Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine

One new comic:

Shang-Chi 2

Not bad, but it didn’t blow me away.  This is only a five issue mini, so I’m probably in it for the duration.

Wolverine 1-4

Chris Claremont and Frank Miller in a classic miniseries.  The Miller art isn’t bad, there’s an ugliness to it that somehow works.  I like his work on Daredevil a lot more.  But I wonder if I’d like him so much if I’d never seen him before and was looking at it for the first time without knowing he’s a legend…

Classic cover

Is this the first time he says this?

Great composition.

I was trying to remember where I've seen this before...

Ah, here, just two months later.

Uncanny X-Men 165, 167, 168, 170, 172-175, 177-191

A number of these issues were given to me by my Aunt Sandy when I first started collecting. She only knew that I liked Uncanny, and got a bunch of them from this era.  Given how early I got them in my collecting lifetime (middle school), they hold a near and dear place in my heart.  By the way, I love the smell of comics from this era.  Talk about strong sense memories.  

A lot of these issues (not the ones from Sandy) are the X-Men Classic reprints.  Way cheaper to buy when they were coming out than the first printings, but even these are now going for a lot more than I would have expected.  (I was expecting cover price.)

This spans Paul Smith’s run and the start of John Romita Jr’s lengthy time on the issue.  Smith’s got a wonderful, clean style that I’ve always loved.  

For a long time, issue 168 was the oldest Uncanny issue I owned, so this was how the series always started for me:

Love it.  Wonderful letters by Tom Orzechowski.

Cold blooded knife catch.

I really like all the Madelyne Pryor stuff Claremont does from her introduction through the Inferno arc years later.  It's such a fucked up situation for him to put Scott through, bringing in what turns out to be a clone of Jean Grey to completely mess him up.  Poor Maddie, though, I like her as a character; a sweet, "normal" person who doesn't deserve any of the crap she's going to go through.

Great comedic timing by both Smith and Claremont

I love this cover.  It tells a story all by itself.

Beautiful, natural body language on Madelyne

Sure, it's not really her, but I love this buildup to the reveal.  Very ominous.

Scott's such a liar.  He leaves Maddie in a flash when Jean comes back.

Romita Jr’s look is pretty much the Marvel house style, but you can see hints of the personal style that will eventually come to clearly define “Romita Jr.”  (The slashing cheeklines (like Inigo Montoya’s scars), the big eyes, blocky bodies)

Kitty's face is so cute here.

No one plays with the trade dress like this anymore.

Heh.

I think this all the time: "I just want to...lie here a while..."

He's not the first or last to do it, but Chris Claremont is so darn good at the interlude issue; the one issue break from the action that's often more engaging than the big story itself.  He'll spend his month's allotment of pages on something like the breakup between Peter and Kitty and infuse it with heartache, sadness, and huge word balloons that are thoroughly engrossing.  He's a touch melodramatic with it all, but it's so perfect for this title.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good