Ah- the New Year, a time for reflection and clip shows. So I decided to combine the two just to see what would happen. Most people do a best of the year but when I write a good review nobody ever wants to read it. So I slapped together here only with a few afterthoughts and commentaries on so the worst pieces of garbage I read in 2010.   Universe X Volume 1 - My mom always said "Don't judge a book by it's cover." This holds especially true if that cover is done by Alex Ross. Where did it go wrong? Do you like many hundred page outlines with almost nothing but narration that create nonsensical connections between characters in the space of one issue alone? Even in the fast paced Stan and Jack days, it would have taken a decade to tell. This goes on for six issues and two specials. What about total rewrites of a character's origin for no apparent reason? Well, if you do, you'll love Universe X. Where was the editor during all this? Don't they have a job to do? I like alternate universe stories, but usually ones that have a recognizable divergence point. All of this whole mess would have been excusable had one thing held true, if Alex Ross had painted the insides as well as the cover. Words do not exist to describe how painful I found this book. Furthermore, it is my most sincere belief that Sheryl would not allow me to use those words even if they did. Universe X Volume 2 - Oh wacky retcons, oh how I miss you. This one crosses the line from painful and stupid to painful, stupid and repetitive. "Oh no look! It's Wendigo- oh wait that's just a self-cannibalizing Madrox." "Look out! It's Belasco... no wait- that's just Nightcrawler." "Oh look that's Thanos- no it's a Skrull." 'No wait it is Thanos and he's been a Skrull the whole time!' Really, what the smegging hell kind of storytelling is that? What a really fine waste of Canadian timber. Did they really have to use glossy printing here? I like to get some reuse out of my books but that thicker stuff really doesn't flush well. Afterthought: You know- I almost regret putting this on this list and being as mean as I was. Not to say that Universe X is a great read or anything. It's not. It's terrible. Writer, comedian, film critic and retired talking gumball machine Kevin Murphy has spoken openly about what he called: The Manos Effect. You start off doing reviews and you think something is worst thing you could possibly be asked to endure. Then months or years later you encounter something- in his case 'Manos: The Hands of Fate'- which introduces you to a whole new level of pain. When compared with the number one and two items on my list- these babies seem like Alan Moore's Watchmen. Trigun Maximum Volume 14: This is an even bigger let down than Volume 13. The first few pages present the reader with the Trigun of old. The goofy, quip spouting Vash is doing his best to aggravate his opponents. Then it pulls the rug out from under the reader. I felt cheated. An attempt is made to reintroduce Meryl and Milly, but it seems more like Nightow saying: 'Oh look, we haven't seen them since Volume 12, we had better bring them back. Let's see what they're up to before we blow some more $#@! up.' Then they'd argue with the captain of the Earth forces, or recap some vital information to some authority figure and vanish again. The serious changes to the ending really didn't work for me. The anime's ending was a special thing. Vash actually kills Legato. He ends up a broken man. It is only through Meryl's guidance that he finds his way back to his center and does what needs doing without betraying who he is. In the manga, someone else kills Legato. Which makes you question why they put Vash's honor code into the story at all. Never put a loaded gun on stage unless you intend to fire it. The epilogue was almost worth it- with a true return to the Trigun of old. It almost makes me wish for more but only if it would be more like the first half of the manga. This was a total waste of a free trade paper back. Afterthought: There's not much new I can say. Sometimes something is bad when you read and you still think it's bad. That's just how it is. Mystique: Quiet: Another Collector Times writer recommended this one to me. The basic concept is simple. Mystique is blackmailed by Charles Xavier to handle missions not fit for the X-Men. Since Mystique is a genocidal super villain things obviously go wrong. Now, setting aside just what resounding successes Xavier's previous attempts at reforming villains like Magneto and Sabretooth were, the concept could have been really cool. The result is a pretty standard spy thriller. Only the twists and turns aren't all that exciting. They are so obvious they can be