Welcome to Panel By Panel, my ongoing exploration of comics and writing about them. This week I catch up on everyone’s favorite mutants, the X-Men. How uncanny. Last week, I was looking at the big two publishers’ alternate universes.
As the intent was last time, don’t expect much in the way of a review on any of these. I’d suggest you check out my Creature Commandos posts for that. These are just free-floating thoughts and impressions about these books. I just want to read some comics and write about what I thought.
X-Men #8 and #9 and Uncanny X-Men #7 and #8
X-Men is Written by Jed MacKay, Illustrated by Federico Vincentini, Ryan Stegman, and JP Mayer, and Colored by Marte Gracia and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. Uncanny X-Men is Written by Gail Simone, Illustrated by David Marquez, Edgar Salazar, and Victor Olazaba, and Colored by Matthew Wilson.
I am a Cyclops stan and I have greatly enjoyed this current run on X-Men precisely because it gives me my favorite mutant doing peak Cyclops stuff. I’d probably need to talk about the Uncanny X-Men, which has also been excellent. The two concurrent titles fully come together in this run of issues.
I find Scott (Cyclops) and his crew the most interesting. Juggernaut excluded, they’re not the heaviest hitters. Nor are they the most marketable. But tactically they are fascinating and it works well with Scott’s take on the team. Compare Scott’s team to the power trio of Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine in Uncanny X-Men. You can see which team is the more marketable. But the fact that X-Men, arguably the X-book, is using such a disparate array of mutants is fascinating to me. I think X-Men fans have always had their thoughts about what their team would be. What I know for sure is Cyclops is forever on my roster, and this current X-Men run shows why.
The Other Half
That’s not to say that Rogue’s team isn’t solid, either. I appreciate the current arc of them shepherding in new post-Krakoa mutant youngsters. It’s also nice to just see a cozy family dynamic at play between Rogue and Gambit, and crazy Uncle Logan. Throw in Jubilee, a favorite mutant of mine, and Nightcrawler as well. It’s still a fun team, but it also feels much “safer” than what Scott has been doing in Alaska.
I have been known to complain, on occasion, about the big two companies putting out so many titles concurrently when you want to follow a character. The current crop of X-books is very much an example of that. My current strategy has been to just read these two titles. I’ll get to any other X-books sometime later as they inevitably converge into the larger story. It’s been working for me quite well so far.
Ultimate Universe: One Year In (One Shot)
Written by Deniz Camp, Illustrated by Jonas Scharf, and Colors by Mattia Iacono.
As someone following the current batch of Ultimate Marvel books very closely, I was very interested to get another view of the universe with this issue. I really enjoyed this one, even if it is basically place-setting and info-dumping, just because we get so many variations on characters and details about the setting. For example, a lot of classic mutants are shown in this issue, including Sunspot, Magick, Colossus, and Omega Red.
We also learn more about the apparatuses of control The Maker has installed in his absence, with a variation of S.H.I.E.L.D. called H.A.N.D., which unsurprisingly carries out assassinations. This is a grim setting, but when you have a fascistic Reed Richards at the helm, that is to be expected.
I rather enjoy Nick Fury here being a man-out-of-time, much like Steve Rogers; his memory of the world before The Maker’s influence, however fuzzy, is a great way to explore just how much this timeline has been altered. The big twist at the end is also a great spin on classic S.H.I.E.L.D. tech ridiculousness. This was a one-shot as informative and entertaining as it was cruel. Well done.
TVA #1
Written by Katheryn Blair, Illustrated by Pere Perez, and Colors by Guru-eFX.
I came into TVA #1 from Marvel curious about how it would play out and I found myself intrigued regarding how it seems to be sharing a continuity between the Marvel Studios film series and the mainline Marvel continuity. I enjoyed this first issue for multiversal shenanigans. It’s pretty in vogue to dunk on the multiverse concept, but I still enjoy it quite a bit.
I think the set-up for the series, focusing on some sort of nightmare virus of alternate realities makes a good introduction to what the post-Loki TVA is up to. I don’t think I’ll have too many hang-ups regarding the fusion of the film multiverse and the comics; it’s all ridiculous anyway.
Play Them Again
With that said, a lot of this feels like a “greatest hits” album of multiversal material. The TVA presented here appears to be the one from Loki, which is interesting. However, it also throws in the current multiversal icons Spider-Gwen, Captain Carter from What-If?, and a variant of Wolverine in the form of Jimmy Hudson from the old Ultimate Universe. I know a lot of this is based on marketing, especially when a variant on Gambit (or should it be “the Gambit”) appears to join the team.
It feels like a very market-driven title so far, but if it can continue to provide some weirdness and more of the TVA shenanigans I enjoyed from the show, I think I’ll keep reading.
And with that, the reading log for this week is down. Let me know what you think about this format and share your thoughts if you’re reading these books, too. If you are after these comics, be sure to check out your local comic book shop.
Also, I am still down to write traditional reviews, so if you have key issues you want me to tackle, or create your own comics and want feedback, please contact me about it.
