Back again for the final update with Logan's teams now complete. First question I have is this Beast The Dark Beast or our very own 616 Beast? I've always been a big Beast, whichever universe he's from so I'm happy to see him back in the X-fold. Is that Rachel Grey/Summers looking all hound-like backing up X-Men: Legacy? Pretty cool if it is. How long has X-Factor has such a large team? Not read it in a while but the ranks seem to have swelled quite considerably since I last turned those pages. Seems more like a Detective Army rather than Agency.

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So recently I have been getting back into comics, which if you read my article here you will already know. It has been around 7-10 weeks now since I started my standing order (pull list) and since then I got my hands on some back issues for Batman Incorporated and am trying to snap up some All-Star Superman as well.

Since returning to comics I have come across a couple of things I’ve noticed that weren’t apparent in the industry when I was previously collecting. The first, which I’d like to discuss now, is the over use of superheroes and the amount of comics they appear in each month.

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Yesterday we were treated to a pretty much blacked out image of the Uncanny X-Men, today it's the turn of Wolverine and the X-Men.

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The latest Marvel Studios film, Captain America: The First Avenger, has been out in the UK now for just over a week. It’s doing quite well at the box office, and has had, for the most part, some pretty solid reviews. But among the film going fans, be they comic geeks or not, opinions seem to be a little divided. Not in an extreme manner, we’re not talking huge arguments between those who loved it and those who hated it. But whereas there seem to be widely agreed upon opinions on the previous films in the Avengers franchise, there appear to be two differing groups when it comes to Cap. You have those who loved it (which includes myself, who actually holds it up as the best Marvel Studios film to date), and those whose opinion is best described as “It was okay. I liked it, didn’t love it.”

Like I say, it’s not like there are any massive differences, but it did get me thinking. There’s no such thing as a universally held opinion. You’ll always find someone who disagrees with you. But a quick poll of the other Avengers films should yield the following results, generally speaking: Iron Man is awesome, and a great start to Marvel’s shared film universe. The Incredible Hulk is dumb, but fun. Iron Man 2 is hugely flawed, too much of a set up, yet also quite likeable. Thor is a spectacular blend of superheroes with epic fantasy and some Shakespeare thrown in for good measure.

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Well in honour of our current predicament with our beloved leaders getting their measuring sticks out I decided that this would be a suitable time to review some Marvel books.

Hmmm, what could I possibly review that could be of interest, oh yeah Civil War, or at least the books that the library has in stock.

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I had wanted to start this column with an entirely different kind of piece; something lighter in tone, maybe, and with the edge of self-deprecating fun. Then I picked up a copy of Generation Hope #9, from Marvel, by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie.

Frankly, I was blown away. Immediately after reading the comic, I had to go on twitter and thank Kieron for putting that story out there. This ultimately led to some discussion on the issue, and I let him know that I would have to write this column about it too.
So what is the topic of this issue that is both so sensitive and so vitally important that it needed to be addressed? For those of you have not picked up or read a copy of this issue, and I sincerely insist that you should, here be spoilers. So go away, get a copy, read it, digest it, and come back.

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Well, after the last article did so well (I think) its time for round two. This time around the topic is 10 of the best…X-men crossovers. I put the feelers out on Twitter for your opinions of this and got some interesting reactions.

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Well that’s that done, on with the review. This week is a look back at a darker time for the Marvel universe; it’s a book set bang smack in the middle of Dark Reign. Once again it features a number of stories so I will be focusing on them each listing the writers and artists and giving information of what to pick up after each story and how we got to where the story starts.

The Book is “The List” it was published originally in 2009 and was collected in a nice book that has some great stories in it. When these stories originally came out I only picked up the Uncanny X-men version as it became clear that it was essentially a jumping on point book for other titles. The list is something that Norman “Green Goblin” Osborn creates to make life easier for him and contains the following things to do:

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When I first started writing these columns, many moons ago (twenty-eightish), I was going to take a slightly different approach to them. As well as listing my five favourite actors to portray each character, I was also going to give one example of how not to play the part. It was while I was writing about how awful George Clooney was as Batman that I realised this wouldn’t work. Where would it go? You couldn’t start an article about the best with the worst. And you want to finish on a high, so the end’s out too. So I cut it, and decided it wouldn’t appear.

But Pat Fraley, who voiced Wolverine in Pryde of the X-Men pilot and on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends needs mentioning here. For Odin’s sake, he played Wolverine as an Australian! Everyone’s favourite Canadian, with an Aussie accent. It just didn’t work. At all. I’m not anti-Fraley here, after all, the guy was also Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but…did he ever read an X-Men comic? Rumour has it, the accent came about because in the script, Wolverine called Pyro a dingo. Pyro, who was an Australian. No one bothered to check. And we get the worst Wolverine ever. But anyway, on with the best!

As ever, I put it to the good people of the internet who their favourite Wolverine is, and it was surprisingly close. Two Wolverines stood head and shoulders above the rest, with Hugh Jackman taking the gold. But only just. But, as we all know, it’s not what the public thinks that matters. No. It’s all about me. And so…

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Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions, where nobody goes, stands an ancient castle. Deep within this dank, and uninviting place, lives Bumchin “Allo!”, overworked servant of "the thing upstairs" “Bumchin! Write a Review!” But that's nothing, compared to the horrors that lurk beneath the trap door, for there is always something down there, in the dark, waiting to come out...(usually its Dan)

So this week I’ve decided to review some of the Ultimate storylines from Marvel. I thought it was appropriate with all the news surrounding the “Death of (Ultimate) Spider-man”.

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