3 posts tagged “comics”
When I first heard that Joss Whedon was writing an X-Men run, it was like both of my Christmases had come at once.
Astonishing X-Men
This run is a direct continuation of Morrison's run (and New X-Men shold be read first); Gifted (1-6) and Dangerous (7-12) take place in the first school week of the year following that story. Torn (13-18) takes place after House of M.
It is obvious Whedon has been reading X-Men for a long time. He writes the characters with all the insecurities and frustrations they should have developed over the years. Cyclops is becoming jaded, Beast and Emma are both unsure of themselves, and Wolverine has become a believer in the Professor's cause. Kitty does not like Emma's influence on Scott, and the Professor himself is continuing his perpetual dark curve.
While there have been complaints about the pacing of the comics, it is not an issue here. The complaints were that Whedon was writing for the TPB, and that the plots were not paced fast enough for a bi-monthly book. But reading in paperback form, the plots are tight and addictive. The only frustration is the cliff-hanger ending of Torn.
I'm not going to recommend it, as good as it is. Wait to see if it comes out in hardcover when it's finished.
I'll use this qotd as an excuse to start reviewing the latest books I've bought. Comics and games are the only non-essentials I really spend money on, so here goes. I'll start with the most expensive book I've ever bought.
New X-Men Omnibus
Writer: Grant Morrison
Various artists.
This collects Grant Morrison's X-Men run, from the destruction of Genosha to [SPOILER]. At the end of the book, along with a few scripts, is Morrison's submission/manifesto where he states his ambition to revitalise and simplify the series. He succeeds.
The dialogue is great, and the stories are well paced. Almost nothing is extraneous, and once you've finished it you start noticing things you missed the first time. Morrison understands the characters well, and those he invents are strong and endearing. The only exception is the first villian he introduces, Cassandra Nova, whose motives are dull and unambiguous.
The artists vary in quality, although none are bad. My main complaint is that no-one except Ethan van Sciver seems capable of making Emma Frost look like a human. The final chunk of the book is set in an alternate future, which seems like an entirely different story, but does explain a lot of the preceding events.
I would seriously recommend this book, huge as it is.
Sad Note: Just as the Dark Phoenix story was later ruined by bringing Jean back to life, a similar thing is done to this run. It doesn't happen within the book, but is just another example of the danger of editors being driven by the desire to feature popular characters with no regard for the story or the fans.
As any-one who knows me (or read my last post) knows, I'm a big X-Men fan.
The only comics I read when I was young were the 50c newsprint re-issues Marvel and DC used to make, so I never read anything in series and just go what was there. Even then, despite the difficulty in learning almost a dozen heroes and villians while reading the story itself, I was hooked. The X-Men comics just seemed to have a seriousness I never saw in Spiderman or JLA or Superman. (In retrospect, I would call that seriousness Claremont.)
I was a little confused, though - if these were the 'Uncanny' X-Men, who were the others?
I think Marvel may be missing the point with what their readership want, or at least used to. It was prevailing wisdom at Marvel that people wanted heroes who were like themselves... Power Pack for young readers, Black Panther for black readers, and the 2nd generation of X-Men were meant to appeal to foreign readers*.
Nope. Readers want interesting characters and a good story.
Young readers want to feel like they're reading something 'grown-up', and hate the idea of something being 'aimed at them' (the present generation even more than my own), because it usually implies dumbing-down. So what if I couldn't follow all of the story? I loved the bits I could follow, didn't mind about the bits that I couldn't follow and was always dying to know what happened next (which I very rarely found out, bar piecing it together from much later issues).
Later, when I was 12-13, my mother started buying me issues as they arrived (around the Fatal Attractions arc), but stopped. There were just too many titles (that's for another post).
Let me summarise: I like the X-Men
As for the films...
While most comics focus on an individual or a small team, X-Men focused on an entire sub-species of humanity. This has meant a lot of characters.
Unfortunately, it appears the movies have tried to cram them all in together. The first movie was fine - you see a few minor cameos, but they are all just students and nothing happens. You see Gambit and Psylocke on a file at the Weapon X facility in the sequel. All fine.
But in the third film, the introduce so many characters that I missed a few myself, and then they killed them! I mean, why? If Magneto needs a bunch of Red Shirts, make them up! Why kill Callisto? Isn't that just cutting off a whole potential story? It isn't that they died that bugs me, it's that they died without the audience getting a proper chance to get to know them. I cannot think of any reason other than "we got a bunch of letters wanting Callisto in the film".
OK, I'm done (for now)
* Although making Wolverine Canadian may have increased Canadian interest, I wonder if the same can be said for an Irish Banshee or an American born Egyptian raised Kenyan descended Storm?
