X-Men Legends Review

Posted on June 23, 2024 by dreager1

I remember playing X-Men Legends 2 a long time ago. It was a really fun game and definitely one of the titles that I spent a lot of time on with the PSP. I never got around to getting the first game though so it’s nice to finally get to experience it. For sure you can tell that it is a bit dated in some ways compared to the second but the gameplay holds up well. It’s a really solid all around title with a good amount of content.

The game starts with a girl being attacked by the Brotherhood of evil mutants. We put a stop to that real quick and try to get to the bottom of this. It turn out that she is a mutant with top tier potential. We convince her to join our group and now she is in for a real exciting time as we deal with threats like Magneto, the Juggernaut, and even the government itself. If we don’t watch out, it will be game over for everyone involved. Does she have what it takes to really assist us against these fighters?

It does seem a bit iffy to have her on the missions so quickly but there is some down time between missions so maybe we can say the game takes place over a year or so. In that case at least she would have had more training. We do get to play a few missions in the danger room to be sure so it’s not like she’s going in completely fresh. It’s just a big difference between fighting out there and in the real world. I’d also note that as always the Danger Room seems incredibly impractical. The X-Men lose control of it as always and she almost dies. I’m shocked that more people haven’t died in there but Prof X. doesn’t seem to care as he just tells her to get back in there and try again later. Not the most sympathetic character around that’s for sure.

The gameplay is an overhead style similar to Ultimate Alliance or Warcraft. You control teams of 4 characters as you go through a level and defeat all enemies/activate consoles. The objectives a level will differ so you won’t always have to do a whole lot of fighting. Keep a close eye on the objectives so you don’t just waste time. You can access them from the start menu at any point in case you forget what’s going on. Each character has 4 special moves and then of course you have the standard and power blows. There is almost never any reason to use power blows though so that part of the moveset ends up becoming unnecessary.

Your characters level up as you go through the game so it’s important to keep in mind their stats and abilities. I tended to focus on a glass cannon build so I put all of the stats into pure attack power. This makes all of my fighters hit like a truck and I found it to be useful with the sheer amount of enemies that the game throws at you. You’ll be there for a long time even with heavy attack power but I felt like a battle of attrition would be more in their favor. You also get points that you can use for your abilities.

What I would do is max out the main power X3 for all characters and with any extra points I would put that into more health and energy. It’s fun just how many options there are in the game and it’s something that Legends does very well. It’s a super customizable experience. When playing through the game, I could have a completely different experience than someone else playing at least from a gameplay perspective. Whether the game is more of a hit and run or full aggressive style will depend on your earlier choices.

It’s part of what I love about RPGs. Being able to make your own choices in terms of how you want to proceed is just great. That’s not even getting into the equipment. Then you also have danger room missions back at base to increase your exp further and you can find collectibles which boost your base stats permanently. So the more you explore the game, the more you are rewarded here. There are even a few bonus missions outside of the main events you could tackle. I accidentally knocked one of those out and it was cool seeing the original costumes since in the present they’re based more on the Ultimate X-Men looks. Still good, but not nearly as solid as classic.

The graphics are definitely really good. I would say the faces may not have aged super well but in gameplay the character designs and everything look really good. I like the special effects used for the super powers as well. So definitely no complaints from me here. The soundtrack is forgettable though which is unfortunate. I think you really could have come up with some great tunes for a game like this right? Comic book games can be a little hit or miss in this department though so it really does depend.

There isn’t really a post game here so make sure you have all of your fun while you are playing through the campaign. Like I said it’s fairly long and there are some stuff you can do on the side so I would say you are really getting a lot of bang for your buck. I’d like to see something like this for each of the comic book teams. In general Marvel has had quite a few of these so I need DC to step it up and get us a Justice League title or something like that. Now that would be awesome!

Overall, X-Men Legends is a pretty fun game. It has a well rounded cast and switching between all of the characters is fun. The game’s actual length is rather solid and there is a good amount of replay value to be had here. There’s really everything to like about this title so you definitely want to pick it up. If you haven’t played the sequel yet then I would definitely advise playing that one afterwards so you continue on with the adventures.

Overall 7/10

X2: Wolverine’s Revenge Review

Posted on February 17, 2024 by dreager1

All right it’s time to jump in for some Wolverine adventures. This game plays out a lot differently than what I would have expected though. The focus isn’t really on the action and slashing the foes in front of you. Instead it is mainly a stealth game where you have to be nimble and hide in the shadows like Carmen Sandiego. When you find an opening, then you strike but otherwise you are taken out of the game real quick. The shots just do too much damage.

The basic plot though is that Wolverine has been poisoned and is slowly dying. He needs to find a cure and fast or it’s all over for him. The X-Men would help but they’re all rather busy which isn’t a great excuse but hey it’s something. So Wolverine will have to travel around the globe to find the cure and that means tangling with old enemies like Sabertooth and the whole Weapon X group. If anyone could handle this though, it would be Wolverine. He’s been through a lot over the year and isn’t about to throw in the towel just yet. No way!

So the stealth is my main issue with the game though mainly because of how it’s executed. You could absolutely pull off a stealth Wolverine game where it’s like he’s going back to his wild side and you’re picking everyone off one by one. Yes it may be a bit of an odd decision but not necessarily a bad one. No, the real problem here is how the levels are really long so if you make one mistake then you have to go all the way back to the beginning. That part is absolutely brutal because some of these levels are 15-20 minutes long. You’re losing so much every time and of course it makes you a bit impatient so then you end up losing again and now you’re in a rather rough cycle.

The easiest fix here would have absolutely been to add more checkpoints. That’s all you have to do. Add in those checkpoints and you are really set for anything. Then you can stomach the stealth a lot better and losing isn’t as bad since you can quickly get back to where you were at. I guess the game was really intentionally trying to be difficult but this was the wrong way to do it. Give me a challenge but don’t make me keep on replaying large parts of a game. I’m trying to progress as much as possible.

Then the few times we do get a boss fight with actual combat, there is always a gimmick around. For Magneto you have to chase him a lot while getting hit by objects and then if he runs over to his generator for a few seconds you lose by default. The final boss has unlimited health so you actually can’t beat her in hand to hand combat and are forced to go use some background objects. Likewise when you fight Sabertooth you have to throw him into a train. He can’t be beaten normally.

See a pattern here? Again that doesn’t have to be a bad thing but it felt like the game absolutely did not want to let you fight any of the opponents straight up. Even fighting the minions would usually get a little dicey because their guns deal so much damage. So what you have to do with those is hide behind a wall for a while as your health very slowly starts to recover. Have a book or your phone handy because the game is not kidding for this part. They actually want you to just slowly get the health back. Cmonnnnnnnnn

The actual combat gameplay isn’t too bad but it’s a bit sloppy. The hitboxes don’t always match the character models so a lot of times you are hitting the opponent but he doesn’t feel it and then he misses and so the two of you keep on taking shot at each other but neither one is making much headway. Eventually you connect and he goes down but it doesn’t feel very polished at all. The budget for this game was not nearly as high as it should have been and the game knows it.

As you get deeper into the game you will learn how to work around this and get a win. It takes time but you won’t be stuck. Some parts are just really hard to guess like the final phase of the final boss. For reasons unknown that boss is completely invincible so you have to go to the edge and wait for her to be in position to fall off. Why is this so bad? Because it’s the 4th phase of the fight so most likely you’re going to try and attack her since that makes sense and then you die. I don’t see how you could possibly guess on the first go around and so that means the game is dooming you to lose at least one life there. Not cool if you ask me.

It’s like an invisible block that makes you die in Mario Maker. It’s just not a fair way to go out and so you end up blaming the devs. This game has quite a few moments like that and each time it makes you shake your head. You know that you did not deserve to lose like that and so you’re wondering why the game had to mess with you. Okay so I had a lot of issues with the game design but on the positive side I’d say the graphics are fairly good. All of the characters and their costumes stand out pretty well. They look very classic all the way and the level designs are also good. A map would have been really nice but there’s only a few that are big enough to get lost in.

Then we have the soundtrack which is actually pretty good. There are some tense themes here and in general there is a wide variety. The sound clips at the start of a mission can get old as you keep on hearing them over and over again though when you lose. “Stay quiet, Stay low, Stay Alive!” is something I had to hear Wolverine say dozens and dozens of times. It’s why every game should allow you to skip cutscenes and should not replay the same dialogue option every time although I now that’s a bit harder to work around.

