Comics and stuff

[angelophile]

The comic book shop had a sale on this week when I went, on buy on Trade, get another free.

So, this week I got:

Spiderman: The Death of Gwen Stacy, Sin City: Sin City, Teen Titans (new series vol 1), Sleeper Vol. 1

Comics:

Uncanny X-men 450/451, Avengers Finale, Madrox 3, Ultimate X-men 53, Wolverine 22, X-men 164, Transformers 9, Transformers Energon 29, Catwoman 37, District X 7, Emma Frost 17, Nightcrawler 2, Secret War 3, Transformers Micromasters 4, Marvel Knights Spiderman 8.

I think there was some other stuff too but I forget what off the top of my head.

So far I haven't really made a dent in it. I've read:

Uncanny X-men 450: Good fun start for this storyline with zombie pirates and the return of thought bubbles. Kinda slipped after that though, with a rather painful Hugh Jackman joke. Not sure where the X-23 thing is going but at least they had a vaguely explained reason for why she's dressed as Fang. The art was a mix between the great and the rather rushed - it looked like Davis had spent a little too long doing the splash pages that his left the rest a bit fuzzy. Or it could be the inks to blame. Either way an average issue with some really great moments. Good fun, but seeing as X-23 is later shown at the school in some previews and in this issue she slaughters a load off humans I wonder just how Claremont will explain it, if he does. There's been lots of talk in his comics about mutants not being a law unto themselves, and the X-treme team came to blows with the school before now over a student accidentially killing people. Accepting a mass murderer makes me cringe a bit if she was acting from her free will. Here's hoping she wasn't though, since that would ruin her characterisation so far in NYX.

Guess I'll find out when I read the next part.

Transformers 9 features the return of Megatron after about 18 months in the wilderness. No doubt we can look forwards to an explosive confrontation between him and his betrayer Shockwave, a massive battle between the two titans and...

No, wait, we can't. We get a slow paced, rather boring story. Megatron turns up, rips off Shockwave's arm off -off panel- and what should have been an explosive moment is reduced to a damp squib. There's a nice little section with Blitzwing and Astrotrain and also some time with Kup, Hotriod, Arcee and Springer but these asides frankly are distractions from what should have been the meat of the story - Megatron's return and the debut of the Predacons. Sadly this is reduced to little more than an aside itself.

Word came out this last week that the writers had quit Dreamwave over issues with money. It seemed they hadnt been paid for work they produced. It sounds like a legal wrangle but whatever the case the current writers are off the title. I won't miss them. However, the new that the wrter of the original Transformers mini series is replacing them is less good news. I pray for Simon Furman on the book, but with his commitments to other TF titles and the fact he's been brought on board by the Producer of the Transformers movie, it seems unlikely.

He is taking over the writing of the Beast Wars comic though, which is positive news.

Still on Simon Furman, things hot up in Energon this week. After 10 years trapped in Unicron Megatron (the Energon version) finally breaks free with the help of Prime. Cue massive, sprawling battle sequences and he smashes and tears his way through the Terrorcon clone armies. It's not highbrow stuff but boy is it gratifying. Some fantastic action sequences make up the bulk of this issue and it was worth the wait.

Emma Frost... what to say about this title? It ends next issue. I can see it going in a direction where maybe Emma takes on some of the personality traits of her 'mentor' Astrid Bloom, who seems to be more Emma than Emma is. I'm hoping not. The series ends next month and won't be missed. A wasted opportunity all round.

Finally, of the titles I've read, comes X-men 164. Chuck Austen's final issue. There could be much dancing in the street over this, but this arc is probably the best for well over a year, so it's a celebration that's tempered. He attempts to pretty much undo everything he did during his run - Carter and Annie depart, Juggernaut is sucked into a black hole and Xorn leaves. This following on from Sammy's death and the departure of Paige in the last arc and nothing he brought into the book is left. Wiping the slate clean actually did some good, this arc has seen some decent moments. I can't help but be pleased he's gone though. Hope was a weak start, Dominant Species actually excellent, before the slide set in with the attrocious Holy War arc with a few fillers before the hateful Draco arc. Along the way there were some nice moments and for a while at the beginning it looked like Chuck was going to be really good. Sadly that solid start fell apart as the stupid plotlines cropped up.

We've had exploding communion wafers, Romeo and Juliet on ice, the most rotten Nightcrawler story ever, the murder of some characters, the final insults at Skin's graveside, truly awful characterisation of Rogue and Gambit, Paige turning into a sex slut,need I go on?

It's a shame because that's all overshadowed the positive work with Northstar, Juggernaut and some other minor characters. I kinda liked Sammy and Annie and Stacy X was truly great during his run.

This last issue serves to remind us of his strengths and weaknesses. Northstar appears and gets a really strong scene and reminds us what was great about Jean-Paul's characterisation under Austen. That's the strength. Weaknesses include the highly questionable way the Brotherhood are defeated, sucked into Xorn's black hole brain. After they've been brainwashed to forget about the attack. Someone explain how this wasn't overkill? There was also a lot of complaints about the fact that the fight between Sabretooth and Wolverine happened entirely off camera, but I can't see anything to complain about. I'd rather see Northstar get more airtime than ANOTHER Wolverine/Sabretooth scrap. The suggestion that it was their final meeting is, of course, false and jarrs. There are also more leaps of logic than I can comfortably list. The poor is almost outbalanced by the good though, the Northstar scenes alone make the cover price worth it, along with some great art. Still hate the Ent From Hell that is Black Tom though. Good villain. AWFUL look. He looked so much more wicked in Gen X 25.

One thing that jarred as well... There was a big deal made out of the fact that no-one could remember the name of the plucky cook who was killed by Tom apart from Northstar, who got his great speech out of it. She was, of course, called Marilyn.

Except her name was Hannah in an earlier issue.

So, Northstar may have made a bit of a tit out of himself getting so high and mighty about it. Seems like he couldn't remember her name either.

Either than or sucky editors and script writers strike again.

I'm looking forwards to Milligan.

Comments

Inside Xorn's Head...

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

There's been some speculation around the fact that 6 characters were sucked into Xorn's head: Nocturne, Juggernaut, Black Tom, Mannomax, Exodus, and Avalanche.

6 is the number of characters that seems to be standard for Exiles type teams (both Exiles and their Weapon X counterparts had 6). One could say that these 6 have been 'detached' from the regular Marvel Universe. Nocturne was a key player in this, and she was sent to 616 by the timebroker for a specific reason.

So, _maybe_ they're to be a new group working for the Timebroker. ;)

A lot of maybes, sure, but it's fun to speculate, anyway.

Re: Inside Xorn's Head...

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Interesting theory. I doubt Austen had that much of a gameplan but it is a possibility.

Re: Inside Xorn's Head...

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Well, that assumes Austen came up with it on his own. Could be his editor said, "Hey, you're leaving, so could you end your story with Nocturne and 5 non-core characters being caught in Xorn's head? These are the guys Milligan wants to use, so none of them..."

Re: Inside Xorn's Head...

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Possible but I think that certainly the inclusion of Black Tom and Juggernaut must have been Austen's own. It was no doubt a 'full circle' kind of thing going on there, start with them, end with them.