Aww... nuts.

[angelophile]

News from Comixfan - Angel's to be cancelled? Rats. Just when they were due to introduce Spike too. Still, a wrap up at the end of season 5 isn't -too- bad I guess. I only just finished watching the third season, so at least there's a couple of years left to enjoy. I guess with Buffy being cancelled there wasn't much hope in the long run the show would last forever.

Hopefully they'll do spin-off movies like they did with the StarTrek franchise. Ya never know.

Maybe they'll do the Spike spinoff series but I expect joss Weedon is fed up with the Buffyverse by now and will want to do something new. (New X-men hopefully).

Anyway, since I'm already ranting about the fantasy genre or something, I guess I'll rant about this week's comics too. Cut to avoid spoilers and stop boring people.



So anyway, so far read:

Uncanny and Transformers I ranted about elsewhere.

The Brotherhood (mutant spinoff thing) - Actually really good from what I've read so far. Shame this title only lasted 7 issues because it has some good ideas and interesting characters. Orwell, the mut who talks solely in people's heads. A psionic wannabe vampire called Bella. The Dante-from-Clerks-a-like who wasn't even supposed to have mutant abilities today! It's all good, nice art, dark tone, wish I'd picked this up when it was first out. Need to try and track dow the missing issues. Definately worth the 50p I paid for them.

X-treme X-men (2 issues) - Actually really good. The art for the earlier week's issue wasn't too horrible, but the latest was dreadful. I kinda think that was the fault of the inker though, although Kordley's work looked a bit rushed. Still, the story distracted - it's good to see Skids appear and the fact that Claremont is concentrating on his older sharacters rather than forcing dreadful badly written concepts like Lifeguard and Slipstream on us gives me even more confidence. For the flaws these issues still managed to be a lot of fun with some decent lines for the characters, Sam slipping back into the leadership role and for once Gambit managing to be cocky without being hideously annoying (maybe cos he had his ass handed to him immediately after winning one fight). Not flawless by any means, the fight between Sage, Gambit and Rogue was utterly unecessary and came from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. Utterly pointless. However, the good outweighed the good here. Could it be after the dreadful dreadful God Loves, Man Kills 2 that Claremont is actually managing to become half decent? Credit where credit's due, I've probably enjoyed X-treme more than any of the other core X-titles other the past couple of months.

(Edit: Just been reading the forums on Comixfan and there's a post from Igor about the art in the last issue admitting that he thought it looked horrible. Apparently he's been pushing for his pencils to be 'digitalised' for a few months, but has yet to receive a reply from Marvel about it. I hope that happens soon - I think it'll be a vast improvement, even if I don't think he's the best artist out there. Oh, and anyone else assuming Brogan is the Shadow King? He and Psylocke always had that connection, so I would assume the Mysterious Telepath is Psylocke's spirit form under control of the Shadow King or something.)

X-men Unlimited, - Pretty dull to be honest - the second Halloween story was completely wrong for this time of year, had bad art and spoilers for New X-men's conclusion. Shouldn't have appeared for a few months. The Sage solo story didn't really seem to fit Sage as she's written in X-treme - she was too jokey and cocky. Okay art, but I can't picture either Bishop or Sage as Jackie Chan fans. That would suggest they have a sense of humour between them. Not really a good issue, although had a nice cover. Not too offensive but certainly not great.

1602 - Good and pretty damn odd issue. Strange's disembodied talking head was particularly odd. The twist at the end was a nice one that I hadn't seen coming. Looking forwards to the resolution of the book, although I haven't exactly been rushing to pick this one up. Although the desire to kill jean off in every alternative universe as well as in the 616 universe is getting a bit ridiculous now, although fairly comical.

Emma Frost - Good average issue, but I must admit, the pacing is seeming a little slow even for me now. 8 issues in and we aren't even approaching the Hellfire Club days. I can't see this title lasting beyond issue 12, which is a shame. Would have liked to see things catch up with current events before cancellation, but can't see that happening. Still, the issue added a little more background to Emma's character, but didn't really tell us anything we couldn't have guessed already.

New Mutants - Worth the wait? Well... not really. The issue was okay, but a bit jumbled where the artists changed for the fill in pages. Pretty good in parts though, although the use of Emma to be a tutor to the 'bad' students annoyed me. She's not a villain any more. Get over it already. It was a good issue, not worth the wait, but okay nevertheless. I'm looking forwards to the next issue, tampering free, more than I was this one I guess. It lived up to what I expected, but it was a -long- wait for an issue that's just 'good'.

Ultimate X-men - Very good, slow but the various tangled plotlines of the first couple of issues start to tie together this issue and the 'solo' Wolverine story from the last issue turns out to be connected after all. Pretty good writing, although still not up to Bendis' usual standard. Some really strong highlights though - great art again, Ultimate Dazzler was just about the funniest thing I've read for ages. The appearance of Emma Frost and the promise of Ultimate Hellions was a nice surprise. I have one critism though - when Ultimates was launched it was supposed to be as a jumping point for people who knew nothing about the 616 universe. Over the past few mnths the numbers of characters in the book has started to swell dramatically, leaving the core team with little chance for character development. This sudden flood of new mutants is just about acceptable for me as someone who knows the X-men but I can't help but think it'll turn other people off.

Not read Secret War yet.