seen from space. The dialogue is amusing at times but not enough to keep one interested in the actual story for very long. If hadn't been for the power outage keeping me from watching 'The Muppet Show' I don't think I would have finished this one in an hour. Though my over active imagination did occasionally place Statler and Waldorf just off panel to heckle the story. So on this one, I have to say 'No, I did not get my seven dollars worth.' Afterthought: I would really hurt Jason Bourgeois for this.... I really would. Only he has this movie site called A HREF="http://www.triskaidekafiles.com/">triskaidekafiles.com where he reviews some of the worst damn horror movies ever made. Thanks to me - he has sat through 'Species' and 'Species II'. Come to think of it - I don't need to hurt him. I already have. But after several months, I applied a bandage by plugging his website. X-Men: Day of the Atom - I bought this one on a dare. I looked inside and saw the name Chuck Austen. My friend said: "It's five bucks! You have to buy it." I tried to explain my reaction to other Austen books I've read and his response was: "I know. That's why you have to buy it. You're writing that review column of every trade you read, right?" I said: "Yeah, so?" His ultimate response was: "Your complementary reviews are glowing and sappy as hell. People stop by hoping you'll rip it to shreds. Do it and I'll give you a Twinkee." Well, I hate to disappoint but this wasn't as bad as could have been. It was only slightly more painful than being hit by a speeding taxi cab and I know whence I speak. For most of the book but it seemed to lack the "I'm having all of my body hair removed with a pair of needle nose pliers by a fat and cheerful Belgian Postage Inspector" feeling that most of Austen's work seems to induce in me. Maybe because after the first half of the Nurse Annie debacle, Austen was being kept on an invisible dog leash that would have given him a small electric shock if he tried his usual garbage. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that I was reading Universe X Volume Two and was still running off the endorphins. On the plus side, the Christmas story at the end is written by a true master of X-books, the often imitated never duplicated Chris Claremont. Why, oh why, godlessness couldn't he have written the whole thing? Even if it had the same plot, the dialogue wouldn't be anywhere near as bad. I definitely did not get my money's worth and considering that the last story had a shot of Kitty Pryde in a very tight elf costume in a quasi fanservicing position is saying quite a bit. Afterthought: This is the first of many reference to Mrs. Pryde on our countdown of sheer pain. I'm a sucker for a geeky girl with a pretty face. It's also the first of two appearances by Chuck Austen. You'd think I'd learn my lesson on that. Exiles Volume 5: The premise of Exiles is that every thing that can occur does occur in some reality or another. This can be an interesting idea to toy with as a writer. For instance- what if we lived in a universe where Chuck Austen did not write a brief run on Exiles? We could have been spared a poorly conceived sequel to the much maligned Mutant X series. The execution is much worse. This being Chuck Austen, it's of the kind where they have to inject several times as they try to find a vein. Most of the Exiles come off as extremely out of character. That's okay. Everyone is out of character written by Austen. Almost all traces of the effort Judd Winnick put into characterization during his run are gone. The only one who seems like his normal self is Morph. Then again, it is easy to write an @$$hole. I'd like to quote two philosophical siblings, one of whom said: "I canta think of the ending of this..." and the other who said: "Funny, I can't think of anything else." Afterthought: To paraphrase one of my personal heroes, Mr. Samuel Clemens: "Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Chuck Austen. Even if it contains no other book." If you're going to steal commentary- steal from the best. Ultimate X-Men Volume Five: This volume collects 'The Ultimate War' miniseries which is basically a huge battle between The Ultimates (the Ultimate Universe's answer to The Avengers) and The X-Men. For some reason they placed it in the X-Men category but it is hard to see why. The X-Men are hardly in it. Normally I'd consider this a blessing. It took four volumes for Ultimate X-Men to get anywhere resembling good. Only in the Ultimate universe they've made Tony Stark even more of an alcoholic womanizer than ever before and Captain America is seen toting guns and willingly going along with the violation of the civil rights of