Back-Issue Spotlight: Professor Xavier And The X-Men#10

Happy Hump Day!







So going with a feature I haven't done in awhile, Back-Issue Spotlight.
For today's pick, I chose Professor Xavier And The X-Men#10.
I don't know if you any of you guys remembered, but back during the later portion of '94, Marvel's comic sales were not doing good at all. Drastic measures had to be taken, and that's how we got Avengers : The Crossing....and comics in the market like this one. Prof X and the X-Men, as well as Uncanny Origins, Over The Edge, and the Untold Tales of Spider-Man. All of 'em part of a new marketing stratedgy to pull in new readers for the low, low price of only 99 cents.

Out of all those titles though, only Untold was ever given any notice or hype by the industry, since it was Kurt Busiek writing the adventures of Spidey in his early years.

Professor Xavier And The X-Men#10 (Aug '96)  "The Devil Below" by Art Holcomb and Nick Gnazzo.



This one's pretty much a straight up re-telling of Uncanny X-Men#9, which I didn't know at the time since I was waaaaay too young at the time.



In fact, if you just swapped out the more modern renditions of that issue with the original, classic versions, outside of the obvious differences in styles, storytelling-wise, it realy is the same issue...more or less.

Basically the X-Men are forced into an awkward fight with the Avengers, and its all that jerk Professor X's fault.

Told back and forth between flashbacks and the present day, Professor X is underground the catacombs of Cologne, Germany on the trail of an old enemy, Lucifer. This is the same alien bad guy responsible for Xavier winding up in a wheelchair for so long, so you know this meetings' going to be interestingly tense to say the least.

Xavier's underground, thinking back to how much a jerk he was to Cyclops, telling him he was off to fight an old enemy, but not giving him any info other than that. Stressing out over the situation and how they ended things, Cyclops is just about to go find Xavier, when Xavier mentally appears to the team and informs them  about his fight with Lucifer and how he's serving a alien race of conquerors called the Quist. 

Right around this time, The Avengers show up, as Thor sensed a great evil eminating from where the X-Men are.

Lucifer shots but misses a deadly beam of energy at the X-Men, but before they can retaliate, Xavier mentally screams they're in great danger, as the Avengers confront the X-Men. Xavier screams for them to defind themselves, and basically distract the Avengers while he fights Lucifer.

                     And then proceed to get it on like donkey kong....

          Give me a break people. I had to scan these with my new Motorolla Moto E cell phone....

Meanwhile underground, Xavier's fighting for his life against Lucifer, who's so devious, he has a bomb wired to his heart and heart monitor. If ihis heart stops for any reason, the massive bomb goes off.

So thats why Xavier didn't want to be distrubed...... Hmmmm.....

Xavier proves to outsmart Lucifer and uses his mental powers to make him go to sleep.

Now asleep, Xavier can quickly move in to sever the link and save his students, the Avengers and most of Cologne, Germany. Its the least he could do for being such a dick earlier.

Back topside, his students are getting their asses handed to them, specifically the gay Ice Man.

 Thor's about to commit a hate crime when all of a sudden Prof. X shows up and mentally stops Thor's hand...and safely from a long distance I might add.

Xavier explains the whole deal, and Cap's just all like "I'm afraid we all acted too hastily. Next time I hope we meet under more friendly circumstances."

Huh.

It truly awas a simplier time back then, because nowadays, they'd just flip each other off and make low-blow comments to each other.

                          Now that's how you deal with the hired help. Threaten to call Immigration;)

I had to look up the writer, Art Holcomb because I'd neevr heard of him, then or sense. Apparently he was brought into the business by Jim Shooter, but just never seemed to make it.

Nick Gnazzo on the otherhand's been doing indie work for years, and has his featured in numerous indie hard cover collections.

 As far as I know, Lucifer and the Quist haven't appeared since, which is a shame even for what could be considered "throwaway villains."

Then again, God only knows how twisted and screwed up they'd be in the hands of today's modern writers.

Back-Issue Spotlight: Silver Surfer#55 (Vol.3)

Happy Hump Day People:)

Truer than is should be

 All things considered, Thanos seemed way too calm about the entire MU dying.
I guess that's because he's been there before, but back then, he was in charge.

Case in point, The Infinity Gauntlet.

Back in 1991, Jim Starlin returned to Marvel to follow up on the importance of the Infinity Gems that he introduced years before, and by doing so, he wrote Thanos collecting them all Pokemon-style and fastening them onto a guantlet.

He was essentially God.

That brings us to today's edition of Back-Issue Spotlight, where I focus on the IG tie-ins, specifically the Silver Surfer issues.

Today is part one of those tie-ins, Silver Surfer#55.

Silver Surfer#55 (Vol.3) (Sep '91) "The Universe According To Thanos: Part 1 Genesis" By Ron Marz And Ron Lim.

I don't know how in synch Ron Marz and Jim Starlin were right before IG, but if you were a regular reader around the time that Marz took over for Starlin, than you'd see Thanos had been working his way up to this point for a long while.

 The late 40's, were about Warlock coming back onto the scene after a long self-exile because Thanos himself had also returned.
And now Thanos had the all-powerful Infinity Guantlet in his possession....and the entire MU was fucked.
\
Running concurrently with the main event title, this issue focuses on the inital attack on Thanos by the Marvel heroes from the Silver Surfer's point of of view. And much like we saw in Infinity Guantlet#3, it doesn't go well for them:

So yeah, they're not doing too hot.

Warlock sends Surfer in too late, and after seeing what Thanos has done, Surfer and Warlock fall apart.
Thanos takes out Warlock, the same way Warlock did him years earlier.

 By turning him to stone. Is that called Irony, or just revenge? Hmmm.

After disposing of Mephisto too, that just leaves Surfer.

Of course Thanos decides instead of just killing Surfer right there and then, he'll make him suffer by letting him live to see what he plans on doing next. And he does, after causually stripping the Surfer of his powers.

Thanos uses the Infinity gems to remake the universe in his own image. 

              And by doing so, re-creates the universe into a giant slaughterhouse as tribute to his girl Death.
             Any life is created are soley used and treated like cattle; meant to die as a means of honoring her.

At this moment, Surfer knows all is lost.

The next part after this is all about the Surfer trying to fight Thanos and end this nightmare only for him to realize.......it's all a dream. Yeah, totall DALLAS ending here folks.

All-in-all, a really good read....that is if you enjoy the Surfer being psychologically assaulted, then yeah, good clean fun or the whole family;)

And again, in respect to what's going on with the whole Secret Wars thing, for Thanos when you've already had the power of a God, everything lese after that just isn't that important I guess.

Back-Issue Spotlight: Flash#100 (Vol. 2)

Happy Hump Day People

Wrapping up the April only-themed back issues that get highlighted this month, today I've chosen an old favorite of mine, Flash#100. This was the last part of Terminal Velocity, an amazing arc by Mark Waid.

It was also one of a few centennial isues coming out back then. Wonder Woman, Superman, and Justice League of America all hit the centennial mark around this time, and this was Wally's turn.


Flash#100 (Vol.2) Terminal Velocity: Overdrive "The Quick and the Dead" by Mark Waid, Salvador LaRocca, Carlos Pacheco, and Oscar Jimenez.

Quick recap time: Okay so Waid had a lot of plates spinning up in the air within this arc.
Kobra and his international terrorist organization had set its sights on Keystone City, trapping the city and all of its people inside a seemingly impentrable forcefield. So Wally has to deal with that. He's also trying to mentor Impulse(Bart Allen), teaching him to grow up and use his powers responsibly....and failing miserably.
Wally's sense of urgeny about this is due to the fact that the Speed Force keeps calling him every time Wally runs, pulling him to merge with it. And since running is what he does, yeah, Wally's kinda' fucked. Wally's trying to smarten Bart up because he needs him to be his replacement. Replacement? Yeah in the beginning of the arc, Wally has a nightmare, a premonition, that he and his city would die.
And then there's his not-yet-wife, Linda to deal with. So yeah, lots of stuff to deal with, and only a short time left to do it all in.

By #100, Kobra's seemingly killed Wally, which he didn't but the rest of the city doesn't know that, and now the rest of the speedsters(Max Mercury, Jesse Quick, Bart, and Jay Garrick) along with Linda and the Pied Piper have to save Keystone City by themselves.

And man are they having a rough time of it....

Jesse and Jay get put on the shelf, leaving the rest to pick up the slack.

Oh and while this is happening, Kobra's hedging its bets by simultaneously attacking multiple cities around the country. Leading to scenes like this:

Yep, cue obligatory scenes of various heroes doing their thing.

But Wally's still "dead", and dispite their best efforts, it looks like Kobra's going to win out in the end.

Not that brave Linda believes that, as she intends to go out guns blazing. Literally.

Try as she might though, Kobra's just too powerful.

 And just as it seems that Kobra's won, it starts to storm.....and lighting crashes.


Talk about a timely save right?

Wally seemingly comes back from the "dead" and heals his friends' wounds, and saves the city he loves, thus preventing the horrible future that haunted him at the beginning of the arc.

But was it really Wally, or all just a dream?

 Of course it wasn't.....

Now that's how you tell a story, but you hacks at DC wouldn't know anything about that.

