Review- X-MEN: X-TINCTION AGENDA

X-MEN: X-TINCTION AGENDA (Marvel, First Hardcover Printing, 2011; Hardcover)

Collects Uncanny X-Men #235-238, 270-272, New Mutants #95-97, and X-Factor #60-62 (cover dates Early October, 1988- January, 1991)

Writers: Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson

Artists: Pencilers- Jon Bogdanove, John Capanigro, Jim Lee, Rick Leonardi, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, and Guang Tap; Inkers- Terry Austin, Dan Green, Al Milgrom, Joe Rubinstein, P. Craig Russell, Art Thibert, and Scott Williams

The artwork in this book is a textbook example of everything that was wrong with 1990s mainstream comic books. Lee, Liefeld, and Silvestri's crimes against art are too numerous to name, suffice it to say that they set the medium back so far that it has only recovered in the past 5-10 years. These were the guys who got me to quit comics in late 1989/early 1990, as their work left me cold.

The writing is also pretty rough. While the concept is solid, the dialogue and third party narratives are so overwritten that this book was a chore to get through. I love the work of Claremont and Simonson, but this was not their finest hour. Things seem to go on and on and on for no good reason.

Quality '90s writing.

Now that I have gotten all of my gripes off of my chest, let's get down to business. Genosha is an island off of the coast of South Africa that has an economy and standard of living that is the envy of the world. This was a metaphor for Apartheid and the events that occurred in South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s. Genosha has a dirty little secret, though. It has achieved all of this progress by forcing mutants into slavery by exposing them to a process that makes them into nearly mindless zombies called mutates. The problem was exposed when Wolverine, Rogue, and Madelyne Pryor were kidnapped (#235-238), resulting in X-Men intervention.

Bendis nailed it. 

Cameron Hodge was once the PR guy for X-Factor before being exposed as the head of the mutant hate group The Right. He was decapitated by Archangel (Angel) and his head was attached to a hideous robotic body by the demon N'astirh during the Inferno crossover. This brings us up to where he is now, as his spider-like magickal robot body has his human head attached to it, resulting in one of the butt-ugliest villain designs in the history of comics. Thanks '90s. Hodge was working with the Genegineer to turn the X-Men into mutates. He had part of the team kidnapped, which is where the long winded nine issue core crossover came from. Also in this crapfest Storm, who was regressed to a teenager somewhere along the way, is returned to adulthood in a way that makes about as much sense as anything else in this gobbledygook stew. Gambit and Cable are also present and totally suck ass.

Everyone was overly muscular in the '90s. Cyclops has normal human strength. Does Cyclops look like a normal human to you?

I am embarrassed to admit that this was a double dip. I had the old trade but upgraded to this book four years ago when I believed that I wanted a complete run of X-Men in collected editions. Marvel has since crapped things up (like legacy numbering and continuity) to a point where I no longer care. If none of it matters then it owning a complete run no longer matters to me and I am free to cherry pick eras to keep and collect. This era of the X-Men means a lot to 1990s kids, so add two points to my rating if you were 8-13 when these issues were originally on the stands.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.75 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This is an oversized hardcover, a format that Marvel has largely abandoned. It is the same trim size as a Marvel Omnibus.

Linework and Color restoration: Very good overall, but let's face it; this is crap artwork and wouldn't look good if 4k scanning were possible.

Paper stock: Thick coated stock with a slight sheen. I wish that Marvel still used this stock as the norm for their high end hardcover collected editions.

Binding: Smyth sewn bounding, rounded casing. Book lays completely flat.

Dustjacket and Hardback cover notes: Laminated dustjacket. Faux leather casewrap with foil stamping on the front and back cover. Marvel has done away with this on all of their modern hardcovers except for the Marvel Masterworks line. 

Review- X-MEN: FALL OF THE MUTANTS

X-MEN: FALL OF THE MUTANTS (Marvel, 2011; Hardcover)

Collects X-Factor #18-26, Captain America #39, Daredevil #252, Fantastic Four #312, Incredible Hulk #336, 337, 340, Power Pack #35, Uncanny X-Men #220-227, and New Mutants #55-61 (cover dates July, 1987- March, 1988)

Writers: Louise Simonson, Peter David, Ann Nocenti, Mark Gruenwald, Steve Engelhart, and Chris Claremont