innocent people. When I say the X-Men aren't in this battle between them and the Avengers, I really mean it. The first issue deals mainly with The Ultimates and the Brotherhood with the X-Men briefly showing up to lick wounds from the end of Ultimate X-Men Volume 4 The second chapter is The X-Men running and hiding while the so called heroes round up weaker members of the Brotherhood to send them off to Gitmo while offering membership to their team to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The third issue has the Ultimates beginning to round up the X-Men and Jean whining about Scott dying. Then she starts being paranoid about Wolverine. Of course Magneto shows up and kicks everyone's ass back to Bedrock. It is only in issue four that the X-Men really get involved in their own story and by then it is too little too late. No amount of gun fights, explosions or people losing limbs can save it. Hell, not even a really silly running gag about malfunctions in the back up danger room started in issue two which leads to holographic rabbis being mowed down with machine guns can save it. At least Millar didn't put any pointless sex in it. Though aside from Samuel L. Fury and Dick Cheney, I didn't see any characters who had the necessary spark. I so did not get my $5.50's worth here. Afterthought: If I ever decide to read Ultimate X-Men again- somebody please remind me of this book. Kitty Pryde be damned- I don't want to read another story that bad again. Young X-Men Volume It's quite amazing how enjoyable Young X-Men can be in issues that go out of their way to avoid using the Young X-Men. The scenes that focus on Dani Moonstar and Sunspot were almost perfect. The delectably evil Donald Pierce was also perfectly in character. The trade itself follows three arcs. One that resolves the mystery of which member of the team is not a mutant. Which then leads to the arc about a mutant tattoo artist who gives people powers. Finally yet another angst filled, time hopping possible future story where all the X-Men slowly die. What really bothers me about Young X-Men is just how been there done that bought the T-Shirt the characters are. Santo is a big strong guy who is made of rocks who makes wise cracks and is generally angry all the time. It was cool when Ben Grimm did it because frankly Ben has a softer side and an off switch. Anole is the always right overly sensitive but almost child like gay lizard boy. Runways, Young Avengers and TV's Fox and Friends have one of those as well. Blindfold is the whiny blind girl who sees the future. Really, why does everyone who sees the future always see horrible things? Why can't the future ever be something good? Just once. Plus why are the people who see the future also such pansy ass wimps? The only interesting character on the whole team is Dust whose angst is at least understandable. She is a Muslim and a mutant- which are two things that go together like chocolate and WD-40. She actually bothers to have philosophical discussions with people. She shows intelligence. She's also dying from something Magma did to her in the previous book. They could have had a much better way to fix this but the book's real focus is on the following characters: a) Ink the walking plot device. B) Greymalkin the man we know zippo about and given even less reason to care what happens to or where he came from. C) Cipher who is what her name implies. Her background is one giant retcon not because it needs to be, but because it just is. She's also redundant given what we know about Greymalkin. Obviously, Guggenheim is more interested in writing Deus Ex Machina (and I mean that in the Greek sense not Vertigo comics) than writing X-Men. Luckily, Marvel cancelled this series at the end of this volume. Marvel's gain is ABC's 'No Ordinary Family''s loss. This one would make the perfect book to read at a funeral- preferably your own. Afterthought: The Fox and Friends thing was a rumor I heard and I'm not just issuing this retraction to cover my own ass. The Essential Iron Man Volume 1 by Lee, Kirby, Heck et all: At this illustrious moment I must astonishingly aggravate all of the assembled Collector Times readership by explaining with exhausting excitement and exponential annoyance the level of the eternally exasperating excrement that Iron Man achieves while agilely imitating (without even a seasoning of sanctimony) the ill-fittingly alliterated superconductive stylings of Smilin' Stan Lee. My original sensei in the art of comic collecting back in middle school used to say that you could tell how much Stan Lee liked a concept judging by how soon he started plotting it and farming the script out to other writers. He gave