X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN by HIP-HOP FAMILY TREE Award Winning Cartoonist Ed Piskor: The Definitive Remix of X-Men History

Press Release New York, NY—September 15, 2017— “Ed Piskor is one of the most exciting cartoonists working today and seeing the iconic X-men filtered through his singular vision is the sort of comic book project that you can usually only dream about. But this dream is real, and it is a thing to behold!” — Jeff Lemire (DESCENDER, MOON…

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Entry 088 – Bishop

Name: Lucas Bishop Code Names: Bishop First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282 (Nov ‘91) Powers: Energy absorption and redirection Teams Affiliation: XSE, X-Men, X-Force About When I was young I had a weird idea that I was just fixated on. I wanted the next Metal Gear Solid game to give Solid Snake a teen sidekick who could be…

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My History With X-Men

This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen I. Love. the X-Men. I have loved the X-Men since some of my earliest memories of being a small child in a one bedroom apartment in Stockton. I had a Cable poster. I assured my single mother working three jobs that the poster would help protect me from…

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Entry 084 – Emma Frost

Name: Emma Frost Code Names: The White Queen First Appearance: X-Men #129 (Jan ’80) Powers: Telepathy, Organic Diamond Form Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Hellfire Club, Generation X About Ambition is a powerful force. The desire to control your own destiny and get what you want drives many lives. Ambition isn’t good or evil, ambition is just a quality in a…

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Domino’s New Look

This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen. Monday, July 31st 2017, we got our first look at Zazie Beetz in the role of Domino, a.k.a Neena Thurman, in the upcoming film Deadpool 2. These images showed us Domino as a black woman with vitiligo, lightening Domino’s trademark spot and ‘inverting’ her color palate. What followed…

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    Battle Of The Atom Rankings

    Current Ranking of X-Men Stories These master rankings are the truth. There is no room for arguments, no room for disagreement. It is the definitive ranking of the X-Universe. This is not a quantitative measurement, there is no cumulative score, and there never will be. Factors such as uniqueness, historical significance, and the ever important how-much-I-want-to-reread-it-test,…

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    Failings of the Mutant Metaphor

    This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen. On Wednesday, the 14th of June 2017, in a comic named Secret Empire – United police with giant yellow Xs on their uniforms brutalized a human at the hearsay of a mutant [1]. This not only dilutes the Mutant Metaphor, it is irrational, irresponsible, and, frankly, dangerous. Any…

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    Entry 079 – Toad

    Name: Mortimer Toynbee Code Names: Toad First Appearance: X-Men #4 (March ‘64) Powers: Jumps good, long tongue, weird spit, experiences lightning the same way everything else does Teams Affiliation: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, The Misfits, The Hellfire Academy About My son is eighteen months old and is really into Disney’s 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast….

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    Entry 072 – Iceman

    Art by Chris Bachalo Name: Robert Drake Code Names: Iceman First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Oct ’63) Powers: Ice manipulation Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Champions, Defenders, X-Factor About My first draft of this article had a pretentious quote from Watchmen (the Pagliacci joke) because I wanted to talk about how much Iceman avoided his real internal problems by being a clown….

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    Entry 067 – Hellion

    Art by Sana Takeda Name: Julian Keller Code Names: Hellion First Appearance: New Mutants #2 (Aug ‘03) Powers: Telekinesis Teams Affiliation: X-Men About A healthy awareness of one’s ability is a good thing. When that devolves into arrogance it becomes an issue. That’s why Spider-Man’s mantra “with great power there must also come great responsibility” is so important. Spider-Man would…

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    Entry 066 – Nightcrawler

    Art by Alan Davis Name: Kurt Wagner Code Names: Nightcrawler First Appearance: Giant Sized X-Men #1 (Oct ‘75) Powers: Teleportation, prehensile tail, being a great acrobat Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Excalibur About If there is one thing the X-Men stand for, it is equality. They believe in the dream of a world where people aren’t judged by the color…

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    Entry 065 – Polaris

    Art by Jim Steranko Name: Lorna Dane Code Names: Polaris, Magneta, Malice, Magnetrix First Appearance: X-Men #49 Powers: Mastery of Magnetism Teams Affiliation: X-Men, X-Factor, Starjammers About How important is your parentage? Are you defined by who raised you or your genetic code? For Lorna Dane it wasn’t that simple. She wavered between the person she thought she was,…

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