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monsieuroverlord · 2 months

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X-Men- related Blood Hunt Issues!

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X-Men: Blood Hunt -- Psylocke

written by Steve Foxe, art by Lynne Yoshii, cover by Stephen Segovia

"Ninja vs. vampires! After serving on the frontlines in the war against Orchis, Kwannon is enjoying some much-deserved downtime with her new lover Greycrow. But when darkness falls across Japan, Psylocke will wield her psionic blade against blood-sucking creatures of legend and faces a foe unlike any she’s ever seen. An all-new villain emerges in the mayhem of BLOOD HUNT!"

X-Men: Blood Hunt -- Magik

written by Ashley Allen, art by Jesus Hervas, cover by Rod Reis

"Magik raises hell! Illyana Rasputina has returned to her homeland to search her soul and steel it for what comes next. But how will she protect her first home when a vampire army descends on Russia, seeking to turn it into a living hell? She may have been forged in the fires of Limbo, but has it prepared her for the Blood Hunt?"

X-Men: Blood Hunt -- Jubilee

written by Preeti Chhibber, art by Enid Balam, cover by Erica D'urso

"Fangs and fireworks! Running from the past is one race you'll never win—and as darkness suffuses the world, Jubilee’s past as a vampire is back to take a big bite out of her! It's gonna take more than a couple plasma bursts to get out of this one, Jubilation..."

X-Men: Blood Hunt -- Laura Kinney the Wolverine

written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Robert Gill, cover by Bjorn Barends

"Laura's bloodiest rescue mission yet! The vampires will stop at nothing in their bid for supremacy, including capturing mutants for hellacious experiments to boost their own power. But not on Laura Kinney’s watch! The Wolverine slices a swath through the vamps, but when she encounters the truth behind their machinations, will an unlikely ally prove to be more than she bargained for?"

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crystalnet · 3 years

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Current X-book Mood-Ring Guide

There are an awful lot of X-books on the shelves right now. They are most of my monthly haul. No joke it is at least 12 books at this point. So, in order to cope with that, I’ve organized all the books into one of four different categories, aka “booster-pack” themes. Click through if you want to jump aboard the best X-men run since Morrison before the boat pushes off for the Hellfire Gala this summer! These are the 4 categories:

-Mainline Blue/Gold-style

-Jr. Mutants Academy

-2nd-Wave Krakoa Niche (aka “the good stuff”)

-Cetera

#1. Mainline Blue/Gold-style

Mood-color/vibe: Actually 90s-style Blue/Gold and like bright primary colors (but also muddy-ass colors from X-factor).

Books included: X-men, Excalibur, Marauders, X-force

Typical Pokemon: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Betsy Braddock, Kate Pride, Beast, Black Tom, Storm, Bishop, Emma Frost, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Kid Omega, Domino, a Pyro, Iceman, Avalanche. Rare drops: Apocalypse, X-23, Synch, Darwin, Kid Cable, Fantomex (in that Giant-Sized!)

These be the books for someone who wants those direct, mainline, core-members-style lineups. On the main book (adjective/word-play-less X-men) Hickman/Yu have worked wonders with their run, but it hasn’t been a stable team, instead focusing on Scott and his adventures dealing with some of the more prominent threats to Krakoa.

So it’s essentially been a revolving door of a book with Cyclops sometimes leading assaults against major problems and sometimes just being a dad to teenagers from the future, and it’s been generally great.

Meanwhile, the teams we find on the other 3 books could basically be a main X-men team if you just throw Jean/Scott/Logan onto them (except for X-force because Logan is usually on that one, actually, and Jean sort of is..)

