So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

The new IDW Transformers series. Like anarky, I was reluctant to dive into these books, because the last run was so movingly excellent. But I’m trying to not hold the other series against this one and enjoy it(or not enjoy it) on its own merits.

So, the story begins before the war has started. Orion Pax and Megatron are both senators and friends, although their ideologies are straining that friendship. In the recent past, the “Three Spark War” has led to a change in Cybertronian policies by Nominus Prime, called the Nominus Edict. Expansionism into the galaxy has been curtailed, dissenters were sent offworld, Energon is rationed, and Forgings of new Cybertronians is spaced out, with each ‘newborn’ assigned a Mentor. Megatron and his fellow Asenticons oppose this shackling of their potential, and there is a radical subset of Expansionists, called the Rise(secretly run by Shockwave) basically domestic terrorists stirring the pot.

1-6. The series starts out with the most recent new forging, Rubble, being Mentored by Bumblebee. So most of the expositional backstory being delivered between newcomer Rubble and Bumblebee. They discover the murdered Brainstorm which kicks off a murder mystery, and raises the stakes because murders are exxxxtrreeeeeemmmmelllyyy rare. Megatron introduces an Asenticon security force, as a political move, and Orion’s security team is investigating the murder. As the series went on for the first few issues, I was going to make a snarky comment about ‘if you like political speeches in your TF books and hardly any Transforming, you are gonna LOVE this book!’ but then they dropped a huge twist into the book by killing off Rubble in issue five. I was like ‘oh shit!’ because he was basically the reader’s POV for the opening arc.

7-18. The connections between Megatron and the Rise become clear(to the reader) after several altercations between the Rise and the Autobot security forces. Bumblebee joins the Asenticons(but we later find out he’s secretly working for OP). The leader of senate and holder of the Matrix, Sentinel Prime returns from being off planet and insists on elevating the conflict against the Rise and the Asenticons as a threat to Cybertron, against Orion Pax’s pleas to diffuse the rhetoric. The Rise comandeer a dormant Titan orbiting in space and cause it to destroy the Energy Tether to the Energon producing moon causing much destruction. The chain of events is headed towards the inevitable…

The mythology of TF sometimes hamstrings the narrative. If you know Megatron, Soundwave, Starscream, etc are gonna end up on one side, and Orion Pax and Bumblebee are gonna be opposing them, it stifles the surprise of their choices and motivations. But that said, the new writer does a good job of giving legit arguments for their actions. Especially Megatron and Orion debating. The sheer amount of characters in the books was bewildering. Averaging between 12 and 20 characters per issue, and hardly ever the same ones, except for the main ones. If you didn’t have a decent grasp of these characters, you’d be lost. Woe be any newcomer making this their first foray into the fandom.

Apart from me having to research every other character on TFwiki, this book is not bad. Writer Brian Ruckley is doing a good, if pretty straightforward and “safe”, prequel to the beginning of the Great War. Up next, issues 19-27, which is what is in the older boxes. The series went up to 40(?) something.

There was a second ongoing called TF Galaxies that came out during this run, but I’m gonna read this series first, then go back and read the other one.

[Tom Foolery]

TF 19-24 had the subtitle Rise of the Decepticons added to the cover logo. Ascenticons security team members Elita-1 and Bumblebee are getting sus of their boss Soundwave and the connection between the Ascenticons and the Rise. As such, they become ‘disposable’ and somebody tried to kill ‘Bee. Sentinel Prime goes on TV(or whatever) and accuses the Ascenticons of deception. Megatron leans into it and claims they are Decepticons. Meanwhile the two Rise members who killed Brainstorm and Rubble; Frenzy and Quake are being hid in a secret bunker out in the boonies. A team goes to move them to a safer location and they run into an Autobot patrol. A big shootout ends up with Quake being captured. Sentinel Prime insists on parading him through the crowd of restless Cybertronians, which erupts in a mob. Quake escapes in the confusion and Bumblebee kills him to stop his escape, but also getting revenge for his mentee, Rubble. ‘bee is arrested. Sentinel Prime convenes the senate to denounce Megatron and the Decepticons, but Megatron shows up and gives an impassioned speech…right before his troops crash the senate and hold everyone hostage. Meanwhile, Wheeljack and a handful of bots on the moon are trying to science it into not getting pulled into the sun.

