zilch
Full Member
Posts: 238
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Post by zilch on Feb 17, 2017 22:40:48 GMT -5
Its a mutant pendant.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 3, 2017 10:19:08 GMT -5
X-Men #26 'Holocaust' Thomas/Roth/Ayers Plot: After being defeated at the museum, the X-Men re-group, and the Professor uses the excuse to call Jean and have her get some Mayan literature out of the university Library. While there, she runs into her stalker again, who seems to have made friends with Calvin Rankin. Jean recognizes him, but doesn't let on, even though the Professor's mind wipe seems to have been not all that effective. Meanwhile El Tigre/Kukulcan goes back to San Rico to power up and call his followers... the X-Men (without Jean) head off to challenge him. After a mostly unsuccessful battle, they figure out that the giant gem on the snake idol might have something to do with Kukulcan's powers, and Iceman takes it out, but not before Scott blasts Warren at full power by mistake... or was it? The X-Men leave, victorious, but rattled. Notes: - Everyone finally realizes that Jean and Scott like each other, and Warren is pissed. That probably should have happened 10 issues ago, but hey, better late than never. - Angel spent the entire issue being snarky, which very much reminded me of early Hawkeye sniping at Captain America, then Warren goes ahead and thinks that himself! That made me happy - Seems kinda silly that the Professor called Jean on the phone to pick up a library book.. he couldn't go himself? Or telepathically contact her (she questions that as well).. seems like just an excuse to get her in the book.. but perhaps it could also be an excuse for the boys to see her, which also makes sense. - Angel seemed alot stronger in this issue than usual.. he was able to scoop up and toss a Leopard away on the fly, and didn't flinch when Scott told him to grab Bobby AND Hank (though it turned out to be unnecessary).. not sure if that was just expeditious power creep for the story, or if he was feeling the testosterone burn because of earlier events, or what. -Cyclops, OTOH, hits Warren full blast and it just knocks him silly.. seems like if he can vaporize stone and dirt, that same blast would definitely kill. Again, doesn't work for the story, but hurts my brain all the same. -- The whole Warren sniping at Scott, then Scott accidently blasting him was very 1980s WWF... I kinda like it, though I'm not sure it's going to actually pay off with someone 'turning heel' at the end. -- Overall, it sorta felt like a Conan story the X-Men got pasted onto... not bad, but not great either. The character progression was definitely the best part!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 1, 2017 10:34:34 GMT -5
X-Men #27 'Re-Enter the Mimic' Thomas/Roth/Ayers
Plot: The Mimic is back, and we start with an unexplained fight scene, in which the Mimic wins pretty handily... but did he really win? Or where the X-Men holding back?
Turns out Cal Rankin got his memory back in a lab accident (I guess OSHA doesn't exist in the MU). Meanwhile, the Professor decides there's a big mutant menace coming, and he and the boys improve Cerebro a bit. Xavier give them the rest of the day off, then goes and tried to recruit Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who are practicing their powers in some field somewhere... they tell him they're happy with the Avengers, but Wanda has some doubts.
Meanwhile, Bobby and Hank are out with their girls when they see Spider-Man foil a bank robbery.. they try to recruit him, too, but he says no, still a little bitter over the Avengers rejection (great tie ins, that!)
We then switch scenes, and see the Puppet Master, who tried and failed to take over Professor X eariler... he gets Mimic instead.
Back at the ranch, the Professor announce Mimic as the new deputy leader, since Scott is still angsting about blasting Angel. Mimic then get mind control, and leaves (after the fight that started the issue). The X-Men follow..even still injured Angel. Who, of course, saves the day in the end by sneaking up on Puppet Master and smashing his Mimic puppet. All is well again!
Notes:
-Alot happening in this issue.. which was fun. It definitely felt important, rather than just a random fight. Not sure if that was due to the character bits, or the MU tie ins.
