Comics IV

[red snow]

Gay Wolverine with golden claws even. He seemed interested in Hercules I think, and as a Hercules will probably be in the next issue it might be explored more.

Surely you jest with the Golden claws? Does he have a rainbow coloured costume too? Hercules seems like a sensible object of affection.

As for Greg Land - I guess he is consistent. Maybe his backgrounds were better back then?

[Nephrite]

Land's work was good when he did Nightwing with Dixon. Mid-90's. Then he decided that doing blow off hookers' tits is a better use of his time. And can you argue with him? If I got the opportunity to do blow off hookers' tits you people would never hear from me again. You'd be debating the merits of Iron Fist's slippers with an empty chair. Cause I'd be doing blow.

Off hookers' tits.

And here's Bryn Hitch's I'm not bitter or anything interview.

I sort of believe him that he didn't know that the book is going to get expanded in the same way I believe Stephanie Meyer that she didn't know that vampires die in the sun. Didn't he notice that his story sort of didn't end? Was the script he got from Bendis just one page saying: "Just draw a bunch of moolies in capes with tattered pansy tights and shitloads of rubble around them for 120 pages? Basically Bronx. Okay? Rubble! That's a funny word. I gotta tweet that to Bagley. Gotta go, have to ruin muties for a bunch of neckbeards."

Yes. I fully believe that Bendis speaks like a racist Italian. You can't prove me wrong. Although I do confess that his spelling is waaaaay worse than my example. He is borderline illiterate.

Shit the more you read the interview, you start to wonder if there even was a script. Or did he just wing it.

And the bit where he says that there's 40 pages of talking heads? Holy shit. That's some groundbreaking shit right there. No wonder there's all that rubble in the preview pages. Cause it's groundbreaking.

And to end this post with this quote from Kieron Gillen:

"Greg is famous for the way he draws very idealized and photo reference heavy characters. So he quite often draws women looking very glamorous. He's basically giving us the universe in Tony Stark-o-vision. So the way our comic looks is how Tony sees the world. He views it as a photo shoot in a magazine. To me that's a way of harnessing what Greg does and making it the text. Tony fundamentally sees women as beautiful creatures, at least on the surface. He's capable of seeing more than the surface, but..."

That's some grade A+ bullshit. You can tell why Marvel pays him the big bucks. Cause if you can take Land's art and give it an in-story explanation cribbed from a shitty Jack Black comedy. A comedy that has Gwyneth Paltrow in it. Gwyneth Paltrow who is also... PEPPER POTTS IN IRON MAN! This is some Alan Moore level of connecting the dots stuff. With less Chutlu rape, but Gillen is young. He has plenty of time to become a bitter hairy hermit. Time is on his side.

[red snow]

The Hitch interview is refreshingly honest. I get the impression he's pissed that they put back AOU when he made an effort to get his creator-owned stuff launched alongside it. Would have been some nice publicity as AGP was in desperate need of it.

I hope AOU turns out a bit better as it seems pretty ad hoc from what Bryan is saying. I guess these things get ironed out. It seems a bit of a shame how Marvel seemed to treat Bryan as an art bitch though - you'd think he'd deserve better treatment given the sales he's generated for them over the years.

I couldn't help but laugh at how he complained about all the talking heads and how Bendis gave no consideration for how to fit them sequentially in a panel or several panels. Pretty bad how they didn't give him many clues about which reality the series was taking place in and how to draw them. I guess as bad as the criticism for Millar can be at times he clearly treats his artists well - which probably explains why he has so many good ones working with him (that and the lure of creator owned wonga). I guess some artists work well with Bendis though - particularly ones that aren't averse to copy and pasting a drawing of a head several times per page.

I hope his creator owned stuff works out for him. It's a damn shame we won't get to see him draw Snyder's Man of Steel as it would have been the best Superman story ever written :P Still a bit of a gamble though as I'm sure Man of Steel would have paid good money and been very high profile which AGP hasn't been so fingers crossed his other idea does a lot better, I guess he's probably heard of DC editorial rewrites, etc and just can't be on with it.

That Kieron Gillen quote is inspired. It reminds me of when the director of "day the earth stood still" said no other actor could have done waht Keanu did as most actors can't help emoting even when playing an emotinless robot, but Keanu can. I guess if Land's work gets worse Gillen will just have to bring back Tony's alcohol problem and then we will be seeing the world through his blurry eyes.

[Sci-2]

So Hitch was going to do a Spiderman series with Whedon? And Joe Q turned it down? Interesting.

Good to see further confirmation that AvX was diarrhea born from Marvel panicking about the New 52.

