My Year With Marvel: Uncanny X-Men #1-25

From UNCANNY X-MEN #1

I always tell interested parties it’s safe to jump into the X-Men at any point they please. The Marvel Universe’s peculiar chronology, Professor X’s predilection for mindwipes, and the entire cast’s refusal to shut up about every major thing that’s ever happened to them ensures the series is accessible to any new reader with a fair understanding of comics.

Still, I’ve always thought it might be fun to go back to the very beginning of UNCANNY X-MEN and read the whole thing through in order. So that’s what I’m doing.

Even though My Year With Marvel technically ends this week, I’ll continue to update y’all on my progress every twenty-five issues until I’ve either read everything on offer or my Marvel Unlimited subscription ends¹.

Okay, then. Let’s talk about UNCANNY X-MEN (still officially titled X-MEN at this point) #1-25.

My Year With Marvel: Super-Awesome Superheroic Women Squad

Ever since the Fantastic Four burst on the scene in late 1961, Marvel has been all about superhero teams. They’ve introduced dozens of them over the years, including infinite permutations of the most popular groups like the Avengers and the X-Men.

Because why have one superhero team under the same banner when you could have twenty-seven?

Team books are fun to read because they sprawl all over the place even as they give beloved characters a bit more page time. I imagine they’re also fun to assemble as they allow writers and artists to explore group dynamics and play around with their own favourite superheroes without the commitment implied by a solo title.

I can never help daydreaming about who I'd put on a superhero team, and over the last few months I’ve drummed up a little something I’m calling the Super-Awesome Superheroic Women Squad. With absolutely no deference to current canon and/or whatever happened in Secret Wars (which I have yet to read) and with no more stringent criteria than, "I love her!", my ideal superteam's starting lineup would include:

My Year With Marvel: Holiday Gift Guide, Part II

A couple weeks back, we talked about a few Marvel trade collections you may want to consider as holiday gifts. But what if your giftee is a die-hard Marvel fan who already buys every book that strikes their fancy? What else can you give them?

Here’re a handful of suggestions, ranging from Super Duper Useful (as is my own personal preference) to Not Exactly Necessary But Still Really, Really Neat.

Okay, I admit it: most of the stuff I'm about to show you is more in the Really, Really Neat category than the Super Duper Useful category. These Deadpool pint glasses, though, are both! Hurray for cool yet useful stuff!

The really nice thing about pint glasses is, you don’t have to put beer in them. Maybe your giftee is a hardcore beer fan, and maybe they prefer to stick to water. Either way, they’re gonna want to drink everything out of these babies. As the Pool himself says, they’re the coolest glasses ever.

Deadpool wouldn’t mislead you about an object's cool factor. Dude's got standards.

Find it on : Amazon (set of two)

I also saw these at Winners (Canada’s version of TK/TJ Maxx) a couple months back, but I had a terrible attack of frugality and didn’t buy them, and the next time I was there they were sold out. Maybe you'll be luckier at your own local discount retailer.

My Year With Marvel: Holiday Gift Guide, Part I

The holidays are coming up, and you’ve got a ton of people to buy gifts for, and you want to give at least a few of them comics because comics are awesome.

The trouble is, which comics do you choose?

While I can’t actually decide for you, I'm primed and ready to tell you what I’d pick my own self. We’ll talk about some Marvel trades today, with books by other publishers on tap for next week and some Marvel merchandise suggestions to follow soon after.

THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL VOLUME ONE: SQUIRREL POWER [Amazon | The Book Depository], written by Ryan North and drawn by Erica Henderson, is my top pick. It’s an all-ages comic, which makes it great for every reader who appreciates humour and heart alongside their superheroics. Doreen Green’s a fighter through and through, but she’s as liable to use compassion and good old fashioned psychology to subdue the bad guys as she is to punch them with her superstrength. (She has the proportional strength and speed of a squirrel, you know.) Everyone needs her in their life.

And hey, if you're feeling extra generous, SQUIRREL GIRL VOLUME TWO: SQUIRREL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE [Amazon | The Book Depository] drops on December 8th, in plenty of time for the end of Hanukkah or for all late-December holidays.