-Two different editor notes in this one, one for the Spidey annual where he tries out for the Avengers, and one for FF 28, where apparently Puppet Master finds out Professor X is the secret leader of the X-Men... I'm going to have to check that out.. doesn't ring any bells to me!
- New costumes! Jean brings them... and says she designed them, but they're actually the exact same with a red belt. Well, her's also has a domino mask instead of a full head covering, so her hair is loose. That's not exactly new, though, just not every time.
- They really push Warren as a big hero in this one, I guess they're starting to realize how useless his powers are.
- I guess Xavier can use his mind to get intentions, too.. seems odd to be so willing to give the team over to Mimic. It also feels a little invalidating that he can beat the X-Men, when he's not experienced with their powers. What about all that practice and training? Why bother, if it doesn't help?
- Jean's getting awfully attached to her college boy.. that's not going to end well.
- from the 'What the-?' department... Xavier specifically mentions how he has to change his clothes to astrally project himself to go talk to the Maximoffs... weird.
- We get more 'science guys do science!' in this one, as the Puppet Master has a crazy powerful android defender in his lair.
- No sign of Warren being bitter or grumpy, he's all hero in this one. Did Roy forget? Or just change his mind? I expected a slow burn at least...
Good issue overall, definitely felt important and moved things forward.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 10, 2017 13:21:23 GMT -5
X-Men #28 'Wail of the Banshee' Thomas/Roth/Ayers Plot: The team is testing out the limits of Mimic's powers at the mansion, while Banshee hits New York in a big way.. apparently, he's the big scary mutant the Professor has been waiting for the last few months. He and his partner, the Ogre (who seems an overweight bad copy of Iron Man), are working for someone called Factor Three to kidnap Xavier. After Banshee steals a painting and some Tobacco for proper relaxation, Ogre pinpoints the X-Mansion, and they attack. Banshee takes out the whole team with a quick dive bomb and a scream, and Ogre tries to run off with Xavier, but Jean (back to help after hearing about Banshee's crimes on the radio) delays him long enough for everyone else to get back into the fight.. Banshee tries again, but is out of Mutant juice, so they have to retreat to let him recharge. During the delay, Xavier manages to recreate the ear blockers that Ogre has (they don't even bother with any Marvel science, they just say he was able to reproduce them) and the team is ready when Banshee attacks again, and capture him. Ogre tries again anyway, but fails... and it turns out he actually had a blackmail device on Banshee, which he could blow up at any time, until Mimic took out is control system in his armor, so maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. Factor Three still looms, though. to be continued! Good issue, with a new Mutant, a new bad guy, and lots of seeds for the future... I get the feeling that Roy Thomas has truly turned the page on finishing up Stan's stuff, and is onto his own now. Notes: -- The team dynamic with Mimic in the mix is interesting... they didn't change his personality at all to make him a good guy... he's still an attention hound, and thinks he's better than everyone else, he's just helping the X-Men because Xavier talked him into it. Much better than when they do 'face turns' today. -- Cyclops is clearly not really able to not be the leader, even if one didn't know what's happening next, it's obvious have Mimic as the leader won't last long. -- Angel is stil injured (he's in a sling).. he and Bobby were pretty much just wallpaper in this one. -- More fun with Jean and Ted, and no mooning of Scott... interesting. -- With all the tricks and defense set up to defeat the Banshee this issue, you get much more a feeling that the academy is exactly that, rather than just a army training camp that is usually seems to be. While it was all pretty generic, I think it worked better that way than having lots of made up 'science' -- Speaking of made up science, wow, was Banshee ridiculously overpowered at first! Not only can his scream make him fly fast enough so people can't see him (which is quite a bit faster than the speed of sound), he can knock people out and wipe their memories, besides vibrating things to pieces. They have to do the tried and true 'I've used to much power' to give the X-Men a chance. -- No mention of Banshee's real name here, or really of his later background.. no funny accent or anything. In fact, he sorta sounds like Beast in alot of cases, using big words and such. Also, he's really, really ugly.. almost like he's part Lion or something. I assume that's by design, since Roth draws other people just fine. -- I never would have guessed that the Ogre didn't appear again until Busiek brought him back in Thunderbolts... he seemed like he was going to be somebody! Too much like Iron Man, I guess. Too bad, because the X-Men are going to need non-mutant adversaries if Mimic is sticking around. -- There's also a secret door in the basement that we get to see that is locked... so the Professor's got somethin' secret going on. We also find out someone is still trying to take over Xavier's mind (he says it's not the Puppetmaster again) Huzzah for long term planning!
