I’ve reviewed Raymond Chandler on CBR. I’ve reviewed X-Men on CBR. I’ve even reviewed comic book noir on CBR. You would think X-Men Noir would be perfect for me. At least, that’s what I thought. After all, the pitch for X-Men Noir is great: Drop the X-Men, and all of their drama, into a gritty mystery from the past. Shuffle the players. Shake it up. See what pours out. Smooth right? Sadly, it ain’t smooth. It’s a kick in the pants. Jean Grey is dead. She […]
Psylocke is my hero
The biggest obstacle to enjoying X-Men comics is that there are so many X-Men comics. They’ve been around in some form since 1963 and there have been myriad iterations of the X-team, as well as several spinoffs. How do you know where to start or what to read? I picked this 2013-2015 run simply because it has a “Volume 1” on it, and it seemed like as good a place as any to get back into the X-world. In this iteration of the X-Men, Wolverine […]
Not in the Cards, Mon Ami.
A few years ago the pop culture and sports website Grantland (RIP) posted a highly controversial article about why Gambit sucks. There were a lot of solid points made in that article: why would a thief wear a fuschia outfit, why wasn’t he ever developed more than having cool-guy ticks (answer: Chris Claremont left X-Men before he fully fleshed out Gambit), etc. I fell into the other camp – of course Gambit is cool hero. He has a cool outfit (that makes no sense, admittedly), he […]
SNIKT
This is one of the comics that makes me love comics. Wolverine is a collection of Wolverine’s first solo series. It was written and illustrated by comic titans Chris Claremont (Days of Future Past) and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil). The writing is terse and largely comprised of Wolverine’s stream of thought. The art is simple yet moody. As Claremont explains in the introduction, the book elevates Wolverine from an animalistic berserker to a complete and compelling character. While I love Hugh Jackman […]