Artists: Pencilers- Walter Simonson, June Brigman, Todd MacFarlane, Sal Buscema, Jon Bogdanove, John Romita, Jr., Kieron Dwyer, Keith Pollard, Marc Silverstri, Kerry Gammill, and Brett Blevins; Inkers- Bob Wiaceck, Randy Emberlin, Jim Sanders III, Hilary Barta, Al Williamson, Tone DeZuniga, Joe Sinnott, Dan Green, Todd MacFarlane, and Terry Austin

When is an Omnibus not an Omnibus? When it is the Fall Of The Mutants oversized hardcover. Clocking in at over 800 pages, this beast is an Omnibus in all but name as far as I'm concerned. While past trade paperback collections only collected the three main tie-in issues of each of the X-titles (9 issues total), reading that book felt like coming in 15 minutes late to a movie. The set up had already occurred and you spent the rest of the time trying to play catch up. This book goes in the opposite direction, adding so much of the set up that the plot sometimes feels lost by the time that you get there. It basically reads best in thirds (X-Factor and assorted tie-ins, Uncanny X-Men, and New Mutants).

The only issues that I bought when they originally came out were The Uncanny X-Men and Power Pack ones, and I honestly didn't feel like I was missing anything since this crossover didn't jump across each title. In all honesty, these crossovers and the emerging new breed of artists like Marc Silverstri soured me on the hobby. I was dropping comics throughout 1989, until by late 1989 or early 1990 I was done until Marvel Masterworks sucked me back in a dozen years ago. Look at me now...

"Artwork" by Marc Silvestri. 

Silverstri's layouts and storytelling ability are clear, but his artwork just leaves me cold. Wolverine was now the leader of the team and becoming overly wordy and heroic. Psylocke was still a British telepath. This was before that racist, Jim Lee, would change her into an Asian ninja. Can you imagine if someone today changed the ethnicity of an Asian character into a Caucasian? All Hell would break loose! I enjoyed the battle with Freedom Force, the Government-sanctioned renamed New Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants. This was back when Wolverine battling Sabretooth was exciting and new. Now it is as common as a cold and would cause me to fall asleep.

This was one of those “things will never be the same again!” type crossovers, back when those were still fresh and not the boring cliche which fans suffer through one after another after another. Storm gets her powers back, The X-Men “die”, and Cypher gets killed over in The New Mutants. Oops, quarter century old spoilers. Speaking of that title, going from June Brigman's clean, beautiful artwork to Brett Blevins' super-stylized art is jarring to say the least.

This was a pleasant enough trip down memory lane, back to the old world when things seemed to make more sense. I was 13 and 14 when this crossover went down. The Uncanny X-Men were one of my favorites back then. Now they are dead to me, ruined by careless writers. This book holds up well enough today and is better than anything currently being published with a 'X' in the title.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

I wonder if the corner was cut off of the film. This looks like a patch job done using a floppy.

The OCD zone- Triple dip! I bought (some of) the original issues, the 2002 trade paperback, and now this. I can't wait to rebuy the UXM issues when the Masterworks get there. Kill me now.

Linework and Color restoration: Pretty good for the most part. There are a few spots that look iffy but not bad.

Paper stock: Wonderful coated stock with a slight sheen.

Binding: While this has smyth sewn binding and lays mostly flat, it seems to lay flat in “chunks”, like this book is three books sewn into one. Weird.

Hardback cover notes: Faux leather casewrap with foil die stamps.

Review- ACTS OF VENGEANCE CROSSOVERS OMNIBUS

ACTS OF VENGEANCE CROSSOVERS OMNIBUS (Marvel, 2011; Hardcover)

Collects Alpha Flight Nos. 79, 80, Damage Control Nos. 1-4, Daredevil Nos. 275, 276, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Nos. 11-13, Fantastic Four Nos. 334-336, Incredible Hulk No. 363, Marc Spector: Moon Knight Nos. 8-10, New Mutants Nos. 84-86, Power Pack No. 53, Punisher Nos. 28, 29, Punisher War Journal Nos. 12, 13, Uncanny X-Men Nos. 256-258, Web of Spider-Man Nos. 64, 65, Wolverine Nos. 19, 20, and the Apocalypse back-up story from X-Factor No. 50 (cover dates December, 1989- June, 1990)

Writers: Walter Simonson, Archie Goodwin, Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Peter David, Mike Baron, Carl Potts, Chuck Dixon, Ann Nocenti, Terry Austin, James D. Hundall, Louise Simonson, Chris Claremont, Dwayne McDuffie, and Gerry Conway

