Victor Gischler's X-Men #1 Comic Review

On X-Men day 2010, Marvel Comics released the much-anticipated X-Men series, the first X-men #1 in 20 years! The creative team behind the book is Victor Gischler (Deadpool Corps) and Paco Medina (Deadpool), using the storyline “Curse of the Mutants” as their first story arc. I have been excited for this issue to come out for quite some time now because I am a huge Victor Gischler fan.

One of the main concerns I had about this issue was the fact that it was coming out prior to the conclusion of X-Men Second Coming, fearing that the issue would release spoilers for the cross-over X-fans have been enjoying for the last few months. And to my surprise, there were no spoilers, no mention to Second Coming at all, and did well standing alone as a new X-book without any support of the many other X-titles.

The arc starts off focusing around a character that has been absent from the X-Men universe for some time, Jubilee; which is an exciting surprise to many X-Fans. After an incident involving a frightening character in a San Francisco park, the X-Men find themselves facing a new terrorist threat and what follows after said incident lays out an interesting premise for the next several issues of this series.

Without spoiling any more of the story, the main idea of this first arc stems out of Victor

Gischler’s one-shot “The Death of Dracula” and the X-Men discover that they have a Vampire problem on their hands. The one problem that I have is that I feel that Marvel released a little too much information about this new series, which kind of dulled down the surprises that occurred in this first issue. Also, I think that being able to read ‘The Death of Dracula” prior to this issue also spoiled a number of surprises and allowed me to kinda figure out all the secrets and twists that the book insinuates.

Overall, this was a great starting issue. It kept my interest the entire duration of the story, had great writing and great art, and met all the expectations I had, except for one. The one thing that I was very disappointed about was that, there were a ton of promo pin-ups that were released in many of Marvel’s issues the past few months that were awesome. I was hoping that they would be the variant covers for this first issue, but they were not. But aside from that, everything was great and I am eagerly awaiting the next issue. Welcome to the X-Universe X-Men.

9.5 out of 10

*Originally posted on the Chris' Comics Official Website

Cornbread's Favorite and Least Favorite Comics of the Week - 5/26

Favorite Comic: X-Force #27


Mike Choi does it again! I guess my true bias shows up when an issue of X-Force comes out that is drawn by Choi and inked by Oback. But aside from their involvement with the book it was yet another great issue of X-Men Second Coming. The greatest part of this book was the first 6 pages or so that were text free and let the reader just soak in and feel just what was going on with the battles that have been waging for the past 2 months. It really illustrates how powerful Choi's art is. This issue was great because it is finally pushing us towards the end of the cross over since there are only 4 issues left. The action in the books was spectacular and the ending was even better. I'm not going to spoil any of the story line for anyone, but to see where the book takes what happened at the end will be pretty interesting, even though everyone knows that the worst outcome wont happen. I am kinda disappointed that next week is a by-week for the cross over, I have really enjoyed the week after week of progressing story line. Lets just hope that the cross over can keep up its momentum and finish strong.

8.5 out of 10

Least Favorite: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #37

The reason why this issue was so disappointing is not because it was a bad issue, it was because it did not live up to last year annual and that is what I was expecting. The whole issue kinda took place in the past. The stuff with Captain America was interesting and fun because I am a fan of Cap and Spidey but it just wasn't enough. I was hoping the issue would be less like a one-shot and more part of the current story arc with the Kravens. It was kinda nice to see that the second half of the annual wasn't a reprint from an older issue and to see that it was just a throw back to the 90's with an unused story, that actually wasnt half bad.

Over all the issue was not bad, it had pretty good writing and decent art and the stories were bad, but like I said I was just expecting something else entirely and when it didn't deliver it was disappointing. The good thing is that, although it didnt give me what I wanted, its better than giving me something I hated.

6.5 out of 10

Cornbread's Favorite and Least Favorite Comics of the Week - 4/28

Sorry it has taken me so long to get around to writing this post, I've just been busy and didn't actually get to read all of my comics this week until Saturday anyways. But here it is!

Favorite Comic: X-Force # 26 (X-Men Second Coming Chapter 5)
*MAJOR SPOILER ALERT*

This boom was in the running for best book of the week wayyy before I got a chance to read it. First off, this cover by Adi Granov is by far one of his best yet, there is no getting around it. Secondly, it is the return of Mike Choi and Sonja Oback on interior art; the last issue they did for X-Force was issue 20. When the book finally came out last week, as soon as I got a free second I read this issue, way before I actually read anything else, and let me tell you, I am very happy I did. The interior art on this book is beautiful! It really proves that Choi is the best artist in comics today.

Aside from the art, everyone knew that this book was very important for this huge cross over event. Marvel had been talking about how a character was going to be killed since before Second Coming started and everyone knew it was happening in this book.

Kyle and Yost did a great job with this issue, it kept my attention the whole time, the dialogue was beautiful and they way they executed the death was just spectacular. It was exciting and packed with action, but heart wrenching at the same time. I wont reveal who actually died, but seriously they went out with a BAMF.

10 out of 10

Who would you rather see die?

If you aren't aware, Marvel has announced that someone is going to die in X-Men Second Coming Chapter Five (X-Force #26) and I was wondering if anyone had any preferences. A promo picture was released and with it the tagline "To save the world, one of these X-Men will die." Who do you want to see bite it?

My choice: Nightcrawler. While yes, it would be sad to see Kurt do one last BAMF six feet below the earth, I feel like it's his time. There are other competent teleporters: Magik and Pixie and their teleporting range are much longer than Kurt's, thus making him obsolete. We will have to wait and see who is right and Magik or Emma Frost die, I will be so angry with Marvel I might start reading Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers just so they think it was a 'success.'