113 Extraordinary X-Men Vol 4: IvX

The latest era of X-Men is coming to an end.  I'm not disappointed.  The whole Terrigan Mists era of X-Men feels like it was more a placeholder than anything else.  Like, "we just came off of the Bendis run but we don't know what to do with the X-Men.  Let's push our Inhumans hard, poison the air and let the X-Men figure things out while we try to find a direction for the book."  That's what the last year or two have felt like to me.  But it's ending.

This book has a lot going for it.  Lemire!  It's an Inhumans vs. X-Men tie in, but it has almost nothing to do with that series, which is fine by me.  What we have here are four stand alone character driven stories, focusing on a different X-Man.  Forge, Storm, Old Man Logan and Magik.  Jeff Lemire makes it work in the context of the big, awful crossover.  There's really nothing he can't do.

Also included in this book is X-Men Prime, the latest version of "let's start things all over again."  Kitty Pryde is back and she's in charge of the team.  I hope this leads to a strong direction for the X-Men.  It's something they've been lacking for a while now.

Extraordinary X-Men Vol 4: IvX

Writer: Jeff Lemire, Mark Guggenheim, Greg Pak, Cullen Bunn

Artist: Eric Koda, Victor Ibanez, Andrea Sorrentino, Tom Palmer, Ken Lashley, Ibraim Roberson, Leonard Kirk, Guillermo Ortego

Marvel Comics

045 Zatanna By Paul Dini

The title of this collection is slightly misleading.  It should be Zatanna By Paul Dini and Others.  LOL.  It's primarily written by Paul Dini with fill in writers here and there.  But it's mostly Paul Dini.  And I must say, this collection was a bigger joy reading in this format than it was monthly as it was originally published.  There has never been a writer before who knew how to write Zatanna like Paul Dini does.  He gets her.  He makes it clear he gets her.  And he turns out such great stuff.  It's clear he was slowly laying down things that he was going to address later in the series, but it got cancelled before he could get to any of it.  Besides the entire Zatanna monthly series, this book includes the Everyday Magic special and a Halloween story.  I was so sad to see this book get cancelled.  It's not often a B List character gets such A List treatment.  I highly recommend this book.

Zatanna By Paul Dini

Writer: Paul Dini, Adam Beechen, Matthew Sturges, Derek Fridolfs

Artist: Stephane Roux, Jamal Igle, Chad Hardin, Cliff Chiang, Rick Mays, Jesus Saiz, Victor Ibanez, Wayne Faucher, John Sibal, Karl Story, John Dell, Robin Riggs, Travis Moore, Dustin Nguyen

DC Comics

043 Extraordinary X-Men Vol 3: Kingdoms Fall

I whined about the state of the X-Men Universe a few posts back.  As enjoyable as this book was, the whole Terrigan Mists are poison to mutants thing is really getting old.  Marvel needs to get it's shit back together and get back to basics with the X-Men rather than being pissy babies about not having the movie rights and treating the teams as the green-eyed step children of the Marvel U.

That being said, I like the make up of this team.  The team is home based in Limbo (because Terrigan Mists... sigh).  The first story is about (a) trying to save Colossus from the grip of Apocalypse and (b) a cross dimensional demon trying to take over Limbo.  It was a fun romp despite losing an X-Man.  The second tale was about trying to save two imprisoned mutants from (sigh) a Terrigan Mist cloud.  And then a third (fun!!!!) story featuring Forge and Moon Girl.

I hear Jeff Lemire is done with Marvel, and I'm not sure if this is his last X-Men collection or if there's more in the pipeline.  But I'm sad because he writes a good book.

Extraordinary X-Men Vol 3: Kingdoms Fall

Writer: Jeff Lemire, Ollie Masters, Brandon Montclare

Artist: Victor Ibanez, Guillermo Mogorron, Carlo Barberi, Walden Wong, Rose Kampe

Marvel Comics