My Year With Marvel: POC Artists, Part I

The other week, we talked about four POC who’ve written for Marvel. This week I want to look at four Asian-descended artists, with a post on artists of ethnicities to follow at a later date.

The majority of my diverse Marvel reading comes from the art department as Marvel does far better with hiring POC artists than they do with POC writers. From the late 90s on--ie, from the advent of the internet--non-American artists also account for a decent percentage of the company’s bullpen. I’m continually surprised at the sheer number of South American, Asian, and European artists I encounter. (No one from Africa has shown up on my reading list yet.) And many, though certainly not all, of these artists are people of colour. Added to the non-white American artists on the company's payroll, they form a creative pool that helps dictate Marvel’s look, albeit not without editorial challenges.

As was the case with the writers I highlighted earlier, the recs list below is a sample only. I encourage you to explore A More Diverse Marvel Universe for a broader (but still incomplete) list of other POC artists who’ve worked for Marvel.

From HAWKEYE #14

American artist Annie Wu’s most prominent Marvel attachment involves my very favouritest Marvel title: HAWKEYE, which I consider one of the comics and want you to read in the worst possible way.

Wu drew the bulk of the series’ third arc, L.A. WOMAN [Marvel Unlimited | Amazon | The Book Depository], in which Kate Bishop (light of my heart; breath in my lungs) moves to Los Angeles and becomes a private detective. Wu's skill at conveying attitude with a scant few lines makes her the perfect fit for intrepid Kate. Her panels are full of telling body language and a stellar sense of movement that drives the story forward even during its quietest moments.

Watch for her as the primary artist on DC’s BLACK CANARY, too.

My Year With Marvel: POC Writers For Diversiverse

We’re now mere days away from the start of A More Diverse Universe, a reading event focused on people of colour. Organizer Aarti asks participants to read and review at least one book by a non-white author during the event.

As Aarti always says (and I always quote, because it's always true):

Reading diversely may require you to change your book-finding habits. It ABSOLUTELY does not require you to change your book reading habits.

Book-finding is the kicker in the comics industry, where white creators get a hell of a lot more opportunities--and the press that goes along with them--than their POC counterparts. It's rare for a non-white writer to get as much press as Ta-Nehisi Coates received surrounding his upcoming (and, sadly, limited) run on BLACK PANTHER.

This is at least partly because Marvel, to their shame, has hired relatively few POC writers over their history. (We’ll talk about POC artists next week.) They exist, but you’ve gotta dig through extensive yet unspecific resources like the the Cartoonists of Colour Database or more focused but less search engine-friendly resources like individual bloggers’ recs lists to hunt ‘em out.

And even once you've compiled a halfway decent reading list, the majority of this small minority are men. As far as I can tell, Marvel has never hired a black woman writer, and they’re horribly light on WOC of other ethnicities. Numerous searches gave me far more information about WOC characters than the women who’ve (hopefully) written them, and Marjorie Liu is the only WOC writer I’ve personally encountered in the year since I started bingeing on Marvel.

Which is to say: this wee recs list of POC Marvel writers whose work I’ve enjoyed is no more gender balanced than it is exhaustive. It's a highlights reel designed to reflect some comics that stood out to me, not a comprehensive resource.

In many cases, too, these writers have published a lot more than what I've talked about here. I’ll also point you towards A More Diverse Marvel Universe, my own contribution to the wealth of unspecific information out there, for further reading. Alas, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve had the time or the mental energy to update the list, so it remains incomplete, but I hope you’ll find some more stuff to explore.

My Year With Marvel: Miniseries Of My Youth Revisited

Last week I shared my recollections of two 1993 miniseries that made a big impression on me when I was a teenager: GAMBIT by Howard Mackie, Lee Weeks, and Klaus Janson and DAREDEVIL: THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. I reread both series right after the post went live, and I’m ready to weigh in on ‘em from an adult perspective.

