September feels…so long ago. Trying to recall what happened in comics specifically last month is like trying to remember a beloved sweater in a half-forgotten childhood memory. But upon digging through some newspaper clippings and old found footage I can confirm that comics did exist last month and were pretty exciting actually! Things are admittedly X-Book heavy because who else is doing it like the X-Books right now?? Please ignore that they are the only books this author is keeping up w/ regularly. Anywho here’s what you missed if you pulled a Green Day and slept through September.
Most Ambitious Creator-Owned Number One About Dead Gods
Ok, let’s get the non-X-related book out of the way. Way back when September began, the first issue of Al Ewing’s “We Only Find Them When We’re Dead” dropped. Ewing’s work on “Immortal Hulk” has for sure cemented him a top-tier creator at Marvel, but his works on “The Ultimates” and more recently “Guardians of the Galaxy” prove that he can tackle weird cosmic comics. So following Ewing on a creator-owned title about harvesting dead gods and joined by Simone Di Meo and Mariasara Miotti doing some incredible things on artwork is a no-brainer. “We Only Find Them When We’re Dead” #1 is a thorough and slow-paced introduction to the world and the rules that Ewing will explore and eventually break. Again I cannot stress enough how gorgeous Simone Di Meo and Mariasara Miotti’s work is. While I fully recommend checking it out along with the second issue out this Wednesday, you can read a more in-depth review by some really smart, thoughtful, and honestly…hot reviewer here.
Best “F*cking Finally!” Moment
Kate Pryde, formerly Kitty, formerly Shadowcat, and formerly textually straight. After nearly 40 years in the subtextual closet, Kitty Pryde finally kisses a woman on-panel in a comic published by Marvel Comics in Marauders #12 by Gerry Duggan, Mateo Lolli, and Edgar Delgado. After Kate’s problem of being dead and unable to be brought back by Krakoa’s mutant ressurection protocols is solved, Kate has returned with a new lease on life. “Marauders” #12 is definitely the beginning of whatever journey Kate is going on and Duggan and Lolli really sell this by giving Kate very good moments with both of her long subtextual love interests Magik and Rachel Summers. While it’s definitely a swerve that her kiss is with a tattoo artist that looks not too dissimilar to Illyana, Duggan placing those moments between the three of them in this issue really gives me hope that this won’t be a fakeout and that Kate’s long overdue queerness is here to stay.
Speaking of things X-Fans have been waiting for– Jay Edidin, of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, made his debut of writing an X-Men comic and it’s a very good comic. For fans of the podcast, it’s no secret how much of a fan Jay is of Scott Summers. So when the news dropped that he was writing a Cyclops focused one-shot with Tom Reilly, Chris O’Halloran, and Tom Orzechowski, we knew we were in for a treat. Edidin’s story takes the time to really get into Scott Summers’ head, the origins for the way he thinks and how he came to be the man who famously doesn’t have a plan B, because that implies he only has 26. Jay also ties Scott’s coming of age right into the dawn of Marvel’s Silver Age in a way that makes beautiful sense and also allows the book to be filled with so many excellent easter eggs to early Marvel comics. I haven’t even gotten to Tom Reilly’s clean and simple linework that allows for such clear expressiveness and emotions to come across along with Chris O’Halloran’s excellent colors enriching the storytelling with a very blue-ish desaturated world set against the deep red of Scott’s iconic powers. In a month full of really big X-Men moments, “Marvels Snapshots: X-Men” #1 was such a special, sentimental one that is really worth your time.Continued below
Best Sword Themed Crossover
“X of Swords” The X-Crossover of the Summer, delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has fully marinated and is here to shake the table. Co-helmed by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard, and involving the entire X-Line in an interconnected story. So far we’ve gotten the preludes in “Excalibur” and “X-Men”, the opening salvo in “X of Swords: Creation,” and most recently, “X-Factor.” Personally my shit has been rocked in every issue so far. I wrote recently that the most exciting part of this “Hickman”-era is that it’s taking Hickman’s storytelling method of telling one story from different angles, in different titles and expanding that to including different collaborators and it’s so great to see the results of that in a major crossover event. We get Hickman laying out his entire D&D module in “X-Men” #12, him and Howard getting to start the event in earnest in “X of Swords: Creation”, then Leah Williams is gives a moment to see how Polaris is handling the fallout from the issue before and the ramifications revealed in “X-Factor” #4. This crossover is huge but the sheer amount of collaboration from every angle around the X-Line really promises the size to be beyond just “tie-ins” which incredibly exciting. Prior to this event we got Tini Howard’s slow burn of Apocolypse’s plan over the past 12 issues in Excalibur that finally come to play in this event, which really allows this thing to take off from the jump. “X of Swords” is here and has hit the ground running. Hope you survive the experience.
