angelophile | Happy Easter and comics

Happy Easter everyone one.

I've done arse all today, just pottering around the flat and trying to get things cleaned up for when my folks visit tomorrow. Feeling tired and drained and not really anything much. I just had a lie down for a couple of hours and still feel knackered. Hopefully I'll start waking up in a bit.

Been catching up a bit on my comic reading, although I still have a stack to work my way through this week.

Transformers: Beast Wars was a good read, but also a little frustrating. We're seeing every single Beast Wars toy character who never made it into the cartoon. With introducing such a huge and unweildy cast so early on, it's made the thing very difficult to handle effectively. On the third issue now and pretty much every character is terribly generic. We do get to see some flesh put on the bones of a couple of the Maximals, but the Predacons are pretty much interchangable. Big bonus this week is seeing Ravage return to the Beast Wars, a nice plot twist indeed, and an even greater twist when the issue ends with the words, "ME GRIMLOCK!"

Son of M is the best thing to spring out of House of M and the only Decimation title that's managed to really keep me involved. Readers of the rebooted Excalibur will want to check this issue out as we revisit Hub, Shola, Wicked and the others on Genosha. Pietro's attempts to do right by the mutants of course go horribly wrong, which leads to a violent confrontation with his father. When last they met, Magneto was trying to kill Pietro for causing House of M - now Magneto's lost his powes, it's Pietro who gives leash to his anger and truly becomes his father's son. Add to that the Inhumans, Fantastic Four, US Government and others all hunting down Pietro on Genosha, as well as his own fascinating decline, you have a brilliant read. If Hine doesn't blow it in the last issue this will be definitely one to pick up in trade.

On the other hand, Hine's other book The 198 continues to be frustrating because of its depiction of the X-men. They aren't shown in quite such a terrible light this issue and Cyclops does seem to want what's best for them, and is prepared to chide Valerie Cooper, but not enough in my opinion. With only one issue to go, I'm not sure how this is going to wrap up neatly, and don' see that it is. I rather think it's going to be a non story. The limited series hasn't added much more than we've already seen across over titles and I'd like there to be at least some point to it. As it is, since this book is spinning off into the X-men Civil War title, I doubt there's going to be any resolution. Disappointing.

Finally I've read New X-men. I'm still in equal terms frustrated and gripped by this book. On one hand the character development is surprisingly strong and the tone surprisingly dark and gives a real indication what sort of peril the surviving mutants are under. It also has strong links to X-men history, particularly with the revelation at the end of this issue that neatly ties everything together and explains Stryker's newfound abilities nicely. But on the other hand is the bodycount. It's annoying because, yes, wiping out a character of dozen every issue does make the story gripping. It also pisses me off. We've seen a major swathe cut through the characters already and the book's become a real killing zone. And blast them, it works with making me care about what the survivors are going through. But it also makes me annoyed to see SO MUCh death and destruction. When you lose a character every issue, as regular as clockwork, it starts to lessen its impact. This issue my favourite character from the book dies. And my initial reaction is to sigh, roll my eyes and say "not another one" rather than really buy into the story. Although, it seems like the writers are continuing the development that the previous writers intended for Josh. It's just they got too fond of the characters to go through with the body count. A title of mixed feelings for me then.