scripting rights over to Larry 'The Man's Brother' Leiber before the series even began. This was not a good sign. Leiber then gave the book over to R. Burns which was another bad omen. Burns gave way to Stan Lee at which point the book improved. By the time it reached the quality of most of the other Marvel books of the time, including it's own co-feature Captain America, it had almost reached is triumphant conclusion. I paid 10 paper heads of George Washington for this unrepentantly unreadable unessential and Holy Hannah that burns my buttons. Nuff said. Afterthought: Two things. First of all I'm surprised Sheryl let me get away with the word excrement. Considering that she once recommended I change the word dog$#*! in the review I did of Star Trek: The Manga. So I contacted a buddy from the Klingon Language Shakespeare Project who helped me coin the word Targ'veq which approximates as dog$##! in Klingon. Secondly- Stan Lee must have an almost inexhaustible stamina. Do you know how tiring it is to think up that much alliteration? I had to take a nap while in the middle of writing that paragraph. Spider-Man: Torment - I'll say one thing about writer Todd McFarlane. He has cajones. It takes a lot of brass to do a thematic sequel to Fearful Symmetry (aka Kraven's Last Hunt). Some stories are so emotional and so perfect that they become practically sacred ground. No sequels are really required. Certainly not one by anyone other than J.M. Dematteis and Mike Zeck. So I'm conceding Mr. McFarlane that much. But in the words of Jean-Luc Picard: 'This far an no further. The line must be drawn here!' Writing this story he opens himself up to comparison to what many consider to be the greatest Spider-Man story ever told. Torment doesn't even come close to being a worth successor. If you replace Vermin with Lizard and Kraven with his mysterious ex-lover (Calypso?), Torment follows Kraven's Last Hunt dramatically almost beat by beat, minus the graveyard scenes which was part of what made Fearful Symmetry such a hard hitting story. Remember that almost shot for shot remake of Psycho starring Vince Vaughn? Imagine if the remake had decided to leave out the shower scene. If you're going to steal you might as well steal the whole thing. In the original story you saw many perspectives- including Peter Parker and Kraven, both of whom saw themselves as heroes. Here you have Peter Parker who is just trying to stay alive and an omniscient narrator who fills the audience in on what's happen even if Spider-Man does not. It makes the story much less satisfying. What few glimpses we get into Calypso's mind, she refers to herself as evil several times. Where Kraven's Last Hunt is beloved for a sense of realism- this comes off like the Saturday Morning cartoon version. Who really thinks of themselves as evil? Does Kim Jong Ill wake up in the morning and say 'How am I going to be evil today?' No, he puts on his GI Joe Costume and granny glasses and does evil things for reasons that make sense in his mind. So over all the story showed the degree of competence one would expect from a writer who thinks debating with Peter David is a good idea. On top of this the story is also visually confusing. Some of this is due to an over reliance on overlapped panels, images within images and a zillion two page splash panels designed to make cool T-Shirts. Not only that but The Lizard changes shape and color almost at whim. His coloration jumps from green, to blue to white and back again several times. His tail seems four feet long on some panels and up to six feet long in the others. Sometimes you wonder if his mouth is shaped in such a way that it could actually open. Other panels he looks equipped to devour a 1967 Volkswagen Minibus complete with four hippies and a talking dog. It's still much better than Liefeld but then so is my nephew's artwork and he's almost three. This trade was not worth my $7.50. Afterthought: That whole review seems even more familiar than the others. Oh that's right. Torment is so bad, so horrendously painful that I had to repeat it in the exact same issue in which it originally ran. Scarily enough- it only gets worse from here. The Essential She-Hulk: This phone book sized collection boasts one issue by Stan Lee, as well it should. It doesn't have a lot else going for it. For the one issue he was on board, 'Uncle Stan' hit a solid gold grade A origin story. The real problem is it also contains 23 three other issues of She-Hulk prior to her days in The Avengers. The only possible explanation for it lasting that long was that in the 70s and 80s, there was TV series starring Bill Bixby. Hulk was big. You could slap Hulk on any Marvel title