TF 25-27. The next logo subtitle is War World, with the ‘o’ being a little Cybertron. The oversized 25th issue has Megatron announcing he’s in charge now. Ironhide and some other security team go in and rescue Sentinel Prime, Orion Pax and other senate hostages. Sentinel immediately takes off to challenge Megatron, but he’s cut off by the Seekers, Ion Storm, Acid Storm, and Nova Storm who kill Sentinel. Orion and the others arrive just in time for Sentinel to tell Orion to give the Matrix to Ultra Magnus, but the Matrix chooses Orion….Optimus Prime is born! Issue 26 has Termagax, the engineer who started the Ascenticons, come out of recluse to dress down Megatron for his actions. He blows her up, but its just a drone she built. This enrages her enough to get back in the fight. 27 is about Sky-Lynx and a team of Autobots retaking the moon from the ‘Cons who occupied it after Wheeljack’s team stopped it from burning up in the sun. Exciting stuff!

The rest of the main series is in the newer boxes, so it’ll be a few months before I get to the 28-43 conclusion of the story.

Up next Transformer Galaxies and a bunch of TF minis and crossover minis.

[Tom Foolery]

Transformers Galaxies was a supplemental ongoing that told stories spun out of the main series. It ran 12 issues and had 4 story arcs.

TF Galaxies 1-4. This was by far the best arc of the four. Tyler Blezinski writes a dark story of the Constructicons rise and fall added immensely by Livio Ramondelli’s moody, brilliant art. All forged roughly at the same time, the six bots who would become the Constructicons are progressing under the tutelage of Wheeljack and Termagax(she would form the Ascenticons later on). Their intuitive ability to work together in rebuilding the city state of Iacon is earning them praise and reputation. While clearing rubble, they find the Enigma of Combination and it alters them. Wheeljack raises concerns, but Termagax encourages them to lean into it. Their combiner increases the repair work tenfold, but when a brief lack of control of the ‘combined’ mind causes them to knock down a building, Wheeljack’s fears are confirmed and he uses the bureaucracy to get them sent to a planetoid to rebuild the power station there. Effectively exiled, the Constructicons build a magnificent city on the planetoid, but then the Insecticons come and begin sowing dissent in their minds. Their resentment grows and Devastator takes over….this arc is a beautiful tragedy. Might be one of the best TF reads ever. Highly recommended.

5-6. Was a two parter focused on Cliffjumper, who is a sad sack always being overshadowed by Bumblebee. He was the forgotten paired forging at the same time ‘Bee was forged. He gets sent to a occupied planet where Deathsaurus is in charge of Energon production, and Cliffjumper is mistaken by the local alien population for the more famous Bumblebee because the alies use echolocation to “see”. Cliff realizes Deathsaurus is using the aliens wings, forcing them to shred themselves because it makes an enriched from of Energon. He fights back, kills Deathsaurus and reports back to Cybertron the fuel source was been tapped dry and he scuttled the Energon plant, but the locals build him a statue. It was a decent 2 parter.

7-9. The third arc spun out of the main series, when the tether to the energon moon collapsed, the newest Forging, Gauge(her forging was accelerated when Brainstorm was murdered, so she was the Forging directly after the now murdered Rubble) and her two mentors, Arcee and Greenlight escaped on a departing ship. It turns out the ship was filled with Reversionists and Gauge is mindwiped and brought into their cult. She finds Arcee and Greenlight in the ship’s brig and they try to explain who she really is and eventually she breaks free of her new programming amd returns the ship to Cybertron where they escape amd form a little family unit.

