Review: X-Men '97 #1

Finally I got to reading Marvel’s X-Men ‘97 comic run. Currently there are 3 issues out with the 4th issue releasing on June 26th. Since the animated show having ended, I’ve been putting off reading these issues as a way to expand the relevancy of X-Men ‘97. The first season was so good I didn’t want it to end. The comic certainly isn’t a 1:1 exact match to the show but it does share some similarities. 

Now initially I was unable to get issue 1 when it first came out and was pretty bummed. Instead I opted to just get issue 2 with hopes of finding the first issue somewhere else. A week or so passed and I decided I wanted to get another copy of issue 2. I went back to the shop and they had the reprints of the first issue available! I was stoked, picked it up along with the extra copy that I’m going to use to create some custom bookmarks.

Reminder of how these blog posts go:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover

Unfortunately as I mentioned previously, I was unable to get the first issue, but I did manage the second printing of it. Overall I like the cover, the colors, the sunset mood, it’s all great. The only thing that makes it seem a little out of place is Jubilee drinking a beverage and eating popcorn. Had the setting been within the mansion, then I think that would make a lot more sense. But it just makes her seem a bit out of place cause the rest of the X-Men are all striking a pose. The little bits of detail like Gambit’s card aura and Bishop’s purple veins were sweet little additions.

Pretty fun action packed intro that made me question if this was actually going on…

Story

So the main question that a lot of people had with this is does the animated show have any tie in with the comic run? As of right now, I can’t really tell. From what I’ve seen on social media is that this is all leading up to where the show starts. So it kind of makes sense, since the little overview message at the beginning states that we know Henry Peter Gyrich has attacked Professor X. 

Then we jump right into it. I was really surprised because I thought the comic was going to be like a retelling of the animated show. But not quite. There is some good action that starts off with Wolverine breaking formation and trying to take on Magneto by himself. He is tossed aside like a ragdoll. The entire mission is a failure as Cyclops also struggles to keep control of his team and take down Magneto. Jean ends the Danger Room session because she is worried someone will get hurt. 

Right away we get an understanding that the X-Men are having a tough time trying to keep it together and clearly lack the leadership of Professor X. Cyclops and Wolverine are fighting, while everyone else doesn’t know who to follow. At this point the main plot of the story takes place, Dazzler has been kidnapped and it was caught live on TV. The X-Men meet up with Rogue and Gambit to take on a terrorist group of Friends of Humanity. They end up rescuing Dazzler just in time for her to perform the memorial concert for Professor X. We get our first introduction of Valerie Cooper as she shows up to arrest the Friends of Humanity punks. Wolverine though is suspicious about an agent named Denti, I wonder what that’s all about. 

Wish we got more of Wolverine and Cyclops fighting…

The rest of the issue pertains to more struggles of leadership as well as Jean unable to get some time alone with Cyclops to let him know she’s pregnant. Storm can obviously sense there is something wrong with Jean and opts to stay behind instead of going to see Dazzler perform. Jubilee ends up taking Bishop while Storm goes to comfort Jean. 

Absolutely loved the fact that Wolverine and Cyclops go head to head and fight. They clearly have a bone to pick with each other, I just wish we got to see more of it. Cut to the performance of Dazzler and we encounter another group trying to take her down or kidnap her. Luckily the X-Men are there, Bishop, Jubilee, Rogue and Gambit all spring into action to help out Dazzler. They end up getting away and we find out they were working for Mister Sinister. Who then punishes them for trying to apprehend Dazzler in such a public space. 

Mister Sinister ends with saying he needs to enlist some new help. Who will it be?...

Overall 4 / 5

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Review: Blood Hunt Issue 2

Ok I know I said I was only going to collect Deadpool and Wolverine WWIII and also the Poison Ivy run that started last year. However, this new Blood Hunt run is only 5 issues (if you don’t include the separate titles) and since I got started with the Free Comic Book Day version it was a no brainer. I’m not sure what it is with vampires but I love them! It might be growing up watching Blade 1-3, Underworld, Twilight, Van Helsing and more.