GAMBIT, as previously stated, changed my life. It taught me the joys of contemporary superhero comics, introduced me to the X-Men, gave me another taste of New Orleans (a city I was already well on the way to loving), foreshadowed my adult preoccupation with (fictional) thieves and assassins, and placed some small emphasis on cards.

And does it hold up?

Surprisingly, yes.

My Year With Marvel: Miniseries Of My Youth

A couple months back, I sat down to write about DAREDEVIL, Marvel’s first Netflix show. And oh, how the words did flow.

Trouble was, most of those words concerned Frank Miller and John Romita Jr’s 1993 miniseries, which served as my introduction to the character and became a touchstone comic for me throughout the late 90s/early 2000s, even though the plot quickly faded. When it came to the show, I mostly wanted to talk about how it uses sound¹; a topic I lack the technical language to turn into a full post.

So I gave up and started writing about DAREDEVIL: THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR. Before long, the 1993 GAMBIT miniseries also crept into the mix, leaving me with some jaw on the two half-remembered touchstone miniseries of my youth.

My Year With Marvel: Alternate Universes

The Marvel Universe is really a multiverse; an assortment of disparate realities, some of which occasionally collide thanks to the influence of science and magic and other fun stuff like that. A fair few of these alternate realities have made it into miniseries form, either because they bumped up against Earth-616 (our core Marvel canon) or because somebody with decision-making ability said, “Hey, why don’t we explore what our characters might be like if things were like this instead of like that?”

Marvel’s alternate realities are no doubt most interesting for readers well steeped in the 616’s characters and backstory, but they can also hold appeal for people who’re just easing into it all. I want to highlight three of them today: two you can probably read even if you’re a Marvel newbie and one with a solid grounding in the larger storyline.

Earth X (1999); written by Jim Krueger, drawn by John Paul Leon

EARTH X opens a couple decades on from the Marvel Universe you’ll see in current continuity. Everyone has superpowers, from the heroes of old to the kid playing in the street. It’s been like this for close on ten years.

The Watcher--a moon-dweller tasked with observing everything that happens down below--was blinded immediately before the shift took place. He needs visual confirmation of what’s happening, so he calls upon Aaron Stack, aka Machine Man, to be his eyes as he searches for clues and watches the conflict between an aged Captain America and a new, youthful, Red Skull unfold.

My Year With Marvel: One Year In

It’s been a full year since I took advantage of Marvel Unlimited’s SDCC sale and dove down the comics rabbit hole.

And it’s been great.

My initial plan was to read as much as I possibly could during my discounted month, focusing on titles my library didn’t have, then cancel before I traveled over into Regular Price Land. I figured I’d stick to characters I already knew I loved, or who had been recommended to me; various X-Men, maybe, and the Runaways, and possibly the Guardians of the Galaxy so I’d be primed and ready for the movie.

So I gulped down RUNAWAYS (which I’ve gotta write about one of these days), and I read some solo X-titles, and I fell hard for HAWKEYE after Anastasia urged me to read it. But when it came time to explore the Guardians of the Galaxy, all my plans died an ignoble death.

My Year With Marvel: Tiny Deadpool's Taco Tour

Early this month, I headed on down to America for my birthday. The United States, unlike my part of Canada, is littered with Mexican restaurants. You can’t go very far without running into a quality purveyor of tacos, and I decided to take full advantage of this by going on as full-on a taco tour of Fargo, North Dakota as one can in two days.

I brought Tiny Deadpool, of course. Dude loves tacos. How could I even think of leaving him out?

Tiny Deadpool and I began our quest for tacos at an unlikely venue: Famous Dave’s, a barbeque joint that recently added “urban tacos” to their lunch menu. I’m a sucker for their catfish (which shows to best advantage on a po’boy, though catfish fingers are also delish), so of course I had to get the catfish tacos.

Each one contained a goodly amount of crispy baked catfish, plus greens, spicy remoulade, jalapenos, and lime. (The last time I had these, the chef put the lime wedges in the tacos, which was weird and uncalled for. Thankfully, this chef knew enough to stick ‘em on the side so I could just squeeze the juice on.) Tiny Deadpool and I both approved.

