Web Head83's Comic Book Blogs

Well I haven't written anything too in depth about any comics but just wanted to give a few thoughts and opinions about different things going on with the X-Men right now and also just as a warning I'm going to talk about recent stories so might be some spoilers in here if you haven't read any of the X titles in awhile.

First, I wanted to talk a bit about the recent Age of X storyline that just wrapped up in X-Men Legacy and the New Mutants titles. I'm a big fan of Mike Carey who wrote it and who has written X-Men Legacy since the name changed and before then had written X-Men for a long time. When the teasers came out for Age of X, I was really excited but then by the time it was about to come out I was fairly disinterested in it and felt it would be a knock off in ways to the Age of Apocalypse. Reading the two first issues of it quickly changed my opinion. It had allot of twists and turns that kept you guessing and interested. I mean by the third issue I kind of figured where it was going but I enjoyed all the suspense it had in it. I think its just so refreshing because I may have issues with the X-Men franchise in whole but its great that Marvel has kept Carey on the X-Men/X-Men Legacy title for so long that he can really develop ideas. With Age of X it was of course one of Legion's super powerful super crazy split personalities that warped reality to its new form which was disastrous and chaotic for most everyone but placed Legion in the role of a hero. I appreciated this revelation so much because I feel with other writers in the other major X titles would have just left Legion in the background. Carey had shown Xavier and Dr. Nemesis working with Legion to get control over his mind and personalities and Age of X was the result of what they had attempted. It may be a bit early to tell but certainly seems like this event will have lasting effects on a number of X-Men characters in the X-Men Legacy title. I'm also excited and hopeful for the upcoming story arcs in X-Men Legacy. Seems that the title will go back to somewhat of a team book featuring Rogue, Gambit, Magneto, Xavier, Legion and Frenzy. I really enjoy most of the characters so feel like those will be some good stories. One last thing, I'm interested to see what happens with Rachel Summers or Revenant. Its interesting that she is stuck outside her body and waiting to see what message she has from the others that have been in space for about forever it seems like now.

So I have wanted to talk about the price of comic books in general for awhile now and it seems to be an appropriate time to bring up the topic. I recently read on IGN that DC is planning on taking their prices to $2.99 for all their comics for 2011. Marvel hasn't said as much but did state that they plan on placing a $2.99 price on new titles coming out in 2011. Marvel has yet to say whether they would drop the price of current titles though.

This seems like some good news or at least it has me hopefull. I'm sure anyone who gets comics on a weekly basis like myself has noticed that more and more comics have been going up to $3.99. That trend has caused me to pay closer attention to my monthly comic list. In some ways I have cut some of the comics that I was getting but I have added some others. Basically I am making more of an effort to get only so many comics per month and try to get as much bang out of my buck that I can get.

The increase in price of so many titles has started to upset me. I get the sense that they are just sucking as much out of people like myself and probably people that are on this site. I'm sure that the justification of this is due to the medium of comic not being as popular now a days. I just can't accept that though. Prices on comic books have clearly been increasing allot over the years and I think $3.99 is pushing it a bit too far. I wonder allot why I'm paying an extra dollar for one title while i can get another with as many pages for $2.99. Thats upsetting but I think its almost more frustrating when they put another 8 pages with a mini story on the character or try to sell another one on those pages. You know I want to read about the main story arc of Spider-Man and not a mini adventure that has nothing to do with anything going on etc.

So I just wanted to give my thoughts and opinions about the X-Men as of late and my possible theories of what might happen with them next.

To start off with, I feel that the House of M was a good step that Marvel took with the X-Men and an exciting idea which was a big part of why I started reading comics again. The mutant population seemed like it was becoming a bit too large and less of a unique occurrence. While that event was a smart move, the aftermath has been lack luster for me.

1.The whole survival mode of all mutants having to band together seems overplayed to a degree. I realize the mutant population is now a fraction of what it once was but I don’t feel like that means all the mutants would rally together or feel more threatened. I mean if you were a mutant and still are after the events or even if you’re a de-powered one that doesn’t really change who knows you are a mutant. Seems like most mutants can just fit into regular society without being noticed. My point is it just seems a bit overdone that all mutants need to come together under the X-Men. That’s what it feels like too that most mutants are now under the X-Men’s protection or now part of the team. So to me it now seems like it isn’t that unique to be an X-Man. It seems like most anyone can be an X-Man these days and I don’t really like that.

I’m new on here so I figured I’d do a bit of an intro of myself and my comic book collection for anyone that cares.

I started getting into comics when I was 13 or so like most people. A while back I started getting into comics again and currently I get a fair amount of new books each month. I was mostly into Spider-Man and the X-Men as a kid and both still remain my favorites. When I got back into comics it was a bit before Civil War so when Civil War came out, the amount of titles I got grew.

Recently, I have become more interested into collecting and getting back issues of some of my favorites to try and get complete collections of these titles. Again I haven’t been getting back issues to add to my collection for that long and I’m still looking for a better job so I only have so much money to spend on comics.