2018.023 X-Men Gold Vol 3: Mojo Worldwide

I guess that technically, this is actually both X-Men Gold AND X-Men Blue vol 3.  It's the first official crossover between the two books.  I thought it might be too soon for that to happen, but after reading it, I was wrong.  I didn't feel shoehorned in.  It felt right.  And that's the way to do a crossover.

I love that the book starts out with the X-Men teams doing what the X-Men teams love best.  Playing baseball.  And like any X-Men baseball game, it never ends well.  This time it ends with an attack on NYC by Mojo.  He's back, he's looking to make a lot of trouble for the X-Men.  And why?  For big ratings, of course.  It's scary how the concept of Mojo and our current administration have more than enough in common to be comfortable.  

What I love about this particular story is it gets to be nostalgic without actually being nostalgic.  Mojo puts the various teams of X-Men through a series of their "greatest hits."  And it's fun.  Plus, we get the return of long time X-Men ally and member, Longshot.  You can't ask for much more.  Honestly.

X-Men Gold Vol 3: Mojo Worldwide

Written by: Marc Guggenheim, Cullen Bunn

Illustrated by: Mike Mayhew, Marc Laming, Diego Bernard, Jorge Molina

Marvel Comics

2018.013 Batman: Super Powers

I like Marc Guggenheim's comics work an awful lot.  Well, most of it.  His X-Men book has been falling slightly short for me, but it's still enjoyable.  I was excited to read this book.  It collects an arc he did in Batman Confidential a while back.  It's two parallel stories running at the same time.  One in present day and one back in the training days of Bruce Wayne.  While I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either.  I don't know if I could be more neutral on it if I tried.  It's a fine story, but it's left no lasting impression on me.  I want to leave a story feeling something, anything.  This didn't leave me feeling anything, which is too bad.

Batman: Super Powers

Written by: Marc Guggenheim

Illustrated by: Jerry Bingham, Mark Farmer

DC Comics

169 X-Men Gold Vol 2: Evil Empires

The first volume fell flat for me.  This volume shows some improvement.  Enough that I'll stick around for a little while longer.

X-Men Gold Vol 2: Evil Empires

Writer: Marc Guggenheim

Artist: Ken Lashley, Lan Medina, Jay Leisten, Luke Ross

Marvel Comics

131 & 132 X-Men Blue Vol 1: Strangest / X-Men Gold Vol 1: Back To Basics

This is the first time I'm throwing two books into the same entry.  It seemed fitting to me, though.  X-Men Blue & X-Men Gold are the new X-books, setting the stage for the post Inhumans Vs X-Men event.  These books give me a very mixed outlook for the future of the X-Universe.

Let's start with Gold.  Kitty Pryde has taken leadership of the team.  She's assembled a small, but mighty, team of heavy hitters.  Colossus, Nightcrawler, Story, Old Man Logan and Rachel Summers, though now she's known as Prestige.  This book is one I was looking forward to more than the other.  It's the real, current X-team.  This should be good.  Marc Guggenheim is writing it.  I love his work.  This book felt like one giant fill in issue.  Nothing felt like it should.  Like he wanted to tell a story, but didn't want to disturb anything else that might be going on in the Marvel U.  It's weird.  It's a fine story, but it felt unnecessary.  I hope this changes with the second volume, or I'm done with it.

Conversely, X-Men Blue was the book I wasn't really hanging much hope on.  It's the time displaced original X-Men.  They were fine during Bendis' run, but can't they go home again.  But Cullen Bunn shows how you start a new series.  He's got a mission for the team.  He's got subplots he's slowly laying down.  He's setting his pieces all in place for when he needs them.  He's not discarding any history.  This is going to be my X-Men book, I have a feeling.  Excellent job, Mr. Bunn!!!

X-Men Blue Vol 1: Strangest

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Jorge Molina, Matteo Buffagni, Ray-Anthony Height, Julian Lopez, Jose Marzan Jr, Walden Wong, Cory Smith, Ramon Bachs, Marc Deering, Tarry Pallot

Marvel Comics

X-Men Gold Vol 1: Back To Basics

Writer: Marc Guggenheim

Artist: Ardian Syaf, Jay Leisten, Craig Yeung, R.B. Silva, Adriano Di Benedetto,