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zilch
Full Member
Posts: 238
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Post by zilch on May 10, 2017 15:05:53 GMT -5
#28 was one of the first back issues of X-Men i had ever read. Loved it from the git-go, since i was reading the Thomas/Adams books, i dug the chance to see the earlier stuff. Loved the Werner Roth take... almost getting a Gibbons vibe from the last panel shown here. And i waited YEARS for the Ogre to show up again! Every time some blurb would say "A Threat from the Past" or some such, a little bulb would go off in the back of my head and say "Finally! The Ogre's back!"
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Post by tingramretro on May 11, 2017 2:53:32 GMT -5
#28 was one of the first back issues of X-Men i had ever read. Loved it from the git-go, since i was reading the Thomas/Adams books, i dug the chance to see the earlier stuff. Loved the Werner Roth take... almost getting a Gibbons vibe from the last panel shown here. And i waited YEARS for the Ogre to show up again! Every time some blurb would say "A Threat from the Past" or some such, a little bulb would go off in the back of my head and say "Finally! The Ogre's back!" Ogre was a favourite of mine, too. I was really rather disappointed that they did so little with him when they finally revived him in Thunderbolts.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 11, 2017 7:41:09 GMT -5
Yeah, it seems like a slam dunk to have Justin Hammer hire him to go after Tony Stark.. he's alot more interesting than alot of the early Iron Man's rogue's gallery. An appearance or two less from the Unicorn or the Melter would have been just fine with me.
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Post by tingramretro on May 11, 2017 9:00:43 GMT -5
Yeah, it seems like a slam dunk to have Justin Hammer hire him to go after Tony Stark.. he's alot more interesting than alot of the early Iron Man's rogue's gallery. An appearance or two less from the Unicorn or the Melter would have been just fine with me. I quite liked the Unicorn (and he even fought the X-Men) but the Melter was a waste of space from the very beginning. "So, what do you do?" "I melt things". "Is that useful in your line of work?" "Not really. Iron Man's suit isn't really iron, so it doesn't melt that well". "Have you ever considered fighting Iceman instead?" "Ummm..."
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 7, 2017 12:11:53 GMT -5
X-Men #29 Thomas/Roth/Tartaglione 'When Titans Clash' Plot: Time for Ice Skating! Bobby and Hank look silly, Warren puts the moves on Jean, and Cal grumbles from the sidelines, while old man Scott goes off to do something important...which turns out to be testing his control of his eye blasts, which doesn't go so well.. but he seems determined to tell Jean he loves her anyway. Little does Scott know, the Super Adaptoid is sitting in a cave beneath his temper tantrum, and the dust falling from his ceiling woke him up. While everyone goes back to the mansion, Bobby stays behind to practice his skating, and the Super Adaptoid tricks him into leading him back to the mansion.. he's looking for super-powered folks to turn into Androids and take over the world, (which he remembers is his purpose). The team hits the Danger Room, while Mimic practices flying outside, when he suddenly gets mad and mouths off, leading the good guys to fight for a bit. The Professor suddenly reminds them they need to figure out Factor Three.. and tells Mimic to shape up or ship out, and Cal chooses the later. Back outside with a football (I guess it's practice, not fun time, since they're in uniform), the Super Adaptoid attacks, and mops up the floor with them when they refuse to be turned into Adaptoids. Cal is all for it though, but he changes his mind hald way through when he feels his will weakening. After a short fight, Cal tricks the Adaptoid to try to steal his powers with a mental suggestion, and it shorts him out (since he doesn't actually have powers)... they both plunge out of the sky, Super Adaptoid into the ocean (with no more Avengers powers), and