I stopped at my local comic book shop on Thursday intending to pick up issue 3 of X-Men ‘97 but I saw Blood Hunt issue 2 sitting right next to it. I think what has been drawing me to it besides the story is the art. The covers featuring Avengers and other superheroes slicing up Vampires is fucking dope. I do wish though that I got a wrap-around cover again like the first issue I picked up. It’s a shame we don’t get wrap-arounds as much anymore but I totally understand the need to market the next books and such. Reminder of how these blog posts go:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover

Once again, another cool cover featuring our superheroes going toe-to-toe against some vicious looking vampires. The background looks to be set in the city with our heroes at the top of a building with vampires climbing up the walls. Captain America, Captain Marvel, Vision and Iron Man are all fighting vampires off and it looks super awesome. My favorite part of the cover is Captain Marvel because it looks like she punched the living shit out of a vampire!

Brielle, daughter of Blade, decapitating suckers

Story

So we left off on the last issue (SPOILER WARNING) if you haven’t read the first issue of Blood Hunt, save this blog post and come back after reading. But at the very end of issue 1, we discover Blade being the mastermind behind the vampire invasion and he stabs Dr. Strange right through the chest. It was absolutely EPIC. 

We get quick looks at Thor being strung up by chains and the stake still through his head(another epic illustration). Scarlet Witch seems to be incapacitated and T’Challa has been converted into a vampire! Blade, having control over his vampire minions, orders Black Panther to fetch his prize, as well as sends his bloodcoven to find the girl; both of these we don’t know what they are, yet I think.

Now I have no prior knowledge of Blade comics or lore, but he has a daughter(Brielle) according to the first issue. This time she has linked up with Dracula in New York City, and he is talking down to her for risking her life to fight off vampires for humans. There is a sweet action shot of Brielle slicing a vampire’s head off.

We now encounter some heroes who are trying to link up in Uptown. Tigra and Hunter’s Moon, two heroes I’m unfamiliar with, are looking for Dr. Strange when they happen upon Spider-Man, though he says he’s the other Spider-Man. Not sure what that means. 

They discover Clea and a vampire Dr. Strange after being led by Dr. Strange’s astral self. 

The issue finishes off with some dope fighting scenes and the Avengers coming thru and whooping butt. Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man and Vision all show up to help Dracula against Blade’s bloodcoven. Megrim is taken down by Vision, Captain Marvel smashes the shit out of Bloodstorm 1 with a flying punch. The fight continues with the Avengers overtaking them to the point that the bloodcoven teleports to escape.

Our heroes are able to take a breather, but right as they let down their guard, one of them turns…! We’ll talk about this reveal in the next post. Can’t wait for the next issue!

Oh no! Who is turning into vampire??!

Overall 4 / 5

Artwork was dope, so that’s good to know the quality didn’t dip after the first issue. I will say though the story kind of felt a little empty in a way. It was a bit of a different take on the first issue in which we get a grouping of a heroes against vampires but we didn’t really find out anything important to the story. We’ll see how this next issue goes.

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Review: Blood Hunt + FCBD Blood Hunt

The covers on these two comics alone are enough to warrant a pick up from me and after listening to a podcast talk about how great it was, I was determined to pick it up. Now I actually picked these up at two different shops on Free Comic Book Day(FCBD). I got the FCBD version at my usual shop, I Want More Comics; then the first issue I picked up at Hero Headquarters. Why did I get them at different shops? Well the FCBD version was available at my usual shop but not the first issue. When I went out a second time to get some issues for a friend of mine I found this variant edition. I also didn’t notice until I got home that the variant edition I picked up was in fact a wrap- around cover. This was the only issue left that I managed to get, so finding out that it was also a wrap-around cover was an added plus.

Now I said going forward I was only going to be collecting Poison Ivy, Deadpool and Wolverine WWIII because I also got two mystery boxes of comics that I want to go through. However this Blood Hunt storyline is making me really think about adding it to my comic list.

A little different with this review since it’s two books. I’ll be reviewing the cover art, but I’ll just briefly mention the FCBD version instead of a full review:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Thought this was a cool and clean spread for a title open.

