Astonishing X-Men C/D

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OH MY, THE COSTUMES.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 27 May 2004 13:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The rationale seems sound, at least.

Oh, and the art is stunning.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 27 May 2004 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Cassaday is unstoppable. Not convinced about the writer.

― Josh Davis (josh_anomaly), Thursday, 27 May 2004 13:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I found it amusing, the Buffyhumor is there. It's automatically going to be a let-down after Morrison, but I'm really going to try to take it for what it is.

Looks like we're in for plenty of Scott coming to terms with his boring-ass self and Logan playing surly comic relief though, *sigh*.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 27 May 2004 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

read first five pages online and cringed

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 27 May 2004 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

also: GODAWFUL COVERS

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 27 May 2004 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't seen the "special" cover (I hate that shit anyway), but I have no problems with the look-Wolverine's-claws-are-iconic one.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 27 May 2004 14:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that the OLD SCHOOL Wolverine uni (circa Hulk #180!) I spy on Logan's face?

I'm geeked simply for more Cassaday goodness - as long as Whedon doesn't have the same issues w/ coherence and plausability other X-franchise writers seem to have nowadays, I'm in (once I get some cash money, that is).

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

does anyone have pictures of these costumes? i want to see these costumes

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 27 May 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

The script is same old same old but Cassaday is a beautiful artist. X-men doesn't deserve him...

― David Nolan (David N.), Thursday, 27 May 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a huge Whedon fan, but I'm not convinced.

― J (Jay), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 01:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't get past the fact that Cyclops is wearing a giant black condom.

― Vic Fluro, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 09:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I MUST SEE PICTURES OF THESE COSTUMES

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

and there's not a comic book in miles so don't even say it

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

comic book SHOP, oops. as you were

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Who is the team, anyway? (I suppose I should check marvel.com). I won't make it to the comic shop for at least another week, probably two; I bought friends a subscription since they're on a waiting-to-hear-about-a-job-might-have-to-move-on-short-notice budget, but they don't live here, so I can't borrow it from them.

I would've been happy never seeing Cyclops again, honestly.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 3 June 2004 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Team = White Queen, Cyclops, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde (Code Name To Be Chosen?), Beast.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 3 June 2004 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

When will Beast turn it Breast? Or at the very least into Beats?

― Lazer Guided Mellow Leee (Leee), