This Week In Marvel Unlimited: 09/07/2020
Welcome back to This Week on Marvel Unlimited. A day late, but I avoided being on-line and writing this up. Another good week of Comics from Marvel Unlimited, including new X-Men, more 2020 books, and another Noir story.
New This Week (In Print 03/04/2020)
2020 Rescue #1
Black Cat #10
Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #7
Daredevil #19
Doctor Doom #6
Dr. Strange #4
Excalibur #8
Iron Man 2020 #3
Magnificent Ms. Marvel #13
Marauders #9
Marvel #1
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #16
Spider-Man Noir #1
Spider-Verse #6
Strange Academy #1
Strikeforce #7
Sword Master #9
Notes: The 2020 Books are all interconnected and you need to be current to understand what’ll happen going forward…Daredevil starts a new arc and could be a good jumping on point for those who are interested in starting up…Marauders is still the best new X-Men book out there and I highly recommend it…Marvel #1 is a new anthology series that came out of Marvels 25 years ago; Kurt Busiek has a story in this issue…It’s no surprise to see Spider-Man Noir back if they are writing new Noir stories and the popularity of the character after Into the Spider-Verse…Strange Academy gets Skottie Young to write about a magic school; I’m sold…
Best of Last Week
X-Men #7: Book of the Week. One of the more interesting aspects of the Dawn of X storyline has been the resurrection protocols; when a mutant dies, they can be brought back with the help of Professor X and 5 other mutants. The dead mutant will get their memories back. In X-Force, they address the PTSD of being brought back (through Colossus). Here they look at the Crucible, a new ritual where depowered mutants can fight to be resurrected; they focus on Melody Guthrie, who lost her powers at the hands of Scarlet Witch, and the one on one fight with Apocalypse to win back her powers. Running in parallel is Nightcrawler and Cyclops talking about the moral and religious issues with the resurrections (both having been through it). It’s a deep issue and something that will be revisited in the future, I hope.
Fantastic Four: Grimm Noir #1: Ben Grimm is having nightmares and he thinks someone is encroaching on his head. When a neighbor across the street goes missing, he knows this nightmare guy is responsible. It’s a solid mystery one-shot that gets inside the Things head and reminded me why I liked the previous Noir stories.
Star #2: I wish I knew more about how Star came about, because all we really know from reading this story is she’s got powers from the Reality Stone, she doesn’t know how to properly use them, and many people are going to want to take them. This issue features Scarlet Witch, but really, I don’t remember much else. Maybe if I knew more about Star, I’d care, but I’m probably done with the book.
Falcon & Winter Soldier #1: The title characters are brought together to fight a new assassin from Hydra – a teenage kid who defeats the heroes with ease. It was interesting to see the Winter Soldier working for the government in exchange for wiping the slate of his past crimes; very Black Widow/MCU of them. It was a good first issue and I’m looking forward to learning more about what Hydra’s up to.
Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey and Emma Frost #1: This was a quick read, as most of the book had no words. The X-Men discover that Storm has been attacked and is in a catatonic state and Jean and Emma enter her mind to save her. While it was an interesting idea and visually stunning, it didn’t do much for me. We discover that the Children of the Vault infected Storm with a techno-virus that will kill her in the next 30 days. They say nothing of how it happened, there is no resolution, and no word of where the story will continue at.
New Mutants #8: A new arc that has Magma take Armor and Boom Boom (worst X-Name; go back to Meltdown) to her native Brazil to see why an injured mutant ended up with her father. There are some new creatures preventing mutants from entering Krakoa portals there. It’s a good introduction issue and Hickman has done a pretty good job of handling these lesser used mutants.
X-Men/Fantastic Four #2: Remember way back in House of X/Powers of X when the Fantastic Four tried to stop Mystique, Sabertooth, and Toad as they ran a clandestine mission for the Nation of Krakoa and the X-Men intervened? They discussed Franklin and where he belongs. This issue has both sides looking for Franklin, Valeria, and the Marauders. There are fighting between the 2 sides, when they discover the Marauder never made it back to Krakoa; the ship was intercepted by Dr. Doom, who wants to cure Franklin’s degrading power issue. This has been a fun little series.
X-Force #8: Domino and Colossus have struggled with their recent brushes with death and it’s brought them together (again, since I vaguely remember a previous relationship between them). Domino tracks down Misfortune, the assassin that has some of Domino’s skin and luck. She also discovers a train full of other assassins with her skin and luck. Colossus ends up destroying the train, with Domino on board. Solid issue.
Retro Read: None this week; I’ve been focusing on reading Hellboy Omnibus 3.