10-12. The final arc had Ultra Magnus out in space searching for the missing Alpha Trion and coming up against “splice-theives” including Spinister, Octane and led by Soundblaster. Ultra Magnus’ alpha ultra goody attitude is played straight and makes the entire read actually more dull than if they’d been lampooning his ideology like they did in the MTMTE series. The end of the arc dovetails back into the main series when they return to Cybertron and find the Decepticons in charge.

Transformers:Escape 1-2. Galaxies was replaced with this five issue mini focusing on Wheeljack and others attempting to refurbish five ancient unused Arcs to get civilians to safety in the midst of the new unrest between the Autobots and Decepticons. The final three issues are in the newer boxes.

Up next, more TF minis that crossed over with other properties, like Back to the Future, Terminator, Ghostbusters, and …*sigh* …My Little Pony… and others.

[Tom Foolery]

Transformers/Ghostbusters 1-5. After the Autobots leave Cybertron, Gozer shows up and destroys Megatron and the Decepticons(in the form a giant Coronation Starscream). Fast forward to the present; the Autobots are getting weird readings from a nearby planet. They send a ‘Bot down to investigate and he scans the Ecto-1(becoming Ectotron) and helps the Ghostbusters deal with cybertronian “ghosts” of Decepticons who survived by making a deal with Kremzeek. The art was in the style of the animated cartoon for both series. Fun crossover. I enjoyed it.

Transformers/Terminator 1-4. In the future, the world is ruled by the Decepticons. Skynet sends a lone T-800 back in time to stop the Transformers before the eruption at Mt St Hillary ever awakens them. He enlists the aid of a waitress named Sarah Connor to head to Oregon. When they arrive, he accidentally helps awaken some Autobots, thereby changing history, and he and Sarah reluctantly team up with them to stop the present day ‘Cons even though the T-800 sees all Cybertronians as the same threat to the future. Another decent mash up.

Transformers/My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic 1-4. I only flipped thru these to get a sense of the story. It was mostly two shorter stories per issue like Grimlock and Pinkie Pie teaming up to fight Insecticons. There was a sequel mini; Friendship is Magic II, but it’s one of the few TF related books I didn’t buy.

Transformers/Back to the Future 1-4. At the conclusion of the first film, Decepticons witness Marty escape in the DeLorean and then return. Rumble hides in the Delorean when Doc heads to 2015, then steals it and returns to 1974 to stock up Energon and wake up the Decepticons early, so when Marty wakes up the next day, it’s in a ‘present’ where everyone is under Decepticon rule. He has to steal the Delorean(who is a Decepticon with regrets who changes sides named Gigawatt) to head back to 2015 to find Doc Brown and try to re-change history. My only problem is that Marty is acting way more ‘heroic’ and like attacking Decepticons head on that I would think the character would behave based on the movies. Also, the skateboard is a Transformer, which is dumb.

and the last of the TF books in the pile…

Transformers:Beast Wars 2. From the recent IDW ongoing. Don’t know how this was in my box. Never been a fan of Beast Wars from its first inception. It’s almost like its own separate Brand in my head, like Visionaries, or Voltron, and not TF.

Transformers ‘84 0, 1-4. Excellent ‘prequel’ to the original Marvel(and MarvelUK) continuity. Furman even writes liner notes in the back of each issue, explaining all the easter egg references in each issue, and Guidi’s art is old school perfection. Fills in some plotholes from the original run, and generally makes the entire series better. Highest reccomendations.

Transformers:Power of the Predacons 100 page Giant. Reprints of Predacon stories, both the OG and the Beast Wars versions, from various series over the years. Ironically does not have their first app from the original Marvel run, but it does have a cool reprint where Swoop lost his original name Divebomb, to the Predacon from the MarvelUK series.

Transformers Valentines Day oneshot. Dumb story where an Autobot scientist brings her boyfriend/security bot to an alien world to study the local inhabitants.

Next, I skip allllll the True Believers issues (140+ of them) and start on the very small pile of books between them and the large Venom run I already read. Theres some 2099 oneshots, a Typhoid Mary series, USAgent, Jane Foster’s Valkyrie run, and a couple of Vampirella issues. After that it’s the ‘W’s.

