Taral Books and Comics

In addition to my Star Wars read-through, I'm slowly working my way through three sets of X-Men comics: Comics from 2008 and later (which I'm referring to as "modern" in this blog); Comics from the 1990s and eventually early 2000s; and Comics being discussed on the Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men podcast (which I will not be writing about). The 90s read-through began years ago.  I've previously read through storylines such as Fatal Attactions , Bloodties , Phalanx Covenant , the Wedding of Cyclops of Phoenix , Legionquest , and Age of Apocalypse , as well as the Road to Onslaught . I've also read Warren Ellis's Excalibur run (issues 83-98 so far) and much of Generation X (1-17 so far) and Wolverine from this era (87-100), as well as several solo series that I wrote about here.  I'm currently working on the Onslaught event. When the Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men podcast reads a book that I already own (which is happening more and more...

As I prepare to read the X-Men crossover event Onslaught from the mid 1990s (after having read the Phalanx Covenant , Legion Quest , and Age of Apocalypse crossovers and most intervening issues of Uncanny X-Men , X-Men , Generation X , Excalibur , and Wolverine ), I read several X-Men solo miniseries (by which I mean, comic book series that were planned to be only a few issues long, focussing on one or two individual X-Men characters) from that time period. In this post, I'll be discussing four such miniseries: Gambit 1-4 (by Howard Mackie and Lee Weeks , 1993) Rogue   1-4 (by Howard Mackie and Mike Wieringo , 1994-1995) Wolverine/Gambit: Victims   1-4 (by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale , 1995) Storm   1-4 (by Warren Ellis and Terry Dodson , 1995-1996) I purchased these comics on Comixology during various 99 cent sales.  Though the Gambit and Rogue series are tightly bound, the others have little to do with each other, so I am skipping my ...

Following my read-through of the early years of Laura Kinney, I decided to read about her time at the Xavier Institute, learning alongside other teenage mutants.  I decided  to read the entire New X-Men series (of which Laura joins the cast halfway through), as well as the New Mutants maxi-series that led into it. For this post, I read the following comics: New Mutants 1-13 (by Nunzio DeFilippi s and Christina Weir , 2003-2004) New X-Men 1-46 + Yearbook Special (by Nunzio DeFilippis. Christina Weir, Craig Kyle , and Chris Yost , 2004-2007) New X-Men: Hellions 1-4 (by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, 2005) The X-Men: Messiah CompleX crossover event, which in addition to New X-Men 44-46 (above) includes the following issues from 2007-2008: X-Men: Messiah CompleX one-shot (by Ed Brubaker , 2007) Uncanny X-Men 492-494 (by Ed Brubaker, 1963) X-Factor 25-27 (by Peter David , 2005) X-Men 205-207 (by Mike Carey ,  1991) I read all of these...

The character of Laura Kinney, also called X-23 , has become a bit more mainstream given her appearance in the new Logan movie, as wonderfully portrayed by Dafne Keen .  But Logan wasn't her first appearance.  She started life in the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, and was later bridged into mainstream Marvel comics. In my attempt to read all X-Men comics from 2007's "Messiah CompleX" crossover in a rough chronological order, I'm about to reach the X-23 ongoing series by Marjorie Liu .  But before I read that, I wanted to read (and in some cases re-read some early stories about this awesome character, including her origins. I'll be discussing three stories: The first X-23 miniseries , subtitled "Innocence Lost," from 2005, six issues long.  Written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, with art by Billy Tan. The second X-23 miniseries, subtitled " Target X ," from 2007, six issues long. Also written by Kyle and Yost, with art by Mike Choi....

I plan to use this blog to do short write-ups about the novels, comic books, graphic novels (or, more generally, comic books collected in bound books), and nonfiction. I may als write about a fun video game or a movie, or some part of my real life (visits to cool places, for example; I often write a "Thoughts from Places" email for my wife if I'm traveling for work and she's not able to join me). I try to read a lot, but I do it in a bit of a disjointed manner.  I sometimes find myself reading multiple books at once, and since I don't read very fast, it takes a while to go through any one title. Here's a summary of what I'm reading right now: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived (a novel by Paul S. Kemp), as part of a chronological Star Wars books and comics; Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (nonfiction by Mary Roach, one of my favourite science writers); A chronological read-through of X-Men comics, ca. 2008 onward (I'm c...