Cal to be saved by Angel.. but his powers are gone too. Of course, he learned his lesson, though! The End! A little to moral, and I feel like we already did this story a couple issues ago, but if this means no more Mimic, it's all good. Notes: -- This issue is one of the first real weird time warps so far... it's clearly winter (the caption states 'Early Winter')... Jean's been in school a while (Which one would assume a late-August or Early Sept Start).. that would mean anywhere from 3-5 months have past since Jean left 5 issues ago. However, LAST issue it was still clearly fall (the grass is green,and no one is wearing winter gear), while Stan's editors not says it's only been a few weeks since #26. That means either NY turned to winter freakishly fast and more time past between/during #24-26, or it's just a goof and it really shouldn't be winter, and they just wanted to show the gag of iceman falling skating and to hell with the time line (my guess). - Back to the angst! We missed you! I do wonder how Scott causing a avalanche and disintrigrating a tree didn't attract any attention. - Mimic looks WAY too much like Cyclops wearing the shades.. I wonder if that was because they swapped something around in the story or just because they're both white males with brown hair and shades. - The scene transitioning between fighting with Mimic was super clunky.. not sure why the Professor suddenly intervened when Cyclops got into it.. I guess he thought they'd kill each other, but its not clear.. one minute he says they have to work it out amongst themselves, then he's kicking Mimic to the curb the next. - We get another brief mention of the secret in the basement... gotta love Roy Thomas! - No mention of Jean's college or anyone outside the school this time, other than Warren being happy she's visiting for the weekend. I do wonder what the Grey family things of her using her weekend that way instead of visiting them.. perhaps we'll get that story sometime. In other news... I will put FF 28 up in this thread eventually.. I was hoping to get the FF Masterworks, but didn't have much luck, and the library has failed me, too... I may just buy it digitally for .99, but I'm hoping something better turns up.. stay tuned!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 12, 2017 13:55:32 GMT -5
X-Men #30 'The Warlock Wakes' Thomas/Sparling/Tartaglione Plot: The Warlock, who claims to be a mutant and the original Merlin, has awoke after his defeat at the hands of Thor, and has a new plan for world domination, and he's chosen Jean Grey to be his bride. 100% a by the numbers story... definitely feels like a stock story written when needed.. there's not mention of any of the recent issues until the last page, which could have been easily added in or changed. The Professor uses his mechanical legs (which we haven't seen for a bit). no mention of Jean in college or Mimic. Pretty typical story, bad guy monologue's his way into defeat as the good guys rally. Warlock was planning to erase all knowledge of modern tech from the world, except for his thugs, so he'd have guns and they'd have medieval tech. Of course he promises not to if the X-Men can win in his tournament, so we have a Arthurian battle with Beast as the knight until the Prof. X can get his powers back (Warlock drained them somehow) and all is well in the end. Notes: -Warlock was the bad guy in JiM #98, where I recall wondering why Prof. X never looked him up later or sensed him... I guess because he was in a coma, but you'd think Thor would mention it. -Warlock later becomes Maha Yogi, and ends up being a Hyborian age Vanir, no sign of him turning up in Conan though, which is weird... why bother doing that otherwise? Especially Roy Thomas? -- We get Jean wondering if Scott loves her, and Scott worrying about her too much... that's actually a little new. - The art feels more realistic, and the team look a bit older than usual here... Sparling it seems didn't do alot of superheroes, so that's probably why... it's a nice change, and fit the story nicely. - The Professor leaves with a cool hover scooter thingy... hope he gets to keep it!