[Tom Foolery]

Marvel did a 2099 mini-event. There were Alpha and Omega bookend issues and seven oneshots. All this tied into Spencer’s Amazing Spidey run. It didn’t make sense when I read the ASM issues, but I figured it would make more sense when I read the 2099 part. It really didn’t.
Near as I can tell, an alternate Doom2099 did something that changed the original 2099 timeline, and an elderly Miguel O’Hara who was stuck in the present and waited 80 years to tell future Miguel he needs to become Spidey2099 to reset the 2099 timeline. The oneshots were set in the “new” timeline so it was fresh takes on the classic 2099 characters.

Fantastic Four 2099. A cyborg named Venture finds an old HERBIE robot who’s “mother” told him to reunite the family. So Venture and HERBIE find these three other powered people with backstories and everything. Then you realize HERBIE is short circuiting and crazy and he kills all four of them because they aren’t the right family. Fucking dark. I loved it.

Conan2099. Ancient Conan is possessed by Morgan LeFay’s ghost and he finds a Nova helmet and flies himself into the sun to get rid of her.

Punisher2099. A Public Eye officer under the command of Jake Gallows discovers he and his fellow officers are being given altered memories after they gun down innocents for the benefit of the mega corporations making them think they were killing criminals. He rebels and becomes a new Punisher at the expense of his own identity.

Ghost Rider2099. Seemed like basically the same origin as the first GR2999. Kenshiro “Zero” Cochran ends up in an AI body after hacking a the wrong mega corp computer and getting his human body blown up. But it’s been a while since I read the original book.

Venom2099. Alchemax is using the symbiote to make a new cure all drug. It’s administered to a young woman who bonds with the Venom and she helps it break back into Alchemax to free the rest of the symbiote and get revenge.

Doom2099. Victor wakes up in the desert with amnesia and only a vague memory of him fighting Reed Richards to the death. He slowly regains his memory and crafts a new armor and goes to confront the man called Doom2099. It turns out he wasn’t Victor at all, but Reed all along and the only thing he could remember was his hatred for Victor. Decent twist at the end.

Spider-Man 2099. Miguel is working on gene splicing for Alchemax and his brother Gabe is trying to uncover corruption or whatever. Basically a remix of his origin. The older version of him shows up at the end setting up the Omega issue.

Eh. Not great but a few good issues in a mediocre event.

[anarky]

No Ravage?

[Tom Foolery]

No Ravage?

No. But “the Ravage” is the term for the wastelands that aren’t any of the giant cities like Tranverse City(the snarl of highways between what used to be Chicago and Detroit) and Nueva York. So they kiinnnnda homaged it/him.

[Tom Foolery]

Typhoid Fever. These were three oneshots, featuring Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Iron Fist showcasing Typhoid Mary after her Tyohoid persona resurfaces and she uses a power amplifying mutant named Zack to basically brainwash all of Manhattan. The narrative keeps switching into “TV shows” like a soap opera Mary used to appear on, or an old 60’s western as the heroes are trapped in Mary’s shared hallucination. The entire series/arc Wasn’t clicking for me at all. But it did explain how Mary was in the nunnery at the beginning of Daredevil’s newest run(but not how both DD and Fisk knew she was there, nor their agreement to mutually leave her alone).

The Union 1-5. Already read it during the King in Black stuff. Skipped.

USAgent 1-3. SHIELD set up a fake Amazon-type distribution center to house a containment field for some sinister mcgoo(it’s not revealed in the first 3 issues, might be in the last 2 in the newer boxes) in a rural redneck West Virginia town thats been hit hard by recession after their coalmine closed. The townsfolk are resentful the DC didn’t hire locals and ‘brought their own people’ in to run it, so they sabotage the fake business’s self contained power station. This triggers a code and John Walker is accidentally sent in to contain the situation after a mid-level burueacrat having a beef with Valerie Cooper deliberately assigns the recently quit/fired USAgent to the situation. Walker quit/was fired after he refused to open fire on minorities protesting illegal immigrant detainee’s conditions. Walker’s kid sister is one of the SHIELD agents assigned to the facility, and they have unresolved issues. Chris Priest is writing an interesting story here, and I look forward to finishing it up when I get around to the new boxes eventually.