In terms of length I’d say the game is fairly satisfying. That’s in part due to the difficulty of course but still this is not a game that you will be conquering in one day and that’s important to note. It’s going to be sticking around for the longhaul and really making sure that you bring your A game because without it you really will get stuck on the levels. There’s not really any replay value unless there is a bonus ending of sorts but there is a challenge mode where you can have some fun in.

Overall, X2: Wolverine’s Revenge is a game where the gameplay sacrificed the story’s effort. I actually thought the story was really good with a lot of characters running around everywhere. It managed to stay exciting the whole time and the ending leaves a ton of cliffhangers for a possible sequel. The game was having quite a bit of fun here even if you knew the odds were not great that they would be able to complete this plot. Well, if you’re looking for an old superhero game that you haven’t played yet, this one is just obscure enough where it could fit the bill. It’s not going to touch most of the big ones or even come close to those but you definitely can’t call it a rehash or anything like that. It was trying its own thing from the start.

Overall 5/10

Logan Review

Posted on October 2, 2022 by dreager1

This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Wolverine’s had a checkered history with his films. Most people didn’t care for the first one or even the second all that much. This was the one that finally made the books as a definitive title for the character. At least for most people because after seeing this one I can confirm that it is the weakest film in the X-Men franchise. Yes, weaker than X-Men origins. It’s a very depressing look at how the Marvel Universe could have turned out for the mutants and Wolverine never really got to have his happy ending.

The movie starts up in the future where Wolverine is even more of a drunk than usual and doesn’t have any qualms about using his claws on people now. He’s just sick of everything turning out so badly so he’s been saving up money for a while now. He’ll take Professor Xavier away and they’ll both basically die. Wolverine even got himself some adamantium bullets to finish the job. Before any of this can happen, a lady appears asking for his help. Wolverine definitely says no since his adventuring days are over but she is murdered and her daughter Laura ends up hitching a ride.

Professor Xavier insists on their helping her so Wolverine is stuck now. He’ll have to try and get her to her final destination which is supposed to be a safe haven from the mutant hunters. This won’t be easy though as something is up with Wolverine’s abilities and his healing regeneration has been greatly reduced. Meanwhile Xavier has a lot of seizures now and can barely use his abilities either. Time is not on their side so the race is on.

I definitely have a lot of issues with the film, mostly just around how depressing it all is so lets go with the positives first. The fight scenes are very solid. I think that characters with a strong regeneration ability should be used to fighting a little recklessly because any trade is actually in their favor. So they can be good with either landing hits on their own, or dealing out equal damage. It makes sense so I’m cool with that and Wolverine does get in some good combos once he gets going.

I do think he feels very nerfed but at least there is a story reason for it. Otherwise I would expect Wolverine to look much better in this film. Another positive is that Laura’s character was handled very well. She has grown up with a rather lousy life at this point and so she is doing her best to move on forward. She doesn’t dwell on the past all that much and only talks when necessary. She really just wants to complete her mission and get to safety to put this life of violence behind her. When she does fight Laura is calculated and ruthless in destroying her opponents.

She’s not some kind of super hero so she doesn’t have to worry about the mercy rule. Laura’s life has always been in a do or die scenario so if she doesn’t strike quickly then she knows that it could all be over. I thought she was definitely the highlight here and in general I always liked her character. It would be a lot of fun to see her more in some future movies.

Okay now lets talk about some of the iffy stuff. First we have to talk about Wolverine. I’m cool with a main character being reluctant to help and not wanting to get back into the hero game. So when he turns the lady down the first few times you can understand. There is no obvious threat at the moment and there are presumably others who can help. Once she asks him for help again by flagging his car (Wolverine runs an Uber type operation) and it’s obvious that she is in critical danger, he shouldn’t have left her again.

Bring her and Laura with him in the car. Abandoning her was just an awful look and I can see why Laura was so upset. Logan tries abandoning Laura several times as well later on in the film. He also puts Caliban in a rather bad spot by having him drive off with the villain. This version of Logan has absolutely 0 qualms about killing so just stab the guy a few more times to make sure that he doesn’t get up,. I’ll give him less grief about this though since he thought that the guy was dead.

Logan is just way too depressed here though to the point where he acts like a villain. It’s almost like Bruce Wayne nearly murdering Terry McGuiness back in the first episode of Batman Beyond by turning off the suit. There’s a line that you cross when you go too far into being a thorn in the way of justice. That’s just how Logan is here and it takes an extremely long time until he finally gets ready for action.

Then you throw in the fact that he’s a lot weaker here and it’s annoying to see him lose just about every fight that he’s in. Common thugs are beating him up left and right, never mind the X-24 clone who really lays him out. Even if Wolverine’s not a nice guy anymore, you hope to see him getting some wins but until his rage mode near the end he is getting thrown around a whole lot. It’s not cool and it definitely doesn’t help him as a character. I just didn’t like Logan here, his days of being the Wolverine were definitely long gone.

I can’t say that I liked how Xavier was portrayed either. The guy is half crazy and can’t even control his own abilities with the seizures now. I have a super hard time believing that this could happen to a telepath, particularly one of Xavier’s ability. The twist of how this affected the X-Men was also awful. It’s certainly a convenient way to make sure that nobody else shows up but it’s not satisfying at all. To think that this is how it would all end after so many battles and fights to achieve peace between humans and mutants.

This ending is certainly not what anyone would have hoped for. I’d have much preferred Xavier to go out in a blaze of glory or something like that. In the end, the world went from being fantastical to quite normal since the world seems like any everyday place now. At least Caliban seemed like a reasonable guy right from the start for the heroes. He was probably the only one who seemed like a nice guy with no drawbacks so of course things get really rough for him here.

As for the villains, Pierce is the main one and he’s okay I guess. There’s just not a lot to him and you could think of the guy as an average thug only he’s got some tech so he can fight a little bit. I think with a bit more screen time he could have been better as the charismatic kind of villain but the film was not able to pull that off. Dr. Zandar is your average twisted scientist villain who just likes to be as evil and cruel as possible so there’s not much to him either. Not a quality villain.

The only one who seemed solid was X-24. At first I actually thought he was Sabretooth who somehow managed to return to the main lines once more but the twist worked out rather well. I like the idea of this guy being as savage as Wolverine was in his prime so the dilemma is in how to take this guy out. He really is quite strong and made for an impressive threat. Whenever he was on screen you knew that things were going to get really tough for the heroes.

As you’d probably expect, this film gets very violent. You really have the claws in full force by both the heroes and villains with the usual human experimentation going on as well. It’s trying really hard to be the most violent of the X-Men films to live up to the Wolverine rep and it earns this but at the detriment of the film. You don’t need all of this excessive violence and it takes away from the action scenes. The movie definitely should have toned things down and it would have helped out.

At least the ending of the film is solid enough. I didn’t have any issues with it and it seemed like a classic way to end things. I absolutely would have preferred a happier ending with more room for big sequels and all that but it still wasn’t bad. It’s not a grim dark ending either, just more of a bitter sweet one so the heroes couldn’t win on all fronts and had to settle for a few.

At the end of the day, part of the problem with this film is that it’s going more for an apocalyptic future vibe rather than being a full blown comic book movie. You don’t have too many big battles with lots of super abilities and flashy CGI. Instead you usually have very dreary backgrounds with the characters fighting very ordinary humans aside from X-24. The fact that the humans do well is sad in itself. At least by the end you have them taking the Ls as the heroes finally get ready for combat.

Overall, Logan’s not a good movie. It really wrecks Logan’s character quite thoroughly and I would say that Xavier was really mishandled as well. Laura was a shining point in the movie at least. You’re better off watching Dark Phoenix as the true end point to the X-Men series as that one soared above expectations and did deliver with a lot of fun fights and cool plots going on. If Wolverine does get another film, I’d like them to just put him in a fun setting and let us see Wolverine the superhero as opposed to Logan, the jaded old timer.

Overall 4/10

7 traits that make for a bad villain

Posted on October 30, 2020 by dreager1

I’ve written editorials on what makes for a good hero and what makes for a good villain. Now we’re going to look at what are traits you want your villains to avoid. These can turn you into a bad villain. Now there are really two kinds of villains. Ones who are meant to be taken seriously like Lex Luthor or Frieza and then there are the fun ones like Dr. Cortex or Drakken. The criteria for these villains can be quite different. In this editorial I’m mainly talking about serious villains to consider that in mind as I bring up the following points. Characters are quite layered so just because you may have some of these traits does not mean you are automatically a bad villain. However you do want to typically avoid these.

