Talking about comic books, TV shows, movies, sports, and the numerous other pastimes that make us Gentlemen of Leisure.

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

The Week That Was 1312023

Upcoming X-aminations, Oscars, shameless plugs. 


X-aminations in February 1997

With the review of Uncanny X-Men #343, we've moved into the territory of books on sale in February 1997, which include: 

X-Man #26
X-Men (vol. 2) #63 
Wolverine #112 
X-Factor #133
Cable #42
Generation X #26
X-Force #65
Excalibur #108
Juggernaut #1
Imperial Guard #1-3
Sabretooth & Mystique #4 (carryover from January '97)
X-Men Unlimited #14 (carryover from January '97)
Domino #1-3 (carryover from January '97)
Xavier Institute Alumni Yearbook (carryover from January '97)

I may shakeup the order a bit to mix in some of the miniseries and one-shots, but that's the batch of books on deck!

Next time, we'll do some Power Rankings! 

Oscars

The Academy Award nominations were announced last week. I used to write about the Oscars fairly regular around here, until I realized I was never going to be an Oscar pundit and I should focus on other areas in my writing, but I continue to revel in Oscar season every year, and my wife and I continue to try and see all the Best Picture nominees every year despite the combined efforts of children and the Academy insisting on nominating ten movies to thwart us. One thing that has made catching more of these movies easier of late is streaming — I think all but two or three of the Best Picture noms are available to watch at home in some capacity already, and that may change between now and the March ceremony (and one of the films that definitely isn't available to watch at home yet — Avatar: Way of Water — is the one nominee we've already seen). 

Of course, being able to watch the nominees at home is great and all, but you still need to find time to watch them and, most importantly for those of us on the older side and who have kids, stay awake for them. My wife and I had grand plans to kick off our Oscars watch with Elvis Saturday night, until, by the time we were done with dinner and getting the kids to bed (during which I fell asleep briefly putting the eight year old to bed only to stumble downstairs at 10PM to find my wife asleep on the couch), we decided "to hell with it" and just went to bed ourselves. 

It also doesn't help that our time to see these movies in the theater BEFORE they get nominated has significantly decreased, between arranging babysitters and coordinating schedules, such that while once upon a time, we'd usually have seen at least a couple-three nominees by the time they were announced, now we're lucky if we have one under our belts by the time the nominations are announced in January. At any rate, we'll do our best again and I'll pass along my impressions of what we do see here and on Letterboxd, but in the meantime, which of the best picture nominees have you seen? Any early favorites? 

Shameless Plugs


One more end-of-last-year review I forgot to plug last time is my review of the "X-Cutioner's Song" Epic Collection for Comic Book Herald. It collects the issues of Uncanny X-Men and X-Men that close out the Jim Lee/Whilce Portacio runs, then the immediate post-Image Exodus issues following by the eponymous crossover. This is basically me making my case for why "X-Cutioner's Song" is one of the best X-Men crossover stories, even though it came polybagged with trading cards and was first published smack dab in the middle of the era of what people think of as "90s X-Men". 

More recently, I did an overview of the in-universe Star Wars timeline for Popverse, though it's probably pretty basic for most people reading this. Also in the Star Wars realm, my ongoing reviews of the Darth Vader solo series continue at Comics XF, with issue #30.

What Else? 

What I'm Reading
"Sins of Sinister", the latest mini crossover in the current X-books, kicked off last week, and its inaugural issue was a lot of fun (with a great all star assemblage of talent contributing some wonderful splash pages). I edited Mark Turetsky and Rasmus Lykke's review of Sins of Sinister #1, the issue that kicks it all off, which digs into the issue really well. I was fairly cool on Kieron Gillen's take on Mister Sinister when he first introduced it in his earlier X-Men run, but I've warmed to it during the Krakoa Era (thanks in part to my ongoing coverage of Hellions back in the day). He's become such a darkly funny character I don't really care anymore how inconsistent he is with his earlier "mysterious schemer" days. 

What I'm Watching
I signed up for Paramount Plus via a cheap Black Friday deal and am thinking of diving into its Star Trek content; any recommendations on where to start, what can't be missed (or what can be missed)? 

'Til next time! 

3 comments:

  1. I don't have Paramount+ but I have been watching Star Trek: Discovery on home video (a practice I wish Disney+ would emulate) as soon as they release. I like the show overall, but it feels about as far away from Star Trek as the The Boys is from Justice League.

    Sins of Sinister is off to a great start and I'm really excited to see where it goes. Kieron Gillen is probably my current favorite X-Writer and in my top 5 of all time.

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  2. For Star Trek content, it can be tough because there's just so much of it, past and present. There's also a lot of good and a LOT of bad (or at least mediocre.) It's like someone asking what they should look for in 90s X-Men comics.

    For the old stuff, you can't go wrong with The Original Series, Next Generation, and Deep Space 9. I haven't dug into much of the new content, but my hardcore Trek friends (you know the ones; the people who claim Enterprise really wasn't too bad) all say that The Lower Decks is the best Trek since DS9. They say it's funny and irreverent while still feeling like a Trek series.

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  3. Strange new worlds, easily the best nu trek since it came back to TV. Funny, confident, episodic, great haircuts (bizarre but true), good solid"star trek", impossible to define but easy to recognise. Give it a go!

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