Valkyrie 1-4. Jason Aaron and Al Ewing continued Jane Foster’s adventures in the wake of War of the Realms in this criminally short ongoing series that only lasted 10 issues(although it has had a few minis that continue the legacy numbering). Jane is the newest and last Valkyrie shepherding departed souls to the afterworld. In the first arc, she has to fight Bullseye, who has taken posession of the former Valkyrie’s sword Dragonfang. He uses it to kill Heimdall before Jane destroys it. She then ushers Heimdall to a completely new afterlife that he had never seen before. Wonderful issue.

5-7. When Death herself becomes mortally sick, Jane must assemble a team of super-hero doctors like Dr Strange, Night Nurse, Cardiac, Dr Whitman Knapp(aka Manikin from the obscurest Alpha Flight team ever) and Faiza Hussain, the wielder of Excalibur, to figure out why Death is dying and cure her.

8-10 Tyr, the overlooked eldest son of Odin unleashes an ancient plague and Thor and Jane have to stop it from spreading thru Asgard and Midgard.

You can tell Jason Aaron clearly still loves writing this character, and it makes for excellent stories.

Vampirella FCBD, 1, 4, and 6. Mostly just got these for the covers. Alex Ross did cover on 1 and Artgerm did the covers for 4, and 6. Priest is writing the series, but slightly difficult to follow with just a few issues. Wasn’t bad though.

Uo next, the last of this box; a short Wasp ongoing, the dreadful Weapon H series, and some What If oneshots that came out like seven years ago at this point. After that, the next box is the final box. It’s got Wolverine, Wonder Woman, a bunch of X stuff, and more!

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the last of the T-W box.

Unstoppable Wasp 1-8. Nadia Pym’s second short ongoing. This series is fully positive title steeped with role models for all kinds of girls. Nadia and her team of multi-cultural smart girlfriends at G.I.R.L. fight with A.I.M. and remnants of the Red Room, but also do all kinds of girly stuff. The book also tackled Nadia’s Bi-Polar diagnosis very well. And when Shay came out to her mother and it went badly, the dressing down her girlfriend Ying gave her mother was excellent. I am very much not the target audience for this book, but I appreciate its aim and enjoyed it just the same.

Weapon H 1-12(minus 11). I detest the LCD concept of Hulk+Wolverine. It seems like the worst kind of fan-fiction bs. That said, I enjoy Roxxon CEO Dario Agger as a slimy superpowered villain and so this book climbs up from wretched to become bearable. After Clay shows up on Agger’s radar when he’s trying to manipulate artifically made uber-Wendigos, he sends both Brood hybrids and a bio-harnessed Man-Thing after Clay. Then he tries to hire him to fight alien Skrull monsters he accidentally released and then “rescue” scientists trapped in Weirdworld who are manning a new power station that can solve Earth’s energy solutions. With a team including Titania and Korg, Clay discovers the ‘power source’ is Weirdworld’s trapped Queen Morgana LeFay.
Grek Pak does what he can with the premise. The series itself moved along at a good clip, its just the premise itself is utter stuoid shit.

Weapon Plus
Weapon Plus:World War IV. These were two oneshots that were tying the entire Weapon+ program together. Captain America and Wolverine get a posthumous recording from Fantimex and investigate. The sequel had a soldier infected with the Man-Thing rescue his brother in exchange for a cure that doesn’t exist. It looked like they advertised more oneshots that didn’t or haven’t happened. The books did a marginally fair job of uniting some more obscure Marvel books into the Plus program. Like Brute Force has been retconned as Weapon II. Man-Thing, Luke Cage, Venom, Nuke, etc are all mentioned.