X-force: Wolverine usually, Kid Omega, Beast, Jean (quitting?/back-up), Domino sorta, Sage, Black Tom Cassidy, Colossus once? Forge sorta. [Lot’s of backup or sometimes-members on this team but kinda centers on Beast, Omega, Wolverine and Jean or Domino]

Excalibur: Betsy Braddock, Rogue, Jubilee, Gambit, Avalanche, baby/dragon Shogo, Apocalypse (honorary, mia)

Marauders: Kate Pride, Storm, Emma Frost, a Pyro, Iceman, Bishop

On X-force, you get a little Morrison-homage energy going on what with Beast being sus, Quentin Quire having a character arc and dating a cuckoo and then all the body-horror. This one hasn’t been amazing and the art sometimes has issues for me but it’s been a solid expansion on Krakoa-Era lore.

On Marauders, you get a book centered on Kate Pride and the Hellfire Club. It’s been aight but I’m not the biggest Kate fan. Definitely has heart and the art has been beautiful.

Excalibur started a little weird for me... I lack the references or attachment to Otherworld or Davis/Moore-era Excalibur so I don’t think I’m even really the target demo, but I will say it recently, post-X of Swords-- which it set up single-handedly basically [along w/ one ish of X-men]-- has gotten more interesting in recent months. The Betsy + Kwannon stuff was great! And Howard did great with Apocalypse before he went off to another dimension. (points off for iffy color-palettes sometimes).

#2. Jr. Mutants Academy

Mood-color/vibe: Pastel

Books: New Mutants, X-factor, Children of the Atom, Cable

Common Pokemon: Magik, Cable, Rachel Summers, Doug, Warlock, Armor, Boom Boom, Scout, Dani, Warpath, Karma, Glob, Beak, Daken, Eye-boy, North Star, Rachael, Prodigy those Children of the Atom kids, Magma, Rahne, and a lot of lil kid mutants runnin’ around in Akademos/the Wild Hunt area of Krakoa whose names I don’t know yet.

This is the junior-crew club. New Mutants would be in the Blue/Gold books practically due to being part of the first wave of post-HoX/DoX books, but its basically been 3 different books/teams over its run and along w/ Children/Cable/X-Factor, it feels like there a whole handful of books offering up junior-crew shenanigans specifically.

So New Mutants has been all over the place, starting with a lineup of OG Claremont era New Muties, then focusing on a team consisting of Glob, Armor and Boom Boom (perpetual...”young adult” I guess?), now settling on a new team under Vita Ayala with Magik and Warpath heading up a squad of young ‘uns (beautiful art on the recent stretch). Hopefully it’s settling into its self now, because I can see longevity for this new squad... maybe.

I still have to read the 2nd issue of Children of the Atom, but am intrigued by it. X-factor meanwhile seems to be focusing on queer representation with people like Prodigy, Daken, North Star and Rachel on the same group together. Polaris started out the lead of that title only to be plucked out by Duggan (or the fanbase) for the main X-team coming up. This honestly makes sense, because even though she isn’t drawn this way, shouldn’t Polaris be considerably older than someone like Rachel? Eh.

Also, in issue #4 of X-factor we had a beautiful homage to the Academy X mutants, with several cameos, so it seems like Marvel is intentionally using these junior-crew books to acknowledge all the various junior-crews, whether it be OG Claremont kids, Generation X people, the kids intro’d under Morrison and Whedon, or even the dang ‘ol Academy X ones, they seem to all be getting at least some representation in some book.

Also Cable owns. Didn’t know I’d like the Kid-Cable guy until this book and his appearances in the main title, but now it’s confirmed. Him dating Esme, Kid Omega dating Phoebe? These crazy telepaths! Anyway, I hope Duggan’s main-team book is more like Cable than Marauders, in terms of pacing and characterization, but they both have beautiful art!

