So the other day I started playing “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3” on the Nintendo Switch, and it got me wanting to read an X-Men novel. So I started “Dark Mirror” by Marjorie M. Liu published in January 2006. Jean Gray, Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue And Nightcrawler wake up in a Seattle Hospital’s psych ward with no memory as to how they got there. They remember flying to Seattle after getting word that the hospital was kidnapping and holding mutants against their will, and then staking out the hospital—-but after that is blank. And worst yet, their minds have somehow been transplanted into the bodies of people at the psych hospital, but their own bodies are nowhere to be found. But they discover that they may’ve been lured to Seattle in order for a mad doctor to do this swap so that he could infiltrate the X-Men—-for what purpose, Jean, Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue and Nightcrawler will have to find out as they cross the USA to New York! So to also twist things up, Liu Had Jean, Cyclops and Wolverine get switched with people of the opposite gender. So Jean is running around as a black man with dreadlocks (and she even has Jean use a urinal in the men’s room at the hospital with the male packaging, while Cyclops and Logan have to use the women’s room with the female packaging. Rogue is in the body of an old woman (probably in her 60’s) and Nightcrawler seems to have the body of a male Latin lover.
^I have Dark Mirror. It's interesting. It's the kind of X-Men story that could really only be told in prose as opposed to a more visual medium, because the characters don't look like themselves for most of the book.
It’s also interesting to see them deal with having no mutant powers. Reminds me of the old Sega Genesis game “Ex-Mutants”.
“Dark Mirror” is reading more like an R-rated episode of the 90’s cartoon. (R-rated since there is swearing in the book, someone drops the f-bomb at one point.) Rogue has her Ms.Marvel powers (at a couple of points Rogue laments over not being able to fly), the team consists of Wolverine, Jubilee, Storm, Cyclops, Beast, Jean Grey And Xavier, plus Nightcrawler.
It’s interesting how Wolverine looks like one of the 70’s “Planet of the Apes” character’s on the cover.
Finished “Dark Mirror” today. Even the Phoenix showed up, and really helped out at the last moment. Rating 8/10
I have also read Dark Mirror and enjoyed it . . . except for the ending which seemed totally rushed. If I recall, the villain was defeated in between chapters! It was anti-climactic. But it was a fun read. Marjorie Liu has a good handle on the characters and is an underrated writer in my opinion.
Have any of you guys read the Fantastastic Four novels Doomgate by Jeffrey Lang or War Zone by Greg Cox? I've been curious to check them out, and they're both fairly cheap on the Amazon Marketplace.
No, I’ve only read the crossover with Spider-Man in the Doom trilogy from the 90s. I’ve also got “Countdown To Chaos”.
Hello all, I thought of this since it was brought up about X-Men: Dark Mirror earlier in the thread. A plug for Mr @Greg Cox and Christopher Golden X-Men and the Avengers the Gamma Quest Omnibus kindle edition for $7.99 by Greg Cox: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SSPXF87/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o03?ie=UTF8&psc=1 X-Men the Mutant Empire Omnibus kindle edition for $7.99 by Christopher Golden: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SSPXJ57/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o04?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I'm really excited for both of these books and Im really excited and grateful for the release of these in ebooks electronically. I preordered both today. A huge THANK YOU to Mr Cox and Mr. Golden, and Titan Books for the release of both of these books in ebooks. Honestly, I will purchase and support you guys even more if more of the 1990's Marvel books get released in ebook again. I already have all of the last ebooks that Titan books just released. Thank you again. All the best, -Koric
It would be great if Titan or another publisher would reprint all of the 1990's Marvel prose novels! There are real gems currently hiding in used book stores and dusty shelves just waiting to be rediscovered as e-books.
Does anybody know if there are any text difference in the Titan reprints of the Marvel books that just came out a few years ago? Like Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Ant-Man: Natural Enemy, and the novelizations of Civil War, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Some of them are available in both the original Marvel version, and the Titan version, and I was wondering if there is any difference beyond the cover art.
Sometime when a new edition of something like this comes out they'll add a new introduction or short story or something to encourage people to buy the new version, that is the kind of thing I was talking about.
In addition to what JD suggested, it's pretty common for new editions of older books to get new editing/revision passes, with their authors' participation. Every book goes through multiple stages of revision and error-correction before its first publication, and there are always errors that slip through anyway. So it's routine for any new edition of a book to go through it again and get various textual tweaks and updates, generally minor ones.
As I've mentioned before, when my Q Continuum trilogy was reprinted as an omnibus, I took advantage of the opportunity to change a couple references to "the original Enterprise" to "Kirk's Enterprise" since we had learned about Archer's ship in the years since my books were first published.
I just remembered one more example, @David Mack has said that he made some changes to the original text of from the short novel (or is it a novella?) of The Sorrows of Empire when he was working on the expanded edition.
This is nothing new. Back in the day, "novels" were often first published as magazine serials before being collected in book form. It was not uncommon for authors to take the opportunity to make a few tweaks to the original magazine text before the whole serial was reprinted as a complete novel. One famous example: The original magazine version of TARZAN OF THE APES had Tarzan fighting a tiger. When it was pointed out to Edgar Rice Burroughs that tigers live in India, not Africa, he changed it to a female lion in the book version.
To Everyone on the forums: Since we were talking about Spidey and Marvel prose novels: Today only Amazon's daily deals on ebooks has 7 Marvel prose novels in ebook for $1.99 each: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s9_acs...50-48f5-891e-ca323006bc31&pf_rd_i=11552285011 Page 3 thru page 5: These are the recent ebook versions of Titan books reissues: Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel of the Marvel Universe (Marvel Novels Book 1) Civil War: A Novel of the Marvel Universe (Marvel Novels Book 2) Marvel Novels - Thanos: Death Sentence Spider-Man: Forever Young: A Novel of the Marvel Universe (Marvel Novels Book 6) Deadpool: Paws (Marvel Novels Book 4) Who is the Black Panther?: A Novel of the Marvel Universe (Marvel Novels Book 3) Marvel Novels - Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt (Marvel Novels: Spider-Man) All are on sale for $1.99 (Normally $8.99 and up) TODAY ONLY UNTIL 9/1/2019 until 11:59 pm! Wishing everyone on the forums a great and safe Labor Day Weekend. Enjoy! Excelsior! -Koric