Sunday, August 23, 2015

A Song of Ice & Fire: A Clash of Kings

So much happens in this second book of A Song of Ice & Fire series that I don't want to spoil but this second installment of the series has left the realm splintered & fractured.  By the end of this book another self proclaimed king has died, alliances have been forged, betrayed & reforged.  This book introduces a slew of new characters; characters like Brienne of Tarth, Melisandre, Asha Greyjoy & Davos Seaworth are just of few of these new characters that stand out in this title.  Characters that were only mentioned in the first book receive even more attention in this one.  One of the greatest chapters in this book is a Daenerys chapter in which she visits the House of the Undying: within this house she is given visions this is a chapter that will require multiple reads to understand & could possibly be a key to understanding the story as a whole. The first time I picked up this series I only got two thirds of the way through this book before I had to abandon the series for awhile.  In coming back to the series & in reading this book a second time that chapter alone provides so much foreshadowing that it should not be ignored.  By the end of this book the Kingslanding has been attacked, the north lands are covered in blood, the river lands burn day & night several hated characters still live.  But there is still this glimmer of hope because it always gets darker before the dawn & winter is coming.



Monday, August 10, 2015

Ant-Man Vol. 1: Second-Chance Man

This is the first volume of Ant-Man's new series by Nick Spencer that came out after the Axis event. This is a great primer for anyone unfamiliar with Scott Lang's Ant-Man.  Scott Lang died in the Avengers Disassembled event & did not return to the land of the living until Avengers: The Children's Crusade.  The trade off of Scott Lang returning to the land of the living is that his daughter Cassie Lang who took up the name Stature when she joined the Young Avengers died in the same event that he returned in.  In this volume Cassie is alive & well this is not explained it might have something to do with the Axis event.  If there is one thing that the Ant-Man movie did extremely well was to portray Scott Lang I could literally hear Paul Rudd's voice while reading Scott Lang's dialog.    It's like the fact that Robert Downy Jr. is Tony Stark not portraying but is; or like Hugh Jackman is Wolverine.  This first volume is like a follow-up story to the origin of the Scott Lang Ant-Man & his confrontation with Darren Cross.  I am really interested to see where this series goes after the Secret Wars event going on right now.  I also want to know what repercussions this story will have for Cassie Lang & will she ever suit up as Stature again.


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

New X-Men Omnibus

I am amazed beyond belief New X-Men was one of the most amazing & inclusive X-Men books I have ever read!  Grant Morrison is a genius pure & simple I wish he would write something else for Marvel.  I have been a longtime X-Men fan ever since I was introduced to the uncanny mutants through the 90's cartoon.  The cartoon convinced me to track down early collections of Chris Claremont's run on the X-Men.  Now Stan Lee may have created the X-Men but Chris Claremont is the godfather of the franchise no other writer has taken the X-Men so far or added so much to the mythos.  Grant Morrison is one of the greatest writers when it comes to researching a franchise & bringing original concepts to the forefront again.  Not only does he flush out the original concept but he injects new ideas & new concepts.  In just his brief X-Men run Morrison has used almost every trope & idea that the X-Men are known for.  Everything from adventures in space, the phoenix, persecution, racism, drama, death, sentinels, Weapon Plus program, the Shi'ar Empire & alternate reality futures,  Everything is here & it is executed almost perfectly.  I absolutely loved the the majority of this run as for what happened to the Magneto in this volume I agree that it didn't stick to the landing but the overall reveal was awesome.  I completely disagree that Marvel erased the majority of Grant Morrison's run on from continuity in fact I think they preserved a great portion of it.  Since this run not only have Magneto & Xavier taken more of a back seat but leadership of the different mutant factions has been taken up by other characters.  Cyclops has had an especially big push over the last couple of years.  As for the Scott / Emma relationship Jean gave her consent in the end so I think it was a nice progression for both of the characters.  Several characters that Grant Morrison created are still being used today, Quentin Quire, Angel, Beak, Fantomex & the Stepford Cuckoos.  Yes I know Beak & Angel are depowered now thanks to M-Day but they still exist.  I really love the final story-arc Here Comes Tomorrow an alternate future story in which the X-Men of the future must take on The Beast & it reveals the real fate of Jean Grey-Summers.  Since her final death the original Jean Grey has been dead since 2004, longer than any of her previous deaths.  The story introduces the idea of the Phoenix Egg which is currently being used in Brian Michael Bendis's current X-Men run.  Physically Jean Grey is dead but spiritually her consciousness has fully merged with the Phoenix Force as a cosmic entity.  She returns when needed to restore balance appearing multiple times since Morrison's run.  In essence this series brings forth many of the ideas that Marvel has been using currently taking chances with characters in new directions.  Currently Marvel has killed off Charles Xavier & given his mind to the Red Skull.  They have killed off the Watcher & replaced him with the original Nick Fury.  Wolverine has also been killed off is being temporally replaced by several of his enemies before being fully replaced by X-23.  Currently in there major summer event of 2015 they have destroyed both the Marvel Universe & the Ultimate Universe to create a battle world in the style of Game of Thrones ruled by Doctor Doom.  This event will create a new Marvel Universe so in the fall anything is possible as to what the new Marvel Universe will hold but these type of out of the box thinking is the type of stuff that Grant Morrison brought with his writing style.  The follow up to Morrison's run is Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men I look forward to everything that comes after the this run which includes one of my other favorite X-Men stories Messiah Complex which leads to a whole set of other stories.  This is a fabulous jumping on point for all of the lapsed X-Men fans or people who just don't know where to start.