New mutants: Karma, Magik, Mirage, Scout, Warlock, Warpath and Wolfsbane

X-factor: Daken, Eye-boy, Polaris (quit?), North Star, Rachael, Prodigy

#3. 2nd-gen Krakoa Niche aka “the good stuff”

mood-color/vibe: purples, metaphysical/cosmic pallets, tertiary colors

books included: Hellions, S.W.O.R.D., Way of X

common Pokemon: I mean they’re basically all rare drops

This is the good stuff! Who would have thought. And when I think about it, Way of X and S.W.O.R.D., as part of the second wave of Krakoa-era books that started with Cable, both address some of the core issues and ideas that the whole HoX/DoX mini kicked off better than-- or at least more directly-- the other books. So I guess the non X-men, first-wave Krakoa books feel “mainline” in terms of their team lineups, but in terms of content, these newer ones almost feel more relevant by design. S.W.O.R.D. focuses on the cosmic context of the mutants post-Krakoa and Way is Kurt’s first spot-light moment in the era and is expressly concerned with Kurt’s addressing of the deeper moral quandaries that a people who have conquered death will be faced with. I mean, it's expressly about religion and like, spirituality-- a very tall order, but first issue pulled it off super deftly.

Also Hellions is better than it has any business being! Read this if you want savagely dark humor and some very obscure mutants + Havok/Psylocke/Sinister. But if I had to reccomend one, it’d be a tie b/w S.W.O.R.D and Way. First issue of Way was exceptional and got right into things and Kurt’s very well-written and will surely prove a meditative lead for a book like this, whereas S.W.O.R.D is epic in scale while still have sick character moments/dialogue. Manifold had a great issue or two and is now my favorite new mutant, even in the context of a somehow-actually-good King in Black tie-in. Damn! And everything going on b/w Magneto and Fabian Cortez (who was made to argue for why mutants should be allowed to murder “flatscans”/humans to the whole Krakoan council this week whilst naked. It’s fantastic. Hell, even the Snark-War sounds...interesting? What’s happening to me.

S.W.O.R.D.: Fabian Cortez, Magneto, Abigail Brand, Peeper, Manifold, Wiz-Kid, Mentallo, Fenzy

Children of the Atom: Cherub, Marvel Guy, Cyclops-Lass (?), Gimmick, Daycrawler

Hellions: Havok, Psylocke, Empath, Orphan-Maker, Nanny, Wild Child, Sinister, Greycrow

#4. Cetera

Mood-color/vibe: colorless, “normal” element

Books included: Fallen Angels (complete 6-ish mini), All the damn Wolverine books, the uh Sword of X “guidebook” and the new Peach Momoko Demon Days books and whatever X-men Legends is.

These are titles which are either complete or don’t fit in with other things or in Demon Days or the X-men Legends’ books’ case, I think don’t even occur in-universe. And per usual of course there are multiple Wolverine books... the main one seems fine.

Anyway all-in-all, these books are doing weirdly well. Mutants as a concept shouldn't be able to be spread this thin story-telling wise, but the books don’t really feel redundant and most are filling a specific niche or purpose. I may be dropping some of the first-wave Blue/Gold style books (Marauders and X-force I'll probably just check in on from time-to-time), but S.W.O.R.D., Way, the main book under Hickman or Duggan and Hellions all have me verrrrrry satisfied. Even standard stories in the Krakoa era feel special, and that speaks to the power of Hickman’s vision. Hellfire Gala, here we come.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How X of Swords Changed the Marvel Universe Future of the X-Men

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

After 22 chapters, Marvel’s massive X-Men crossover event, X of Swords has come to a close, and with it, the Dawn of X era. The story touched every book in the X-Men family and brought us answers to a few of the lingering questions that were casually tossed at the audience during House of X/Powers of X. But X of Swords asked more questions than it answered. And heading into the next phase of X-Mastermind Jonathan Hickman and the rest of the magnificent team of X-Men creators’ big plan, that’s a very good thing.

To set the stage going into Reign of X, we’ve decided to lay out some of the big questions asked in X of Swords (and by the Reign of X teaser image you see at the top of the page).

WHAT HAPPENED IN X OF SWORDS?

X of Swords was primarily three stories: Betsy Braddock’s journey towards fully becoming Captain Britain; Saturnyne trying to get Betsy to accept being Captain Britain (and trying to nail her brother Brian, the previous Captain Britain); and the payoff to the Krakoa/Arakko schism first introduced in Powers of X. It did all of those things magnificently, telling what ended up being a definitive Apocalypse story reuniting him with his long lost family, and reestablishing the Captain Britain Corps of multiversal guardians under Saturnyne’s control.