Artists: Rich Buckler, Ron Lim, John Byrne, Jackson Guice, Jeff Purves, Jim Lee, Ernie Colon, Rob Liefeld, Paul Smith, Alex Saviuk, Mike DeCarlo, Klaus Janson, Marie Severin, Mark Farmer, Al Milgrom, Tom Palmer, Al Williamson, Bret Blevins, Bob Wiaceck, Joseph Rubinstein, and others

I really enjoyed the core of this crossover which was collected in the Acts of Vengeance Omnibus. This book collects the odds and ends of the event, including the “epilogue” battle between Graviton, Brothers Grimm, Goliath, Thundra, and Trapster against Spider-Man in Web of Spider-Man Nos. 64 and 65. Marvel really caters to the completist rather than the mythological mainstream bookstore buyer that DC keeps on chasing, and god bless 'em for it. Marvel's collected editions are exhaustively researched and amazingly complete. DC's often omits covers, for chrissakes.

Many of these issues are mediocre, although there is some gold in this sand. The aforementioned Web of Spider-Man, Power Pack, Doctor Strange, and Alpha Flight issues all rank as highlights for me. The Moon Knight, Punisher, and Wolverine issues were also highly entertaining. Others, such as the second Damage Control mini-series, will be skipped over when I re-read this book in the future. The writer of that title, the late Dwayne McDuffie, would go on to do vastly superior work on Fantastic Four and the Ben 10 Alien Force cartoon. 

The worst issues in the book are probably the favorite of the under 30 crowd: the Uncanny X-Men issues with the idiotic Claremont/Lee collaboration which turned Psylocke from a British telepath from the UK Captain Britain strip to an Asian ninja. This is asinine and has never been undone. Ninjas in general are often lame, and ruining a perfectly good character when you could just create a new character is just plain dumb. 

Is that Robin? Nope, it's Jubilee. Artwork by the overrated Jim Lee.

Also horrendous is Jubilee, whose color scheme is just like Robin's. Yes, Robin, as in Batman and Robin. Horrendous costume designs were just coming into vogue during this time and would last for the better part of the '90s. I find Jim Lee to be the most overrated artist in the history of comic books. He's okay, but people act like he is the lord and savior of comic book artists. He still sells, so I am in the minority, but in my opinion he is a huge part of the problem with comic books, not the solution. 

Is this an essential, must-own book? No way, Jose. Is this a fun, albeit uneven, read of one of Marvel's earliest crossovers? Absolutely positively. There is some good writing and good artwork throughout the book, but that's all it is: good. Never really good, or even very good. Strictly second and third gear stuff. If you go into this book with that in mind and read this book in small doses you will enjoy it. I couldn't plow through more than five issues at a time. I quit comics as this crossover was gaining steam and didn't come back until the early aughts. Read whatever you want into that.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5. 

The OCD zone- I love the Marvel Omnibus format. It may seem like I don't review a lot of them, but that is because they take forever to get through. This beast was over 750 pages. I probably have two dozen more unread Omniboo in my backlog waiting to be read.

Linework restoration rating: 5 out of 5. Much of the artwork in here is just okay, but it is flawlessly presented here in its mediocre glory.

Color restoration rating: 5 out of 5. Rest easy, folks: Rob Liefeld's New Mutants have received the hi-def treatment.

Paper rating: 5 out of 5. Beautiful thick coated stock with a slight sheen. These Chinese made books smell fantastic, the result of ink made from compounds of asbestos tiles, mercury from recalled thermometers, and lead paint chips. Once mixed with the final ingredient, the tears of the Chinese children working the sweatshop printing presses, you get an aroma that is delectable. The paper is also great, likely sourced from virgin Amazon rainforest trees. China's complete lack of respect for the environment is our gain, at least pertaining to the wonderful, toxic aroma of this book.

Binding rating: 5 out of 5. Like all late 2007-on Marvel Omnibus hardcovers, this has sewn binding. The casing is not glued square to the spine, allowing for a considerable amount of flex. The book lays perfectly flat from the first page to the last. 

Review- X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE PRELUDE

X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE PRELUDE (Marvel, 2011; Softcover)

Collects Cable No. 20, Uncanny X-Men Nos. 319-321, X-Factor Nos. 108, 109, X-Men Nos. 38-41, and X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Ashcan Edition

Writers: Fabien Nicieza, John Francis Moore, Todd Dezago, Scott Lobdell, Mark Waid, and Jeph Loeb

Artists: Andy Kubert, Jan Duursema, Steve Epting, Terry Dodson, Roger Cruz, Ron Garney, Ian Churchill, Al Milgrom, Dan Green, Josef Rubinstein, and others