1. “I want to marry the princess!”

This is a huge one. In general what I’m talking about here is a villain’s motive. It can’t be something so superficial like this. Villains like Jafar from Aladdin or Claude from The Hunchback of Notre Dame come to mind. When a villain’s motive is like this it immediately makes it hard to take them seriously or even find them likable. I’m focusing more on the negative aspect of the motive here as I’ve already spoken at length about what a good motive is on the last editorial. Your motive just can’t be so petty/shallow. Another variation of this would be something like just being super evil for no reason. You can just be evil like wanting to destroy the world or something. That’s pretty legit but if you’re just torturing heroes and stabbing guys for no reason then it comes across as unnecessarily edgy.

2. The villain’s insane for a purpose that isn’t compelling
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Insanity in small doses or even large doses can make for interesting villains. Look at Joker, he’s a pretty iconic villain who is insane in all the right ways. His rants actually have a purpose to them and while he is crazy, he still has general goals that you can find pretty interesting like tearing down society to prove that anyone can crack at any time. Now, he’s been through so many writers that this can vary but for the most part it’s good. Then you have a villain like Toga who is insane but not in a cool way. Her fascination with Deku is definitely quite out there and she doesn’t seem to quite understand why it’s so odd. Her origin story shows that she has been like this for a very long time. So to be most accurate, it’s not that being insane is automatically a negative trait but it tends to backfire so you want to be careful about it. Being insanely after another character like this is not the motivation you want for your villain.

3. The villain acts very subserviently to another
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This is a big no no. You absolutely can’t grovel to another villain or constantly ask for forgiveness. This is a really easy way to make yourself a joke when it comes to big time villains. Whether you’re the big boss or a henchman you have to conduct yourself with a certain amount of class and decorum. You can’t go around being scared of the others. In some cases a villain might even allow himself to get beaten up by the others. Leo Lionheart is an example of a villain who is constantly pandering to his bosses. He spends his entire screen time being absolutely terrified of Salem and her crew. there’s no way to find a villain like this particularly likable. He’s just not made of the right stuff and this kind of groveling and terror is an immediate turnoff. Should have at least made a break for it.

4. The villain has a grotesque design
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Now design is something that’s important for any character so this is a bit of an easy one. Particularly for villains sometimes you want to have a villain who is super deformed or grotesque to add to the fear factor but it’s not a good idea. For one thing, having that many scars means that people have been beating you up for ages or if it’s just too crazy then it’s going to be hard to look at the villain as it is. Freddy Krueger is the perfect example of this. It’s a grotesque design for sure and hurts his chances of being likable. I mean, he’s got a ton going in the wrong way for him so he was never close as it is but this does not help his case in the slightest. Mojo is a character who had more potential. At the very least he has a lot of fun lines and the guy can fight pretty well. It is hard to get past his design and mannerisms at times though. If they tone that down a bit he could become one of the all time greats.

5. The villain is fairly mindless
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A villain needs to have an amazing design to make this work. Otherwise if you’re a mindless villain it’s going to really be hard to be likable at all. When you’re just a giant villain who can’t talk or act then are you even a character or just an obstacle? That’s the question you have to ask for someone like the Impure King from Blue Exorcist. It’s hard to find him likable or even that interesting. He just stands around as the heroes slash away at him until he is burned into nothing. He had a great intro but didn’t do anything with it. You can’t have a villain like this or at least you should try to avoid it. The same goes for villains who are usually smart but suddenly turn into a power type and lose all of their intelligence, it’s just not a good idea.

6. The villain throws a lot of pity parties
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Whenever a villain starts to try and blame everyone for the mess he’s caused then this really won’t work out well. One big example of this is Reiner from Attack on Titan. Bear in mind that Reiner is directly responsible for murdering countless people during the Titan attacks. He tries to justify this many different ways and one of which is by trying to say that he didn’t even have a choice. He has a crazy speech against Eren to which Eren points out that the whole thing is ludicrous. It was a pretty hype scene but didn’t do anything for Reiner. His character starts to go downhill fast from this point. You absolutely cannot have the villain feeling bad for himself. It’s not going to end well. Villains need confidence and conviction to go through with their plans. Now, Reiner was caught up in a tough situation and he made a choice. It’s better to make a choice than not to do anything but then he’s got to live with it and can’t garner any sympathy from anyone.

7. The villain suddenly decides he doesn’t want to go through with the plan
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This is a classic for minions or even big bosses They’ll do all kinds of evil things throughout a series but then suddenly they have second thoughts about the whole thing. “Maybe we’re going too far” or something like that when they’ve been totally on board the whole time. It always seems rather sudden and just out of character. You can also just call it chickening out. It’s different from having an honor code where you have some things that you’ll just never do. Backing out of a plan where you fully knew what it entailed is something else entirely. In this case with Emma from Godzilla, it’s just that she didn’t think things through. It’s almost worse when you think about it because she was so confident in her plan initially. Just listen to her plan. It made no sense and the start and it doesn’t make any sense now.

So these are my top 7 traits to avoid. Naturally there are others like just making sure your villain isn’t a creep like Nobuyuki from Sword Art Online but if you avoid these 7 traits you’re definitely in a really good position to go places. Naturally for there to be great villains you’re bound to run into run of the mill villains or even downright bad ones. It’s just the way things work but the more good villains the better right? It’s always interesting dissecting what makes a character interesting or unlikable like this. I’d say it’s more fun writing about the best ones though but you gotta see both sides of the coin. That means the final editorial in this series will be about what makes for a bad Hero but that’s not til December. In November the monthly editorial will be a simpler one about how I score media. What does a 7/10 mean to me and how do you achieve that? Look forward to that editorial next month!

X-Men Dark Phoenix Review

Posted on June 11, 2019 by dreager1

It’s time to look at the newest X-Men film. The trailers for this one were looking pretty sharp from the start so it had the potential to be the best X film. Of course, the films haven’t had the best track record. X-Men The Last Stand was really solid, First Class and X2 were also pretty good, but the original X-Men and Apocalypse were not so good. Still, the Fox universe has basically been buried so they’d want to go out on a good note and I’d say that they did. Not only is this the best X-Men film of them all, but it can hold its head up high against the other big comic book movies out there.

The film starts off with a flashback as Jean gets into an accident with her parents and we see Xavier bring her to his school. We then cut to the present where the X-Men head into space to save some astronauts and Jean Grey absorbs part of the Phoenix Force. Her abilities start to go out of control and once she starts causing a lot of damage the team is forced to decide if they can still save her or if she’s still too far gone. At this point, is she really still Jean Grey or just the malicious Phoenix?

Dark Phoenix doesn’t waste any time in ramping up the tension. (It is called Dark Phoenix for a reason after all) The film’s pacing is quick from the start and builds a very good atmosphere. The soundtrack is stellar here (Jean Grey’s main theme is definitely the best one) and that’s always important. It’s easily a contender for one of the best soundtracks in a CBM. Certainly top 5. Dark Phoenix is a very serious comic film, it’s got the same vibe as the amazing DC titles Batman V Superman, Man of Steel or even the older ones like The Dark Knight. There are a lot of traumatic events for all the characters so there is rarely a time for them to catch their breath.

My favorite scene in the film is the fight between the “Save Jean” and “Destroy Jean” factions. It’s a pretty local level fight as it’s a 4 v 4, but team battles like that are always the best. I also am glad that the fights weren’t ties and there were no cop outs here. One side was clearly beating the other and it was the correct team. One side was simply way more stacked than the other. That was the main fight of the film, but in the climax we also get to see the heroes take on the villain zombies. Those guys can’t really fight back quite as much so it’s more one sided, but I do think the film did a good job of making them more of a threat than the average expendables.

The villains don’t get to appear much in the trailers so I’ll stay vague on who they are and what the goals are. I do think that they were nerfed a bit by the end though. They seem to be able to move your organs and crush your body with a light grasp or even with mental abilities. They seem to forget about this ability by the end of the film, but it would have been a handy way to destroy at least some of the X-Men. Most of the members could be defeated by the villains if you ask me.