Along the way, the story also gave the X-team of creators a chance to cut loose and have a blast. The setup promised what was essentially a season of Dragon Ball Super in an X-Men comic: the battle for control of Krakoa and Arakko would come down to a tournament between 10 champions for each side, with each champion wielding a unique sword. The first half of the crossover followed several heroes as they tracked down their blades, and gave us some wonderful character moments with Magik, Cypher, Storm, the Braddocks, and others.

But once the tournament started, it ended up being the fighting equivalent of Whose Line Is It Anyway – the rules were made up and the points didn’t matter. There were definitely sword fights, and when they happened they were usually excellent, but there was also a drinking contest between Storm and Wolverine, and Gorgon and Magik did a jigsaw puzzle together, Doug married Bei the Blood Moon, and Gorgon banged a boulder.

When it came down to it, X of Swords was an Excalibur story, and it honored that book’s roots by being multiversal, very silly, and full of effective character growth. And very, very good.

In the end, Krakoa won the tournament when Apocalypse defeated his wife and the Annihilation Helm in single combat. Amenth did not take the loss well, and unleashed the full might of its army on Saturnyne and the Krakoans, but they were saved three times; first by the return of the full Captain Britain Corps; again when the X-Men rode in on the once and future S.W.O.R.D. headquarters and dumped a swarm of extradimensional cyborg virus people on the Amenthi monsters; and finally when Apocalypse claimed the Annihilation helmet, and ended the battle by surrendering to Saturnyne.

And at the end, when Saturnyne demanded an exchange of prisoners (sort of) between the two sides to seal the peace, Apocalypse decided to join his family on Amenth, and in return sent all of Arakko to join the Krakoans on Earth.

MILLIONS OF NEW MUTANTS AND A NEW LAND MASS JUST SHOWING UP IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE A THING, ISN’T IT?

For some people, sure. Presumably the already tense geopolitical situation created by a new mutant nation leveraging Krakoan superscience is going to have a little more pressure added to it when Krakoa doubles in physical size and adds millions of super powered beings born and raised in (approximately) hell.

Add to that the two open seats on the Quiet Council and you have a ton of politics that need examining, something that both X-Men and X-Force have done gladly since the relaunch.

WHAT TWO OPEN SEATS?

Apocalypse’s departure to wander Amenth with his wife and kids (honestly, this crossover is God-tier just for believably turning Apocalypse into a Wife Guy) left one Autumn seat open. The other open seat came when Marvel Girl joined Cyclops in some light insubordination at the climax of the story.

The Council repeatedly ruled against outside involvement in the Otherworld tournament – the 9 fighters could compete, but they weren’t sending anybody else (who mattered – more in a second), both because it wasn’t deemed safe for Krakoa to leave it unguarded, and because death on Otherworld scrambled the resurrection protocols. Cyclops and Marvel Girl decided that they couldn’t abide by that and rounded up an enormous crew of mutants, who they brought through on The Peak to save the day. However, when Marvel Girl joined, she resigned her seat on the Council.

That leaves two open seats, and speculation abounds about who might join their ranks.

The Spring seat vacated by Marvel Girl should be filled by someone with more traditional X-Men ties. Smart money here is on Angel, with Penance being another possible addition, in part because of the teaser. It looks like the long-rumored (and subtly referenced in Empyre: X-Men) X-Corp book is finally on its way, and we know that the heads of the mutants’ non-Hellfire corporate interests are Warren Worthington III and Monet St. Croix. They would be a logical addition and a nice counterbalance to the Hellfire Trading Company, which looks like it’s about to descend into chaos as Marauders follows up on Kitty Pryde’s murder at the hands of Sebastian Shaw from before the crossover.