Cover & Story - Free Comic Book Day Blood Hunt 1*

As mentioned before the covers on these two books are freakin’ sweet. I’ve always been a big fan of vampire stories and movies like Blade, Twilight and Underworld. So seeing superheroes up against vampires is like a match made in heaven for me. On the FCBD cover the superheroes featured are Spider-Man, Daredevil and two members from the Fantastic Four, Sue Storm and Reed Richards. There is another character wielding a sword that we later find out is Blade’s daughter, Brielle Brooks. It’s a really neat cover that does a good job showcasing a horde of vampires. 

The story for this one is pretty short; we are shown four different areas that are dealing with something called “darkforce.” In Manhattan we have Spider-Man fighting off some being that ends up exploding into what I can only describe as a tornado of darkforce matter. Next Reed Richards and Sue Storm are alerted of multiple dimensional breaches and are worried that it might be the darkforce dimension. Daredevil is then seen fighting off a slew of vampire in Hell’s Kitchen; and Blade’s daughter Brielle Brooks is also fighting some vampires when she stumbles upon none other than….

No way! Dracula is in this? Of course!

Cover - Blood Hunt 1 Variant Edition

So this cover was quite a surprise when I got home. I didn’t realize it was a wrap-around and since it was already a cover I really liked, I was pretty stoked to check out what’s on the back. Similar to the FCBD version, this cover features a variety of superheroes on the cover fighting a butt ton of vampires. Thor, Captain America and Scarlet Witch are on the front; on the back we’ve got Doctor Strange, Spider-Man but in a different color suit than the FCBD version, Blade and I want to say Iron Man. Also on the front of the cover we have a vampire ripping the face off some skull, not sure if it’s supposed to be a known superhero but it looks pretty badass.

To start off, I was a bit lost with what the panels were talking about in regards to each one having a “Sundeath” along with a time. It looked like the numbers were all counting down but I couldn’t be sure because on the following page we jump back to a higher number than before. It begins with Scarlet Witch and Iron Man trying to get a sense of what is going on. They determine that there are reports of other superhumans exploding into darkforce portals. Next we got Hunter’s Moon and Tigra, two characters I am unfamiliar with, but they get jumped by another horde of vampires. 

What I really liked was an inclusion of a key players sheet that named off all the characters we need to know starting with Avengers; Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Vision and Captain America. The Midnight Mission consists of Hunter’s Moon and Tigra, while the last group is unnamed but is made up of Spider-Man, Blade, Doctor Strange, Clea and Doctor Doom. After that we get some more pages consisting of panels showing an apocalyptic world ruled by vampires with the “Sundeath” time. Then Spider-Man shows up and is fighting vampires and asks the question, “What would Blade do?” Well Blade shows up, says he has a plan and needs Spider-Man. All the Avengers are fighting their own separate battles but Blade is able to contact them and says he has information and that they all need to meet up.

This panel of Thor with a wooden stake through his head is wild!

Well that ends up being a huge ambush by Blade and the Avengers are all beat to shit by a bunch of villains called the Blood Coven. Thor gets whooped, Vision gets stabbed, Iron Man gets his suit taken apart, Captain Marvel endures excruciating pain, Captain America gets tossed across the room through a wall, Wanda is being overpowered. It’s all hands on deck and the Avengers are losing badly. Thor gets what I can only assume is a wooden stake, right thru his head. Black Panther gets struck down and the Blood Coven says they have to keep the world symbol alive, meaning Captain America I think?... 

I sensed something was going on with Blade, but a part of me wonders if someone is controlling him…

We cut to Bleeker Street and come upon Doctor Strange and Clea frantically trying to assemble a formula that would fix everything. But they are visited by Blade, who tells them there is someone who is uniting the vampires to compete against the Avengers. Doctor Strange thinks it’s Dracula but Blade tells him no, it’s someone else (considering the ending of the FCBD Blood Hunt, we see Dracula meeting Blade’s daughter Brielle and fighting alongside her). We land on the last page and BAM! Blad stabs Doctor Strange from behind and says, “It’s me.” WOW! What an ending and awesome artwork to tell this story. I’m really tempted to get the next issues.

