finally, even if you’ve already read it, if you liked it, I recommend you read the series in this format, I found it to be highly enjoyable reading it in this presentation, especially with the bonus features included at the end, especially Millar’s original pitch for the series. In general, I’d just recommend this to anyone who reads Marvel Comics with a particular interest in X-Men.

            Well, we’re finally at the point where we’re going to wrap things up because I’ve been going on for quite some time now and we all need to get on with our lives. I will start by saying that this blog site has over 150 posts, with over three dozen of them being of reviews just like this one, so if you enjoyed this post, check out timcubbin.blogspot.com for more content. Particularly check out “Ultimate Spider-Man: Learning Curve,” that is my best companion piece at the moment. I’ve also written other things, like short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s still plenty more other kinds of things you can read on this website if you want to see more of my work. I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism, so if these posts seem highly professional, that’s why, and while they are written in a professional style, I don’t actually currently write these posts professionally, but I have been considering rectifying that. Right now, I’m at a bit of a crossroads in my life, I’m getting things together, I work in a grocery store, but writing is my passion and I hope I’ll actually be able to use my degree for something someday. I post on this blog very frequently; I currently collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Marvel Ultimate Epic Collection as they are released and review them as soon as I possibly can. I do have a few in my collection I have not reviewed due to conditions such as not having a device to blog with or in one case because I spent too much time between reading a graphic novel I had difficulty comprehending and actually sitting down to draft a review that I just couldn’t actually get a coherent review due to lack of understanding and memory loss because of the time passed between those periods, but someday that might be rectified. You can probably expect another review coming up within the next three weeks as there is another Modern Era Epic Collection coming out in less than a week from the point of me drafting this post, so I need to purchase it, read it, then find a free day to draft a review, but it should come up within the specified time period. Keep checking back regularly, there’s always going to be more content unless I suddenly drop dead, which is not likely to happen anytime soon, so expect more to keep coming. If you made it all the way to this point of my review, you are THE BEST and I really appreciate you taking the time to read this as I worked really long and hard on this particular post, and I hope you come back for more. So, all I have to say until next time is, Tim Cubbin… out!