It’s Wednesday and that’s big day for comic book fans everywhere.  This particular Wednesday, I can’t wait to get my hands on the next chapter of Marvel‘s X-Men/Dark Avengers Utopia crossover.  To explain why, here’s some recent history.

Some yahoo “super heroes” filming a reality television show blew up 600 people in Stamford, Connecticut.  The government responded by requiring all costumed heroes to be registered and licensed in order to operate.  Some heroes agree (Iron Man) and some do not (Captain America) and a super-human Civil War breaks out.  The pro-registration side wins out and Iron Man becomes the director of SHIELD and all things related to registration.  His 50 State Initiative to put a team of heroes in every state is the perfect opportunity for a group of shape-shifting alien religious zealots to infiltrate and take over.  They believe the Earth is theirs by divine right and Stark is unable to stop their Secret Invasion.  In the heat of the battle  to drive back the alien hordes, Norman Osborn (the once and future Green Goblin) delivers the killing shot to the invaders’ leader and is elevated from his position leading a team of super villains seeking rehabilitation (right…) in the Thunderbolts program, to Stark’s replacement as master of all things super human.  In order to solidify his Dark Reign over the Marvel Universe, Orborn creates his own team of Avengers to back him up and forms a cabal with some heavy hitters (Doctor Doom, Namor, Loki, The Hood, and Emma Frost) to control the world under his watchful eye.  In the meantime, the Scarlet Witch went crazy and used her magic to reduce the powered mutant community to about 200 individuals after altering the world during the House of M.  The remaining mutants became in that moment an endangered species and Cyclops gathered all the willing in San Francisco to create a safe haven under the protection of the X-Men.

Emma Frost and Norman Osborn had an agreement.  She keeps the mutants quiet and he’ll leave them be in their new home.  Only they didn’t stay quiet, and now Norman is bringing in his Dark Avengers to regulate.  Chapter One of Utopia shipped last Wednesday and was a wild start to this confrontation and Chapter Two is available today in Uncanny X-Men #513.  I highly recommend it.

Another batch of great images for Marvel’s 70th Anniversary variant covers have been released over the past few months and I thought it was worth posting an update.  While these covers are really cool, I’ve come to discover that they are incredibly difficult to find since my last post.  At least this seems to be true in Philadelphia as I’ve come across only one shop that regularly has them in stock, Brave New Worlds on 2nd Street.  This is by no means the fault of local shop owners, that blame falls to Marvel for using their ridiculous order minimum system to allocate these books.

Long before we had this outlet to discuss the distractions in our lives, I spent four months consumed with a Marvel Comics crossover event called Messiah Complex (also check out this).  Drawing together four different titles and running weekly, I couldn’t wait for each installment to arrive.  I even started going to the nearest campus comic shop I could find on lunch breaks to get each week’s issue.

In April, Marvel launched the sequel to this event called Messiah War running through X-Force and Cable (which began (actually were relaunched) in the aftermath of Messiah Complex).  While smaller in scope and published less often, Messiah War has been satisfying so far (we’re currently at part five of seven) and I can’t wait to see where it’s all heading.

While continuing the story of the mutant child/possibly savior/possibly destroyer Hope, Messiah War has also managed to incorporate classic X-Men characters and concepts including: Archangel, Apocalypse, Stryfe, Deadpool, The Vanisher and of course time-travel.  Well worth checking out the issues currently in print (or reading once it’s collected) if you’ve ever enjoyed epic X-Men action.

Went out to see the X-Men Origins: Wolverine on Friday, and while nearly everyone in the group seemed to think it was a bad movie, I was able to enjoy it.  Did it take liberties with the interpretation of the characters?  Yes.  Did it focus more on the action than a story?  Yes.  Did it have shortcomings with its appearance and computer generated images? Yes.  Despite all of this, I don’t know that it was bad.  It wasn’t great, but I really don’t think it was bad.

Granted, I will fully admit that I’m happy to see any comic book property made into a film.  Add the fact that I’ve been reading X-Men since I was 10 years old, and it’s pretty clear that I cannot be fully objective in this.  Regardless, I think the movie is OK.  Also, Shoeverine!

This week Marvel delivers something I find even more exciting than the prospect of Spider-Man vs. Rutherford B. Hayes.  2009 is being hailed as Marvel’s “70th Anniversary” and with that comes a series of commemorative variant covers beginning with January 28th’s Captain America #46.  One of these will ship each month on a series of selected titles, and from from what I’ve seen so far they’re beautiful.  Much of my interest comes from the fond memories I have of the covers from Marvel’s 25th Anniversary celebration in 1964…excuse me 1986.