Comic Relief Podcast

Writers: Craig Kyle & Chris Yost
Penciler: Ed McGuinness
Appearances: Mac Hudson (Guardian), Heather Hudson (Vindicator), Puck, Talisman, Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Wendigo

Amazing X-Men #8: World War Wendigo Part 1 of 5.

The issue begins with an argument between two butchers at a meat factory named Rick and Eddie, in regards to some infidelity with a woman named Shiela. Rick eventually gets upset enough to punch Eddie, who falls back and hits his head against a table – breaking his neck and killing him. In a panic, Rick puts Eddie’s body into a meat grinder.

This, when I was reading it, seemed out of place. I couldn’t figure out how this was going to tie to anything in this comic. I would eventually be very, pleasantly, surprised when I reached the end of the issue. But let’s not get there yet. First, now that I have explained the set up – let me go back and say, the art is quite clean and crisp. Easy to tell who is who, good emotion conveyed on the character’s faces.

So we next go to Ottawa, Canada where Logan shows up at Heather’s cabin and knocks on her door. After some quick dialogue, Heather explains to Logan that she and Mac had a huge fight – and that she’s not heard from him in two days, and even so – she wasn’t sure if he would ever come back, because of how bad the fight was. Wolverine shows off his costume from his bag, and basically explains he’s ready to look into this.

The scene shifts to the Jean Grey School, where we see Colossus embracing Nightcrawler, thankful that he’s alive. The one page panel of this, is a great shot – reminds me of classic X-Men, in the way it’s drawn. There’s some witty banter about how each of them has died – and it seems to be the X-Men’s nitch to die and come back. Storm pops in to ask if they have seen Logan – and it pans through many of the students, who all explain, for various reasons, why they avoid Logan in the morning and that none of them have seen them – until it gets to Iceman, who explains, after Storm scorns him, that Logan was headed to Canada.

The scene shifts back to Canada, where we see Logan now in his Wolverine costume, and Heather in her costume from Alpha Flight (Volume 2 – the green/white maple leaf costume). In Forrest Canada, they discover that all the people appear to be missing – and Wolverine explains, this is how Mac must have found the town as well. As Wolverine continues to track Mac, he suddenly picks up a scent and barks at Heather to fly out of there as fast as she can and to get Alpha Flight and the X-Men immediately.

We see Heather flying, as she tries to call Puck. The scene shifts to Puck looking at his phone, seeing that it’s Heather calling – and another voice says, “Don’t you dare pick that up.” And the next panel shows Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, better known as Talisman, daughter of Shaman, in bed, with the covers pulled over her bare body.

Now we will stop here a second to consider this. We know, that Puck is significantly older than Elizabeth. But we also know that Puck has been portrayed as quite the lady’s man. And if there was ever a character who suffered “Daddy Issues” – it would probably be Elizabeth Twoyoungmen. So while initially, this scene seemed odd to me – that they would be bedding one another. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to come across as they were there “to have fun” – sort of a “friends with benefits” type of feel. The more I considered it, the more I could certainly see this happening.

Now that that is out of the way, let us continue with the story.

We see Heather get grabbed out of the air by something, white and fast. She turns to blast it – and it’s Wendigo. Matters go from bad to much worse, as she blasts that one – what appears to be another Wendigo lunges at her from behind, and sinks its teeth into her legs. Then the first one bites deep into her shoulder. Then we see the two Wendigos pulling at her.

We then see Wolverine charging to Heather’s rescue, while Rachael and Storm are monitoring Wolverine using Cerebro – and Racheal notes that Wolverine appears to be expressing a sense of fear, which seems impossible for the man known as Wolverine. But it’s unmistakable. Storm tells Northstar to get the Blackbird ready.

The final panel – this is where, as I said in the beginning, I couldn’t figure out what the fight between Rick and Eddie was leading up to – we see Wolverine facing off with an entire pack of Wendigos, leading to the idea, that those who unknowingly ate Eddie’s remains after Rick put him in the meat grinder, suffered the curse of the Wendigo – those who eat the flesh of man or woman, shall suffer the curse of the Wendigo.

Over all this was an excellent issue, as all of the Amazing X-Men issues have been. Though Mac got no dialogue, the “flashbacks” to him, as Wolverine was tracking him was quite nice. Heather explaining the she and Mac had a very bad year, seems to be an indication as to why she’s no longer brain washed (as she was in her last appearance in Alpha Flight), and perhaps why they no longer had a child with them. Seeing Puck and Talisman, was also a nice touch. And finally, seeing Heather in her Volume 2 costume, I thought was nice. (I personally never liked Heather as a super hero, I think she lost some of her character when this happened – but if she was going to wear a costume, I am glad it wasn’t the red/white, which I feel is something only Mac should be wearing).

It’s not secret, that I was not a huge fan of Batman “back in the day.” I believed that he could never be beat, and always had the solution, no matter how dire the situation, always outshining other heroes, except for maybe, Superman. This was why I was a Marvel “Zombie.” I consumed Marvel Comics like I was starving. I collected a wide variety of titles from Marvel Comics, though my staple titles were Uncanny X-Men and Avengers, back then.

In recent years, Marvel Comics didn’t seem to have the same spirit, that I was looking for in comics. I picked up a few titles, such as Aquaman, Hawkman, Teen Titans (or Titans, depending on what they were calling the book), Outsiders and a few others. But my DC collecting was very, very sparse.

Then, a few years ago, DC launched “The New 52.”

Rebooting the entire DC Universe? Starting every issue from #1? This seemed like a good jump on point, and a chance to experiment with DC. As a result, I picked up just about every single title that DC launched. For the most part, I actually kept collecting them as well. Only a few eventually lost my interest – but suddenly my pull list went from being majority of Marvel titles, to being dominated by DC titles, and even going as far as dropping some of the lesser Marvel titles, to afford more DC titles.

So with all of that said – the first review I would like to do will encompass BATMAN ETERNAL numbers 1 through 4.

BATMAN ETERNAL is a weekly title – and this made me think that the quality of a book coming out every week – was going to suffer. That the title would have a weak story or rushed art.

First, let’s talk story. Initially I thought it was because I had low expectations for a title that was going to be coming out once a week – but I have re-read the issues, and no – it’s actually a great story, simply because it is a great story! Ladies and gentlemen, this story is set up nicely – and it flows so smoothly. It leads into what I consider a very, major event and drastically changes the dynamics of several characters in this book. I am enjoying that this is not just a short story, that’s solved within a few issues – but clearly one that is a long, reaching story – that will encompass quite a few issues! I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I can’t recommend reading this story enough!

Then there’s the art. I admit, the first four issues (I believe all four were the same artist) – Jason Fabok. This guy can draw – and he can draw well. I am pretty new to DC, but I can say that his art is pretty top notch and he nails Batman perfectly. It was a bit jarring when I read issue #4, and the artist switched to Dustin Nguyen. Dustin has a great pen, but I am not a fan of how he draws faces. It seems weaker (or at least, for what you’d expect for such a dark story) than what Jason gave us in the previous issues! (I believe that the artists will change from issue to issue, from here on out). I hope that the artists don’t change too much, that I lose interest. Because the art is just as important as the story – if I have to pause and try to figure out who the character is in the panel, it yanks me out of the story.

But for right now, I am giving this one a 4.5 Anxiety Level out of 5!

– Tawmis
Comic Relief Podcast
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