Uncanny X-Men #244

Uncanny X-Men #244 is the debut of everyone’s favorite firework/firecracker thrower Jubilee into the X-Universe! The story is by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri.

Jubilee has been causing a ruckus at the local mall with her mutant powers (this is so late 1980s it makes me sick!), causing the local mall security to call in the M Squad. Basically they are a private mutant hunting group that you call in. Instead of being pest control for mice, they hunt super humans.

Back at the X-Men’s temporary headquarters in the Australian outback, things are getting difficult for the X-Women. Mostly they just hate it there.

So Dazzler winds up convincing them that they need a day at the shopping mall to cheer them up. Things get weird with her, Storm, Psylocke and Rogue shopping and eventually going to a male revue. You read that right. What kind of shopping mall is this?

Eventually the M-Squad finds the X-Women and there’s a bit of a light scuffle between the two groups. The M-Squad are more like the Keystone Cops, and it’s up to the mutants to save everyone in the mall! As they teleport back home, Jubilee decides to join them and runs into the portal just in time.

Friday Fights #23: Vibe vs. Dazzler

It’s said that there is no such thing as a bad character in comic books; just extremely ill conceived or poorly written ones. This week we feature two combatants who stumbled out of the gate to become cult favorites: Vibe and the Dazzler.

DATED ORIGINS: Both of these characters are extremely dated in their origins. Vibe’s story comes across like the downfall of a member of Manudo; he’s a former break dancer turned gang member turned super hero. Dazzler is a former disco singer whose career is derailed once the public finds out she is a mutant and becomes an adventurer. ADVANTAGE: Neither.

THEY CAN TURN SOUND INTO THINGS: Vibe and Dazzler almost have the same super powers. They can turn sound into seismic and light energy respectively. Dazzler seems to be able to take her powers much further though, being able to successfully take on higher level cosmic villains like Dr. Doom, Terrax and even Galactus. ADVANTAGE: Dazzler.

KING OF THE STREETS: Vibe doesn’t really have much in the line of combat skills. In addition to her music career, Dazzler is an accomplished athlete. She’s also received extensive combat training during her time as an X-Men. I’m sure Vibe’s partners in the Detroit era of the Justice League (one of the lamest groups ever) really couldn’t offer something comparable. ADVANTAGE: Dazzler.

WINNER: Dazzler walks away with this one over poor Vibe. She is a much more established character, having been expanded so much over the years to be more than just a disco joke. Vibe has a chance to evolve and become a better character. Hopefully the new series written by Andrew Kreisberg can breathe some new life into the character.

 

Kicking It Old School With The X-Men Arcade Game

I remember seeing the X-Men arcade game in the movie theater as a kid and never got to play it. Nineteen years later, I now own it.

Well, not the original cabinet version of the downloadable one for X-Box . So how does this arcade game from 1992 hold up in the modern era? It’s a standard side scroller and the graphics are pretty much what you would expect from a game of that era, but it’s still a lot of fun.

The plot is simple and loosely based on the 1989 cartoon pilot X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men. Magneto has captured Kitty Pryde and Professor X, and it’s up to the X-Men to save them.  You get to pick from Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, Storm, and Dazzler to play with.

That’s right, Dazzler.

We all know that Dazzler is one of my favorite characters, but it is kind of alarming that she was included in the game. Dazzler was featured prominently in her post-disco duds in Uncanny X-Men in the late 1980s, but I’m surprised that she was in the game. By this point in the comics, she was largely forgotten. Craziness aside, I can accept this, since this is probably the only time that she will be featured prominently in a video game.

You lead the X-Men through several levels, beating up thousands of monsters, robots and Sentinels (a plot point that wasn’t resolved in this was how the mutant hunting robots fell under control of Magneto), and even the half man, half hank hybrid Bonebreaker from the Reavers! At the end of each level, you get to fight more distinguished X-villains like White Queen and Juggernaut, who inexplicably is firing a bazooka at you. Apparently he’s tired of being only taken as a super strong monster and wants to show off his marksmanship.

At the end of the game you rescue Kitty and Professor X and defeat Magneto, leaving him in Asteroid M to seemingly die as it explodes. I thought they were supposed to be the good guys!

The best part of this game is that you can play it with five of your friends, whether they are over at your place or you join an online session.  This game, like many arcade classics, is much more fun when playing with a group.

Download this game now. It’s a lot of fun, and the perfect way to start an evening of Big Bang Theory styled debauchery with your friends.

Sorting Comics Is Hard

I’d like to argue with Big Daddy Kane that really it should be sorting comics ain’t easy. This weekend was the first in a long time where I didn’t have to work or have any set plans or any house work to worry about. So I decided that Sunday would be sort out the ol’ comics collection day. There were two reasons for that

1. It’s something I’ve been putting off for a heck of a long time.
2. It would be nice to have an accurate list of what I need to have. There’s no reason I should keep buying multiple copies of Armageddon: The Alien Agenda. No joke…I found out that I have at least three full sets of it.

This is something that I felt was a good idea to do, as I’m going to the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend. So I wound up sorting the boxes, pulling stuff I want to get signed and what not.

Nearly twelve hours later, I got as far as I could yesterday, giving up at the letter “K”, which will take a decent chunk of time with my enormous collection of Ka-Zar comics.

So here are some of the interesting things I’ve found so far.

1. Not only do I have a complete run of Dazzler, but I also have all the issues with variant cover prices (issues were priced differently for the direct market and at newsstands as part of a sales experiment).
2. I had a bunch of Justice League America issues signed by Adam Hughes on the interior page. I guess I can thank the prior owner for getting that done for me.
3. I’ve bought/read a lot of comics.

So how do you organize your comics? I’ll talk about what I do tomorrow.