X-Men Graphic Novel collecting together: Curse of the mutants - storm & gambit, smoke & blood, Blade & the X-Men vs. Vampires 1-2 and Uncanny X-Men #1X-Men Graphic Novel collecting together: Curse of the mutants - storm & gambit, smoke & blood, Blade & the X-Men vs. Vampires 1-2 and Uncanny X-Men #159.
In terms of story this one sits right in the middle of Curse of the Mutants - So Dracula's 2nd son Xarus has found a way to walk in daylight and wants to increase his strength by turning mutants. The X-Men decide that resurrecting Dracula to keep his son in check is a good idea. In Storm & Gambit we follow the two thieves as they try and get Dracula's remains. Smoke & Blood has what happens with the body in the lab as the vampire makes a bid for freedom and tries to turn the staff. The Blade sections give us back story on how Blade discovers what Xarus is up to. Then we have one shot stories pitting various x-men against vampires (Husk, Dazzler, Matha (in Rogue's body,), Magneto, Gambit, Hisako, Karma and Angel/Archangel) and we wrap up with Uncanny X-Men #159 where storm gets turned into a vampire by Dracula.
I'll start with the positives. There are a few fun pop culture vampire references that made me chuckle - Northstar defeats a load of vampires turns to Emma Frost and says "Go Team Jacob!" - and one of the vamps mentions Rogue looks just like the chick who plays Sookie.
There are several positive LGBT representations - Kama gets a nice lesbian vampire one-shot in Skin Deep, Tripp/Texter are fun comic relief in Blade and I love the non-gender specific gimp vampire slayer 'Dolly' - plus for Kitty/Storm shippers there's great fodder in Night Screams where Storm gets turned into a vampire.
The stories and art however are all over the place ranging from mediocre to downright hideous making this a hard one to rate. Highlight is the Blade story - it's fun and has nice bold art with interesting quirky supporting characters. Uncanny #159 goes without saying It's classic Claremont which is what hooked me on X-Men all those years ago. I also liked the Jekyll/Hyde Angel/Archangel in Angel voices, not my favourite art but I like the character development on Angel there. I also ought to mention Sana Takeda's art on the Dazzler story in which she stumbles across a 70's vampire disco - Art is rather nice and Dazzler is the perfect choice for the story - concept and character are great but the story is a bit lame and it would have been far more effective if these vamps weren't daywalkers which made Dazzler kinda useless sadly, even if the art was pretty.
Absolutely loathed smoke & blood (Emma Frost and some of the worst art I've ever seen in X-Men - ugh) Call me Santo - Again truly hideous art, Hisako a character I've always found useless and a completely textless story about a vampire whale - double ugh. Disliked the art on both the Gambit stories as well as the Rogue that wasn't Rogue story Rue Blood - which sucked.
So this one's a real mixed bag, it has it's moments - but considering it features X-Men, Vampires and Blade it should have been so much better....more
This follows on from Death of Dracula. Dracula's son Xarus has appointed himself Lord of the Vampires and united the clans. He's unleashed a vampire viThis follows on from Death of Dracula. Dracula's son Xarus has appointed himself Lord of the Vampires and united the clans. He's unleashed a vampire virus and turned Jubilee planning to use her as bait to get to Wolverine.
The rest of the X-Men (Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Iceman, Angel, Storm, Gambit - plus a couple of minor additions: Pixie, Dr.Nemesis, Prince Namor) join up with Blade and concoct an insane plan to resurrect Dracula to fight his son. This has to go down in history as one of the stupidest ideas of all time. Just saying.
Many of the characters are seriously under used in this and Storm & Emma Frost over sexualised. Artwork is for the most part pretty good although I really dislike the design of Dracula - what is with the earrings?
Loved having Wolverine turned into a vampire though and while Blade isn't at his wittiest, his inclusion is still fun. I also loved the idea of Iceman getting himself blessed and so his ice is holy water.
This isn't a patch on the recent Wolverine Vs. Blade one-shot - but still vampires, Blade, X-Men.... you could do a lot worse. ...more
Classic 70's Marvel, most notable for the introduction of vampire hunter Blade - so funny to see him with an affro! Thoroughly enjoyable series of stoClassic 70's Marvel, most notable for the introduction of vampire hunter Blade - so funny to see him with an affro! Thoroughly enjoyable series of stories in which Dracula escapes death time and again to pit his wits against his nemeses; Rachel Van Helsing, Frank Drake and Quincy Harker and all manner of supernatural foes from a werewolf to disembodied megolomanic brain Dr. Sun.
Doesn't have the compexity or emotional depth of some of the other Marvel stuff I've read, but rip-roaring fun. ...more
Loading...
