Milligan, Peter Books

Decimation: X-Men - The Day After (House of M)

Chris Claremont, Peter Milligan, Salvador Larroca, Randy Green

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The more things change... 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Taking place after the events of Brian Michael Bendis' surprisingly good House of M mega event, Decimation: X-Men - The Day After follows the X-Men in the aftermath of the global mutant depowerment. What gets focused on the most in the issues collected here include the return of the robotic Sentinels (who are good guys now...) along with the forging of new alliances with some unexpected guests. Later on, Havok and Polaris find themselves on the road back to each other as Havok helps Lorna deal with the loss of her powers. That's pretty much all that goes on in Decimation: X-Men - The Day After, and while there are some nice story quips by the underrated Peter Milligan (X-Statix, Human Target), there's nothing relatively worth seeing here that hasn't been seen before. Salvador Larroca provides his usual solid artwork too, so the overall package isn't so bad. That being said, there are better X-Men stories, and House of M tie-in's, that are more worth your time than the X-Men's decimation day.

Editorial Review:

It was the worst day in X-Men history. Now it's the day after. The House of M is over, but the effects will be felt for the rest of their lives. How do the X-Men pick up the pieces in a world that has completely changed? Plus: Something's amiss at the House of Xavier! A sneak attack forces the X-Men to re-evaluate just who their friends are, and to align themselves with former enemies! Collects Decimation: House of M - The Day After and X-Men #177-181.

Aliens Omnibus Volume 3 (Aliens Omnibus)

Ian Edginton, Peter Milligan, Jim Woodring, Various, Will Simpson, Paul Johnson, Kilian Plunkett, Mike Mignola

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The old saying "You can't unbreak an egg" holds true, especially when that egg unleashes an interstellar scourge, the dreaded Alien. But as dangerous and lethal as this species has proven itself time and time again, some men cannot resist the awful gravity of the creatures' potential when merged with human science . . . and arrogance . . . and lust for power. But the cold contracts of these deals with the Devil also bring out the best in humanity, and the awful crucible of struggle against this interstellar cancer brings Man closer to his neighbors . . . and to his God. Dark Horse Comics' critically acclaimed Aliens series set the bar for how the universe of a popular film could be expended through graphic fiction. Aliens Omnibus Volume 3 collects more of these exciting series in a value-priced, quality-format omnibus, featuring nearly 400 story pages in full color. Includes the complete story arcs of Rogue by Ian Edginton and Will Simpson, and Labryinth by Jim Woodring and Kilian Plunkett, and the acclaimed tale Salvation, written by Dave Gibbons and illustrated by the incomparable Mike Mignola.

Tank Girl: The Odyssey (Tank Girl (Graphic Novels))

Peter Milligan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Tank Girl TPs 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Great book, lots of post-apocalyptic beer-guzzling, butt-smoking, heat-packing action. It never hurts when your boyfriend is a homicidal manimal who resembles what was once a kangaroo, either. Sweet.

Editorial Review:

A twisted take on Homer’s classical Greek epic, The Odyssey, brought to you by Peter Milligan (X-Statix) and Tank Girl co-creator and artist, Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz), the Tank Girl Odyssey makes a few "minor" changes to the original...

...Booga, husband of Tank Girl, is being wooed by countless Hollywood producers, and without his wife there his resolve is crumbling. Tele, their TV-headed son, knows that he must contact his mother... setting off a chain of events that will see Tank Girl face death itself, the siren call of gothic rock, a cyclopean hotel proprietor, and a host of other scenes and characters from The Odyssey... given the — ahem — "idiosyncratic" Tank Girl treatment!

Spider-Man: Venom vs. Carnage

Peter Milligan, Clayton Crain

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Wait, is this Ultimate or something? 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Spider-Man: Venom vs Carnage looks fantastic. Venom and Carnage must be a thrill (and a pain) to draw, and they've never looked scarier than they do in this paperback. When I first opened the book, I wasn't sure if I was going to like the style, but it grows on you pretty immediately, and these are the perfect characters for the style. Spider-Man himself looked, well, ok, but the symbiotes looked amazingly cool, just monstrously terrifying, and that in itself is worth a browse.