Yeah, AoU does sound like it was seriously decompressed or lots of stuff was tacked on. I wonder if Hitch drew the ending but they deciding to squeeze extra issues between the ones he drew.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Good interview. Hitch can barely hide his love for ˜Bendy"and " Little Tommy", can't he?

The Gillen quote is hilarious- he's saying Land is a hack while praising him at the same time, it's entirely tongue-in-cheek, knowing him.

And why can't Land just move to creator-owned projects so we never have to read him again? Damn it!

[haLobEnder]

Been out of town for the last couple days, which allowed me to venture to the comic shop for the first time in ages.

And yeah, I guess it's true what they say about public outrage masking private indulgences: even though I was vocally against the AA concept from the onset, I picked up the first issue. I don't think it was particularly good, but I feel somewhat obligated to continue reading just so I can stay on the up and up on the casualty list. As someone already mentioned, it's such a blatant cash-in and Marvel are well aware of it; I did love their little nod to the security system at the Jean Grey School being the reason there are no X-kids in the mix.

I also picked up the newest batch of Image firsts --Fatale, Thief of Thieves, Revival and Manhattan Projects.

The one I was most interested in before reading, Manhattan Projects, turned out to be the one I'm least interested in continuing reading. It wasn't bad, but I have trouble with books that are all about big, out there concepts without a sympathetic character to latch on to. It's why I have some trouble with Morrison and Ellis as well.

Revival I was not expecting to like. While I will confess to reading more than one issue of Hack/Slash in the past, Seeley has never come off as a particularly strong writer to me until reading this. I don't know if it's just a fluke first issue but I'll pick up the first trade now at the very least.

Thief of Thieves was also a surprisingly fun read. I wasn't in love with the concept going in and Kirkman penned series outside of Walking Dead have always been lacklustre at best. I liked the dynamic this book set up though and the plotting was far more intelligent than I usually give him credit for.

Fatale was the biggest surprise of the bunch though. I saved it for last because it was the one I was least interested in reading. While I recognize Criminal's quality, I never could get into the series, and I was expecting this to be more of the same just with an emphasis on the femme fatale. The cult/supernatural stuff I was not expecting and it seemed to be the right button to push to bring me on board. Will definitely be checking out more of this (and may actually make another attempt on my Criminal trades just for the hell of it).

[red snow]

I think Marvel have been pretty clever in their AA marketing. People are outraged but they know people who are fans of those characters will read until their character dies and by then they may be on board to see how/if they come back. You can guarantee they wont kill off all kids from one group right away to ensure they keep fanbases on board for as long as possible.

Halo b, you should give criminal another shot - it reads better in trades. The funny thing is that despite enjoying criminal I fel like Fatale sounded like "more of the same". The cult angle has me more intrigued now.

EDIT: Damn you Marvel, you really had me going for a moment there. I forget how much I enjoyed that series while Bachalo was on board and it reminded me that Scott Lobdell can be good.

[haLobEnder]

I've actually read the first two trades of Criminal already. I own the first four -- they were cheap, and I bought them together knowing nothing about the series at the time other than it had positive buzz.

I enjoyed the first arc more than the second but both took me several attempts to get through because I found my interest wandering pretty quickly.

Damn it! Not fair, I want that X-Men team. That's the way it should be.

I have to wonder to what extent the reason Marvel's been so harsh on the Generation X cast and unwilling to reunite them/bring them back like they have New Mutants is because they're named after a generation that is now middle-aged.

[Sci-2]

Put me down as another fan of Criminal.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Put me down as another fan of Criminal.

Amen. Mid-late 00's Brubaker was on fire, anything that he touched and didn't had X-men on it was gold.

As for the Generation X cast, half of the teachers is dead, and so is one third of the cast, and it was a book that was really popular only for 25 issues or so, it's easy to see why Marvel doesn't think they can make more money out of it.

[haLobEnder]

As for the Generation X cast, half of the teachers is dead, and so is one third of the cast, and it was a book that was really popular only for 25 issues or so, it's easy to see why Marvel doesn't think they can make more money out of it.

I don't expect them to make a new ongoing series or anything --it's longevity as a title was sort of doomed from the beginning as the generation its named after is now middle-aged-- I just wish the characters were as active in the Marvel Universe as the kids in the teen books that both proceeded it and followed it.

I mean Bachalo as an artist has had a long history with the X-franchise, yet the characters he's directly responsible for are either dead, forgotten, or worst of all, over in X-Factor. All I'm saying is do it for Chris Marvel ;)

[Winterfell is Burning]

X-factor is great (well, most of the time anyway), certainly none of the kids has been written longer and better than Monet.

