Historical text from Comixfan site

JusticeGH

Dec 29, 2010, 04:16 pm

A mod can delete this if I'm wrong, but I never saw a thread for this when it was solicited. So here it is. This came out today, and is similar in format to Heroic Age: Heroes and Heroic Age: Villains.

It breaks the listings down into sub-headings:

Introduction (Journal entry by Steve Rogers)

X-Men:
X-Men
Archangel
Armor
Colossus
Cyclops
Dazzler
Emma Frost
Gambit
Iceman
Magneto
Namor the Sub-Mariner
Nightcrawler
Northstar
Pixie
Kitty Pryde
Psylocke
Rogue
Storm
Wolverine

New Mutants:
New Mutants
Cannonball
Cypher
Karma
Magik
Magma
Moonstar
Sunspot
Warlock

X-Factor:
Banshee
Darwin
Longshot
M
Jamie Madrox
Layla Miller
Rictor
Shatterstar
Strong Guy

Five Lights:
Hope
Gabriel Cohuelo
Idie Okonkwo
Teon Savko
Laurie Tromette
Kenji Uedo

Mutant Community:
Adam-X
Alchemy
Anole
Beast
Blackwing
Blindfold
Bling!
Boom-Boom
Cable
Catiana
Lila Cheney
Cipher
Decibel
Domino
Doop
Dust
Elixir
Gateway
Gentle
Graymalkin
Havok
Molly Hayes
Hellion
Husk
Indra
Madison Jeffries
Martha Johansson
Jubilee
Kylun
Leech
Lifeguard
Loa
Artie Maddicks
Marvel Girl (Rachel)
Match
Mercury
Micromax
Kiden Nixon
Leon Nunez
Nuwa
Phaser
Polaris
Prodigy
Professor X
Pulse
Quicksilver
Renascence
Cecilia Reyes
Rockslide
Sage
Skids
Bobby Soul
Stepford Cuckoos
Sunfire
Surge
Tempest
Thunderbird (Neal)
Trance
Lorelei Travis
Warpath
Evangeline Whedon
Wolfsbane
X-23

Mutant Allies:
William Conover
Valerie Cooper
Marie D'Ancanto
Danger
Deadpool
Doctor Nemesis
Fantomex
FBI Mutant Civil Rights Task Force
Hepzibah
Ink
Lockheed
Omega Sentinel
Kavita Rao
Starjammers
SWORD

Mutant Menace?:
Acolytes
Apocalypse
Avalanche
Bishop
Black Womb
Blink
Chimera
Collective Man
Daken
Dark Beast
Dragoness
Empath
Emplate
Exodus
Gamesmaster
Glob Herman
Gorgon
Hellfire Club
Johnny Dee
Lady Mastermind
Legion
Marauders
Mastermind (Martinique)
Mentallo
Mister X
Morlocks
Mortis
Mystique
Nekra
Neo
Omega
Onslaught
Red Queen
Scarlet Witch
Selene
Sebastian Shaw
Silver Samurai
Skein
Stinger
Sugar Man
Toad
Typhoid Mary
Vanisher
Whirlwind
X-Cell

Anti-Mutant:
Anti-Mutant Sentiment
Bastion
Facility
Hellfire Cult
Cameron Hodge
Steven Lang
Miss Sinister
Mutant Response Division
Donald Pierce
Predator X
Purifiers
Reavers
The Right
Sapien League
Sentinels
U-Men

Locations:
Breakworld
Genosha
Mutant Town
Utopia
The World
Xavier Institute




Phoenixx9

Dec 30, 2010, 09:38 am


Thanks for the post, JusticeGH!

I didn't think this came out until mid-January.

Wow, what a great list of characters! My only disappointment is no Jean Grey Phoenix. Yeah, yeah, I know, she had a listing already, but even Onslaught and Red Queen get a listing here, so Jean should as well. Also, when I think of the X-Men, Jean naturally is in that thought.

One question Justice: You mentioned that X-Men is like both Heroes and Villains books, but both of those books are alittle bit different. Are there power grids like in the Heroes book, or those classification listings like the Villains book? I am hoping for the power grids (even though different from what was used in all other books) because I like 'em lots! :Yes:




Madison Carter

Dec 30, 2010, 11:45 am

Phoenixx9 wrote:

Thanks for the post, JusticeGH!

I didn't think this came out until mid-January.

Wow, what a great list of characters! My only disappointment is no Jean Grey Phoenix. Yeah, yeah, I know, she had a listing already, but even Onslaught and Red Queen get a listing here, so Jean should as well. Also, when I think of the X-Men, Jean naturally is in that thought.

Like the previous two books, the files are limited to those that are "on the grid" - i.e. alive.




ToddCam

Dec 30, 2010, 12:00 pm


Is the White Hot Room death? Because if not, she is alive.