Most of the characters look really solid here. Mystique has really grown into her role as the X-Men leader. While I was on Xavier’s side with the rocket decision over hers, I am glad that Mystique is always looking after the team. She sees the big picture more than the others do. Cyclops is definitely really good here as well. He’s still a teenager as opposed to being the X-Men leader like in the old films, but he never doubts Jean for a second. He’s on her side from start to finish and that kind of devotion is definitely accurate to his character. His optical blasts are also given a lot of respect here and he doesn’t hold back at all when attacking.

Unfortunately Storm doesn’t look very good here. I do think they did her personality justice here as she is a lot more aggressive and eager to fight. The problem is that she is portrayed as being pretty weak to be honest. She loses most of her fights and seems to let her guard down. I’d like her to look stronger in future appearances. Nightcrawler is a reasonable character, I just never liked him much. He doesn’t seem very proactive compared to the others although he does finally get a homage to his knife combo scene from the old films.

Beast has a pretty big role here. He definitely takes the early events hard and makes a controversial move to make things right. I don’t think anyone would claim that he’s making the heroic move here and even he knows that. Still, considering what happened you can definitely see why he’s making the choice. I find him to be pretty weak though and he rarely does a whole lot of damage. Quicksilver only appears for a few minutes tops here as the writers were probably scared that he would end the whole film in a minute. Unfortunately even then there is at least one time where he could have saved the team but didn’t. This is the problem with making a character so overwhelmingly powerful.

Jean Grey is the lead so lets talk about her for a second. Naturally she’s fighting with the Phoenix the whole time so she’s not always in her right state of mind. She tends to be a little oversensitive to everything so everybody triggers her. She can go into murder mode at the drop of a hat. It helps add more nuance to which side you’ll end up choosing. All in all, I thought she looked pretty good though. She may have been a bit gullible during some of the scenes and trusting villain groups is rarely a good choice. Still, I think the film did a good job with handling her as a villain here.

The star of the movie as always is Magneto. He’s been a really great character during the trilogy and he steals all of the scenes here. While he is not as powerful as the Phoenix I dare say that he is the second strongest mutant at this point. He’s the only one who can actually fight back compared to the others. He’s had a very complete character arc by this point and while he is drawn back into the battle, it’s nice that he had finally found peace. The fact that this is the third movie does help quite a bit since by now all of the characters are established so it’s easy for us to understand all of the character motivations.

Xavier is another big character of course. He definitely makes some key mistakes in the film. Xavier is definitely still one of the good guys from start to finish, but his problem is that he just doesn’t see any of his mistakes. He seems to think that he’s always on the right side. It’s a good quality to have as a leader since you have to believe that your cause is just, but part of the blame here can definitely be thrown over to him. Still, at the end of the day he does what he can to remedy the situation. He does feel a lot weaker here though as other telepaths can hold their own against him. He’s definitely not the Omega level mutant you might have thought he was.

I think some characters who may be overlooked, but shouldn’t be are Magneto’s teammates. I actually really liked both of them even though we never even get to know their names. One of them can fight with his hair and from how he was wrecking one of the X-Men members he is a considerable threat. The guy’s super loyal and was always quick to get into battle. The other is a telepath who was holding her own against Xavier and even causing him to back up. Their back and forth battle of wits was really solid and she was one of the best characters in the film. I’d put her second only to Magneto. I don’t have many qualms with the film, but one of them is that these characters get the shaft. I don’t think their endings were deserved and they should have done more. They were loyal followers to Magneto and the fact that he has given mutants a place to live really makes it a powerful moment. These guys are ready to put their lives on the line for Magneto because he has finally helped the mutants out once and for all. I’d argue that he’s made a safer existence for mutants than Xavier ever did.

The ending of the film is incredibly forced though and doesn’t really make any sense. There’s not a whole lot I can say about it since I don’t even want to spoil any part of it, but it really only happens for drama. It’s the kind of ending that you’d expect and so the film delivers on it, but there’s no narrative reason why it had to happen. The character could have chosen any other option and it would have worked rather than this desperate move. The other paths would have also made for a more entertaining ending. An ending is important, but it’s not like it’s horrible either. The final part of the final scene at least salvages what it can.

Part of why the film is good is naturally the writing. A dynamite soundtrack and excellent special effects go a long way, but at the end of the day you need solid writing to keep the film operating at a high level. This film probably has the best script that I’ve seen since Batman V Superman. (Infinity War also deserves a nod although it’s a very different kind of script) You’ll be engaged right away. They do squeeze in the Fox trope of adding one F word of course which is annoying as always. The film mirrors the X-Men comics to the extent that there is a lot going on at all times. There are many plots and characters in the mix and they’re all being affected by the events in the movie. You’ve got some symbolic imagery like Magneto putting his helmet back on to return to the darkness and Xavier taking his off as he decides to go back to acting as a friend to the others rather than as a commander. The characters are all acting on pure emotion by the end so it’s easy to pick any individual character and root for him/her. It’s a very thought provoking film that also includes a lot of action so you don’t have to worry about choosing one or the other.

It’s always hard to do a very serious film without getting super dark and gritty so I’m always impressed when it happens. It’s part of why I’m going to miss Fox, they really did add a nice element to the mix. For a while we had a solid balance with DC giving us supreme movies with the best action scenes and scripts, Marvel with the most comic book accurate movies and a light hearted tone like the days of ole, and then Fox which was a very realistic take on how humans would interact with super powered fighters. DC has gone away from their approach to follow Marvel and Fox is all but over after this one. Now the only company who will still be doing their own thing is Sony which does carry part of that Fox feel within, but I can’t say that I trust them as much as I would the others. Granted, Fox churns out a lot of misses too so you just gotta keep swinging til you connect. At least now we can finally have the Avengers vs X-Men film someday although I don’t imagine something like that would happen til 2025 or later.

All in all, this is the big finale that fans of the X-Men series have been waiting for. It’s the definitive X-Men film and it’s going to be really hard to top this one. The only thing that would have made it feel even more like a finale would have been for Wolverine to have shown up for the final fights. We probably won’t be seeing any X-Men films for a very long time as I doubt anyone would even want to try and follow up on this so soon. All series have to end at some point and the goal is to end on a high note. Dark Phoenix does that and then some. It basically excels in all areas and has a lot of replay value. If you haven’t seen the film yet then I’d recommend heading out to the theaters and checking it out. You probably won’t be seeing another one like this for quite some time.

Overall 8/10

X-Men Inferno Volume 2 Review

Posted on May 23, 2019 by dreager1

It’s been a long time since I reviewed the first Inferno comic, but it’s finally time to wrap up the saga. It definitely feels like one of the grandest X-Men story arcs in scope even if it never seems to be brought up nowadays. Pretty much all of the big players are here and there’s definitely a lot of action. You probably will wonder where the Avengers and FF are at times, but they are referenced and I believe they were on a mission somewhere at the time. It’s a pretty enjoyable story arc, some parts can get a little dark and others not as exciting, but on the whole it’s definitely an intense arc.

There are a lot of plots going on at once here. For the main plot, the Goblin Queen has decided to embrace her dark powers and take control of the planet. To that end she has teamed up with demons to transform the entire city. Some of them have plans of their own as well though. Cyclops, Jean Grey, and the rest of the X Factor head out to stop her, but their team isn’t as united as usual. Cyclops blames himself for the Goblin Queen’s transformation since he did rebound after marrying her pretty quick.

Another plot is that the X-Men are doing battle against an anti mutant faction and in the process they are becoming demons as well. As they lose more and more of their minds they start to barely even resemble heroes anymore. This leads them to start attacking all of the sides. Then you’ve got the Power Pack who are being forced to deal with the fact that their parents now know who they are thanks to the events with the Orphan Maker from volume 1. The parents are having a real hard time coping.

Then the New Mutants are also flying around trying to save Magik. Magik took control of Limbo but now the villains are starting to wrestle control back from her. Magik can destroy them, but doing so will eliminate the last of her light so she has a tough choice to make. Meanwhile Colossus is also trying to find her, but going from world to world is tricky and the villains are content to mock rather than help him. Finally, Sinister is also in the mix and naturally he also wants to mess things up for the heroes.

Those are just the main plots and there are even more subplots running around. I imagine that this was definitely the ultimate X faction arc back in the day. Pretty much every X group was here and I forgot to mention that this even includes Excalibur. If the heroes were all in one place this would probably be an easy win for them, but naturally the demons won’t let that be an option. Even as this trade ends there are already a lot of plotlines set up for the next arc.