The gist (with S P O I L E R S): Professor X (Charles Xavier)'s son, David Haller (known as Legion), wakes from his coma with all three of his personalities mended and his reality warping mutant power fully realized. Legion decides to kill Magneto out of some warped sense of love for his father's dream of humans and mutant living together in harmony. To accomplish this, he travels into the past to kill Magneto back when Magneto and Professor X first formed their friendship, before Magneto became a mutant terrorist. Four X-Men, including the time-displaced Bishop, follow him as he makes the jump to try and stop him. Legion and the four X-Men (Storm, Iceman, Bishop, and Psylocke) all suffer from temporary amnesia as a result of the time travel. They slowly begin to piece together who they are and what is going on when Cable, Professor X, and Phoenix (Jean Grey) somehow telepathically contact Bishop in the past and tell them to stop Legion. Legion attacks Magneto, and during the battle Professor X gets killed, creating a divergent timeline where the X-Men were never formed. Apocalypse, sensing this mutant battle, awakes and sets his plans into motion a full decade earlier than he did in “our” timeline. (End S P O I L E R S)

This is an expanded version of the old X-Men: Legionquest trade paperback which was released in the '90s with the original series of gold foil-covered Age of Apocalypse trades. All of those were re-released and expanded in four chunky books several years ago. There is also an Omnibus hardcover that collects the core of the crossover and a proposed companion Omnibus that will collect the rest. I dumped my old out of print Legionquest trade on eBay prior to the official solicitation for this book (cha-ching!) in anticipation of this upgrade. (See the OCD zone for more on that.)

I normally despise '90s X-Men, but this is a really good read. While the artwork ranges from laughably bad to palatable, I try to chalk it up to it being the '90s. Garish costumes, long hair past the ass swimming in the air like it was underwater, and everyone having pouches on their belts were the order of the day. The writing is generally good with occasionally clunky dialogue or narrative. This holds up pretty well for the most part here in 2013. Many of today's superstar creators got some of their early breaks in this era. This is before they became great. 

Gambit, Bishop, and Cable have got to be the worst X-Men ever. Bishop's jerry curl mullet and huge M tattoo over his eye, Gambit's ugly costume and cringe inducing dialect, and Cable's Paul Stanley eye star...who thought that these were good character designs and ideas? It set comic books back and lost an entire generation of kids to Manga and video games.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I like these chunky trades. The paper ruined this book for me, though. Stranger still, these comics were originally printed on slick paper and are printed here on “lo-fi” paper. It's like recording a DVD onto a VHS tape and watching it on a hi-def television.

Linework restoration rating: 5 out of 5. There's not much in the way of “restoration” here either, but there also aren't any noticeable dropouts, so it gets a 5. This material would look a lot better if it were printed on the same paper as the rest of The Complete Age of Apocalypse trade paperbacks.

Color restoration rating: 5 out of 5. There isn't much in the way of “restoration” on these '90s comics, but the paper makes the early computer color separations look murky.

Paper rating: 3 out of 5. Oh come on. The printer substituted the paper with an uncoated stock paper not much thicker than the toilet paper DC uses on their book of vintage material. This was a one-time substitution that Marvel had nothing to do with. My conspiracy theory is that Marvel did this on purpose to force us OCD sufferers to double dip on the Omnibus. I imagine the Collected Editions department sitting around, conspiring ways to get us to buy this material ad infinitum.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5. This has a nice thick band of glue and should hold up well over the long haul.

Cardstock cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. I heart Marvel's thick wax coating on their cardstock covers.

Review- ATLANTIS ATTACKS OMNIBUS

ATLANTIS ATTACKS OMNIBUS (Marvel, 2011; Hardcover)

Collects Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 23, Avengers Annual No. 18, Avengers West Coast No. 56, Avengers West Coast Annual No. 4, Daredevil Annual No. 5, Fantastic Four Annual No. 22, Iron Man Annual No. 10, New Mutants No. 76, New Mutants Annual No. 5, Punisher Annual No. 2, Silver Surfer Annual No. 2, The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual No. 9, Thor Annual No. 14, Web of Spider-Man Annual No. 5, X-Factor Annual No. 4, X-Men Annual No. 13, and selections from Marvel Comics Presents No. 26 (cover dates August, 1989- March, 1990)

Writers: Steve Englehart, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Peter David, Fabien Nicieza, Gerry Conway, Terry Austin, Roy Thomas, Louise Simonson, Peter Sanderson, Michael Higgins, and Mike Baron

