House of X/Powers of X, New comics

New comics!

Iron Cat 3

A nice extended fight scene between Felicia, Tamara, and Tony Stark.

Captain Marvel 40

Carol starts to figure out that her reality is a false one.  This series, while still fun, is teetering on the brink of too-fluffy-to-keep.  There’s not enough substance.

Captain Carter 5

At the end of it all, not as good as I wanted it to be.  I wouldn’t buy this again.

Love Everlasting 1

I’m so glad that this Tom King/Elsa Charretier Substack offering gets a paper publishing as well.  King has hit upon a sweet concept: What if all the girls in those old-school romance comics were somehow the same person?  I have no idea what the hell’s going on (neither does the heroine Joan), but I can’t wait to find out.

House of X 1-6

Powers of X 1-6

I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, but I was too skeptical of Jonathan Hickman’s ability to write a coherent story on top of all his brilliant, batshit crazy ideas to actually buy it.  But it was available at the library, so perfect!  Thoughts:

• “To me, my X-Men.”  Those words still give me chills.

• Hickman should just do a book of infographics.  He makes them such wonderful vectors for exposition dumps.  

• As always, the concepts, even the throwaway ones, are so creative and thought provoking.  (Examples: Tony Stark and Reed Richards bequeath their IPs to each other to prevent the wrong people from getting them whenever they die.  Moira’s now a mutant with the power of reincarnation that literally reboots the universe (!!!)  The whole premise where the mutants of the world form their own nation.)

• Hickman’s comics are not character driven.  No one behaves with any kind of personality that’s been established in the past fifty years.  Everyone’s either coldly efficient or talks like a brainwashed member of a cult.

• The stuff set in the present is way better than the storylines one hundred and one thousand years in the future.  

• The assault on the Mother Mold satellite is a legitimately excellent action scene.  

• They’ve figured out a way to resurrect mutants.  This is a game changer.

In summation, this is one of Hickman’s better efforts.  I’m happy to have read it, but I don’t need to buy it.  I’d rate it at Pretty Good.