x-men | the m0vie blog

Chris Claremont & Frank Miller’s Wolverine (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Darren

With our month looking at Avengers comics officially over, we thought it might be fun to dig into that other iconic Marvel property, the X-Men. Join us for a month of X-Men related reviews and discussion.

It’s almost hard to believe that Wolverine only earned his first solo miniseries in 1982. The character had first appeared as a foe in The Incredible Hulk in 1974, and was coopted in the X-Men with Len Wein’s Giant-Sized X-Men #1 a year later. During Chris Claremont’s celebrated Uncanny X-Men run, Wolverine emerged a hugely popular character. In fact, I think you could make the argument that Wolverine and Storm were the central protagonists of Claremont’s epic X-Men run. Still, given how ubiquitous the character has become in recent years, it’s impressive that it took so long for him to get a solo adventure. The four-part Wolverine miniseries, written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Frank Miller, is generally regarded as one of the best miniseries that Marvel ever produced, and I think that it provided a lot of the momentum and characterisation that would sustain the character over three more decades of solo appearances.

Get some…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 20th Century Fox, alan moore, chris claremont, Claremont, Clint Eastwood, dark knight returns, frank miller, HughJackman, James Mangold, japan, Len Wein, wolverine, x-men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine | 4 Comments »

X-Men: Age of X (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Darren

Age of X is a weird little story. On the surface, it appears like an homage to the classic Age of Apocalypse storyline, an alternate universe yarn that swept through the X-Men titles back in the nineties. It odes, after all, portray a universe very different to the one that we recognise, and the one that we’re familiar with. However, on inspection, it seems like writer Mike Carey might have been attempting something just a bit bolder, a critical examination of the X-Men books, and how far they’ve moved since the nineties – an attempt to determine if the editorial policy that has reshaped their fictional world – is truly for the best.

X-over time…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Age of X, Carey, comic books, cyclops, fortress x, Jim McCann, magneto, marvel, marvel comics, meta-fiction, Mike Carey, no more mutants, review, Rogue, utopia, x-men, X-Men: Legacy | 5 Comments »

X-Men: The Age of Apocalypse Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Darren

The nineties represent a contentious time for fans of the X-Men franchise. The decade saw comic books explode into a huge market, with ridiculous sales and publicity, and the entire X-Men franchise rode that wave perfectly. Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s adjectiveless X-Men #1 remains the biggest-selling comic book of all time, after all, and the franchise quickly secured itself as Marvel’s premiere comic book franchise. On the other hand, the line had been thrown into disarray by the departure of long-term steward Chris Claremont and its era-defining artist Jim Lee. The family of titles had struggled to find a footing through some uneven crossovers and events like X-Cutioner’s Song and Fatal Attractions. However, I think the decade produced one gem that can be considered as a true classic, along with the best of Claremont’s tenure and the work of Grant Morrison. The Age of Apocalypse might seem an odd choice to identify as one of the highlights of the X-Men saga, but I think it deserves very serious consideration.

Apocalypse now…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Age of Apocalypse, apocalypse, chris claremont, David Lapham, grant morrison, marvel, marvel comics, psychology, Rick Remender, Social Sciences, time travel, walt simonson, x-force, x-men | 4 Comments »

X-Men by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont (and Whilce Portacio) Omnibus, Vol. 2 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Darren

Gotta say this for the man — he knows how to make an exit.

– Archangel, X-Men #3 (Claremont’s last issue)

And so, this is the end. The end of Claremont’s quite simply epic run on the X-Men books. It’s amazing to look back on the writer’s output today, and simply try to consider the size of his contribution to the franchise. While he departed the books as they were at the height of their appeal (X-Men #1 famously being the best-selling comic book of all time), it’s hard to argue that X-Men ever would have reached that height without Claremont’s vision and style. While the writer undoubtedly had his weaknesses, I think his contributions to the medium are rather undervalued. While writers like Alan Moore and Frank Miller reinvented comic books, I think that Claremont was an expert at incorporating those radical changes into his work, and a writer who managed to secure the support of his fans by giving the X-Men a sense of pop culture resonance that a lot of subsequent writers tried and failed to capture.

Through X-tremes…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, chris claremont, Claremont, collected edition, crossroads, cyclops, Gulf War, Iceman, jack kirby, Jean Grey, jim lee, Louise Simonson, magneto, magneto was right, marvel omnibus, mutant massacre, Professor X, rubicon, Savage Land, Shadow King, stan lee, Starjammer, Storm, x-men, x-men #1, x-men omnibus, Zaladane | 5 Comments »

X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda (Hardcover) (Review)

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Darren

X-Tinction Agenda makes for a potentially fascinating X-Men crossover, tying together Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants to tell a single cohesive story. It’s not a new approach – it was pioneered by The Mutant Massacre and Inferno – but it is perhaps the definitive approach to X-Men related crossovers (it’s still in use today for stories like Second Coming). It’s fascinating, because it sees the creative teams pick up on something that Claremont had introduced over thirty issues earlier, as if recognising a gem of an idea really deserved further development. That said, despite some decent writing and art, X-Tinction Agenda can’t help but feel like it wastes its potential, hitting on an absolutely fascinating premise and deftly tying the three on-going monthly comic books together, but ending up as little more than an explosive knock-down brawl.