Overall 5 / 5

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Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day! It’s officially been two years since I first started my comic collection, launched a comic website with a blog. I now have roughly 140 or so comics in my collection and it’s climbing, slowly but surely. This time I managed to scoop up a few comics for myself and my two boys got some comics for kids. I missed out on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle issue but I did manage to get the three I was going for which were Image Comics Energon Universe, DC’s Absolute Power and Marvel’s Blood Hunt. The most recent stack episode from the Comic Book Club podcast talked about Energon Universe and how G.I. Joe, Transformers and Void Rivals are all in one universe. I was definitely intrigued because if you recall, at the very end of the last Transformers movie, Rise of the Beasts, they alluded to a partnership between the Transformers and G.I. Joe sector. So I had to pick that one up being a Transformers fan, though I am not sure what Void Rivals is.

The other issue I will be reviewing besides Energon Universe is DC’s Absolute Power, I’ll cover the FCBD Blood Hunt along with the first issue review of Blood hunt. Now as I said, I am only two years into collecting comics, I am fairly new and don’t know much about existing story lines or important events, so I had no idea what to expect. Really I just saw Superman, Batman and another cool looking Batman on the cover and figured this should be good. Besides these few comics, I also bought another copy of X-Men ‘97 so I could use it for a crafts project and a Deadpool & Wolverine themed comic box. Remember gang, don’t just pick up the free comics but also purchase a couple things to help support your local comic shop.

A little different with this review since it’s two books. I’ll be reviewing the cover art, but I’ll just touch on the story instead of a full review:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover - Energon Universe

What I really like about this cover is its creativity. Megatron looks menacing even though we only see his red lit eyes. He’s got a smoking gun that he most likely just shot off and the ground below him is crumbling with electricity. The orange and yellow colors combine to make a very rich and bright background that illuminates Megatron from behind, with a tiny bit of a machinery/Cybertron peeping through at the top. The title is very creative with the stars in the dark black space, but to me this is the only part I wish was done a little differently. I like the idea but with the machine looking graphics behind it, it doesn’t stand out as much. I think that title treatment would stand out a bit more had the yellow and orange background been extended to the top.

Story - Energon Universe

Overall I like this one but I think if I had read some of the Void Rivals line, I’d understand this issue a bit more. They do a good job at the beginning showing the three titles, Transformers, Void Rivals and GI Joe but I wish there was just a snippet of text that explained each one. The book starts off with some AWESOME action sequences of none other than Optimus Prime and Megatron. Colors, action, text treatment, all of it looks epic at the start. 

This opening action spread is beautiful with its choice of colors

Optimus bests Megatron and as he’s holding onto the ship for dear life, Starscream comes by to “help.” Megatron calls out to Starscream and then BOOM! Starscream blasts Megatron off the ship. Next we get brought to a story of some odd looking creatures and an Autobot named Hotrod but honestly it didn’t make sense to me. Finally we get the GI Joe story which is some high powered action sequences just like the beginning. Pretty much we see Duk wanting to recruit someone named Anastasia Cisarovna, but Colonel Hawk is completely against it. In the end this was a fun little issue to just see the action panels, but I don’t think I can see myself picking up a Void Rivals issue, but definitely interested in knowing where the story is headed for Transformers and GI Joe. Overall 4/5

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Cover - Absolute Power

Having touched on this cover a bit already we know that there is Superman and two Batmans on it, but it also features a few more characters. Amanda Wallace, who I only remember from the Suicide Squad movies. Then Wonder Woman and one other character that I have no idea who it is but they look like some sort of android. I’m just now realizing that this cover has the same yellow and orange color background that the Energon Universe cover has, maybe that’s why I was so drawn to it. The treatment of the title, Absolute Power could have used a bit of love since it looks like word art but other than that it’s a pretty dope cover with how the characters are laid out.

Story - Absolute Power

Holy shit this issue. Again, I had no clue going into this and man I am so glad I got it. What I really appreciate from the book is in the back they have profile spreads on some of the characters. For instance the two that I didn’t know on the cover were Failsafe, the cool looking Batman but is really a cybernetic killer and genius-level tactician with near-indestructible frame. Oof. Then the other was in fact, the House of Braniac, a superintelligent alien hive mind, whose primary focus on the collection and storage of data, power and culture. Another big oof. 

Ok, definitely need to read up more on Failsafe cause he looks freakin awesome. Reminds me of Batman Beyond.