Phoenixx9

Dec 30, 2010, 12:18 pm

ToddCam wrote:

Is the White Hot Room death? Because if not, she is alive.

Aha, very good point, ToddCam!

Jean is alive to me. She may not be currently appearing in the X-Men, but I don't believe she is dead. However, I didn't think Onslaught or the Red Queen were alive, then each made an appearance in 2009/2010. Now both are gone again. Are they dead or just gone?




Andy E. Nystrom

Dec 30, 2010, 04:45 pm

Phoenixx9 wrote:

Thanks for the post, JusticeGH!
One question Justice: You mentioned that X-Men is like both Heroes and Villains books, but both of those books are alittle bit different. Are there power grids like in the Heroes book, or those classification listings like the Villains book? I am hoping for the power grids (even though different from what was used in all other books) because I like 'em lots! :Yes:

Instead of power grids or any other sort of grid, you get a quote from each character covered.




Andy E. Nystrom

Dec 30, 2010, 04:50 pm

Madison Carter wrote:

Like the previous two books, the files are limited to those that are "on the grid" - i.e. alive.

Nightcrawler's entry treats him as deceased. Is he an exception or is it just something that Steve's been fooled by? I hadn't heard about his death but I'm not really too worried because X-characters could survive having their bodies hacked to tiny pieces and scattered across the universe.




Madison Carter

Dec 30, 2010, 09:10 pm

ToddCam wrote:

Is the White Hot Room death? Because if not, she is alive.

I'm not our X-pert, but I doubt Steve would know about the White Hot Room. Even if he did, she's been gone long enough that she wouldn't be a priority to make a file on - the idea is that Steve is concentrating on who's out there and about right now.

Regarding Nightcrawler, his death occured after we had already laid out the book, so he's one of the very few exceptions.




DeadpoolRP

Jan 2, 2011, 11:24 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Nightcrawler's entry treats him as deceased. Is he an exception or is it just something that Steve's been fooled by? I hadn't heard about his death but I'm not really too worried because X-characters could survive having their bodies hacked to tiny pieces and scattered across the universe.

Yeah, Nightcrawler is dead. His death was one of the major events of "Second Coming," actually.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book—I’ve been an X-Men fan for years, so this was definitely my favorite of the three Heroic Age files books. You guys did a great job of covering the current X-Men cast quite thoroughly! The only characters I really felt were missing (and I would have loved to read more about) were Aurora, Crosta, E.V.A., and Random.

It was nice to see Steve Rogers’s thoughts on Marvel’s mutants (even if I sometimes didn’t agree with him), and I enjoyed his overview of the team’s current status quo and assorted squads. I’ll take his comments on Rogue’s squad—“an ever-shifting team comprised of members from the student body (notably the ‘Five Lights’ recruited by Hope)”—as confirmation that the “Lights” are members of the training squad (other than Kenji, who we’ll have to wait and see about).

I do wish that the various squads had been separated out a bit more clearly in the actual book, however. Only 17 of the 43 (by my count) current full X-Men members are in the X-Men section, while the rest are peppered through the other sections. The placement of the New Mutants squad makes sense, as does Hope’s inclusion in the “Five Lights” section, but I would have liked to see the X-Men listed under Mutant Community (Boom-Boom, Box, Domino, Husk, Jubilee, Professor X, Dr. Reyes, Warpath, X-23) and Mutant Allies (Danger, Doctor Nemesis [who’s unquestionably a mutant!], Fantomex, Hepzibah, Omega Sentinel) in the main X-Men section instead. Similarly, it would have been nice to have an X-Men-In-Training section instead of just including them in Mutant Community (with Ink under Mutant Allies). Oh well. Maybe next time (or maybe in the trade!).

It looks like Rogers’s info is a bit out-of-date for a few characters:

Cecelia Reyes is listed as last sighted in New York’s Chinatown, but she’s been seen on Utopia, and she participated in the gathering of the “Five Lights.”

Thunderbird is listed as last seen in Singapore, but he was seen in San Francisco with the X-Men and assorted other mutants (Timeslip, etc.) in one of Marvel’s digital-exclusive Christmas comics.

Ink is listed as “currently comatose,” but he was seen awake and active during “Utopia,” and this was confirmed in Official Index to the Marvel Universe.

I don’t think these things have been mentioned yet, so:

Thomas Corsi and Charlotte Jones were listed on the back cover, but they didn’t actually make it into the final book. (Too bad—it would have been nice to see updates on them, as well as Stevie Hunter and other past X-Men associates.)

Gabriel Cohuelo was listed on the back cover, but the rest of the “Five Lights” weren’t, and the Collective Man and Anti-Mutant Sentiment were also missing.

There were also some weird alphabetizing irregularities:

For some reason, Artie Maddicks is listed between Kylun and Lady Mastermind on the back cover.