However, the writing does not live up to this review at all. Pat Mulligan, AKA Toxin, the new host, is written reacting the way I think most normal people would react in such a horrifying position, and I give Milligan kudos for that. Unfortunately, it seems that Milligan wrote this without first checking older issues of Spider-Man, because there's all sorts of things that are out-of-continuity. First of all, the Black Cat doesn't recognize Venom or Carnage, despite the fact that they've met numerous times, most famously during Maxmimum Carnage. Second, Spider-Man's spider-sense, which is supposed to warn him of immediate personal danger, and cannot sense the symbiotes, somehow detects the symbiotes fighting each other from across town. While Venom warns Carnage that giving "birth" will be an exhausting and painful process, you have to wonder why Venom didn't seem to be aware that he had birthed the "seed" that eventually became Carnage.

At any rate, it's a fun little read, but if you're really familiar with the history of the various characters, you may get hung up on the various inconsistencies throughout.

Editorial Review:

What's worse than one mayhem-producing symbiote? Two. What's worse than that? Three. That's right: Venom's offspring, Carnage, is about to have a baby itself - a creature of indescribable power and appetites. Question is, who's gonna bring up baby? Quick - someone call Spider-Man! Guest-starring Black Cat!

X-Men: Golgotha

Peter Milligan, Salvador Larroca

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

A Worthwhile Read 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I was initially put off of purchasing this story arc because of somewhat negative reviews but was eventually swayed by the presence of Polaris - an X-Man that I think is quite underused - and my two favourites, Remy LeBeau and Rogue. I'm glad I chose to buy Golgotha because I found it to be very intruiging! It's not perfect of course, few graphic novels are, but it's got some very interesting character arcs involving Rogue and Gambit's relationship and, the moment when a thousand fangirls rejoiced, a kiss between Rogue and Wolverine! Sadly, the emotions are never resolved and while the X-Men save the world as always, they're left to go home feeling sort of awkward and unsure of themselves and their relationships with each other. I would've liked to see Wolverine and Rogue's kiss & it's impact on the future of Gambit and Rogue adressed in more than just one lone panel but overall, this is a worthwhile read with some very nice art.

Editorial Review:

The X-Men travel to Antarctica to respond to an S.O.S. from a colony of mutants... and what they find is far more shocking than they expected! Will the X-Men share the colony's gruesome fate? Collects X-Men #166-170.

X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl TPB

Peter Milligan, Nick Dragotta, Mike Allred

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very fun 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Peter Milligan's X-Statix series ended with the heroes dying. One of these characters is Dead Girl, who already knows a lot about the dead. In this series, she is recruited by Dr. Strange to help suss out dead villains who keep coming back to life. This series is a fun examination on the "dead is dead" policy of certain comic editors, even as characters get to be reborn on what seems to be an almost monthly basis. Which characters gets that right?

Fans of the X-Statix series will see familiar faces. Fans of Marvel comics overall will see a few much loved, but dead, characters, too.

Editorial Review:

It's hard to keep a good girl down... especially when she's Dead! After a brief hiatus caused by their deaths, everyone's favorite mutants are back! And this time, they're bringing a host of... questions with them. Like why do some heroes and villains keep on dying, only to return from the dead? And why do other heroes and villains bite the bullet, only to remain dead? Who decides on this craziness? Is it some karmic wheel in the sky? Or is it just some guy in the marketing department? Well, one such deceased villain, named the Pitiful One, is going to find out. When the Pitiful One decides that he's tired of being dead, he assembles a posse of Marvel's deadest villains to attack the world of the living. And it's up to Doctor Strange to stop him and his evil cohorts, but he needs help from...well, you know. With Kraven the Hunter, Tike Alicar and a few other surprise dead guests. Collects X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl #1-5.

