Excelsior! Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Pullbox Podcast! This month, Kurtis and Michael bring you three exciting titles to discuss; All New X-Men Vol. 1: Yesterday’s X-Men By Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen, When the Wind Blows By Raymond Briggs, and our Reader Pull, The Escapists By Brian K. Vaughn, Steve Rolston and Jason Shawn Alexander.
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4 responses to “The Pullbox Podcast: Episode 001”
FYI:
DC just did a really big nu52 event called Forever Evil, in which the Crime Syndicate kidnaps the Justice League and takes over the world, which spun out of a slightly smaller event called Trinity War, in which the three Justice Leagues do battle and Pandora's past is revealed.
In X-Force, Archangel became the new Apocalypse and nearly destroyed the world. During this time, he brainwashed Psylocke to be his new bride, but she broke his spell and was forced to kill him. But he didn't die, he just lost his Apocalypse-ness and his entire personality. He's a complete blank slate, remembering nothing at all (and looking several years younger). He spent some time with the "new recruits", training, and I think that's still where he is. He has feather wings and never wears a shirt.
Husk is not dead, but she's not around. She was a teacher at the school, but she joined the Hellfire Academy as an instructor because she didn't like the way the JG School was run. Jubilee is now in X-Men (the all-female team) with her adopted son, Shogo, and Monet was a part of X-Factor until their latest break-up last year, and is now in X-Men (the all-female team) with Jubilee. Chamber is an "active" member of the UK superhero scene. He recently died in X-Men Legacy, but Legion brought him back.
Jean has only been dead a total of 10 years. Even if you count the years where she was in the cocoon, replaced by the Phoenix Force, that's only another 6 years. So, there's still a few more years to go before we reach the point where she's been dead longer than not.
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One thing I like about the Marvel crossovers over DC's and relaunches is that the changes that are made are in-personality for the character. The characters actually experience huge, lasting changes over time, but it's not like it's completely out of character for them. Cyclops is essentially the new Magneto, but it wasn't a big, drastic change, and it wasn't that unexpected, and there's still an aspect of his old self in there.
I can't stand Superior. It got really old, really fast. Every issue is the same, "Why did stupid Parker have this problem? I'm so much better. Ho, citizen. You ignoramus. You got yourself into this trouble, you buffoon." He's just a jerk. He's so unlikable. I'm glad that's done. It dragged on too long. All-New X-Men will be much better because so much new stuff can happen. Every issue keeps me guessing.
In volume two of New X-Men (which I just read) Angel shows up acting like you describe above, but no one is saying why he is acting that way and why he thinks young Bobby is just one of many Angel duplicates.. He's got metal wings and is wearing a shirt.
Good to see that many of the GenX crew is still alive and kicking! They need a reunion!
The Infinity mega-event was surprisingly good, and doesn't really require having read Marvel comics for the last ten years. Also, to follow the story line, one really only needs to read the Avengers titles (there were three at the time) and the Infinity books, the other cross-overs are inconsequential to the main story. But, as for Bendis, he is at his best when he's not knee-deep in mega events. All-New X-Men is a testament to this, as is his indie work and Ultimate Spider-man. When he's writing a lot of titles at once, it starts to get where the characters' dialogue is interchangeable. Everyone is making witty remarks but none of them typify any specific character.
Agreed, Infinity is very easy to read and is a very good story. I thought that the other cross-overs involved were very well done, though not necessary, like you said. In fact, you don't even need to read all of the Avengers titles. Hickman really loves his charts and diagrams, and he drew up a diagram of how to read Infinity at the back of each book. You can read just Infinity, or if you want a more robust version, read Infinity, New Avengers and Avengers.