In 1975, Marvel Comics revived the X-Men, a failed title which hadn't used new material for half a decade. It was a marginal project in an industry then in crisis. Five years later, it was the bestseller in a revived comics market. Unusually in the comics world, one man, Chris Claremont wrote the comic over seventeen years, from 1975 to 1991, developing new characters such as Wolverine and Storm, and taking themes from Freudian psychology, Christian temptation narratives, Existentialist philosophy and the language of sub-cultural identity. Marvel's Mutants is the first book to be devoted to the aesthetics of these comics that laid the foundation for the worldwide X-Men franchise we know today. Miles Booy explores Claremont's recurrent themes, the evolution of his reputation as an auteur within a collaborative medium, the superhero genre and the input of the artists with whom Claremont worked. Also covered are the successful spin-off projects, which Claremont wrote: solo Wolverine mini-series and whole new teams of mutant superheroes.
Cannonball. Sunspot. Moonstar. Karma. Rahne. Teenagers, thrown together by the one thing they had in common - the X-Factor in their genes that made them different, made them mutants. Relive the adventures of the team that will come to be known as X-Force... if they survive. Also collects Marvel Graphic Novel #4, and Uncanny X-Men #167.
2017 The Association for the Studies of the Present Book Prize Finalist Mention, 2017 Lora Romero First Book Award Presented by the American Studies Association Winner of the 2012 CLAGS Fellowship Award for Best First Book Project in LGBT Studies How fantasy meets reality as popular culture evolves and ignites postwar gender, sexual, and race revolutions. In 1964, noted literary critic Leslie Fiedler described American youth as “new mutants,” social rebels severing their attachments to American culture to remake themselves in their own image. 1960s comic book creators, anticipating Fiedler, began to morph American superheroes from icons of nationalism and white masculinity into actual mutant outcasts, defined by their genetic difference from ordinary humanity. These powerful misfits and “freaks” soon came to embody the social and political aspirations of America’s most marginalized groups, including women, racial and sexual minorities, and the working classes. In The New Mutants, Ramzi Fawaz draws upon queer theory to tell the story of these monstrous fantasy figures and how they grapple with radical politics from Civil Rights and The New Left to Women’s and Gay Liberation Movements. Through a series of comic book case studies—including The Justice League of America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and The New Mutants—alongside late 20th century fan writing, cultural criticism, and political documents, Fawaz reveals how the American superhero modeled new forms of social belonging that counterculture youth would embrace in the 1960s and after. The New Mutants provides the first full-length study to consider the relationship between comic book fantasy and radical politics in the modern United States.
"Account of how comic book heroes have helped their creators and fans alike explore and express a wealth of paranormal experiences ignored by mainstream science. Delving deeply into the work of major figures in the field - from Jack Kirby's cosmic superhero sagas and Philip K. Dick's futuristic head-trips to Alan Moore's sex magic and Whitley Strieber's communion with visitors - Kripal shows how creators turned to science fiction to convey the reality of the inexplicable and the paranormal they experienced in their lives. Expanded consciousness found its language in the metaphors of sci-fi - incredible powers, unprecedented mutations, time-loops and vast intergalactic intelligences - and the deeper influences of mythology and religion that these in turn drew from ; the wildly creative work that followed caught the imaginations of millions. Moving deftly from Cold War science and Fredric Wertham's anticomics crusade to gnostic revelation and alien abduction, Kripal spins out a hidden history of American culture, rich with mythical themes and shot through with an awareness that there are other realities far beyond our everyday understanding."--Jacket.
The vicious Marauders have been employed to wipe out the underground mutant community known as the Morlocks, whose only hope of salvation rests in the hands of the X-Men.
Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing? Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.>
Winner of the 2022 Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book The first-ever full reckoning with Marvel Comics’ interconnected, half-million-page story, a revelatory guide to the “epic of epics”—and to the past sixty years of American culture—from a beloved authority on the subject who read all 27,000+ Marvel superhero comics and lived to tell the tale “Brilliant, eccentric, moving and wholly wonderful. . . . Wolk proves to be the perfect guide for this type of adventure: nimble, learned, funny and sincere. . . . All of the Marvels is magnificently marvelous. Wolk’s work will invite many more alliterative superlatives. It deserves them all.” —Junot Díaz, New York Times Book Review The superhero comic books that Marvel Comics has published since 1961 are, as Douglas Wolk notes, the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created: over half a million pages to date, and still growing. The Marvel story is a gigantic mountain smack in the middle of contemporary culture. Thousands of writers and artists have contributed to it. Everyone recognizes its protagonists: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men. Eighteen of the hundred highest-grossing movies of all time are based on parts of it. Yet not even the people telling the story have read the whole thing—nobody’s supposed to. So, of course, that’s what Wolk did: he read all 27,000+ comics that make up the Marvel Universe thus far, from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown. And then he made sense of it—seeing into the ever-expanding story, in its parts and as a whole, and seeing through it, as a prism through which to view the landscape of American culture. In Wolk’s hands, the mammoth Marvel narrative becomes a fun-house-mirror history of the past sixty years, from the atomic night terrors of the Cold War to the technocracy and political division of the present day—a boisterous, tragicomic, magnificently filigreed epic about power and ethics, set in a world transformed by wonders. As a work of cultural exegesis, this is sneakily significant, even a landmark; it’s also ludicrously fun. Wolk sees fascinating patterns—the rise and fall of particular cultural aspirations, and of the storytelling modes that conveyed them. He observes the Marvel story’s progressive visions and its painful stereotypes, its patches of woeful hackwork and stretches of luminous creativity, and the way it all feeds into a potent cosmology that echoes our deepest hopes and fears. This is a huge treat for Marvel fans, but it’s also a revelation for readers who don’t know Doctor Strange from Doctor Doom. Here, truly, are all of the marvels.
The future of the X-Men is here! Karma. Wolfsbane. Sunspot. Cannonball. Moonstar. Follow their early days at Xavier's School - including battles against Sentinels, the Hellfi re Club, the Brood and more! New recruits Magma, Magik and Cypher fi nd their footing, a deadly rivalry begins with Emma Frost's Hellions - and the Demon Bear that haunts Dani Moonstar bares his teeth, Bill Sienkiewicz-style! Will the New Mutants survive - and if so, can they make a new friend in the alien Warlock? Plus, the mind-bending debut of Professor X's son, Legion! The unsettling return of a shadow from the past! And the tragic tale that transformed Illyana Rasputin into Magik! COLLECTING: MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL (1982) 4; NEW MUTANTS (1983) 1-34; NEW MUTANTS ANNUAL (1984) 1; MARVEL TEAM-UP (1972) 100 (A STORY), 149; MARVEL TEAM-UP ANNUAL (1976) 6; UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 160, 167, 180, 189, 192; MAGIK (1983) 1-4
Bailey Hoskins has just discovered that he's a mutant. For someone who's never been special, never stood out, this could be his big moment. But as he gains entry into the halls of Xavier's School for Gifted Children, what exactly is his gift? He's used to being hated, but is he anything to be feared? Bailey struggles to find a place alongside his fellow students, but the X-Universe is a big one - perhaps Mystique will see his potential. Or could Magneto have just the mission for him? Max Bemis, front man of the band Say Anything, makes his Marvel debut with the story of a misfit among misfits, just trying to fit in. Bailey Hoskins? Worst. X-Man. Ever. COLLECTING: X-MEN: WORST X-MAN EVER (2015) #1-5.
Collecting Doctor Strange (1974) #38-46; What If? (1977) #18; Marvel Fanfare (1982) #5. Celebrated writer Chris Claremont turns his magic toward the Master of the Mystic Arts: Doctor Strange! Joined by artistic icon Gene Colan, there's no doubt that the Doctor is in! Together, these creative giants return Baron Mordo to the fore, arming him with the occult secrets of the Vatican and testing Doctor Strange's mystic might. Then, Wong is captured by the Shadowqueen, and Clea and Strange must traverse dimensions and battle the demonic N'Garai to save him! Also featuring a Claremont/Marshall Rogers masterpiece; an alternate world where Doctor Strange is a disciple of the Dread Dormammu; and the1980 all-Doctor Strange Marvel Comics Calendar, illustrated by an amazing array of top artists from Frank Miller to John Byrne!