I think one of the best aspects of this saga is the subtle craziness of the situation. In the background you’ll see the animated objects making a lot of jokes at the humans as they crush them. For example one mail box reminds one guy that he should have used a stamp before eating him. There are a lot of fatalities here as by the time the heroes arrive the humans are long gone or no longer human. The villainous appliances all have a pretty good sense of humor though. It’s definitely pretty grim humor, but it works well.

As for the characters, this is definitely gonna be a rough showing for Havok fans. Regardless of all his justifications, he seems to be going for the Goblin Queen to one up Cyclops. He had no problem with cheating with her even while she was with Cyclops so you doubt his motivations from the start. I usually like Havok, but definitely not in this comic.

Another character who looks really bad here is Rachel Summers. Keep in mind that during this saga she is a host of the Phoenix Force and yet she can’t win a single fight here. There’s gotta be some reason why her Phoenix Form was so weak, but I definitely would have liked that to have been elaborated here. She gets mind controlled and one shotted early on and as such has nothing to do for the whole volume. I couldn’t believe it when she was taken out so easy.

Cyclops naturally gets a big role here as well. It’s not his best appearance, but he is doing his best to handle the situation. It’s just gotten past the point of merely being “personal” since his kid is being hostage and his ex-wife is trying to murder everyone. Cyclops did have a pretty fishy set of decisions that led to this moment like ditching his wife and getting back with Jean, but that’s all events that happened before this volume. In this one he is trying to pick up the pieces, but it’s been awfully difficult. So I wouldn’t say that he looked bad per say, but I’ll be glad for him to have this drama past the bend.

Ice Man and Psylocke don’t do a whole lot in comparison to the other characters, but they are around for the full saga. They look really good as they focus on an objective and support the team the whole time. Ice Man’s powers are definitely at the point in the series where they are steadily becoming a top tier threat. Psylocke still seems to be quite a bit weaker than the other main telepaths, but at the same time she does contribute. I don’t think she’ll ever be seen as one of the strongest telepaths, but as long as she is strong enough to help out that’s good enough.

The Goblin Queen naturally gets a really big role here as well. Her emotions are all over the place as she constantly switches between acting as the victim and embracing her role as the evil empress. I can’t really say that she’s my kind of villain, but her motivations for revenge are definitely pretty reasonable considering what a bad hand she’s been dealt. She has to live with the fact that everyone considers her to be a fake and she’s being manipulated by quite a few parties. At times it can be a bit iffy to see her being led around so much though. She’s a villain who was thrown into the role and as such isn’t prepared for it. You kind of want her to have a happy ending even though from the start you don’t really think this will be possible. She simply went too far down the rabbit hole into darkness.

We get cameos from some characters like Magneto, but sadly he doesn’t get to do much. It was nice to see him, but there was almost no point to be honest. I’m sure his scene probably continued in a spinoff though. The Power Pack’s plot is probably the most annoying in some ways as the parents just do a terrible job of handling the situation. The plot was going for realism, but I dare say that their reactions were so poor that it wasn’t realistic at that point. They basically fell into depression instantly which was a bit iffy. Surely they could find some silver lining to the kids being superheroes right?

As for the X-Men basically turning into demons, it was unfortunate that their will power was not all that good. Most of them fell into the evil instincts very quickly and so the X-Factor definitely ended up doing a much better job. One thing the X-Men comics like doing a lot that I could definitely do without is all the “Surprise!” kisses that occur. The villains seem to love doing that to the heroes which is definitely a dicey power move. There are way better ways to make the villains a threat than by doing that. There aren’t any quality romances to be found here, that’s for sure. Throw in the Cyclops drama and you’ve got a real complicated situation for the heroes.

I would have liked to have seen more of Magik’s plot since hers was probably the most interesting. Limbo seems to have quite a lot of power struggles over there and with her abilities continuing to grow it would be interesting to see how she fares against the bigger X-Men villains. I’m thinking that’s why they always keep her out of Earth. Even the Sinister threat probably would have been a whole lot smaller if she was around since one or two hits would probably take him down for the count.

The art is definitely real solid. It’s pretty consistent across the various titles. The character designs are definitely on point although of course a lot of them look pretty evil most of the time since they slowly start to lose their sanity. The battle scenes are definitely really good and it’s definitely an easy page turner. The pages are never too busy where you have to slow down. This trade also brings a lot of issues so it’s definitely a comic where you get your money’s worth.

Overall, There’s a lot happening in Inferno. It’s definitely very dramatic and the characters get a lot of development here. It’s not quite my favorite X-Men arc, but on the whole it was definitely pretty solid. I could definitely roll with seeing the town go crazy a little longer. I do think the epilogue parts are a bit hard to swallow though as there were too many witnesses for this to be swept under the rug. I mean, the humans in these comics usually aren’t too smart, but I dare say that this is almost pushing it a bit. It’s easy to see why Earth would crumble without the superheroes in these things. If you haven’t read Inferno volume 1 yet then you’ll probably want to do that before jumping into volume 2. It’ll definitely flow a lot better for you that way.

Overall 7/10

Inhumans vs X-Men Review

Posted on January 27, 2018 by dreager1

It feels like such a long time since I’ve reviewed a Marvel or DC comic right? Well, what better way to get back into it than by reviewing a big Hero vs Hero event? This time the Inhumans and X-Men are going at it. With both sides having morally dubious leaders at the helm you really have to decide which team to root for. The battle will decide the fate of the mutants as well as the Inhumans. As a result, the Avengers and Fantastic Four don’t really care either way so they have decided to stay out of the fray. I’ve always been a big fan of the X-Men and never cared much for the Inhumans so you can imagine which team I am on in this comic.

A lot happened prior to this volume, but the recap on the front page does its best to bring you up to speed. There are 2 big Terrigen Clouds that have come to Earth. These clouds are turning a large part of the human population into Inhumans. The good news is that this cloud doesn’t destroy the humans who aren’t Inhuman deep down unlike the Agents of SHIELD show. The bad news is that it is murdering every mutant who comes into contact with it. Cyclops led a team to destroy the first cloud, but then Black Bolt murdered him. There is now one more cloud left and Beast was tasked with finding a way to save the mutants without destroying the cloud. He was unsuccessful and now they have 2 weeks before total anhiilation. Storm, Emma Frost, and Magneto have to come up with a plan as the 3 main leaders of the X-Men factions. Ultimately, they decide that they have to destroy the Cloud and to do that they will have to temporarily incapacitate the Inhumans. Will their plan be successful or are the Inhumans prepared for this?

Right away you may wonder why the X-Men don’t just negotiate. Honestly, I’m fine with them just attacking. The Inhumans never negotiate and with how ~~evil~~ stubborn and arrogant they are, they’d never agree to remove the cloud. They want all of the extra Inhumans they can get because it’ll give them more fighting power in the future. Maybe they could have given it an attempt, but then it may just tip their hand. Furthermore, the Inhumans already know (or should know) about the cloud’s affects for the Mutants. They act a little shocked towards the end when they learn how close the deadline is, but that’s just the book trying to make them look at least a little redeemable. It’s a last second character switch to try and not make them look like the villains, but it certainly didn’t work on me. Attacking is the best option.

Now, which team should win such a fight? Well, I’d definitely side with the X-Men yet again. They just have too many powerful fighters to lose. Magik, X-23, Emma Frost, Magneto, Old Man Logan, etc. The Inhumans have some strong fighters like Black Bolt and Karnak, but that’s really about it. The others would lose to the more middle of the pack X fighters like classic Cyclops. Then we’ve also got the lesser known X members like Psylocke waiting in the back. This should be a complete blowout and even more so since the X-Men have the element of surprise on their side. The first 2-3 issues are basically them putting the Inhumans on the defensive and kidnapping all of their critical members. Unfortunately since the 1st cloud did a lot of damage, there are a ton of new Inhumans who start to turn the tides. Mostly it’s only because the X-Men are nerfed just in time. Old Man Logan looks particularly bad as one of the new recruits takes him down rather quickly. The excuse is really that he let his guard down and you could argue that even though this version of Wolverine is particularly brutal, he still didn’t really want to hurt a kid too badly. X-23 has no such qualms, but she also doesn’t do very well in the fight.