Artists: John Byrne, Ron Lim, Paul Smith, Mike Vosburg, Rob Liefeld, Mark Bagley, Ron Wilson, Rich Buckler, Don Perlin, Al Milgrom, Paul Ryan, Walter Simonson, Terry Austin, Don Heck, and others

Woe to me, and my never ending obsession with high end hardcovers. Had this been solicited as a softcover or an Essential (as was discussed over on the Masterworks Message Board years ago), I would have griped “Why not in hardcover??” I got my wish, for better or for worse. I bought several of these steaming piles of crap off of the stands in the summer of 1989, and didn't realize until after I bought this 544 page book that this crossover was one of the main reasons that I dropped comic books in late '89/early '90. I disliked the shyster “gotta buy 'em all for the complete story” crossover gimmicks which started several years prior with Secret Wars II. I disliked the then new breed of comic book “artists” like Rob Liefeld, and even the writing by veterans like Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway was overwritten and uninspired. 

...so don't even try!

This book has it's share of solid entertainment value, but much of it is overwritten and clunky. I love old comic books, but there are aspects to them that I find annoying, such as when someone is about to get hit with a beam or something, and the antagonist telegraphs it in their dialogue. “I shall hit you with this laser beam, which will...” or other such nonsense. 

Artwork by Mark Bagley.

The artwork by Rob Liefeld can never be badmouthed enough as far as I am concerned, and it was he who inspired me to quit buying comic books in the final months of 1989. If this was what was going on now, then I wanted nothing to do with it. I couldn't have fathomed how much worse things would get with the ensuing Image boom. Thankfully, I sat all of that holo-foil variant nonsense out. 

"Artwork" by Rob Liefeld. No, Liefeld is not an abstract artist, merely incompetent.

The gist- Ghaur, high priest of the Deviants, conspires with Llyra of Lemuria to use Attuma and the Atlanteans as a catspaw in an attempt to bring about the return of Set, the Serpent God. Attuma and his Atlantean army are tricked into attacking the surface world, with Ghaur knowing full well that the armies of Atlantis will slaughter innocent civilians, fail against the surface world's superheroes, and will result in a blood sacrifice to bring Set back to this dimension. When Attuma withdraws his armies, Ghaur goes with his plan B: kidnapping seven super-heroines to offer to Set as brides. (Set has seven heads.) 

Artwork by John Byrne. Note how there is NO gutter loss in this double page spread. DC should take notes. It CAN be done.

The best part of this book are each Annual's back-up stories, the 14 chapter The Saga of the Serpent Crown by Marvel historian Peter Sanderson and then newbie artist Mark Bagley. They go so far and so deep into continuity that it'll make your head spin. I love continuity, but there is a point where those hippies writing comics in the '60s and '70s made things ridiculously complicated. I am looking at you, Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart. Still, our host Uatu the Watcher clearly explains things, and by the end of those back-ups, you feel like you have a solid grasp on the subject. They are all collected in the back of the book, so that they can be read in exact order rather than in their proper printed location at the back of each annual. It didn't make my OCD twitch, but your mileage may vary. 

Artwork by Mark Bagley.

The original series editors were terrible, with countless typos and word balloons attributed to the wrong character on numerous occasions. While typos can be somewhat forgiven when you think back to the pre-spell check era, the errors that I caught were glaringly obvious. Now, here is a chance for the collected edition obsessives to get their own o-fish-al Junk Food For Thought no-prize. They used to do paste-ups over the word balloons on the original art with spelling corrections which often fell off or became lost. I no longer own the floppies of these issues, so if someone wants to go issue by issue, page by page, and determine if they were indeed corrected for print and we have superior, pre-correction file sources here, shoot me an email. Snap a picture (or scan) of them side by side, and I will post your name and picture in this blog. Wow! Fame and fortune can be yours too.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.5 out of 5. 

Note how terrible the re-coloring is on this Rob Liefeld "artwork".

The OCD zone- The restoration is generally excellent, with two exceptions: Pages 512-517, the back-up story from Web of Spider-Man Annual No. 5, where the linework is dropped out in several spots, and the re-coloring on New Mutants Annual No. 5, which has shoddy re-coloring, looking “airbrushed” due to the computer filling in the shapes rather than doing it “by hand” on the computer. The latter isn't that big of a deal, however, as it has art by Rob Liefeld. Even Cory Sedlmeier and Michael Kelleher couldn't make his art look good.

Linework restoration: 4 out of 5.

Color restoration: 4 out of 5.

Overall rating affected by the problems listed above. Restoration rating would have been closer to 5 without these defects.

Paper rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Binding rating: 5 out of 5. Lays perfectly flat at any and every point of the book.