My Year With Marvel: Deadpool (and tacos)

From LONGSHOT SAVES THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #4

So I read Daniel Way’s run on DEADPOOL back in October, and I finished Fabian Nicieza’s CABLE & DEADPOOL a couple weeks ago, and while I mostly enjoyed both series I figured I didn’t have all that much to say about Deadpool. Entertaining though he was, I ultimately managed to pull myself away from the guy. It’s not like I’ve come back to him time and again in the months since he and I first met. It’s not like he’s become one of my comics touchstones.

Except for the part where he totally has.

Deadpool follows me everywhere. I waste time contemplating the extreme efficacy of his healing factor. (He can regrow his head.) I smile whenever I think of that time Squirrel Girl kicked his ass. (And he's like, "She is the scariest, most powerful superhero ever, right up there with Wolverine.") I wonder whether he’s actually a mutant or if his healing factor is entirely Weapon X’s doing, and I ask myself whether I care enough to Google it. (I don’t, though I guess CABLE & DEADPOOL more or less tells me he’s not.)

And, most of all, I think about how Deadpool’s love of tacos makes me like him far more than I might otherwise do.

My Year With Marvel: Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

Dogs improve everything they touch, and Marvel comics are no exception. The Marvel Universe sports a small but powerful assortment of awesome canines (or canine-type people), my favourites among them being:

Cosmo

From NOVA (2008) #8

Cosmo is my favourite psychic Russian space doggie, because that’s a category I rank. He operates out of Knowhere, a space station located within the disembodied head of a dead god (just to keep things cheerful). In his capacity as chief of security, Cosmo breaks up fights, liaises with newcomers, and runs the teleportation field that helps sanctioned individuals easily enter and exit the station sans spaceship.

Cosmo excels in his role because he can get along with just about anyone who is not a racoon, from space pirates to would-be superheroes to Skrulls in disguise. He’s totally adaptable, far more easy-going than his grumpy exterior indicates, and willing to forgive you for being surprised he can talk--provided you make it up to him with a good ear-skritch.

He first appeared within the pages of NOVA (2008) and has had a presence within Marvel Cosmic ever since as a helper to the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Annihilators, and various other space-dwelling types. He hasn’t had a huge on-page presence these last few years, but does crop up in the pages of NOVA (2013) as one of young Sam Alexander’s newfound space allies.

My Year With Marvel: Carol Danvers

I'm at Lady Business today, talking about the marvelous Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel, and my number one choice for comics BFF) as part of Jodie's Women In Authority theme week. I hope you'll pop on over there to help me celebrate the reasons Carol is an effective leader and all-around great person.

My Year With Marvel: Comics and Fanfic

Fanfic used to scare me. A lot.

I know, I know. My fear was strange and irrational and rooted in hearsay more than experience. Fanfic is a good thing; a way for fans to interact with source material in new and creative ways, and to explore the glorious world of What If. It’s deeply postmodern, involving as it does an awareness of multiple possibilities and an understanding that one interpretation of a text does not cancel out any of the others.

In theory, it’s totally my thing and I’m 100% in favour of it. In practice…

Well, see above.

My fears were threefold. First, I felt awkward about switching between media. Most of the things I love enough to latch onto in the want-more-must-read-fanfic sense are audio-visual, and I wasn’t sure about reading something I was used to watching. I was fine with, say, comics continuations of beloved shows like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL, but I never so much as considered seeking out the licensed novels. The shift was too jarring a prospect.

I was also concerned about bad writing, something the logical side of me knew wasn’t a huge issue because of ratings systems and beta readers. It’s probably really easy to read only well-written fic, provided one pays attention to things like recs lists from folks who’re super-duper knowledgeable within the fanfic field.

Most of all, I was irrationally terrified of stumbling across OOC (out of character) fic, or fic that changed so many details I couldn’t keep up. If I love a character enough to engage with them off the screen, I am deeply invested in who they are as a person. I didn’t want to see them undergo character assassination, or start ignoring (what I saw as) deeply important on-screen developments, or hang around in a sphere too far removed from what I knew and loved. The very thought left me cold.

