I remember reading those issues for the first time and being a big fan of all the new members from all the different countries but especially Storm and her black " swimsuit with leather boots " costume shown here by Milo Manara on one of the various variant covers he´s doing for Marvel. Drool.
Which may be the reason why I will have to buy his X - MEN : WOMEN IN DANGER a third time. I already have the original colored version and the spanish black and white hardcover but I may buy it a third time because Panini Germany has a new color hardcover that includes all variant covers.
Yep, we comic readers just keep buying the same comics but IF you buy a comic you already have let it be something as good as the Uncanny X - Men run by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin. And believe me, it doesn´t come any better than this. This is the gold standard, the iconic stories that made the X - Men into the franchise they are Today.
Without them there would be no X - Men movies since most everything first appeared here. Even Wolverine ( and Hugh Jackman ) has these stories to thank for his big success because John Byrne insisted to make the only Canadian on the team a more mysterious and cooler character.
And that John Byrne guy really knew how to draw some hot babes which was one of the main reasons why I got hooked so easily by the series.
I wasn´t old enough to buy Playboy so comic massitaas were my porn.
And sometimes it was even kinky bondage porn without my knowing.
Naturally John Byrne was good at drawing everything, not just bodacious babes. Here´s the splash page from the end of UNCANNY X - MEN 114 :
And here is another great splash page with Storm in her yellow bikini, this time the opening page of UNCANNY X - MEN 115, Visions of Death :
Back then the art team combo of penciler John Byrne and inker Terry Austin were really knocking it out of the ballpark on that book with each issue. Here´s another awesome double page spread fron that issue :
And to show you that John Byrne could not only do big kinetic fight scenes here´s a different double page spread from UNCANNY X - MEN 116 :
By the way, before I forget it I want to give kudos to fellow blogger Old Groovy from DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND for the wonderful scans of the color John Byrne pages. The blog can be found on my blog roll so make sure to visit there on a regular basis as they always have the cool dope.
You know, John Byrne´s and Chris Claremont´s entire run on UNCANNY X - MEN is one of those comics I buy over and over again no matter how many times I already have it. Or in how many different languages.
I mean this run made an X - Men fan and a John Byrne fan for life out of me when I read it the first time in the spanish version ( longtime readers might remember this post from my very first month ), I got the german versions as the Condor Sonderhefte or the dreaded Condor Taschenbücher,
I got the DARK PHOENIX SAGA trade in english and the entire run in the form of CLASSIC X - MEN of which some had really great back up stories.
And just last year I bought the DARK PHOENIX SAGA again in german from Hachette because I wanted to have it in a nice hardcover. Even if you have to suffer the german translation, for 13 bucks you can´t complain.
So far I have bought 17 THE OFFICIAL MARVEL COLLECTION books how it is called in Germany ( I know they did a similar edition in the UK ) and I don´t regret it. The first one was only 4 bucks so that it was still a good deal for me even if I already had the Morlun Saga as a spanish hardcover.
The second book was not as cheap - not being the bait to get you hooked - but the first six issues of Joss Whedon´s ASTONISHING X - MEN book for 9 bucks was still a good deal. As were all the following books at 13 bucks.
Of course I skipped some stinky turkeys like AVENGERS DISASSEMBLED or DEADPOOL as well as the ones I already had in omnibus form like DEMON IN A BOTTLE. Or Garth Ennis´Punisher because I don´t think I need it in hardcover because the art by Steve Dillon is so great. No offense, Steve.
THE TROUBLE WITH BUYING HARDCOVERS
My problem right now is that I want to get the John Byrne X - Men run in one hardcover but the guys at Marvel know that so they split it up. What I really want to is the part I don´t have as often, which is everything from the Dark Phoenix Saga to Days of Future Past and the end of the Byrne issues with the return of Alpha Flight and Wendigo. Due to the upcoming movie that covers that Marvel is putting that out but only in trade form.
There will be a hardcover but it will focus on the overall storyline of Days of Future Past which means it will only include the two issues of Uncanny X - Men and other stuff like the DAYS OF FUTURE PRESENT annuals. It means that it will include 3 issues of EXCALIBUR, 2 by Alan Davis ( Yay ! ) but also the awful WOLVERINE - DAYS OF FUTURE PAST three issue mini series ( Yuck ! ). So beware because there are two versions out there.
With Erlangen coming up this year I´m really not sure if I should get this hardcover or one of the omnibus hardcovers or any version of it at all.
I don´t want to spend money for the hardcover only to buy the omnibus later ( I DO like the cover by Stuart Immomen though, nice homage ).
Here´s the original cover for all the fans of the Deja Vue section :
And here´s an inked page from one of the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST issues of UNCANNY that I found on this blog about John Byrne´s art. It´s not run by the master himself and I think I posted the link to the website before.
Since the Byrne run is split up into 2 omnibus I want to wait and see if I can find it for a good price in Erlangen. Otherwise it´s only affordable for me if I find it at amazon with a hefty discount. And I´m not so sure about that since the first omnibus of John Byrne´s run on Fantastic Four is sold at exorbitant rates. Well, only time - and of course Erlangen - will tell.
Before closing shop for Today I have to mention the PENCIL INK blog where I found some of the pages I used in this post. They have tones of material on John Byrne from X - Men to Iron Fist and everything else as well as on other artists like Frank Miller, Alex Toth or Carl Barks.
Since I know that not everybody has such a huge knowledge about X - Men lore like us comic fanatics Todays video at the end of the post explains the comic version of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. Be warned, spoilers ahead !
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest
No comments:
Post a Comment