And there were six What If oneshots from 2018.

What If Flash had become Spider-Man? Gerry Conway wrote it. Flash becomes Spidey, and stops the mugger in the hallway, so he never kills Ben. But he never tried to save John Jameson. And when an experimental drug gets stolen that can save Aunt May’s life, Peter tracks Flash down using a tracer he put on Spidey to take pictures of him. An enraged Flash accidentally kills Peter, then his guilt makes him go find the drug to save Aunt May, then turn himself in.
What if the X-Men were .exe-Men? In a future where everyone lives in cyberspace, certain people can manipulate code…yes, it is exactly what it sounds like and it was dumb. I can see how this got tossed in during a brainstorming session and got a chuckle, but it should’ve ended there.

What if Peter Parker became the Punisher? Written by Carl Potts. Peter gets bitten by the spider and decides to start using the gun the mugger used on Ben in addition to his Spidey-powers. After his final showdown with the Green Goblin, he saves Gwen this time and throws his Skull-faced costume in the trash…just in time for Frank Castle’s family to get gunned down in Central Park and the wounded Castle stumbling on said trashcan.

What If Ghost Rider went metal? Some ficticious heavy metal band from Latveria wants to make a custom Marvel Comic and intern Robbie Reyes shows them around the Marvel Offices. Then they go and mix their blood into the ink and perform some ritual and turn everything into Hell on Earth and Robbie turns into Ghost Rider to wreak havoc. What? So he was already Ghost Rider and just happened to be interning at Marvel Comics? Dumb.

What if Thor was raised by Frost Giants? About what you’d expect. Laufey defeats Odin instead of the other way around, and Thor and Loki are brothers in Jotunheim instead. Then Loki forms a bond with the imprisoned Freya and helps her escape. Loki kills Laufey and Thor accidentally kills his mother and out of guilt, lets Loki escape to Midgard where he becomes a hero.

What if Magik became Sorcerer Supreme? After shes escapes from Limbo, Dr Strange picks her up and makes her his apprentice so she can succeed him as Sorcerer Supreme. I’m pretty sure Strange trained her the same way in the regular timeline, so as far as ‘What if’ stories go, this wasn’t that outlandish.

Okay, box is done! I think I’m going to start with the X-Men stuff first, then wind back to the rest of the W’s because Wolverine is boring as fuck.

[anarky]

The books did a marginally fair job of uniting some more obscure Marvel books into the Plus program. Like Brute Force has been retconned as Weapon II.

Please, God, tell me that's the goofy team by Furman and Delbo about the battle-armored dolphin and his pals, and not some other character I don't know.

[Tom Foolery]

Hickman’s X-Men 1. Following the events of House/Powers, the X-Men rescue a bunch of mutant children from an Orchis station, then return home to Krakoa to celebrate

2. A new island is on a collision course with Krakoa. The X-Men discover a new mutant from Arrako called Summoner. The two islands collide and form a bigger Krakoa.
3. When a Krakoan gate to the Savage Land goes dark, the team investigates and fights a bunch of old lady horticulturalists.

4. Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse meet with some world leaders. Cyclops and Gorgon take out two military teams attempting to ambush the meeting. Magneto gives it to the humans straight; Fuck around. Find out.

5. A team of Synch, Darwin, and X-23 is sent to infiltrate the Vault where time moves differently. After three months, they still haven’t escaped, which is the equivalent of several decades for them. Cyclops feels bad.

6. Mystique is doing missions with the understanding, they will resurrect her dead wife, Destiny. But they keep shining her on. This will end badly down the road.

7. The Crucible. Mutants who lost their powers on M-Day need to fight Apocalypse to the death in order to be reborn with their powers. Absolutely powerful issue.

8-9. Rahne brought back a Brood King egg from outer space. All the Broods descend on Earth. They take the egg into space where both the Kree and Shi’ar also want it. Broo ends up eating the egg and becoming the new Brood King.

