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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Attack of the Pink Skywhale Xavier? X-Treme X-Men Vol. 2: You Can't Go Home Again

 

Cover of Xtreme X-Men volume 2 - You Can't Go Home Again


Review:

Filled with elements of classic horror comic series, the Greg Pak run on Xtreme X-Men is a brisk romp through some bizarre corners of Marvel's multiverse.

The team includes several characters introduced by Pak a few years earlier in his run on Astonishing X-Men: James Howlett, the Wolverine of Earth 1225 and former Governor General of the Dominion of Canada; Kurt Waggoner a 14-year-old version of Nightcrawler, a floating head of Charles Zavier. Also in the team is Corporal Scott Summers, an African American Civil War era Cyclops, and team leader Dazzler. Their mission is to hunt through the multiverse and kill 10 evil Xaviers.

In this volume, collecting #6-11 and 7.1, they battle sentient robots in a story with undercurrents of the damages of colonialism; they save a world from a skywhale version of Xavier and the Brood queen that controls him; they get shot at by bazooka-wielding unicorns and their rainbow-cupcake blasts - a mirage of a beastly demonic Xavier, and more.

The creativity of the concept is almost unmatched in my comic-reading experience. But they move along at such a  breakneck clip that ultimately the series disappoints, once the dizziness passes. I'd prefer that these situations be explored and unpacked more, instead of being so swiftly resolved. As episodic and standalone as a Twilight Zone TV series.

Artistic styles shift dramatically between art teams. Stephen Segovia and Paul Valdes are vertically oriented in their layouts and tend to be over-inked. Paco Diaz brings more horror sensibilities to his panels, and the Andre Araujo / Paul Valdes pairing gives a more cartoony feel to the skywhale and its attack.

The series is bursting with imaginative concepts and ideas but, like with old-fashioned channel-surfing, the bites we get are too quick and eventuallly blur into a mush.


Description:

The team's mission hits home, as they land in the United States of California, birthplace of Kurt Waggoner! What happens if they can't defeat this Xavier...and what does it mean for Nightcrawler? Then, Dazzler and her team find themselves in a war against the Brood...but the dimension they've landed in is a little too close to home. Plus: meet the X-Treme X-Force! Dazzler's team finds that they can't seem to shake their new X-Force "teammates"...will Dazzler be able to take back control of the team?

Collects: X-Treme X-Men (2012) #6-7, 7.1, 8-11

Authors: Greg Pak
Artists: Stephanie Hans (Cover Art), Stephen Segovia & André Lima Araújo
Published By: Marvel 
Published When: Jan. 7 2016
Parental Rating: T+
ISBN: 9780785165651
Pages: 172 pages

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