Essentially the story starts with Failsafe and Amanda Wallace trying to achieve something with the use of electro-metas but we don’t know what exactly they’re doing or why. They bring in a super named Haywire, or Dylan Moore, to a small observation room with a metal ball figure in the middle and ask him to shoot it with all the electric power he has. Well long story short, they drain him til he ‘pops.’ It’s pretty wild. We’re shown a vision of the future thru another super named Dreamer, but it’s not good; Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League look to be in shackles. The final story in the back we see Superman approaching a robbery of some sort. The criminals get scared about going back to prison, so one of them shoots their gun at Superman. I’m expecting the bullets to bounce off and kill them or something, right? Absolutely Wrong is what this issue should be called, because I was so off. Superman gets hit by the bullets, sees blood and the final shot we see is Superman falling to what we can only presume will be his death. Phew. What an issue and it was free! Overall 

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Review: Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII

Besides DC’s Poison Ivy the only other issue I currently have pulled is Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII. With the new animated season of X-Men ‘97 on Disney+ and the Deadpool & Wolverine movie coming out, this title is a hot one to pick up. From what I read on ComicGeeks, there are 15 cover variants for this issue! I picked up the regular print as well as a $5 variant, I chose this one because the illustration style looks like it was done with colored pencil. Not entirely sure but I love the texture it has.

I picked this up because I’m a big Wolverine fan, in fact one of the first comics I’ve collected is the Weapon X series that ran from 2009-2010. As well as the Wolverine Patch run in 2022. Both of these give very similar vibes to the same Wolverine portrayal in this issue. So as a reminder I will be reviewing the following:

• Cover Art

• Story

• Overall Rating 5 star rating system from Comic Geeks App

Cover

The regular cover is almost a bit of a summary of what the entire comic is about. Wolverine and Deadpool against what seems like the world. To be honest, of the available variant copies at my local comic shop, I like the regular print the most. You can clearly see Wolverine’s claws and Deadpool’s swords dripping with blood and both of them covered in bullet wounds. It’s really fucking sweet, pardon my French. As I mentioned earlier regarding the variant cover, it has a certain styling that is a mix of watercolor and color pencil, I just wish the colors were a bit more vibrant.

It starts off giving us a few panels in a horizontal view, so you have to rotate the comic book to view. 

Story

So I already planned on getting this issue, but after hearing on the Comic Book club podcast how great this issue was I rushed to pick it up before Free Comic book day on the weekend. I didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy this issue. 

We see a dope ass progression of what we’re told is Wolverine's bloodline? I’m not really sure because it’s interrupted with a message of a flight getting ready to touch down in Vancouver. Wolverine talks about taking on some job that involves him eliminating the threat, that he is called only when it’s a scum of the earth type that can’t be helped. Wolverine suits up, in his old school yellow and brown and goes to meet this “threat.” 

Upon arriving he encounters Deadpool and who I can only assume is named “Summer?” I’m not entirely sure as it seems like he’s having a conversation with Wolverine and Deadpool but isn’t making any sense. But we get to see some sick ass fight scenes, Wolverine and Deadpool take turns trying to eliminate the threat. It’s really funny when Wolverine enters the scene and Deadpool says, “I’d recognize the sound of that sextuple puncture wound anywhere! There’s also a funny panel where Deadpool is riding the shoulders of Wolverine. Classic banter and badass fighting, just what I need.

The yellow and brown suit is starting to grow on me, I think I just don’t like the illustration style from the 90’s animated show.

They take care of the threat, Deadpool invites Wolverine to hang out but Wolverine brushes it off. After a night of drinking at the bar, Wolverine heads to where Deadpool told him he was staying. We’re then taken to a new part of the story as Wolverine is now searching for Deadpool after being left a burner phone. Wolverine ends up in Russia, of course, to some building and it’s full of people in nice attire celebrating his arrival. What? Deadpool got an upgrade and fights Wolverine?! Holy shit. Pretty dope ass illustrations and gets me excited to pick up the next issue.

Overall 5 / 5

Going into this I already sorta knew what to expect but was still happily surprised with the funny banter between Deadpool and Wolverine. Paired with the awesome fight scenes and blood splatters, this comic just had everything you’d expect from this duo. The plot and writing seemed a little jumpy but I understand having to explain so much with little real estate. Can’t wait for the next issue.

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