I don't believe that Dee is Johnny Dee’s real last name, but either way, he’s in the wrong place on the back cover: He should either be listed before Charlotte Jones (who shouldn't actually be there) or with the other D characters.

I’ll leave the copy editing stuff and grammar/usage problems to you guys, but this one has an informational error that should be corrected before the eventual (I presume) Heroic Age Files trade collection: In Wolverine’s entry, it says he has “unbreakable skin and claws” instead of “unbreakable bones and claws.”

Sorry if it seems like I have a lot of complaints—I actually really enjoyed this book quite a lot. I’m more just hoping that this feedback will help you guys out with future books, reprints/collections, etc. Keep up the great work!




Andy E. Nystrom

Jan 3, 2011, 10:49 am

DeadpoolRP wrote:

Yeah, Nightcrawler is dead. His death was one of the major events of "Second Coming," actually.

Okay, he's "dead", nudge nudge wink wink. One reason I don't read the x-books except X-Factor and X-Men Forever (another being too make alternate realities to keep track of) is that there's no suspense to the stories anymore. An undentified innocent bystander can be disembowled and they'll still come back a few a while later, possibly as a cyborg in some event where it's revealed that they're the hermaprodite love child of Iceman and a Sentinel from Earth-pi-r-squared. Nightcrawler will be back before 2015.

This is no slight to the handbook people, and the files books and Handbooks at least give me the backgriound for X-Factor and guest appearances.




Roger Ott

Jan 3, 2011, 08:22 pm

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

An undentified innocent bystander can be disembowled and they'll still come back a few a while later, possibly as a cyborg in some event where it's revealed that they're the hermaprodite love child of Iceman and a Sentinel from Earth-pi-r-squared.

Not to derail the thread, but this has been one of my big gripes in comics over the last decade or so. Not everybody that appears in a comic book story has to be ultra-important. Some people are just there.




DeadpoolRP

Mar 12, 2011, 05:51 pm


Well, I hope I didn't seem overly critical when I posted about this book, because the conversation kind of died after that. Sorry!

Anyway, I just thought it was worth mentioning that this and the other two Heroic Age files books are being collected, along with the two Origins of Marvel Comics one-shots, in the Origins of Marvel Comics trade paperback, listed in the March issue of Marvel Previews. So I hope my above comments will be helpful in preparing the files for the collection!

With so much X-Men content, I'm tempted to buy this trade even though I have all of the issues, especially if new files are added. I'm sure there are a lot more that could be added, including the ones listed on back covers that didn't actually make it into the books. And just for the X-Men, there are plenty of characters who could be covered, including Aurora, E.V.A., Random, Crosta, Ernst, former villains now living on Utopia who were missed the first time, etc.




Eduardo M.

Mar 14, 2011, 06:20 pm

DeadpoolRP wrote:

Well, I hope I didn't seem overly critical when I posted about this book, because the conversation kind of died after that. Sorry!

Anyway, I just thought it was worth mentioning that this and the other two Heroic Age files books are being collected, along with the two Origins of Marvel Comics one-shots, in the Origins of Marvel Comics trade paperback, listed in the March issue of Marvel Previews. So I hope my above comments will be helpful in preparing the files for the collection!

With so much X-Men content, I'm tempted to buy this trade even though I have all of the issues, especially if new files are added. I'm sure there are a lot more that could be added, including the ones listed on back covers that didn't actually make it into the books. And just for the X-Men, there are plenty of characters who could be covered, including Aurora, E.V.A., Random, Crosta, Ernst, former villains now living on Utopia who were missed the first time, etc.

The only Heroic Age files book I'm missing is the Villians issue. I've never read the Origins one-shots. Is it worth it to get this TPB for these 3 books or should I just track down the Villians one-shot and leave it at that.




DeadpoolRP

Mar 26, 2011, 01:30 pm

Eduardo M. wrote:

The only Heroic Age files book I'm missing is the Villians issue. I've never read the Origins one-shots. Is it worth it to get this TPB for these 3 books or should I just track down the Villians one-shot and leave it at that.

I guess you could go either way: I enjoyed the Origins issues and thought it was fun to see little one-page origin retellings by big-name writers like Yost, Carey, Parker, Van Lente, David, and McCann and art by the likes of Davis, Yu, Romita Jr., etc. However, if you're not that interested in those and/or are just trying to save money, then just tracking down the villains one-shot might be the way to go.

I guess it also depends if there are going to be any updates or additions for the trade . . .

Also, I notice that at least one of the characters listed on the back of the X-Men one-shot who didn't actually make it inside, Tom Corsi, is going to be in May's X-Men handbook. I wonder if we'll see Charlotte Jones there as well and if they're showing up in the handbook because there didn't end up being room for them in the files book.