and the sales would go up even if the art and story were total garbage- much like Hulk's former foe Wolverine is today. My mom always told me if you can't find anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. However if you're a regular reader of this column you know how well that little nugget of advice stuck. David Kraft's trouble is that he can't really pin down if he wants the title to be a straight out super hero book, a horror book, a romance comic or a courtroom drama. So instead of being really good at one of those things it fails in all of them. The horror issues read like Steve Gerber without the insight into the human condition, ironic sense of the absurd or even any real element of terror. Which means as far as Gerber's work is concerned, it is its father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate. The court room stuff is like a bad episode of Perry Mason. The book's second main flaw is the string of tie-ins with the other book Kraft was running into the ground at the time, like the The Defenders. These unnecessary crossovers ruin an almost interesting story about She-Hulk and Michael Morbius. Do you know what it takes to get me interested in stupid goddamn vampires? Kraft of all people almost had me. Then Scorpio, the Vision wannabe shows up in the third part and just ruins it. The other Defenders crossover has an even bigger problem. It doesn't matter what book he sticks his ongoing John Jameson/Man-Wolf/Mircroworld storyline into, it doesn't fix the problem of it being complete gobbledegook. Not even entertaining gobbledegook either. The last time Kraft made something that cheesy I had to put some Prego with meat sauce on it to make it worthy of consumption. Don't get me started on the subplot about Jennifer Walters's father's scam artist girlfriend and the house. This is supposed to be a She-Hulk comic not bleeping Mary Worth. The final issue was simply horrific. It was double sized and it had more loose ends than a pair of pants at a Salvation Army Thrift Store. There were plot holes so large you could fit another volume of Essential She-Hulk through it. Not only that, but it didn't even try to make sense. There were four instances where things were just thrown in without any hints or explanation. The worst part is Kraft had plenty of space to do so, only he wasted about 12 of the thirty eight pages recapping the entirety of the series. I'm not kidding. Twelve pages recapping 22 issues. Twelve pages that could have been spent developing a motive for the bad guys, tying up loose ends or making the overall story coherent. The only benefit of this train wreck, as I'm sure you can see, is that after two months of going through the motions on this column I have returned to my old, wonderful, friendly self. That's right folks, Mr. Nice Guy is back and I'm making up for lost time. Best birthday present ever. Hoo-ha! Don't think Kraft is getting off easy for fixing my always agile acerbic wisdom dispenser- which you kind folks refer to as my brain. No way in Hell was that book, or even the repair job, worth seven dollars. Afterthought: When I first wrote that review it was several months after reading X-Men: The Manga. While there were many books I read between the two where I didn't get what I paid for- I had been at a point where I was saying to myself: 'These are bad- but I don't think they were bad enough to be truly worth insulting.' Now for another rare apology... I recently found pair of pants at a Salvation Army store that were both cheap and practically new. They had the original J.C. Penny tags on them and everything. If I hadn't shrunk a few sizes in the past couple of months I would have bought them. Whereas for Essential She-Hulk, if I had to do it again- I wouldn't. Case in point, during Barnes and Noble.com's after Christmas sale I saw Essential Savage She-Hulk for $3.99. I didn't even buy it for someone who I didn't get a present for. My not buying them The Essential She-Hulk was their present. The Essential Killraven: Let's start off by saying that in terms of quality, any time you change writing teams before your first issue even comes out than chances are you are dropping a ball of something not suitable for print. Any time you change writers four times in five issues your chances of producing a series worth reading are so slim they fall into the realm of one dimensional objects. The plot presented by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams and written by Gerry Conway reads like it was intended for Conan 2099. Conway continues on this road for his next issue. Marv Wolfman who even back in the 70s was usually a more than competent writer doesn't seem to have any