Don’t even get me started on Psylocke vs Medusa. She should destroy the Inhuman in a snap. Honestly, I feel like most of the comic authors don’t give her the credit she deserves. Psylocke is a very talented ninja who knows how to fight at close range and doesn’t need to rely on her psychic abilities. Yet, she seems rather helpless in many of the battles I see her in. She’s not a 1 trick pony and I’m still waiting for a big Marvel comic to realize that. So, I’ve explained why the X-Men should absolutely dominate and I’m happy to say that they did effectively win. They accomplished their task of destroying the cloud and now no more Inhumans will be born while the mutants are safe.

Granted, they certainly had help. A few Inhumans decided to destroy the cloud as well once they found out that it was destroying the mutants. The X-Men were also in prime position to finish off the Inhumans as well, but naturally that wasn’t their plan. It was Emma’s and she did attempt to finish them off, but one person against 2 armies? That wasn’t going to end well no matter how powerful she is. She did escape and will stick around as a villain though so the Inhumans should definitely be worried. She made for a great character here though and I dare say that it’s easily her best portrayal. She’s on a mission for revenge and even though she ends up tricking basically everyone, you can never truly trust a telepath.

One more reason to root for the X-Men is how uneven the stakes are. If the X-Men lost then all mutants would die. If the Inhumans lost…then they simply couldn’t get anymore new recruits for a while, but those humans that have the potential to turn into Inhumans may still make the change once someone finds more Terrigen. Plus, this way they get a choice on if they want to transform or not. Medusa gets over the whole thing within a single page at the end of the volume so you can tell that the Inhumans were never too invested in this. Yet another reason why I never like these guys.

As always, I didn’t like the Inhumans here. Medusa appears to be two timing Black Bolt with Human Torch and I’m not sure if he ever even notices. She then ditches the Torch to go with Black Bolt again in the end as she explains that she’s happy about not being a queen anymore. Definitely a weird plot if you ask me. Black Bolt seemed like the same stuck up king that he always was and he’s basically in rage mode for the whole arc but doesn’t actually do anything. From the original members, Karnak and Medusa definitely do the most. It was also interesting to see Human Torch as an Inhuman supporter and not neutral. he was definitely useful for their cause as well. On the X-Men side, Beast was more of a traitor who wanted to help the Inhumans so luckily the X-Men locked him up. Beast has always been a really annoying character and this volume definitely did not help his case in that regard. He really can never see the bigger picture and does his best to cement himself as a character you simply cannot count on in any situation.

The art was really good although I’d expect nothing less. It’s not quite as smooth as some of the last events like AVX, but it’s still the high quality that Marvel has been consistent with. The fight scenes really look good and every page is busy with a lot of action without being cluttered. The artwork has a mild grainy element to it that doesn’t take much away from the colors. Good artwork certainly helps to push a comic into the next level. While many are tired of the Hero vs Hero action, I’m always up for it. As long as the fights aren’t cop outs or off screen, it at least helps to finally decide which characters are actually the strongest.

Overall, This was a fun comic. There were a lot of battles and since the X-Men and Inhumans have been rivals for such a long time it makes sense that they would go at it. The comic also got the victor right. While there definitely was quite a bit of plot hax to try and keep the Inhumans in the ring, I suppose the writers felt that a full blowout wouldn’t have been as interesting. They have a point there to be sure although I really wouldn’t have minded all that much. I’d definitely recommend reading this graphic novel. It really takes advantage of all the friends and enemies that each team has made and it helps both sides grab a lot of members. Both sides never appear reasonable since they are spearheaded by the most evil member in the team, but that makes the fight more believable as well. This was never going to end peacefully.

Overall 8/10

Captain America and the Falcon Secret Empire Review

Posted on August 24, 2017 by dreager1

It’s time to take a look at the Secret Empire. Recently Marvel has had fun bringing back old events. We got a new Civil War, Infinity Gauntlet, and even the Secret Empire. Many don’t know this but there was an original Secret Empire event which the new one is lightly based off of. Honestly, it’s very light so the plots are quite different, but it goes to show that Marvel has been doing their research. This isn’t a very good event, but it’s decent enough. The writing just hasn’t aged well in some respects.

The collection starts off with Falcon being jumped by a bunch of hooligans. Captain America saves him, but Falcon isn’t happy since he’s tired of being in Cap’s shadow. Cap offers to help him get a power up through Iron-Man or Hank Pym, but Falcon wants it to be someone more relatable so he goes to Black Panther. This is only the start of where Falcon starts to act petty. He brings his girlfriend along for the ride basically just to show off and she gets competitive with the others very quickly. She picks fights with almost literally everyone she comes across and even throws a spear at Black Panther just to get his attention. Thanks to her, two of Black Panther’s guards are murdered and Falcon doesn’t seem to care as he keeps bragging about his upgrades. He runs back to show them off to Cap and is quite eager to take on the Avenger in a fight.

While Falcon was gone, a smear campaign was run against Captain America on TV and it was quite successful. So successful in fact that within days the whole country was agiainst the hero, even the Avengers. It’s almost laughable how quickly Iron-Man shows up with his threats and Falcon starts to have doubts as well. Even Nick Fury quickly jumps on the bandwagon. Captain America begins to lose faith in America which is understandable but before he call it quits, it’s time to take down the Secret Empire. It turns out that they have also kidnapped most of the X-Men so Professor Xavier, Jean Grey, and Cyclops arrive as backup. Together, the heroes stand a fighting chance, but Cap may have to cross some lines in order to clear his name.

The Evil Cap part is what the new Secret Empire is really going for while here it was all just bad media coverage. I think a big problem with the arc is that it all hinges on Marvel’s America being as gullible as possible. Did everyone really believe these media interviews so completely? What happened to the Daily Bugle and their reporting skills? Why didn’t the Avengers launch a campaign of their own? Why would everyone accept a new Moon hero coming out of nowhere as Captain America’s replacement? I felt like this comic took a lot of beats from the Thunderbolts but in a far more rushed and less believable scenario. I don’t know, the whole thing was rather fishy the whole time.

Captain America also wasn’t at his most likable in this comic either. He basically said that he wouldn’t help the X-Men until they pointed out that it was the same villain behind both schemes. He falls for every trap that the enemies laid out because his emotions cloud his judgment the whole time. It’s easy to forget that he is supposed to be a seasoned veteran here because he rarely acts like it. He also makes the wrong decision to end the comic and this has got to be the 4th or 5th time he’s done this. I didn’t realize that he was lacking in confidence so often. He’s still an entertaining enough character to watch, but he can be annoying.

Falcon is unfortunately even worse. He spends the early issues being jealous of Cap and then he rushes into battle without actually remembering how to fight. In a critical moment he ends up knocking out Black Panther and himself by mistake and tends to lose in all of his fights. Even in his big return fight where he teamed up with Cap, he lost in under 5 seconds. Naturally he started throwing petty insults at Cap after that. Falcon has just got to be the most petty superhero of all time and I’d consider him to be more whiny than Alpha from the recent Spider-Man comics. I’m glad that the Falcon has improved over the years because otherwise I can’t see why he’d stay on as a main character.

Black Panther looked good here. Despite everyone rushing him and murdering his men, he stayed calm throughout and always had a plan. He was definitely useful here. Thor and Iron-Man had decent motivational speeches, but didn’t do much in the story beyond that. There is a subplot where Peggy thinks Cap still likes her while he actually likes someone else. This drama plot definitely feels like it’s out of left field. It could be resolved rather quickly but Cap is too nervous to say anything. I’m not too surprised. It’s not an easy decision of course, but he still needs to make the hero call here.

As for the villains, we mainly focus on the Tumbler. He’s not half bad although you can’t help but feel like he is just Batroc by another name. His agility lets him take on guys like Captain America, but I can’t see him lasting too long otherwise. The Moon villain was more of a threat and he was someone that I could take a lot more seriously. He had super strength, speed, and intangibility. I think he could also teleport. Captain America and the others really couldn’t beat him during the issues so his fans must be thrilled. He gave the issues some more stakes as this was a villain that they couldn’t beat with brute force alone. I also liked the design.

We also have the corrupt politician. He wasn’t quite as fun as Godfrey, but I liked him all the same. He did a good job of stringing everyone along in his plot. The Secret Empire members also weren’t bad although most of them weren’t actual characters. It is interesting how Hydra created so many splinter groups. It really is a dangerous organization in that sense since every major villain group seems to be connected to them in some way or other. I’m trying to figure out who the politician who destroyed himself was since it obviously rattled Cap. On one hand, I want to say that it was the President, but I suppose that would be a little too bold. Whoever it was, I still wonder why it would break Cap. Maybe they’ll say it in a future comic or maybe they won’t.