X-Men: Blood of Apocalypse

Peter Milligan, Salvador Larroca

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Maybe things are looking up after HoM? 3 out of 5 stars.
19 of 22 people found this review helpful.

I haven't been thrilled with the X-Men for the past few years, but Apocalypse has always been a favorite character of mine. The way they got rid of him in the 90's never appealed to me very much (that whole 12 saga ended up being an anticlimax after years and years of buildup, ya know?), and we all knew he'd be back anyway sooner or later.

Now, I was not crazy about House of M. The stated goal according to Marvel was to make the X-Men and friends a more "realistic" metaphor for the vicissitudes of human prejudice by reducing the mutant population with a big ole deus ex machina. Because, you know, killing off six million mutants in Genosha with wild sentinels under Cassandra Nova's control (six million? There were that many mutants in the world? What the...) wasn't enough of a trimming, I guess. And hey, we all know in the real world, minorities usually only number a few thousand (WHAT THE....)

So, yeah, pretty much typical delusional Marvel editing decisions. I didn't expect the X-Men to recover from that debacle.

But maybe I spoke too soon. Now that mutantkind has been decimated, and Sentinels have been turned into defacto slave overseers for Homo Superior, Apocalypse Returns! And it is a pretty neat idea to make him sort of an anti-Messiah who returns when his "people" most need him to restart the Darwinian struggle for supremacy. I'm sure that's how Apocalpyse thinks of himself--a kind of dark King Arthur, right?

Well, he's got a pretty daring plan this time around. And while some of the visual choices are questionable--Apocalypse is flying around in a big metal sphinx-shaped spaceship, and his new character design makes him look like he grew a beer belly and bolted robot guts to his arms and legs--they don't detract too much from the neat ideas flying around here.

I gotta say, I'm getting kind of tired of the Horseman lineup changing for every different outing. I sort of like the idea that the Four Horsemen would be fixed (and that they would be four nobodies who traded their souls for power and allowed to grow into characters in their own right, like Kieros and Rolfson who were the original War and Famine--remember them?), but for the last ten years they've been like Menudo--new guys every single tour. The Four Horseman this time are all familiar X-Men characters except for War (or did I just not recognize who he is supposed to be?), which gives the whole thing some personal resonance for the other characters--so it's not like that time they make the Hulk into War or anything. And hey, you might even find the lineup a little shocking. You're supposed to.

The real gem of this storyline is the insight into Apocalypse's personality and ideals, though. Not since Stryfe's Strike File have I gotten such a thrill out of peeking into an X-Villain's twisted psyche. The things Poccy says to his 'recruits' when he's trying to get them to choose to be Horsemen--notably the new Famine--it's great stuff.

If I had twelve bucks to burn and decided to buy a "recent" X-Men TPB, this would be my first choice.

Editorial Review:

When his people need him the most, he shall return! Lord Apocalypse is here to lead mutantkind into the future of the earth and only the strongest can survive! Plus, just wait until you see his new Horsemen! Even we were surprised! Collects X-Men #182- 187.

X-Men/Black Panther: Wild Kingdom

Peter Milligan, Salvador Larroca

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Decent book; but it leads into one of the most poorly planned arcs ever 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

As far as graphic novels go, this one has good artwork and dialogue, I love Larocca's pencils on it, much as I love his pencils in any other X-title I've read. It also has an interesting team-up of the X-Men team from the second series (i.e., "Golgotha" going forward, with Rogue, Iceman, Gambit, Havok, and Polaris), Storm from the XSE taking an uncharacteristic break from Uncanny, and - surprise! - the Black Panther, one of the most obscure characters in the Marvel Universe.

Someone's mutating animals into...well, mutants. Think "The Island of Dr. Moreau" with maniacal chimps, crossed with a little bit of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," and you have the plot. It's contrived but entertaining. Emma Frost detects odd mutant activity in the African region of Niganda (interestingly enough, located very close to Wakanda). She sends Havok's team to check it out, and Storm accompanies them, hinting that she has a "history" with T'Challa, the Black Panther. That history is actually noted (very, very briefly) in Marvel Team-Up, as well as Black Panther #26, according to a recent article on X-Axis. The current miniseries "Storm and the Black Panther" by Eric Jerome Dickey details this "history" at length.