The Wolv pack…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: 1990s, Cameron Hodge, chris claremont, Claremont, extinction agenda, Genosha, jim lee, magneto, mutant massacre, new mutants, Psylocke, Rob Liefeld, south africa, uncanny x-men, x-men, X-Men: X-tinction Agenda, X-Tinction Agenda, xtinction agenda | Leave a comment »

X-Men by Jim Lee and Chris Claremont (and Marc Silvestri) Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Darren

If the nineties could be said to belong to any particular comic book franchise, they belonged to the X-Men. Marvel has done a great job collecting classic X-Men storylines in oversized hardcover, already having more than half of Chris Claremont’s very long run available in the format. Reading his work collected here, I find myself frequently conflicted – I can’t decide whether the writer was one of the best long-form storytellers in the medium, or whether he was writing by the seat of his pants. A lot of the threads he ties together might not wrap up satisfactory, but his overarching stories suggest an incredible amount of planning. As the author led the Uncanny X-Men into the nineties, the title seems almost in chaos, but the most carefully organised chaos imaginable.

We all have our crosses to bear…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, Captain Britain, chris claremont, Claremont, dark knight returns, Havok, Jean Grey, jim lee, Len Wein, Marc Silvestri, marvel, marvel comics, Moira MacTaggert, Professor X, Shadow King, Siege Perilous, sigourney weaver, uncanny x-men, wolverine, x-men, X-Tinction Agenda | 2 Comments »

X-Men: Schism (Review)

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Darren

X-Men: Schism is a game-changer. It’s an attempt to realign Marvel’s X-Men line, a series of books that have faltered in recent years. After all, events like Messiah Complex and Second Coming couldn’t propel the line back to prominence, so Schism feels like a manifesto. Collecting the main series written by Jason Aaron, and the X-Men: Regenesis one-shot written by Kieron Gillen, it represents the most recent attempt to bring the some sense of life and purpose back to the X-Men books, which have been increasingly overshadowed by Marvel’s Avengers publishing line. And, to be frank, I can’t help but think that Schism works pretty well as an attempt to brush away the recent past and carve out a new and exciting future.

The hand of fate…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: blue, cyclops, generation hope, gold, grant morrison, Jason Aaron, Kieron Gillen, marvel, marvel comics, matt fraction, review, Schism, schism review, uncanny x-men, wolverine, wolverine and the x-men, x-men, x-men: regenesis, x-men: schism | Leave a comment »

X-Men: X-Cutioner’s Song (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Darren

In a way X-Cutioner’s Song marks a fairly significant turning point in the history of the X-Men franchise. The X-Men books were in a state of turmoil. They had lost their long-term writer Chris Claremont only recently, and Jim Lee had departed to work on other projects. The central theme of the books – exploring prejudice and racism – looked to be losing steam slightly as South Africa’s apartheid regime collapsed and the country developed into a truly democratic state. It seemed like the books were struggling to cope with all these changes occurring so rapidly, and X-Cutioner’s Song reads like an attempt to assert control on the franchise – as if to assure readers that everything was okay and it was business as usual.

They're playing our song!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: chris claremont, comic books, Comics, Fabian Nicieza, jim lee, magneto, marvel comics, Peter Milligan, Scott Lobdell, south africa, stryfe, uncanny x-men, x-cutioner's song, x-factor, x-men, x-men: x-cutioner's song | 2 Comments »

X-Men: Inferno – Excalibur (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Darren

This weekend, we’re taking a look at one or two of the smaller Inferno crossovers. These issues are collected in the crossovers companion book.

It’s actually quite impressive to think of the mythology-building that Chris Claremont was responsible during his incredible run on Uncanny X-Men. The X-Men had, of course, been confined to reprints for years before Len Wein revived the concept in Giant-Sized X-Men #1, but Claremont guided Marvel’s merry mutants to the heights of success. I think it’s entirely appropriate that the first issue in his last arc, X-Men #1, remains the biggest-selling comic book of all time – cementing Claremont’s impact.

Even though many people would argue the X-Men only really exploded during the speculation bubble of the nineties, it’s remarkable just how much Claremont and his collaborators were expanding the line. By the end of the eighties, Uncanny X-Men had accumulated several satellite books. Of those, Claremont had the pleasure of working with renowned artist Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, while Excalibur paired the scribe with Alan Davis, one of the most respected artists in the business.

What possessed them to come to New York?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Captain Britain, chris claremont, Claremont, inferno, joss whedon, Kitty Pryde, Len Wein, Madelyne Pryor, uncanny x-men, x-men | 3 Comments »

X-Men: Inferno – Fantastic Four (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Darren

This weekend, we’re taking a look at one or two of the smaller Inferno crossovers. These issues are collected in the crossovers companion book.

I have to admit, one of the best things about these companion books collecting the tie-ins to mammoth crossovers like Acts of Vengeance or Inferno is that way that they seem to capture a particular moment in time. In the Inferno collection alone, you get a taste of Walt Simonson’s Avengers, Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil and Chris Claremont’s Excalibur. I will confess that I am woefully poorly versed in the history of The Fantastic Four, arguably Marvel’s “first family.” The issues collected here, for example, are my first sampling of Steve Englehart’s tenure on The Fantastic Four.