As it turns out, Wally didn't die, but merely merged with the Speed Force. Other speedsters got permantely stuck there once they followed the call, but not Wally. His love for Linda is what kept him grounded, much like Barry had Iris as his anchor. Of course, up to this point, Wally was the only speedster that came back, thus further moving him out of his Uncle Barry's shadow.

Waid would stay on for a few more years, take a break, and then finally end his legendary run. But most think, myself included, that he should've ended his run with this issue since the rest of his run after this just wasn't as good.

Still, this is definitely a key arc in Wally's overall story as Flash, and it would go on to define him for the rest of his career.....until Flashpoint and Dan Dildo fucked all that up.

You can find Terminal Velocity in trade form or the individual issues on the cheap in the quarter bin.
Do yourself a favor and go find it. Its well worth it.

Back Issue Spotlight: Swamp Thing#15 (Vol.1)

What's up people?

Took a break yesterday since my girl and I were still celebrating her 25th birthday,
so you know, priorities;)

Working on the second skit strip now, so we'll get to that one Thursday.
Today, is another edition of Back Issue Spotlight featuring Swamp Thing.


Specifically, Swamp Thing#15 from his first ongoing series all the way back to 1975.
So break out your pet rocks, bell-bottoms and tube socks, 'cause we're going back in time......

Swamp Thing#15 (Vol. 1) (April '75) "The Soul Spell Of Father Bliss" By David Micheline and Nestor Redondo.

Who says you don't learn things from comics?

If the groovy title doesn't grab you, how about Swampy getting straight up struck by lighting?

That'll sure sell some copies, by God!

Poor bastard was just minding his own business, when he just happens to run afoul of mother nature.

Layed out like a champ, he comes to as a strange man happens by to help him.

The guys justhappens to be a priest. A "father" if you will. Maybe like the one in the title of today's story perhaps?

Father Bliss is the name of the stranger, and unlike most people who comes across Swampy, he doesn't run from fear of him, nor want to kill/hurt him.

Actually he just wants to help him....and rub him down with some lotion/"home remedies"

You know were thinking it too

Swampy seeing that his church is looking kinda' fucked up and bombed out(even by middle eastern standards), starts to head for the door, but then Father Bliss feels compleed to explain why his church looks the way it does, and why there's no congregation there anymore.

Basically Bliss says that his "flock" have strayed away from God so much, he felt he had to resort to using the other side's tactics in an attempt to win them back.

Obviously its worked so well for him so far since he's still spends his days preaching to an invisible choir.

Look at Swampy over there. He's like "Awww, that old priest looks so cute trying to use black magic."

Actually no, not cute.

Turns out Father Bliss has been working with a demon named Nebiros(*who may or may not be the same demon that created the Blue Devil*) and that demon sensed Swampy's presense and now wants to posses his body since Swampy's so....sturdy.

*

• "Even though they share the same name, Nebiros is not the same demon which appears in the 1980's comic Blue Devil. Different appearances aside, this is confirmed in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #16 (1986)."

Well that answers that huh?

Oh yeah, forgot to mention Swampy's friends.

Matt Cable and Abigal Arcane. They were regulars during this time period, and definitely before Abbie and Alec/Swampy hooked up during Moore's run.

A very possessed Swampy attacks his concerned friends and takes them straight to Father Bliss who has some nice and very family-friendly plans for them. NOT!

 Bliss' pal Nebiros needs all the nice fresh souls he can get, so Bliss plans on helping him since Nebiros promisedf to return his congregation to him.

But Bliss starts to get second thoughts after seeing him destroy a human soul in person.

Matt's words are enough to convince Father Bliss he was wrong to help Nebiros, and Bliss starts to fix things by freeing Swampy of his new host.

This naturally pisses off Nebiros something fierce and after Abby breaks the mystical orb that held Swampy's soul, Nebiros begins to attack everybody.

An epic battle rages between Swampy and Nebiros once they lock up, with a stalemate occuring.
It's then that Bliss decides to con Nebiros into possessing his tired old body, and Nebiros practially kills the both of them once Bliss' body burns up due to being way to frail to contain all of Nebiros.

After that, what's left of Bliss' church blows up and collapses on itself.
And that's how it pretty much ends.

Say what you will about this era of Swampy's history, but it definitely opened the door for all sorts of weirdness and fucked up shit to happen alot.  If it wasn't demons trying to posses him, it was fucked up monsters, and zombies that happened to cross his path. Trust me, all that weird and philisophical shit that Alan Moore is praised for bringing to Swampy hadn't set any precedents that writers like Micheline, Wein, and others hadn't already introduced into the book themselves.