The X-Men arrive in Niganda to find mutilated corpses, grotesquely altered killer crocodiles, a savage man-eating lion, and a scientist with a penchant for plotting the overthrow of the government with the aid of his intellectually enhanced apes. There's a lot going on in this book, considering the story arc in its original printing only bundled together two issues of X-Men and two issues of Black Panther. (these days Marvel TPBs bundle together an average of five issues each). Polaris is kidnapped and held hostage; considering how powerful she is, its surprising that she was captured at all.

Storm's seeming, tentative relationship with Logan is put on hold (again, sigh), even though it has developed somewhat in the pages of "Uncanny" since Marvel's Reload event. There's one optimistic moment where Logan tells Storm "Guess I've always wanted to be someone's mutant in shining armor." But that was it. We see that her relationship with T'Challa that she previously had was "complicated," but we don't really see why she wants to rekindle it, it's not well-defined by Milligan or Hudlin, in my opinion. It's also unfair that T'Challa gets to kiss the girl, sorry for the spoiler, but I was disappointed by it.

Other highlights are the interesting bit of animosity between Storm and Havok, since Storm refuses to follow Havok's orders as team leader; and Havok's brief scuffle with Emma over how effective he is as leader compared to Cyclops. Polaris and Havok are revisiting their relationship again in the wake of the mess that Austen made of it during his run on X-Men. I breathed a sigh of relief about that.

By the end of the story, we find Storm planning to stay in Africa to "help who she can there," which makes little sense, in context of her being the leader of the XSE. This will also feed into the upcoming "Bride of the Panther" arc by Reginald Hudlin this summer. Even though Marvel is still good at conveying character's emotions and depth, they need to work on their plots and stick to continuity established back when X-Men books were still relatively young titles.

Get this one if you are a completist, but skip it if you hate seeing a great heroine (Storm) being misused. Again.

Editorial Review:

Investigating a sudden outburst of strange, mutated wild animals in Africa, the X-Men - led by Storm - come face to face with something worse: mutant bio-organisms the likes of which the world has never seen. The key to unraveling their secret - and defeating them - may lie in that region's protector - the Black Panther! Collects X-Men #175-176 and Black Panther #8-9.

X-Force Volume 1: New Beginning TPB (X-Force)

Peter Milligan, Mike Allred

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

OH, THIS IS WEIRD... 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Of all the graphic novels I've read of late, this was far and away the most compelling and intriguing.

I'm still wondering why.

I didn't identify or sympathize with any of the characters. The story itself is kind of thin. Heck, even the heroes mutant abilities are the most far-fetched and silly yet. And Mike Allred's art is in direct contrast to the John Byrne/Jim Lee school of conventional wisdom of bulging biceps and powerful pecs.

In large measure, I think it's the sheer AUDACITY and courage it took Marvel to publish this book. I thought Grant Morrison was turning the X-Men concept on its' ear. By comparison with what Milligan and Allred are up to on this title, he's...well, it's still pretty great, but think of Morrison as Bruce Springsteen - original within the traditions he sets to follow and expand - to Milligan and Allred's Tom Waits - bizarre, deconstructionist, and startilingly unique.

This book was designed to draw a line in the sand. You'll either be completely absorbed in it or just be totally offended and turned off by it. One way or the other, you'll walk away with a strong opinion, but either way you'll be aware of a whole perspective and possibilites that maybe previously you weren't.

And that's what art is all about.

Editorial Review:

Adored by humans, reviled by their fellow mutants, X-Force does the dirty jobs that others can't, or won't. All they want in return is fame, money, sex, power and lucrative endorsement deals.

The Programme, Vol. 1

Peter Milligan

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