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Post by dbutler69 on Jun 13, 2017 8:04:43 GMT -5
X-Men #28 'Wail of the Banshee' Thomas/Roth/Ayers -- The team dynamic with Mimic in the mix is interesting... they didn't change his personality at all to make him a good guy... he's still an attention hound, and thinks he's better than everyone else, he's just helping the X-Men because Xavier talked him into it. Much better than when they do 'face turns' today. -- Cyclops is clearly not really able to not be the leader, even if one didn't know what's happening next, it's obvious have Mimic as the leader won't last long. -- Angel is stil injured (he's in a sling).. he and Bobby were pretty much just wallpaper in this one. -- More fun with Jean and Ted, and no mooning of Scott... interesting. -- With all the tricks and defense set up to defeat the Banshee this issue, you get much more a feeling that the academy is exactly that, rather than just a army training camp that is usually seems to be. While it was all pretty generic, I think it worked better that way than having lots of made up 'science' -- Speaking of made up science, wow, was Banshee ridiculously overpowered at first! Not only can his scream make him fly fast enough so people can't see him (which is quite a bit faster than the speed of sound), he can knock people out and wipe their memories, besides vibrating things to pieces. They have to do the tried and true 'I've used to much power' to give the X-Men a chance. -- No mention of Banshee's real name here, or really of his later background.. no funny accent or anything. In fact, he sorta sounds like Beast in alot of cases, using big words and such. Also, he's really, really ugly.. almost like he's part Lion or something. I assume that's by design, since Roth draws other people just fine. -- I never would have guessed that the Ogre didn't appear again until Busiek brought him back in Thunderbolts... he seemed like he was going to be somebody! Too much like Iron Man, I guess. Too bad, because the X-Men are going to need non-mutant adversaries if Mimic is sticking around. -- There's also a secret door in the basement that we get to see that is locked... so the Professor's got somethin' secret going on. We also find out someone is still trying to take over Xavier's mind (he says it's not the Puppetmaster again) Huzzah for long term planning! I re-read my X-Men about 7 years ago (can it have been that long?) and I do remember enjoying these Mimic issues because I felt like he added an interesting dynamic into the team. Like you say, he doesn't really play nice with others, and he's even more of a jerk than Hawkeye was, because Hawkeye was really only a jerk to Cap. I though Banshee looked like a monkey, and I agree that he seems to be made intentionally ugly. Hey, everybody can't be good looking, even in comics. And yes, his sonic powers (just like Tyroc in the Legion of Super-Heroes) are very nebulous and ill defined, almost like magic.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 13, 2017 8:48:14 GMT -5
I think the problem with Mimic is they made him too awesome... they should have either only let him have one power at a time (ala Ultra Boy) or shown how he wasn't as good with them as the real owners were. As it was, there was no way he could stay for long witout making the rest of the team into useless batteries, really.
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Post by dbutler69 on Jun 13, 2017 12:25:14 GMT -5
I think the problem with Mimic is they made him too awesome... they should have either only let him have one power at a time (ala Ultra Boy) or shown how he wasn't as good with them as the real owners were. As it was, there was no way he could stay for long witout making the rest of the team into useless batteries, really. True. Plus, like you said, if he can beat them with no practice with the powers, then all of those hours in the Danger Room under Professor X's instruction were for naught. I like the Ultra Boy idea. Actually, I despise the super power of being able to absorb or mimic others' super powers. That's one that just rubs me the wrong way. Plus, Mimic was a total jerk and you had to know his membership wouldn't last long, but it did make things interesting for a while.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 13, 2017 13:02:10 GMT -5
Yeah, it was a nice change up to the dynamic, which was already feeling stale after 20 some issues. Too bad they didn't get the hint until much later.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2017 16:02:22 GMT -5
wildfire2099 ... I love that picture with ... quote from you "The Professor leaves with a cool hover scooter thingy... hope he gets to keep it!" ... I've never, ever, seen that picture and I loved it.
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