idea what this series is actually supposed to be. He is gone by the next issue. These issues are about as salvageable as the legacy of Fatty Arbuckle. I don't even think replacing the Martians with apes would redeem them. Then Don McGregor stepped in. At this point it seemed like the series was a corpse that didn't know it was dead. Something odd happened around his third or fourth issue. The sales on the book were good enough to keep the book going but not high enough that any of the editors gave a damn about what actually went inside. You started getting stories about Martians using human beings as cuisine, a story with implied hallucinogen use, the first interracial couple in a mainstream comic and a discussion about mental retardation. Some issues that are incredibly strong and managed to weave out of the sword and sorcery vs. space aliens mold. These were all steps in the right direction. What prevents it from reaching the quality of Howard The Duck or even Werewolf By Night is that it does not take those steps far enough. Additionally there are several steps backwards. The first being the inclusion of an issue of Marvel Team Ups where Spider-Man meets Killraven. The whole concept seems extremely out of place. There is also the issue with various other Marvel characters which feels like they were hammered in because they needed to fill the 22 pages with pictures. Both of these stinkers were guest written by Bill Mantlo. They were obvious and shameless attempts to bring in new readers without bothering to check if genres mixed well enough to tell actual stories. A crossover is well and good when the idea works. These stories are the comics equivalent of guzzling soda while eating Pop Rocks save for the fact that I'm pretty sure these issues will actually cause an untrained head to explode. The 1980s Graphic Novel was a huge disappointment. Here McGregor was being given a chance to finish the story years after it last saw print something unprecedented at a mainstream publisher in those days. It promises to be the end of the epic. The reader would have expected: 1) For Killraven to find and either rescue or kill his brother 2) For him to go to Mars to end the War of Worlds which had been his goal since the beginning of the series and 3) begin to let Carmilla and M'Shulla build the new human society. It delivers only the first and fails on all the rest. The reader is just kept waiting for stuff to happen. If it wasn't for all the sex and sword play I would have thought I was reading Samuel Beckett fanfiction. The story from Marvel Knights Killraven was visually amazing but otherwise forgettable. My thought on the trade itself was that I was honestly entertained by about 1/3 of it. I hope Sheryl won't remove me limbs with a hacksaw or cancel my column for saying this but it was a complete and total waste of one hour's wage. Afterthought: Sheryl wrote on the cover of the issue this review appeared in that this was one of her favorite series. Saying: 'It was the 70s' and compares Don McGregor to Chris Claremont. She always complains about the lack of letters in the letter page. So I wrote one. Only it never ran. To mark my longest afterthought here is that letter . . . Dear Sheryl, I am shocked at your defense of Killraven. 'It was the 70s' is not a blanket all excuse for mediocrity. I may not have been alive back then but as a man with a degree in Mass Communication, I am a rather well versed media historian. The same decade that Paul McCartney recorded Uncle Albert was also the decade John Lennon recorded Imagine. The same decade where America was bombarded with 'Welcome Back, Kotter' also brought the world M*A*S*H*. Children's TV may have had 'Partridge Family 2200' but just a few short years later- if they were good- their parents might let them watch 'The Muppet Show' in the evening. (Today the Muppets are enjoyed by four generations of my family.) The same decade that brought Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster was the same decade that Woody Allen made 'Play it Again, Sam'. Sure we have gotten 'Logan's Run' but we also got 'Star Wars'. It was creatively no more or less dead than any other decade. Sturgeon's Law is universal. The idea that Killraven was the closest thing the big two comic publishers had to science fiction and fantasy for adults is just plain wrong. Steve Gerber was producing some of his best work in the 70s. After he hit his stride in Man-Thing, I can't think of a single comic he wrote (under his own name) where he wrote for a target audience consisting of anyone other than himself and merely hoped other people would like it as well. While parts of Howard the Duck might have visually appealed to children, with all the innuendo between Howard and Beverly, it was not written for them. Gerber wasn't the only one doing this. Marvel had plenty of titles that went to magazine format to avoid the Comics Code Authority. Even if what you were saying was true- which I've proven wasn't the case- it's close to saying: 'I can't afford any low toxicity insecticides but I have plenty of old DDT lying around. I'll just use that.' Don't compare Don McGregor to Chris Claremont. There is also a huge difference between them. Both are overly wordy at times. There are some huge differences. 