The art was certainly on point. Everyone was in their ironic costumes and it was easy to go from page to page. Everything was sharp and this comic has aged incredibly well in that respect. I breezed through the issues as a result. Good art can certainly make a difference in a comic. Now, this review may have been on the negative side as I just had a lot of logic issues with the whole thing, but it was a fun comic. If anything, it just reinforces to me that the Marvel characters are still a lot meaner than the DC ones. They doubt each other and change sides at the flip of a hat. That hasn’t really changed much over the years.

That said, the adventures were still fun to follow. Seeing Cap have to break out of jail and steal stuff was pretty interesting. The team up with the X-Men was a lot of fun as well and I hadn’t been expecting that. It was also interesting to see the X-Men in their extremely old costumes while everyone else looked quite a bit more modern. I believe their was a plot reason for that, but it was a fun contrast. I would have liked to have seen Cyclops do a little better in the fights, but this wasn’t exactly his rodeo.

Overall, It’s been a while since I read a Captain America comic. In many respects he was portrayed well as he takes command of the situation and always walks around with a strut. That being said, his self doubts and general disregard for everyone else could be a little extreme. The Falcon was certainly extreme and maybe it was just the writer who didn’t really understand the characters. It can make the issues funny in an ironic way as you wonder why everyone is acting this way, but it is certainly entertaining through and through. There are no objectionable scenes in the comic and it never drops a random animal scene or anything else to worry about. It’s just a fun action adventure and you can’t ask for much more than that. I’d recommend checking out this comic and you may look at Captain America in a whole different way.

Overall 7/10

X-Men Inferno Volume 1 Review

Posted on November 3, 2016 by dreager1

Time for a fairly large comic collection. This bundle brings together a lot of the Inferno arc related comics, but ultimately ends up being more of a prelude than anything else. Most of the X-Men don’t even appear for very long or get any real fights. This one focuses on the New Mutants and the Power Pack. Unfortunately they cannot hold their own this time which makes for a rather lackluster collection. It has its good moments, but ultimately never gets all that exciting.

Where to even start with this plot. It’s a huge collection so a lot happens…and yet there aren’t a lot of stories. It’s all fairly connected in one way or another. The basic premise is that a demonic invasion is approaching. The demons from Limbo want to take over Earth once and for all. Fear feeds them and with all of the fearful humans running around, it makes the army very potent. To ensure that the invasion goes well, they also lure Magik and her New Warriors back to Limbo. We can call this Plot A. In Plot B, the Power Pack are dealing with the effects of the Demons in the human world. It’s tough because they also have to evade Nanny, a robot who kidnaps kids. The villain actually comes in handy and saved some of the kids at one point, but it’s only a temporary reprieve. The X-Men get in on the investigation, but then they get distracted by the Morlock troubles and a bunch of other random circumstances. In Plot C, Sinister is making a move and things are all seemingly going according to plan for him. His Jean Grey clone is starting to head to the dark side and it is revealed in a plot twist that she is actually commanding all of the Demons. It’s all been a part of her plan from the start to get revenge on Cyclops for ditching her. (A truly out of character moment that still boggles my mind)

There are a lot of other things happening in the meantime, like the government being shady again, but you get the gist of it. Most of the horror moments are in the human world, but you can probably imagine that Magik’s plot deals with this as well. It was interesting to see a continuation of her story because it wasn’t all that long ago that I read her original saga. It was very dark, but also interesting. As a small child, she fell into Limbo and so the X-Men attempted a rescue mission. It didn’t go well and they all died. Magik was forced to learn Dark Magic and then she escaped to a parallel universe where the X-Men once again tried to save her. They succeeded…except that she fell back in. At least Magik became Queen and joined up with the X-Men again, but she left Limbo in a state of chaos with her old enemy S’ym in charge. Well, this comic shows how he’s controlled the place with an iron grip and has turned the tables on Magik. She is no longer strong enough to beat him and if the X-Men were powerless last time, you can imagine how outclassed the New Mutants are. They are completely out of their depth here. It’s definitely the most interesting part of the comic.

Lets launch right into why this comic was not a success. The big problem here is that the actual X-Men don’t get to appear almost at all. They show up very briefly to help the Morlocks face off against the Mutant Killers and manage to send the group packing, but then they vanish again. Inferno is one of those large graphic novels that manages to collect all of the tie-ins. Usually this is a good thing, but I believe it is ultimately what weakened it this time around. There were so many tie ins with the Power Pack that they took priority. I’m assuming that volume 2 would probably feature the X-Men more, but it’s hard to say for sure. They can’t appear any less I suppose. Now, that wouldn’t be a problem if the Power Pack and the New Mutants were interesting…but they usually weren’t. It took quite a few issues to get to one that would be fun.

Also, a “fun” comic was hard to find since most of the issues were just very dark. It was going for a Poltergeist kind of feel as there is a sinister chill in the air the whole time and the villains can be behind any nook and cranny. The humans could see the demons sometimes and sometimes they couldn’t. It was just like a horror film and I’ll give the comic some credit for actually creating that atmosphere. In a world of superheroes, it can be very hard to create a menacing horror backdrop since a hero can just show up and save the day at any time. It works though because they are all busy dealing with the main alien threat. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Defenders (If they’re around) and all of the loners won’t be coming to help. This means that the ordinary humans are left to fend for themselves. This comic probably has more horror undertones than any other comic that I’ve read with the possible exception of some Swamp Thing comics. Those put up a pretty good fight.

However, it’s also a bad thing as the humans have no shot. We have many issues where the demons just show up and start ripping the humans to shreds. It’s never all that violent although some people are literally crushed, but it’s just all so hopeless and sad. There’s no way that the humans can even land any damage on these creatures and for every death that you actually see, there are dozens of others off screen. Most of them go in rather grim circumstances. The whole thing was just so dark and gritty and it went on for far too long if you ask me. We even had some cheating going on as Angel decided to go for a quick one night fling with someone who was technically still married and then decides to continue with this. I never cared all that much for Angel, but this certainly won’t be doing him any favors. In the end, it just didn’t feel like an X-Men comic at all and that was a problem.

One subplot that was handled well was when the Power Pack was finally forced to reveal their true identities to their parents. The parents didn’t overreact, run away, yell, or panic. They took it in stride and said that they wanted to talk about it, but weren’t upset or anything like that. They realized that a demon was still around and that they should finish the fight instead of bickering. Even after that, the parents were okay with the whole thing. This is really how this kind of plot should always play out. Having powers shouldn’t suddenly make the parents back out of a bond that they’ve shared with their kids their whole lives. This also means that the villains can’t blackmail the Power Pack anymore, which is certainly a good thing. The parents even did a good job of dealing with their haunted house.

Yes, there was a haunted house here to further the notion that this was a horror comic in disguise. The demons would take control of all the equipment. They took over the water supply and would make inanimate objects turn to life. Considering that they had no actual hero experience, the parents did all right. They smashed up most of the evil objects and kept on fighting back. They also did their best to protect the kids when they didn’t know about their secret powers. More horror protagonists should be proactive like this. The parents decided to get out ASAP.

As for the rest of the characters, I’m still not much of a fan of the Power Pack or the New Mutants. I like Magik a lot and she’s definitely earned her way into the main X-Men team. Everyone else? I don’t think they’ll be getting past the B ranks anytime soon. They can’t really hold their own issues, at least not in this context. The Power Pack are good for their fun little adventures, but they feel out of place in issues where the whole planet is at stake. The villains aren’t all that interesting either although I’ve always thought S’ym makes for a very intense villain. His super strength and durability are pretty unbelievable. Dark Beast shows up as well, but he’s just annoying and certainly not cool.

Also, the art was solid as expected. The style makes it look a lot older than it actually is, but helps to add that retro effect. Everything is very clear to read and understand. All of the character designs are on point although they aren’t as colorful as the 90’s. I wouldn’t say that the writing is bad either. It works well enough for what the comic is going for. It just should have taken another direction. The comic isn’t quite as engaging as most though. You won’t be on the edge of your seat here and some of the comics actually do drag on quite a bit.

