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26th April 2024

United States

Worst X-Man Ever

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X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever #1
Marvel Comics, January 6, 2016
Writer: Max Bemis
Review by Neil Raymundo, January 11, 2016

It seems obvious that American publisher Marvel Comic’s current crop of titles is an avid courting of the teenage demographic. This is done through relaunches of existing brands featuring younger characters taking over a legacy name, and stories tackling settings and issues relevant to early teens.

At first glance, “X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever” #1 looks like it is more of the same. The issue introduces a new teenage character named Bailey Hoskins, who is in high school and struggling with the unhappy fulcrum of mediocrity – not cool enough to hang out with the preppy popular kids nor uncool enough to hang out with the weird popular kids.

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Aliens in Mississippi and Cultural Ownership

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Strange Fruit 1, 2
BOOM! Studios, July 2015, October 2015
Writers: JG Jones and Mark Waid
Review by DG Stewart, 5 January 2016

Set in the town of Chatterlee, Mississippi in 1927, this comic by JG Jones and Mark Waid reworks the Superman mythos: what if Superman was black and landed in the racist South in the 1920s?

The first two pages consist of dialogue between a group of white men, armed with axe handles, about to enter a “coloured café” so as to coerce black workers to help with a flood-stricken levee. One of the gang tells his son to keep away from the café, with the words, “This ain’t no place I ever want to see you in.” It is quite deliberately not clear whether the man does not want his son to be in a place where black people socialise, or whether he does not want his son to witness blood-letting.

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Squadron Supreme #1

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“Squadron Supreme #1”
Marvel Comics, December 2015
Writer: James Robinson
Review by Neil Raymundo, 28 December 2015

It is safe to assume that US publisher Marvel Comics, flush with cash as a consequence of its purchase by entertainment giant Disney and buoyed by the success of the motion pictures based upon its characters, has the strategic goal, with the sheer number of title relaunches, reboots, and new series debuts in 2015, of attracting a new generation of fans.

Convoluted comic book continuity is a barrier to new readers. Targeting those who are not burdened by decades of comic book continuity and familiarity is a particularly good thing in the case of Squadron Supreme #1. (An indicia that Marvel Comics has placed some faith in this title is the painted cover by Alex Ross, a popular artist who is not afraid to ask for substantial sums for cover art.)

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Thunderbolt

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“Thor 1”
Marvel Comics, December 2015
Writer: Jason Aaron
(Review by DG Stewart, 22 December 2015)

In this democratic age we covet privilege but we do not necessarily respect it. Marvel Comics’ character Thor is a prince, born into power and glory, his inheritance granting him title “God of Thunder” and everything that goes with that.

One of the very few treatments of the god Thor by rival publisher DC Comics was in 1991, in the pages of the epic comic Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman. Mr Gaiman paints Thor as an over-sexed buffoon, effortlessly manipulated by his trickster brother Loki. Thor is ill-mannered and at one point utterly drunk. Thor’s hammer is more than merely a phallic symbol in this story: it is not just figuratively a hammerhead penis, sometimes big and sometimes small. To underscore the point Thor’s wife Sif is described as having a birthmark in the shape of an anvil on the inside of her thigh.

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