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Greg Pak

Updated: Guide to X-Treme X-Men

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I’m back with another X-Guide Update! This guide was NOT a guide I expected to have to update this year, and certainly not for two different reasons. First, Marvel is relaunching this title (with its original creative team!) into a new series later this year that picks up directly from its end in 2004. Second, certainly related to that, Marvel is publishing the first of two omnibuses that will cover the entire run! Of course, I’m talking about my Guide to X-Treme X-Men!

Guide to X-Treme X-Men

This guide covers all three volumes of X-Treme X-Men – the 2001 Claremont/Larroca team of fan-favorites that ran alongside Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, Greg Pak’s 2012 Exiles-style revival starring Dazzler, and the newly-announced Claremont/Larroca flashback series.

You can find the trade reading order for all of that, where three different supporting mini-series (Savage Land, X-Pose, & Mekanix) fit into the original run, where characters can be found next, plus links to buy physical and digital collections and read right now on Marvel Unlimited!

New for Patrons: Red She-Hulk AKA Harpy

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I’m back today with a highly-specific guide for “pledgeonaut” Patrons of CK. This one also spun out of last week’s update to my Guide to She-Hulk, because it’s also a Guide to She-Hulk! No, not that She-Hulk, the other She-Hulk – it’s a Guide to Red She-Hulk!

Be warned: Even though the guide itself is careful not to spoil details of Red She-Hulk’s secret identity while covering pre-reveal issues, I’m talking about it openly in this post.

Honestly, it was only a secret for nine months 12 years ago! But, I think it was a fun secret executed well, so I try not to ruin it for people who might be coming to the run for the first time.

Marvel was going through an interesting period from 2005-2012 where at first they were revitalizing lines and characters purely out of the business instinct to stay alive, but then they started adjusting them even more due to the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

To me, this began with the period of Bendis launching New Avengers through the death of Captain America at the end of Civil War, with House of M sandwiched between them. Despite Marvel using the “All-New, All-Different” tagline since the Bronze Age, this was the first time in a while that the main 616-Marvel Universe felt like a truly new and different place.

(A lot of that was down to the sales and popularity pressure from the Ultimate Universe, which at that point was threatening to subsume the main one.)

One result of that period was character lines that felt larger than they used to. Marvel’s major Silver Age characters feel encouraged to reinvent their casts and build their own huge events. That was certainly true for Hulk, which went from a Marvel also-ran to one of their hottest titles on the strength of Greg Pak’s “Planet Hulk” storyline, which spun into the line-wide “World War Hulk” event.

In the wake of that, Pak and Jeph Loeb had more leeway than ever to expand the scope of Hulk comics. Suddenly, there were a lot of Hulks and Gamma-powered characters. We had Bruce Banner as Hulk, Jennifer Walters as She-Hulk, Doc Samson, Rick Jones as A-Bomb, the newly-birthed Skaar, and even Lyra – Hulk’s daughter from a potential future!

(Spoilers begin here.) [Read more…] about New for Patrons: Red She-Hulk AKA Harpy

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

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The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics (2016) #999
    • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
    • Detective Comics (2016) #976
    • *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
    • The Flash (2016) #42
    • Mister Miracle (2017) #7
    • Sideways (2018) #2
    • Suicide Squad (2016) #37
    • Titans (2016) #21
    • Trinity (2016) #19
    • Wonder Woman (2016) #42
  • Image Comics
    • Bonehead (2018) #3
    • *#Dry County (2018) #1
    • *Infidel (2018) #1
    • Paradiso (2017) #4
    • #Sleepless (2017) #4
    • Slots (2017) #6
    • VS (2018) #2
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
    • Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
    • Avengers (2017) #684
    • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
    • New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
    • Old Man Logan (2016) #36
    • Weapon X (2017) #15
    • X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
    • Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
    • *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
    • *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
    • *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!