[Sci-2]

Avengers #2 Preview

Looks like we'll be getting some backstory on our villains...

[haLobEnder]

X-factor is great (well, most of the time anyway), certainly none of the kids has been written longer and better than Monet.

Apparently I'm reading the wrong issues then. Every once and awhile I'll get the idea to pick up an issue or two of X-Facter. Every time I regret it as the plots end up being ridiculous and the dialogue laden with way too much exposition.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Apparently I'm reading the wrong issues then. Every once and awhile I'll get the idea to pick up an issue or two of X-Facter. Every time I regret it as the plots end up being ridiculous and the dialogue laden with way too much exposition.

Probably not the best book to pick issues at random. And the last two or three issues haven't been that great, with PAD merely setting up to #250, but the previous arc was pretty good.

[haLobEnder]

I wouldn't say I'm reading them at random. I don't read the X-titles on a regular basis anymore but I do pick up issues that intrigue me and keep track of the rest through podcasts, interviews and whatnot.

The first issue of (the new) X-Factor I picked up was the issue with the birth of 'Banshee'/Madrox's baby; I didn't find it particularly bad, just not my thing. I didn't really care about the twist ending at the time, but since then it seems to have become a trend that PAD throw in these ridiculous curve-balls.

-Madrox absorbs his son and is now hated by half the team.

-Layla predicts that her and Madrox will become a couple, which creeps readers out because she's a child at the time and he a grown man. Cue convenient timewarp storyline to age her up so their relationship feels less icky (?)

-Lets change it so that Laylas' mutant powers aren't that she 'knows stuff', but that she was visited by her future self who told her everything that's going to happen whenever it's convenient to play the 'know stuff' card.

-Lets have Rahne give birth through her mouth while being chased by every mythological animal PAD can think of.

All these ideas feel like they belong from another era of comic writing -- which they do, the 90's -- when stories could be as crazy-stupid as you want as long as there's a good penciller on the book so people will buy.

The entire book at this point seems to have become all about keeping PAD happy by letting him do whatever the hell he feels like.

I'm not a huge fan of big cross-over events either, but so long as they're occurring it doesn't seem realistic that X-Factor would continually opt out while the world changes around them. They've survived the Decimation, Messiah Complex, Utopia and Schism with only superficial nods to the events having occurred.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Layla's powers were never "knowing stuff", but rather they, her origin, and how did she knew all that stuff, but missed some others, were supposed to be a mystery. PAD explained it properly, and made it more interesting than "girl can see the future".

For that reason, she didn't so much predicted, but knew she would go the future and get older, then returning to the present. Her warning to Madrox was a way of already condition him to the idea, or plant it in his head.

Madrox absorbing his son was a shock, but less a curveball than an interesting consequence of her powers that had and until this day had consequences- had her accept her father's dead, her relationship with Madrox went sour, and ultimately have her with no particular reason to be loyal to the team, which was important to some things that happened to her recently.

And so on. I like that he has a book that is different from anything else, developing characters that probably would be in Limbo or as cannon fodder otherwise, and it's rarely affected by the crossover of the month, although it has it's flaws and ups and downs.

[Sci-2]

So I tried to comprehend what the Third Army was...surprised my brain didn't leak out of my ears. Johns really needs to stop doing stories about civil wars in the Corps and the Guardians dark secrets.

eta: When I read what Johns has to say about this, I hear him talking in the voice of Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time.

[red snow]

I think the main reason Generation X is dead is because it's one of the few Marvel Characters where the creators are fully credited. I guess this means that Lobdell and Bachalo deserve royalties for any money that could spin off from these characters and Marvel (and DC) hate giving out money so why develop the IP of two creators when you can push marvel owned IP?

It's a damn shame though as during the Lobdell era the cast was excellent (what they did with Penance afterwards seemed non-sensical). When they were killed off I thought they'd be back but it doesn't seem to be the case at all. I'm still one of those people who think Chamber deserves to be a much bigger character than he currently is and he'd be on my dream team of X-men characters I would like to read/write about. Brian K Vaughn did a nice minseries with him years ago.

[Winterfell is Burning]

I think the main reason Generation X is dead is because it's one of the few Marvel Characters where the creators are fully credited. I guess this means that Lobdell and Bachalo deserve royalties for any money that could spin off from these characters and Marvel (and DC) hate giving out money so why develop the IP of two creators when you can push marvel owned IP?

It has nothing to do with it. It's simply because, like I said, this was a book that was only popular for 25 issues or so, and obviously bound to be cancelled as soon as the generation it's named for got older. Had there been other reasons, they would have just killed of Chamber, Husk and Monet as well, since they aren't household names and there wouldn't be that much outcry.