X-Men

This week instead of an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ABC aired a special about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe was basically a documentary discussing the process that Marvel Studios went through to create their series of interconnected movies and at the end gave a few teases for upcoming projects. My friends and I, and according to the website Television by the Numbers more than four million other people all tuned in to watch. Four million viewers isn’t going to win any time slots but it was still good enough to give ABC third place for the hour and drew significantly more viewers than the rerun of S.H.I.E.L.D. they aired on February 20th. More interesting to me was the fact that ABC was willing to air it at all. They have enough faith in the popularity of comic book entertainment that they were willing to air a documentary primarily about movies that people have already seen during primetime. If that isn’t a sign that we are living in a new golden age for comic fans I don’t know what is. However, unlike the Golden Age of Comic Books this new golden age is on the big and small screen. In honor of this new era of superhero entertainment I thought I’d take a look at the current and upcoming live action superhero movies and tv shows from both Marvel and DC.

Dan and I take some time to discuss our top picks from the 2012’s Comics of the Year. http://youtu.be/Uifp0tTlYxA Top Marvel Book: right at the beginning Top DC Books: 7:20 Top Creator-Owned Book 12:40 sec Top Marvel Arc 19:14 Top DC Arc 23:46 Top Creator-Owned Arc 27:49 Best Old Comic 31:35 Biggest Surprise 40:14

AvX: Consequences #1 I decided to combine both Uncanny Avengers #1 and AvX: Consequences #1 because they both are dealing with the aftermath of Avengers vs X-Men. These aftermath type books aren’t anything new for Marvel. At the very least they did the same thing with Fear Itself. After the main book they had Fear Itself:Consequences or some similar mini-series where they dealt with the aftermath. And Uncanny Avengers, itself, kinda swings directly out of the events of Avengers vs X-Men. It has a team of Avengers teaming up with a team of X-Men in order to show the world that they can all work together. ...

Another video review. This time I decided to try a different video format. Let me know your preference in the comments. Thanks! Transcript for those with sight disabilities: Welcome to the second episode of the Comic Pow video reviews. You might notice things look a little different. I thought I’d try out a different format for this review. Based on how it comes out, I’ll see which style I use going fowward. ...

[caption id=“attachment_560” align=“alignright” width=“271” caption=“Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand”] [/caption] As I did with Amazing Spider-Man’s “Brand New Day”, I’d like to use the purchase of a trade paperback to take a look at a complete story arc. This time I’ll be looking at Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand. This story arc takes place in the aftermath of the crazy Messiah CompleX, in which the first post-M-Day mutant was born. At the end of that arc Cyclops proclaims that the X-Men are no more. Given that, there are certain expectations that come from an arc called “Divided We Stand”. ...

[caption id=“attachment_504” align=“alignleft” width=“195” caption=“Suicide Squad #6”] [/caption] X-Men Vol 3 #24 - deals with Jubilee being a vampire. One of the better X-Men stories in a while. Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #2 - no one will listen to Quire and Wolverine’s out for blood Huntress Vol 3 #5 - This miniseries reaches its climax and I’m afraid to say it’s not as awesome as it seemed it would be when it started Suicide Squad #6 - got this because of the Harley story. Every other part reminds me of why I dropped this book Secret Avengers - Rick Remender’s got a very interesting story in his first full arc of Secret Avengers Superboy Vol 5 #6 - he has a confrontation with Supergirl Batman and Robin Vol 2 #6 - a GREAT book in this arc. Really good job they’re doing with Damian. Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #5 - this miniseries ends not quite as awesomely as it ran, but still a great ending and a great series overall.

[caption id=“attachment_403” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1”] [/caption] It was a heavily X-Men week for me this week. Some great issues and some OK issues. All links go to Comic Vine. X-Men Vol 3 #23 - The end of the Sentinels in Eastern Europe arc. Good, but not great. Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1 - Quentin once again causes issues at a Mutant School. This time he takes on Wolverine directly. I’m curious to see where it goes. The Defenders Vol 4 #2 - Matt Fraction continues to weave a crazy story here Huntress Vol 3 #4 - Things in this usually awesome mini-series took a turn for the worse. Hopefully it recovers Avengers: X-Sanction #2 - More Action! More Cable! Uncanny X-Force #19.1 - Really just an intro to a new Age of Apocalypse book that Marvel’s launching this year X-23 Vol 2 #20 - An awesome penultimate book in this series [caption id=“attachment_404” align=“alignright” width=“195” caption=“Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #4”] [/caption] ...

A fairly good week for my pull list. Lots of great comics rivaling The Defenders for this week’s POW! Most, if not all, of the links are out to Comic Vine. X-23 #18 Action Comics #4 - Grant Morrison goes back to a Golden Age (or is it a Silver Age?) story about Braniac bottling up various planets. In the original story it allowed Superman a way to go back home. We’ll see where Grant Morrison goes with it since he usually takes stuff from the old days and then gives it a twist. X-23 #18 - X-23’s attempts to keep the Richards kids continues to spiral out of control. We also get some great moments of emotional growth for X-23 that really make me sad that Marjorie Liu is losing this title. X-23’s remained emotionally stunted for years (decades?) in our real life timeline and Liu has really done great things with her! Amazing Spider-Man #675 - The Vulture arc ratchets up. I’m not 100% sure where things go from here, but it’s nice to see Spidey and Carlie able to work together in the service of fighting crime. X-Men Vol 3 #22 - The International action continues! Action!! A good guilty pleasure! X-Factor #228 ...

[caption id=“attachment_242” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Uncanny X-Men Vol 2 #2”] [/caption] Eric’s Book: Eric: Welcome to Week 5 of Comic POW! I hope all our US readers had a great Thanksgiving Dan: We were too busy eating turkey to talk about comics Eric: Yeah, the timing just didn’t work out with comics being released on Wed. Dan: I didn’t even buy last week’s comics until this week myself ...

Last week was a very heavy comic release week for me. I enjoyed almost all of them;Batman most of all, as you already know . [caption id=“attachment_217” align=“alignleft” width=“197” caption=“Amazing Spider-Man #674”] [/caption] Generation Hope #13 - I continue to enjoy the dynamic between all the members of Generation Hope although I feel that the book is suffering from being a monthly book that is trying to work on both the personal drama and the action and both end up suffering. X-Men #21 - This book continues to do a much better job post-regenesis of keeping me interested. The team is still out in Eastern Europe working on figuring out who’s buying black market Sentinels X-Factor #227 - the idea was great, but the fight was so chaotic I kept losing track of what was going on. Basically they’re trying to fight a demonic force that killed a kid’s mom and is now killing others Red Hood and the Outlaws #3 - I really liked learning more about the characters in this book. This is another book that feels like each month it has to make a hard decision about whether to focus on action or backstory and I like them both. Amazing Spider-Man #674 - the beginning of a new arc with Vulture as the main villain. It was just like almost all first arc issues - a lot of setup and not as good as I’m sure it’ll get when we’re deep into it. [caption id=“attachment_218” align=“alignright” width=“197” caption=“X-23 #17”] [/caption] ...