So I steered clear of fanfic, despite many friends’ enthusiastic take on it all--until a couple weeks ago, when Renay, Queen of Fanfic and Possessor of Great Taste In Fiction, finally persuaded me to read one of her favourite Bucky-Barnes-with-a-baby fics.

And hey! I loved it!

My Year With Marvel: Nova

We’ve talked a lot about Kate Bishop, you and I, but I recently realized I’ve neglected to squee about my second favourite Marvel character: Richard Rider, codename Nova.

Nova was among the first characters I met when I threw myself head first into the Marvel Universe. He, like Kate, wasn't even on my radar until I encountered him in the pages of ANNIHILATION, the Marvel Cosmic storyline that introduced me to both crossover events and the joys of Marvel's various offworld settings. Nova has a long history, stretching back to his own solo title in 1976 and a lengthy stint with the New Warriors, but I’d never brushed up against him. I halfway recalled hearing people were upset he wouldn't be in the then-forthcoming GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie, but that was the extent of my involvement with the guy.

Unfamiliar or no, Nova won me over like that. Mere pages after ANNIHILATION begins, the Annihilation Wave destroys every other member of the Nova Corps, leaving him the only person in the entire galaxy with the ability to harness the Nova Force. (His powers, in brief: he can fly, he can blast stuff, and he’s frickin’ tough to hurt.) He’s also the only person left to carry the Worldmind, an AI that holds the core of the Nova Force in its extensive data banks. And Worldmind isn’t always the most pleasant person to have living inside your head.

It would be mighty easy to for Nova to give up under these circumstances, but he doesn’t even consider it. Of course he’s gonna fight Annihilus Of course he’s gonna recruit others to the cause and mount a strong defense. It’s who he is. He couldn’t possibly act any other way.

This made me love him a lot.

My Year With Marvel: Reading By Issue

Back in the day, I read single issues of everything. I bought random comics from thrift stores and liquidation centres, and I purchased a small handful of fresh-off-the-press monthlies.

Trade collections weren’t a big thing back then, and the few that were available generally cost upwards of $30. Single issues were my only option, and I embraced them with an open heart until the sad, sad day when they became too expensive for my budget.

Thankfully, trade collections went down in price soon after. Y'all know that's how I read nowadays. I either get trade collections or I wait until an arc's worth of issues is up on Marvel Unlimited. I haven’t bought a paper single issue in well over a decade, though I do buy most of my digital comics by issue after each story arc wraps.

Trades changed my life. They taught me I don't like to wait; or rather, I prefer to wait half a year or so for a longer story than to wait a month between each piece of the puzzle. I enjoy the story more that way.

Or so I thought.

My Year With Marvel: Three Superheroic Considerations

Almost no one becomes a superhero on a whim. Even those who have their powers thrust upon them must think long and hard before they don a mask and take to the rooftops. Is the risk worth it? Does the universe really need them to take up arms?

Perhaps you’re in that situation now. You recently gained the ability to control fire with your mind, or you realized your years of fencing training have made you an unparallelled master of the art, or you discovered your parents are aliens who hid your true heritage (and its accompanying abilities) from you.

Naturally, you wonder whether you should do something about this; whether you can make a difference with the fiery bolts you shoot out of your fingers, or your skill with a blade, or the energy field your species generates. What challenges will you face? Will it be worth it?

Fear not! I can help you figure it out!

While your decision must ultimately be as personal as the superheroic journey itself, I’ve read a shit-ton of superhero comics and watched a fair measure of superhero-focused television, and I’ve noticed three distressing constants beyond the ones everyone talks about all the time (ie, the need for a costume and a secret identity and all that). You'll want to take them into account as you make your choice. Don't worry; they ain't pleasant, but you can soften their impact if you want this superhero thing badly enough.

My Year With Marvel: The Massive Recs List

When Kelly first signed up for Marvel Unlimited, I tweeted her a long list of series I enjoyed and thought she should check out. Since the list quickly slipped beneath the Twitter waves, I copied it and took to sending it by e-mail to every other friend who expressed an interest--but y'know, that's a pretty inefficient distribution method when I could just post it on here for all comers to peruse at their leisure.