1) While they both tend to juggle multiple plots in the air Claremont will at least make an effort to pay off on those plots eventually. The original Phoenix Saga may have been long as all hell but it at least had an ending. Even when given the chance to do that with Killraven, McGregor didn't take it. Claremont might take months, years and in some cases decades but at least he tries to get there most of the time. Case in point there is a plot he started back in the 70s that other writers have used since then that he finally told his way almost 35 years later in the pages of X-Men Forever. 2) Claremont puts a lot more effort into characterization. He made the audience care not only about the X-Men but over time Magneto as well. That should have been difficult because Magnus is a mass murderer. The only character I found myself caring about in Killraven was poor Old Skull. Though making the audience care about a retarded character is not a difficult task. 3) Chris Claremont will occasionally write some really funny stuff. Killraven just seemed to kill Martians all the time in the most drab and whiny way possible. It's not like he got up every morning, had his cup a coffee, caught the train to work while slaying Martians, got to the office where he slew Martians, went on lunch break, come back a half hour later to slay Martians for four more hours, went home to the wife and kids, tripped over the ottoman, had dinner of nice delicious Martian, talked to his wife about his day killing Martians, went back to sleep, dreamed of killing Martians, woke up to pee, killed a Martian on his way back to bed and then woke up a 5 AM to kill Martians all over again. Don McGregor tried to make the Watergate tapes bit funny but it didn't quite work. Old Skull in the hallucinogen chamber was mildly amusing but it didn't approach the level of Claremont's 70s laughfest 'Spider-Man Meets the Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Players'. See, now you know why you shouldn't complain about the letter page. I'm a mercenary writer. If you want me to write a complaint about something in the last issue every month- all you have to do is ask. Sincerely, Jess Willey X-Men: The Manga: Let's just say for some reason you wanted to make the X-Men into a faux Japanese style high school melodrama. So you try to find a character that fits that girl next door model that those types of stories tend to focus on. So let's say you have a character who has become beloved by fans for being bright, geeky, sarcastic, knows when to follow her instincts and turn her into one half catgirl and one half lobotomized Nancy Drew. Do you make Xavier and Magneto best friends? Do you turn the Hellfire Club from a sinister technocratic cabal into a fraternity? Do you make Colossus look like Super Mario in his normal form who just happens to turn into a mustached version of The Iron Giant? The Editors at Del Rey certainly thought so. If I believed in an afterlife, I would avoid doing bad things ever again out of fear of being forced to read X-men: The Manga for all of eternity. Do not read this book, no matter how curious you might be about how horrendous it is. If you think what Joss Whedon did to Kitty Pryde was unforgivable, you haven't read this book. It'd have Chris Claremont spinning in his grave and he is still very much alive. It is like someone wired electrodes up to my pain receptors. Then every time I read a word balloon or examined the art, someone kept pulling the switch. I have suffered through bad adaptations of X-Men before, but I half expected TV's Frank and Doctor Clayton Forrester to show up between chapters and apologize for it. The best possible thing I can say about this book is that it reaches a new quality threshold. A threshold of $%&!, but a threshold none the less. Put that on your book jacket and smoke it. Afterthought: This is the kind of book one should hand over to the Ray Bradbury Fire Department. Here's to hoping for a shorter list of pain for 2011 . . .

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Text Copyright © 2011 Jesse N. Willey About Jesse