Some geeky stuff

[angelophile]

Paul Cornell's latest blog entry has a lot of worthwhile stuff. And confirms that he's writing a group of British superheroes in 2008, so New New Even Newer Excalibur is clearly a go, despite the old title being cancelled. Presumably, as I assumed, it's been held to be rebranded amongst the X-men relaunches after Messiah Complex wraps.

The advance solicits at CBR for Marvel have some interesting stuff. From the Uncanny solicit it seems pretty clear that Whedon had killed Kitty Pryde. Whoop de doo. Adjectiveless X-men appears to be rebranded as X-men Legacy as expected. Mike Carey still on board, thankfully, although it's not sure whether it's still "in continuity". I hope so. Carey's given the X-men a long needed shot in the arm and he's the best thing to happen to the X-men comics since Morrison. Sorry Whedon fans, but the guy's work on Astonishing has been overrated, over paid and over here.

Brubaker's promise of Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler in Russia and Emma, Scott and Warren in a psychedelic version of San Francisco sounds delightful, but his X-men work has been a low point of his career and so far barely better than Milligan's run. What is it about the X-men franchise that can turn otherwise excellent writers to churn out crap?

Brian K. Vaughan's Logan miniseries finally appears too. How many years ago did he write that again?

And the X-Force cover is notable just for Rahne.

Apparently the trailer for The Dark Knight is out as well. I, personally, couldn't give a damn as I thought Batman Begins was a boring exercise in anti-climax, spotted with great actors turning in otherwise misjudged performances. (I love Michael Caine, but a cockney Alfred? What?) Personally, it doesn't seem to me like Heath Ledger is doing any more than chanelling Jack Nicholson's piss-poor Joker, but some people seem to like it.

Still, Gary Oldman was a great Jim Gordon. He'll be one redeeming feature.

Back to comics, I finally read the latest issue of New Warriors and so read the comments that author Kevin Grievoux made that elsewhere7 linked to. I don't necessarily agree with what he's said, but it's interesting to know that the New Warriors team consisting entirely of depowered mutants is down to editorial mandate. Curious, since editorial demanded they be depowered in the first place and now they're trying to squeeze in characters. Still, great to see Jono and Jubilee joined by Stacy X, who I always had a fondness for.

My major issue with this series, however, has not been the choice of characters or even the character voices seeming off (Sofia losing her accent for example), but the art. Quite aside from Jubilee's sudden boob job, Paco Medina seems to have drawn characters with no reference to what they looked like to when they were last seen. For example, even depowered Stacy X still retained the appearance of her mutation. It spoils otherwise solid art a little for me. It's possible that's to disguise who the characters were up to the reveal this issue, but it's disconcerting when the characters don't seem to act like those you know, or look like them either.

Jubilee's speech this issue, Jono being... well, mockney, Sofia acting like Sofia, even if she doesn't sound like her and so on overcome these drawbacks, but I hope the art and character moments are sharpened over the next few issues. Beak, Angel and the other revealed characters haven't really seemed much like their old selves. And don't get me started on Ben Urich, who's been utterly character assassinated over the past year.

Finally, Peter Jackson appears to have finally resolved his issues with New Line and will film The Hobbit over the next couple of years. Apparently as two movies, which I'm not sure about since there's not THAT much plot in the Hobbit. Is there gonna be a lot of padding? I guess after the huge flop of The Golden Compass, New Line figured they'd better get a cash cow back on track.

Anyway, enough from me.

Comments

[distractedone.livejournal.com]

I don't read New Warriors - but, oh, gawd, Stacy X is back?

Ew.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

In name only, so far. She doesn't really act or look like she used to.

Which you could consider an improvement, but I thought she had her moments, particularly her verbal sparring with Jono.