10-11. Empyre tie-ins(there was also an Empyre:X-Men mini). The cotati attacked Krakoa. Magneto fucks them up.

12. Summoner tells Apocalypse the history of Arrako, setting up the X of Swords event.

Every issue was bitchin’. Hickman is fantastic.

So, now I’ve gone and dug out Cable, Excalibur, Hellions, Marauders, New Mutants, X-Factor, and X-Force and will read them all up to the X of Swords event.

[Tom Foolery]

The books did a marginally fair job of uniting some more obscure Marvel books into the Plus program. Like Brute Force has been retconned as Weapon II.

Please, God, tell me that's the goofy team by Furman and Delbo about the battle-armored dolphin and his pals, and not some other character I don't know.

It is exactly that.

[Tom Foolery]

X-Force 1-12. X-Force is Krakoa’s intelligence/spec ops team. A new human threat called XENO ambushes Domino and uses her mutant DNA to graft onto human assassins that infiltrate Krakoa and kill Professor X. He gets resurrected.
There’s also a South American country that was doing research into plant based medicines that was undercut when Krakoa started peddling their pharmaceuticals to the world. Beast brokers a treaty with their President, but the President’s son in part of a terrorist cell working against his father.
And Mikhail Rasputin is causing a ruckus in Russia, so Colossus is forced to abandon his pacifist ways to get back in the fight.
All leading up to the X of Swords event…

[Tom Foolery]

Picked up a few issues of Red Hood:Outlaw this weekend. Since I had recently read that run, I read these issues so I can out them away in that box.

Red Hood 28. Jason is at a small town apple festival, and everyone in town tries to kill him. Literally thousands of townfolk. He wakes up tied to a cross and is about to be beaten by Solomon Grundy, but he escapes and impales Grundy with some lumber. Then Batwoman shows up.

33. Jason has taken over control of the Iceberg Lounge from Penguin, and a bunch of his thugs, called the Five Aces attack in retaliation. Jason and his own security team take them out.

42. Jason and Artemis catch up after she and Bizarro escaped from some pocket dimension they’ve been trapped in for some time.

45. I already had, but now I have the variant cover also.

Now back to the X-books….

[Tom Foolery]

Excalibur 1-6. A Krakoan Gate forms on Krakoa with no exit point. Apocalypse, now going by the Krakoan “name” —|Ä|— (or near as I can recreate it here) thinks it’s a gateway to Otherworld and thus a gateway to every other dimension. He enlists Betsy Braddock to get her brother’s amulet as a focus beacon, and Rogue to try and dampen the shield protecting the doorway. Gambit tags along because of his wife, and Jubilee also comes for funsies. Betsy and Brian head to Otherworld where they are ambushed by Morgan LeFay. Brian gives Betsy the Amulet and she turns into the new Captain Britain, while Brian is turned into Morgan’s new Black Knight. Betsy heads to England where a pro-human coven of witches is aligned with LeFay and sowing anti-mutant sentiment. The new team magically rebuilds the Lighthouse but the toll causes Rogue to fall into a coma. Apocalypse recruits earthmover Rictor to breach into Otherworld with some ancient magic crystals that he and Gambit steal, and Rictor kinda gets recruited by the druids, amping his power. Rogue wakes up after absorbing Apoc’s power and killing him(he gets resurrected immediately on Krakoa, this is all part of his plan) and she now has full control of her powers. Betsy offically reforms Excalibur at the Queen’s blessing. The team goes in, rescues Brian, and defeats Morgan LeFay, and Apocalypse puts Betsy’s brother Jamie on the throne of Avalon.

7-12. Now having a foothold in Otherworld, they set their sights on the Citadel where Opal Luna Saturnyne is holed up. Saturnyne doesn’t think Betsy is an authentic Captain Britain and they exchange words. After they get in, Rictor plants a new Krakoa Gate and jumps thru, where Apocalypse is waiting on the other side. He calls together the Externals and permanently sacrifices them to use the eldritch energy in their bones to permanently power the Citadel Gate.

Leading into the X of Swords…