mutant week

In a universe brimming with unique superheroes, and a franchise full of cool looks, Nightcrawler stands out. Kurt Wagner was born looking like a monster, but he takes pride in his appearance and makes great use of his teleportation power to focus on being a Big Damn Hero. I've always liked Nightcrawler, and was happy when my friends gifted me a print of the cover to the first issue of the 1985-1986 Nightcrawler miniseries, written and drawn by his co-creator Dave Cockrum. I'd heard good things about the series so I bought it on Comixology and wound up having a fun, funny ride that was a joy to be on.

No disrespect to Captain Marvel, the Wasp, She-Hulk or Invisible Woman, but we all know who's the most important female superhero in the Marvel Universe. It's obviously Storm. She's been around for 41 years, she's usually the leader of one X-Men team or another, and she's been in movies and cartoons too (although they seem to have a hard time capturing how great she is). We've collected some of the best fan art paying tribute to her majesty.

We’ve been celebrating Mutant Week all week here at ComicsAlliance, and it’s fair to say that everyone has had a lot of fun. However, now it’s time to get serious and talk about the stuff that really matters, that being: What the heck is Xorn’s deal?! If you’re unaware, Xorn was a character with a cool design and a cool hook, introduced by Grant Morrison and Leinil Francis Yu in New X-Men Annual way back in 2001. He had a star for a face, he was a healer, and he taught the remedial class at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters. Then, Grant Morrison pulled the rug out from under us with a reveal so drastic that Marvel spent years trying to to undo it in a satisfying way.

Our ongoing ranking of the definitive inarguable Top 100 X-Men of All Time brought up a lot of different arguments from our panel of judges. Some people liked Cyclops, some people liked Jean Grey, and nobody could agree on Gambit at all. But the one thing I still get messages about was my comment when ranking for Hank McCoy, aka Beast. I said “HE BELONGS IN JAIL” and left it there. But why? What did Hank ever do to deserve such condemnation? He’s a bouncing blue ball of furry sarcasm, right, Steve, you Yorkshire Monster? How can you even make these sorts of ridiculous claims and keep a straight face? Okay, fair enough, I should've explained myself properly Here’s the case for the prosecution.

The same X-Men series has been running (with some timeline jumps) since 2000, and it’s been a mixed bag at best. Even as people are excited for X-Men: Apocalypse, a lot of fans have suggested that it might be about time to shake things up. So what would an X-Men reboot look like? This week is the fourth in a four part series spanning the month of May, which envisions a full reboot of the X-Men movie franchise. This time we're looking at the '90s era of the X-Men, and the return of Magneto.

Wolverine is, as the saying goes, the best there is at what he does. And what James "Logan" Howlett does best is make Marvel a ton of money. Since his first appearance fighting the Hulk in a comic by Len Wein and Herb Trimpe in 1974, to joining the X-Men, to making Hugh Jackman a box office draw, all the way to his recent death, Wolverine is one of the House of Idea's true superstars. But the unspoken truth is that very few Wolverine stories are out-and-out great. Sure, there's a ton of great Wolvie moments out there --- "Now it's my turn!," that bit in his Civil War tie-ins where he survives being burned to atoms, "Tell Cyclops I made him a convertible" and so on --- but very few Wolverine-centered comics are classics. One exception to that rule is the original 1982 Wolverine mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.

Since the dawn of the Silver Age, legacy characters have been a staple of superhero fiction, and having a new character step into a well loved roll can open up new opportunities for writers and artists to tell different kinds of stories. In The Replacements, we’ll look back at the notable and not-so-notable heroes and villains to assume some of the most iconic mantles in the superhero genre. This week, in honor of Mutant Week, we’re looking at the X-Men’s most storied legacy position. That’s right, we’re looking at the women, men, and clones who have at one time or another called themselves Phoenix.

Early reviews of X-Men: Apocalypse haven’t been particularly welcoming, even as the nine-film franchise seemingly skews closer and closer to the colorful weirdness of its comic heyday. Many a fan jump right back to the ‘90s X-Men: The Animated Series (and its inimitable theme) as a pinnacle of X-nostalgia, now appropriately given the “Honest Trailer” treatment just in time for the movie!

Welcome to Give ‘Em Elle, a weekly column that hopes to bridge the gap between old school comics fandom and the progressive edge of comics culture. This is Mutant Week at ComicsAlliance, to mark the release of the movie X-Men: Apocalypse and our upcoming countdown of the top 100 X-Men, and if you know me, you probably know that I spend a lot of my time thinking about the X-Men. In fact, I solicited X-Men questions on twitter, and I got several about what I think an X-Men book should focus on, how I would revamp an ancillary X-book, or what I would do if put in charge of the X-Men line. So I’ve decided to be a little self-indulgent, and explore where I would take the X-Men line if it were up to me. I think this is worthwhile not because it will ever happen (it won’t), but because it’s a way to get right to the heart of what I think is important about the X-Men. So let’s do this: Let’s fantasy book the X-Men.

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with 75 years of superhero comics behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite names in comics in our continuing video series. You think you know comics? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! This week we're looking at Marvel's mutant master of magnetism, Magneto! Debuting in the very first issue of X-Men, Magneto has gone on to be both the X-Men's greatest foe and one of their most powerful allies. This video takes a look at Magneto's history from his earliest appearances writing warnings in the sky like the Wicked Witch of the West, through his time as the headmaster of the Xavier School, through all the weird stuff that happened to him in the '90s, through to today.