Apocalypse’s seat is a complete wild card. Other Autumn seats are held by Professor X and Magneto, and with Apocalypse, the three represented three pillars of mutant philosophy. It’s not immediately clear who might be a suitable fit in that framework, but an Amenthi representative does make a certain amount of sense. Some have speculated Isca the Unbeaten might join the council, but I’m not sure the mutants would want to include in private strategic discussions someone whose mutant power compels them to switch sides if they’re going to lose.

WHAT IF THAT LAST SEAT GOES TO THE SHADOW KING?

Oh yeah that would really suck. Also, he’s prominently featured in the teaser, and it looks like he might be joining the cast of New Mutants when Vita Ayala takes over. That would be very, very bad. For the mutants. For us, that’s probably some good story.

WHAT HAPPENED TO BETSY?

It’s not entirely clear. She “died” in one of the earliest battles of the tournament, and we know from Rockslide’s death at the start of the crossover that dying on Otherworld scrambles your backups. What comes out of that egg is approximately whatever a slot machine that contains all of that person’s personalities from throughout the multiverse decides to shoot out.

However, when Captain Britain died in the tournament, she shattered into shards of stained glass. Shards that Saturnyne had collected, and then as all looked grim in the tournament, she pieced them back together and resurrected Betsy, and with her, a full Captain Britain Corps comprised of all the various Betsys from throughout the multiverse.

The Captain Britain Corps, as a refresher, was created by Merlin as a group of protectors of every corner of the omniverse. They served in that function largely uninterrupted until the multiverse was destroyed in Jonathan Hickman’s massive Avengers story that culminated in Secret Wars, when the Corps was demolished in battle by the Beyonders. That destruction caused Saturnyne to close off the Starlight Citadel and led to turmoil among the realms of Otherworld, so presumably the return of the Corps is going to help with stability there.

That said, Avalon is still governed by Jamie Braddock; Sevalith is a realm of vampires and has a possibly turned Death on it; Mercator is an unknown region, but sounds like it’s governed by another reality-altering omega mutant, Mister M; and the Crooked Market is administered by yet another reality warper, Mad Jim Jaspers. And Betsy Prime (or Betsy 616, as the main Marvel universe also reclaims its original number for the first time post-Secret Wars) is apparently missing. It would seem all of this will be followed up on in the pages of Tini Howard’s stellar Excalibur.

Skipping the obvious ones that are asked in the story – what kind of drama will grow out of Storm’s theft of the Wakandan sword; can Bei, Doug and Warlock manage a throuple; what happens when arakko and krakoa bang it out; where’s solem.

DID ALL THOSE HELLIONS DIE ON OTHERWORLD?

The only book that was functionally superfluous to X of Swords was Hellions, but that’s okay because it was such a riot. Mister Sinister gathered up his team on a Quite Council-sanctioned mission into Otherworld to try and steal the Amenthi swords before the tournament started. Unfortunately, they were extremely late and couldn’t do anything to help their Krakoan countrymen. On the other hand, that was exactly Sinister’s plan.

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Sinister went to Amenth to get genetic material from the Amenthi mutants, to add to his collection. While there, he and his team met Tarn the Uncaring, Sinister’s Amenthi equivalent. Tarn unleashed his Vile School mutants on the Hellions, and absolutely wrecked them: Nanny and Orphan Maker were killed very quickly; Wild Child stayed behind to buy Psylocke, Havok, Empath, and Greycrow time to escape with the genetic goods Sinister stole; and Sinister himself is pulled apart by Tarn in the fight (it’s fine, he was a clone).

However, it’s not entirely clear where those four died or if it will have any bearing on their resurrection (Sinister is fine, he’s got another clone waiting for the Hellions on the Krakoan side of the Otherworld gate so he can shoot them before they tell anyone what happened). Also, Tarn survived, and it looks like he’s coming back to haunt this team of misfits in upcoming issues of Hellions.

The post How X of Swords Changed the Marvel Universe Future of the X-Men appeared first on Den of Geek.

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