The main X-Men series is now HERE and it is written by Hickman! Are we ready?

The idea of this first "arc" of basically telling 6 individual stories is a bit risky. Could make some readers jump off if they don't like 1 or 2 of the stories. And in here we do get stories ranging from a day out with a father, to a new baddie all about the environment, to meeting with the nations on how to settle matters involving mutants from now on, to even speaking up on what happened in House of X and Power of X. All of this happens through 6 issues, but you can tell Hickman is playing the long game here.

I really love the majority of the character's hickman writes. Especially Cyclops, Xavier, and Mangeto. It also helps that each story here is it's own and even the weaker ones like issue 3, still have a mystery behind it that you can tell is a building block. The final three issues are probably the strongest to most though I also loved issue 2.

I think X-Men might vary for some. It's not as fast paced or connected as House of Power of X but if you want a refreshing, much better told story than the last decade or so of X-Men titles, you have it here. A 4 out of 5.

Like most of Spencer's run, this is pretty solid, but I keep hoping for more.

This volume has a pretty great opening, where we finally get the name of the creature/person chasing Peter in the background. He is called Kindred, and he is now going to pick apart Peter's life piece by piece. This volume mostly covers that but also focuses alot on the syndicate, which is basically a bunch of badass, but evil, super villain woman who go after Boomarang.

The humor is still pretty solid. I actually thought Boomarang for once had a few good lines. The Syndicate, as cheesy as they are, was pretty funny. I also thought Peter and MJ part, and Kindred, were all good stuff. The mysterio stuff feels tacked on for the movie (far from home) and also the storyline of Kindred seems to be dragging out now 25 issues.

Overall, it's good, but I can see people who would get fed up by now with Kindred. I'm still enjoying it though. A 3 out of 5.

I couldn't even finish this. It says it is a jumping on point, that's lie number 1. The 2nd issue is while the art is interesting it doesn't fit well here with the story. The writer here has a huge issue with exposition and over-relying on spelling out every single thing instead of letting the art play to the dialogue. Overall, this is a gigantic pile of shit if I'm being honest. Dull, lifeless, boring, and super silly.

Aaron is back to his indie work and takes a huge swing to give us a sci-fi coming of age, finding memo, story.

Too bad it mostly strikes out.

The story is almost exactly finding memo in terms of structure. Father and son are together, mother dies, father then loses son after being seperated from son. Son starts to become his own man, becoming stronger with the help of friends, all while his father searches for him through the hardships of survival.

Well finding Memo is great James, what's the issue?

It doesn't have characters worth caring for. Both father and son are kind of boring. The son is least fun and his "powers" is pretty cool. But the rest? Blah. The father is typical "I need my son" but you never feel the gravity of the situation. I also didn't think the art worked all that well, besides a few cool designs, it was typical in space fare.

Overall, a big old skip. Not horrible, but doubt I'll check out volume 2. A 2 out of 5.

Update Read On 2/24/20 - Upon re-reading it I enjoyed it more and bumping it up to a 4. I really felt for Tim this time and appreciated the world more.

Descender is a series I've owned for awhile but never read. Not sure why. I'm not big into space stuff.

This was good though!

So Tim 21 is a robot. You get little bits and pieces of his past, how he was made, what he was made for, while the other portion of this book is about other people hunting him down. In this very quickly paced volume you get just enough of the supporting cast of this world but it's main focus is Tim and his survival (is it survival when you're a robot?) and how he can make it through and who really is on his side or cares about him.

Good: LOVE the art. It's very atmospheric and gloomy yet still shines like a dream like feel to it all. I also like Driller the killer. Dude (Robot-dude) will fuck your shit up. The best parts of the story for me is Tim 21's past and learning about what he was made for and who he lived with. Loved all that. The ending also sets up some good sequel shit.

Bad: I didn't love the very very heavy exposition. I get it, it's a big world, and they have to set it up. Still, could be overbearing at times. I also thought the other supporting cast wasn't as interesting as Tim's main story.

Overall a good solid first volume. Not over the moon about it but I think this series might grow on me. Buying volume 2-4!

Update - 2/24/20 - Well I enjoyed this one a lot more this read too, so bumping this one up to a 4 as well. It is still confusing at first, and gathering who everyone is, and going back and forth between time periods. But, once you get settled in, it's extremely interesting world. Now that the series is done I plan on reading it all!

I didn't love the first half of this book. Needlessly complicated at first, back and forth feel of characters, nothing connecting. However, when it slows down and gets to the meat of it all, it really does becoming engrossing to read. I especially enjoyed Death at the end of this comic and you can feel his pain. Overall interesting take on the four horsemen. I'll be reading more of this series now.

Not too sure why they did it this way. New Mutants is being written by two different writers but for the trades they are doing volume 1 by Hickman and volume 1 by Brisson. But the main point is that the issues coming out vary from writer to writer so this collects issue 1, 2, 5, and 7.

So this story has some of the New Mutant kids from previous storylines getting zapped into Space. So basically Mutants in space. Right away within the first issue we get all the kids/teens kidnapped and put in prison. So now we have to get out but they might have to do this the legal way on top of working together.

Overall, this is pretty decent. The dialogue can be great. Magik is the standout with multiple funny scenes. I think most of the interactions are pretty fun. I think the negative comes from if you don't know these kids its now as enjoyable. Also...the storyline, like the plot, isn't all that great.

Overall, a middle of the road Dawn of X book. It's good but not great. A 3 out of 5.

Wow what a turn around. The first volume of Black Hammer was good to me but not great. But volume 2? Awesome. Sherlock Frankenstein? AWESOME.

Funny enough this title features very little of Sherlock. It's mostly focused on Black Hammer's daughter as she tries to crack the mystery on what happened the day she lost her father and the other heroes. Lucy is basically like Jessica Jones here and begins to search as many possible places, including villains that her father fought, to find out where Sherlock is. Will she get the answers she needs? or is this all for nothing.

What I loved was Lucy as a character. Determined and strong willed, everything you want in a lead. I also thought the idea of having Sherlock's past be brought up by bringing multiple witnesses to his actions and such was perfect. The art is also really strong and plenty tribute to DC heroes too. My only negative is maybe it's predictable and not all that "needed" to get the Black Hammer story but it's still very much a fun read.

A easy 4 out of 5.

This is after Jane finishes being Thor and becomes the new Valkyrie! It's pretty fun times but honestly I wasn't super impressed. The Bullseye stuff was great, and jane herself is both cute and funny, but the main storyline feels like its jumping around all over the place. The art sometimes was great, and other times just okay. Overall a 3 out of 5. Cool followup, might check out volume 2.

Batman has lost. Gotham is lost. Bane has won.

The city of Gotham is now under control of Bane. Who is with bane? Well you have Thomas Wayne, who basically is Batman without a moral code. Then you have Gotham girl, who took out the entire Justice League within minutes. So in other words, you got one of the strongest teams who've taken over Gotham, even scaring other villains to follow them. Damien won't take that sitting down and decides to go in to take care of business. On the flipside you also have Batman...or Bruce I should say, recovering from his failure. With that you have the return of Catwoman and they finally settle their messy relationship.

Overall, really nice jump in quality after the last two meh volumes. This one gives us plenty of great action scenes, a cool set up for Bane and his take over, some shocking deaths, and also a much needed recovery story and closure. I thought the art was also fantastic. I will say the pacing was odd and structure kind of sucked out the suspense a little too much for me at one point. Overall though, this is back to the quality I expect from King on Batman. A 4 out of 5.