This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
And this video is a review and reaction to Ultimate Universe #1 by Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli. After the events of Ultimate Invasion, a new Marvel Universe has to pick up the pieces and rebuild from the Maker’s machinations. But this issue shows that doing so will be much more complicated and volatile than anyone could’ve imagined. Enjoy!
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video is my review of Jean Grey #3, the third issue of Jean’s mini-series by Louise Simonson and Bernard Chang. In this issue, Jean continues navigating the past in hopes of fixing the present. This time, she returns to the events of Inferno and her confrontation with her clone, Madelyne Pyror. It was a fiery conflict that became a defining moment for her and Cyclops.
But even as she battles the Goblin Queen, the present is finally starting to catch up to her. And it sets the stage for a truly uncanny finale to this series.
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
In this video, I share the news that came out during New York Comic Con 2023 regarding the upcoming reboot of Ultimate Marvel. I offer some insights, as well as my general reactions and concerns. Enjoy!
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This is video another entry in my ongoing “Jack’s Comic Gems” collection. And for this gem, I re-visit one of the darkest, grittiest gems from the early 2000s. A lot has been made in recent years about Frank Castle and the iconography of the Punisher, largely due to toxic politics and creative failures.
But in the early 2000s, Garth Ennis gave us the greatest iteration of the modern Punisher with the Punisher MAX series. This was Frank Castle as his best and most brutal. If that era had a high point, it was the Mother Russia arc. It’s a true gem from a different era of Marvel.
It’s a gem from a different world, in general. But even with everything that has changed around us, this story showed us just how brutal and compelling a Punisher comic can be. Enjoy!
This past couple of months, I’ve experimented with making video reviews of comic books on my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a regular thing, but it does seem to have found an audience. So, I wanted to share some of those reviews on this site.
Here’s my review for Jean Grey #1.
Here’s my review for Jean Grey #2.
Here is a playlist of reviews for Ultimate Invasion.
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video revisits a somewhat controversial comic that has garnered mixed feelings among comic book fans. X-Men Gold #30 was billed as the wedding between Kitty Pryde and Piotr Rasputin, a well-known romance that had been blossoming for years leading up to this comic. And this wedding promised to be the culmination of their relationship.
However, that’s not how things played out. Yes, a couple did get married in this issue, but it wasn’t Kitty and Pitor. It was Rogue and Gambit.
But regardless of how you feel about the pairing, this comic found a way to cheapen every romance involved. And I feel it offers some frustrating, but relevant messages for future superhero marriages.
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video is my review of Jean Grey #1, the first issue of Jean’s mini-series by Louise Simonson and Bernard Chang. This video spins directly out of the bloody events of the 2023 Hellfire Gala, which sent Jean back to the brink of death once more. Now, she finds herself in a strange state of uncertainty, contemplating where it all went wrong and how she’ll go about fixing it. Enjoy!
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This video is a retrospective, as well as a celebration, of the return of Jean Grey in the pages of Marvel Comics. It unfolded in a five-issue mini-series entitled “Phoenix Resurrection,” but the circumstances and impact of the story went far beyond simply bringing back to life a character who had been dead for years.
Jean Grey is one of my favorite comic book characters of all time. Her coming back to life was an overdue, emotional experience. And this video is my way of sharing and appreciating that experience. Enjoy!
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.
This is video another entry in my ongoing “Jack’s Comic Gems” collection. And for this gem, I highlight a X-Men mini-series that flew under the radar when it came out. Those who follow X-Men comics closely probably know the role Louise Simonson played in developing the franchise with X-Factor in the 1980s. Her run re-established the importance of the Original Five X-Men in the larger Marvel universe.
That same run ended abruptly. But X-Factor Forever gives Louise Simonson a chance to pick up where she left off in a brief, but memorable non-canon story that highlights everything we love about this era of X-Men. Enjoy!
This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. Superhero romances are always complicated. And while I’m a big fan of romance, there are times when those complications aren’t handled particularly well. The end result is a romance that neither works nor benefits any of the characters involved.
That’s how I feel about the way the romance between Storm and Black Panther. Their marriage in the mid-2000s was a huge event, marketed as the culmination of a romance between Marvel Comics’ most prominent black characters. But it didn’t last. It didn’t work. And with the benefit of hindsight, I believe it to be a case study in how NOT to do a superhero romance.