So here it is.

The list is meant to be an at-a-glance thing, not an in depth exploration of each series' strengths. It covers everything I've consistently rated four stars (my "I loved this" rating) or higher over the last nine months, plus a handful of 3.5-star things that tie into four star material.

Marvel reuses their series titles on a fairly regular basis, so I've also indicated which year the first issue appeared; however, I've mostly left off the creative teams as these often change throughout a comic's run.

Each of these comics has at least one complete arc on Marvel Unlimited. Since I know many of you use Scribd¹ instead, I've updated the list to indicate which titles are available on there.

Okay. Here we go, in alphabetical order (with a few cheats to keep related series together):

My Year With Marvel: Merchandise

I hate owning things. I’m not sentimental and I feel little to no collector’s instinct¹. I want stuff on my walls because the nicest house in the world looks like shit with bare walls, and I’ll concede the need for furniture and kitchen utensils and all that, but gods spare me from random crap.

Well, mostly.

Y’all may have noticed I like Marvel, and Marvel produces a lot of merchandise. They sell useful stuff like wallets and bedding and kitchenware, and they produce (admittedly cool-looking) clutter like foam Mjolnirs and lifesize Iron Man’s head night lights and fully-articulated Spider-Man figures with six different sets of hands.

Some of it’s pretty great, but I don’t need to own it because it ain’t practical. Maybe I could get some use out of a Thor pint glass, but what the hell am I gonna do with a foam Mjolnir? A Hawkeye wallet could be pretty sweet (especially if it features Kate Bishop instead of Clint Barton), but a foot-tall porcelain Deadpool statue would probably just scare me in the long term.

So I resist.

Or resisted, I should say, since I met Barnes & Noble's Funko Pop! department on my last trip to the States and, well, shit happened.

This is Tiny Deadpool. He’s four inches tall. His head bobbles. He’s got two tiny guns and a tiny katana.

He’s really frickin’ cute.

It would’ve been wrong to leave him in Barnes & Noble, seeing as how I had a gift card that covered most of his purchase price, so I decided to make an exception to the I Hate Owning Things rule.

And hey! He likes Mexican food! We have much in common, Tiny Deadpool and I.

I love him a lot.

Also, he’s promised not to terrify me at random intervals, as a foot-tall porcelain Deadpool statue might have done. Thanks, Tiny Deadpool!

This is Tiny Hawkguy. He’s four and a quarter inches tall on account of his hair. His head bobbles to a much greater extent than does Tiny Deadpool’s. He has a tiny bow and a tiny quiver strapped to his back and tiny, strappy boots.

I tried not to buy him because he’s Cinematic Hawkeye and Cinematic Hawkeye doesn't do a whole lot, but he does look remarkably like Comics Hawkguy and Comics Hawkguy is very important to me.

Comics Hawkguy is the sort of dude who tries to save a murderous ninja mere minutes after said murderous ninja did their level best to assassinate him, because hell if anybody’s gonna die on his watch. I think about that a lot.

So I let him follow me home.

Tiny Hawkguy and Tiny Deadpool have formed an uneasy alliance despite their differences. Awwwww.

I shall endeavor not to buy more adorable Marvel merchandise (see: no collector's instinct), but one never knows. If Funko comes out with Tiny Kate Bishop, Tiny Pizza Dog, or Tiny Nova, I may add a little more clutter to my life.

And to be perfectly honest, I was looking for a Tiny Dancing Groot when I found Tiny Deadpool, so... yeah.

Maybe my collectors' years aren't as far behind me as I thought.

---

1. This wasn't always the case. I used to collect about a million different things, but somewhere along the line I decided I was no longer interested in amassing large quantities of impractical objects. I promptly rounded up my collectibles and sold 'em. I wrote a longish digression about that process when I first sat down to draft this post, but perhaps it belongs elsewhere. I'll trot it out the next time I put My Year With Marvel on hiatus for a week or two.