I do think that the next volume will probably be an improvement though. This whole saga was basically the prelude as the fake Jean Grey essentially announces that the Inferno is coming. The X-Men aren’t even at the scene yet. I guess they’ll end up missing most of the demon invasion although I hope it is at least referenced. It was a rather huge deal so the big heroes should still be aware of what happened. While this comic may not have been my favorite, it did do a great job of adding a lot of context to what’s happening. Reading it weekly, I probably would have been more upset about the slow pace, but it does make this saga feel more like an event. Some of the modern day events feel a lot shorter because they’re over so quickly. That’s definitely not an issue that this event will have…for better or worse.

Overall, This is probably the strangest X-Men comic that I’ve ever read. The concept of a demon invasion is definitely interesting and these guys are more menacing than aliens. Demons almost feel a little out of place in Marvel, especially such realistic ones, but they have technically always been around. It just so happens that it’s in an X-Men comic instead of Ghost Rider. Honestly, the comic just needed more action and some bigger heroes to help things out. That would have done wonders since they could have actually saved some of the humans instead of just watching them all die. If not, they could have gone for a total horror angle although that may have been even more risky. If the idea of a horror/action comic sounds good to you than this could be up your alley. It’s probably the closest merge of the two genres that I’ve seen so far. If not, then you should check out the other X-Men comic that I just reviewed. This isn’t a bad comic, it’s just different. You’ll just have to check out for yourself whether it’s different in a good or bad way.

Overall 5/10

X-Men Mutant Genesis 2.0 Review

Posted on November 3, 2016 by dreager1

This X-Men review may have come out before a certain other one that I am reviewing soon, but I read it afterwards. I only mention this because I was really impressed with this comic for feeling like an X-Men title while the other did not. You’ll see that review soon, but this is exactly how I’d picture an X-Men comic to be. It definitely has a very 90’s feel to it and all of the characters are in their iconic designs. It’s the perfect jumping on point for new readers and it is also a very fun comic for experienced fans. It’s the beginning of a new chapter for the X-Men, but filled with a lot of familiar faces and action scenes.

The first arc deals with the return of Magneto. He had tried to retire from being a participant between mutants and humans, but trouble never seems to leave him alone. A group of mutants ask him for sanctuary and then they also want him to protect other mutants. Magneto decides to build an asteroid where mutants can live in peace. The rebels continue to cause mischief on the Earth and even though Magneto stops them, it puts him in a bad position. He’s seen as harboring criminals now and Magneto also has a nuclear deterrent, which worries people. The X-Men are sent in to put a stop to this before the government is forced to play their hand. Cyclops and Wolverine are among the members who are thrilled to take Magneto down. While Magneto had previously been a part of their team, you can tell that things had always been strained between them. Meanwhile, Rogue believes that there’s still a chance for Magneto to be a good guy.

It’s a fun story and I definitely remember Asteroid M quite well after watching the animated episode so many times. You do feel bad for Magneto to an extent as he is right that Wolverine went for the kill shot right away. You’d think that being comrades would mean something to him, but Wolverine was clearly quick to put Magneto on the side of evil once again. He does have to be stopped and the X-Men are in the right here, but they certainly weren’t very negotiable. Magneto being used by the people he was supposed to be protecting certainly did not help either. He was a little gullible here, but I’m sure that this will help him be more distant in the future.

Another issue is that Moira decided to mess around with Magneto’s DNA while he was a baby. It was an unfortunate move that also got the X-Men into even more trouble as it made Magneto very upset. He did trust the heroes as he was defenseless and had no choice. It was quite the betrayal and this plot will likely continue on in the future. It was a very long and tough week for Magneto so he wasn’t completely in his right mind by the end.

The other arc deals with Omega Red. He has been sent to eliminate Wolverine because Weapon X is never done with the poor guy. It’s personal for Wolverine so he wants to deal with this on his own, but the X-Men never back away from helping out a friend. The problem is that Omega Red is incredibly powerful and the only members who can really hurt him are typically taken down before they can do anything. This is going to require a team effort. There’s also a flashback which unfolds during the issue where we see Wolverine from back in his Weapon X days alongside Sabretooth and Maverick. It shows that Sabretooth is as corrupt as ever as he destroys the hostage to save himself. The whole mission was to save her, but Sabretooth blew it in an instant. Wolverine always wanted revenge for that, but he never got the chance. Well, Sabretooth’s here now so we’ll see if Wolverine does better in the rematch.

It’s a fun adventure and Wolverine has always been able to hold his own issue pretty well. He definitely spent most of the saga getting beaten up left and right though. He could probably beat Sabretooth in a one on one fight, but he was in a weakened state for most of it and Omega Red’s energy drain would cancel out the healing factor. If the full X-Men team hadn’t come along, it definitely would have been curtains for him. Still, I can see why the older members would be skeptical about Jubilee coming along. She nearly died quite a few times and I don’t thinks he’s quite ready for missions like this. Of course, having Psylocke as her guardian helps quite a bit with that since there are few warriors who are as skilled as she is.

Maverick was actually a highlight of this story and I liked him a lot more than I had expected. He was full of confidence and bravado the whole time. Even right before he is knocked out, Maverick has cool one liners like “Fine, this ought to take all of 2 seconds.” when asked to help out against Omega Red. The fight was over that quickly, but it was because he lost the fight. You have to admire the confidence though, not many “heroes” could pull that off convincingly. He’s no hero though as he is basically the Punisher and murders a bunch of people, but he’s a useful ally to have around.

Omega Red was a solid villain and he certainly was portrayed as a powerful opponent here. The Wolverine anime made him crazy strong while this one feels a little more accurate. He’s a deadly hunter who has been amped up with a lot of tech and energy draining equipment. It makes sense that he could give the whole team a run for their money. He’s an X-Men villain who is under explored and I’d like to see him appear more and get some more fights. He’s got a cool design and a nice power set to boot.

Sabretooth makes for a good opponent, but he’s not really my kind of villain. He is written better here than in a lot of his other appearances though, but it also reminds you why nobody should take him seriously when he tries to be a hero. Seriously, he’s way too far gone. As for the heroes, Jubilee and Storm are all right. They don’t get much of a role, but they are around the whole time. For most of the graphic novel, the X-Men team is split up into 3 mini groups. It just so happens that Storm’s gets a rather small role.

Cyclops is the solid leader that you would expect. He’s enthusiastic and a solid commander. I remember these days, when he was treated like Captain America. Now, he’s always either evil or extreme. I do like the modern take on the character, but I can also see why some people root for the reboots. It feels like we’ll never get back to these classic depictions otherwise. Wolverine is also great as always. He’s still my 2nd favorite X-Men member behind Cyclops. His eagerness to fight and solid overall skills make him a great fighter.

Gambit gets a lot of hype, but is still a very annoying character. His flirting will grate on you after a while and I feel like his hype never actually goes anywhere. Sure, he can beat the grunts, but he’s a little full of himself considering that he doesn’t do nearly as well against the big shots. You can tell that the writer does like him though as it is always hinted that Gambit has a shot. Psylocke is a cool member to have on the team and she’s always been like Elektra, but cooler. Her psychic abilities mixed in with her hand to hand mastery makes Psylocke a doubly threatening individual. Her illusions come in handy quite a few times.

If there’s any negative that I have with the comic, it’s the fact that the villains always go for the surprise kiss. It’s a rather annoying trope that luckily died out back in the day, but this comic was old enough to still have it. It’s when a villain shows up by kissing one of the heroines and then attacking. It happens twice here and was enough for me to dock a star off the score. Let’s face it, it’s a little annoying for fans of Jean Grey and Psylocke as they don’t even get to lose in a dignified way as a result. Psylocke gets her revenge, but it’s still a rather wince worthy moment.

Back to the positives. The art is very good and it makes for some crisp fight scenes. Even the generic ninjas look cool this time around. You’re not liable to forget much of the comic after reading because of how nice it looks visually and you can tell that a lot of effort went into this. I have to say that it looks far superior to any of the Marvel comics going on right now. It’s sad how art has dipped for the most part over there although there still are some nice looking comics. They just aren’t as widespread as they were in the 90’s.

Overall, This was a fun comic. Both of the sagas were good although the second one definitely wins. It was just more exciting and kept you at the edge of your seat. I speak comparatively though as both were quite engaging. This is a really fun start to the X-Men run and I can see why it is held with such acclaim. It just needs to watch the shock kisses and should also consider giving Gambit a smaller role. If it can do that, then I can only see this comic going up from here. I definitely recommend checking this out if you’re an X-Men fan and have not yet. If you simply like action comics, then this will certainly work for you as well.

Overall 7/10

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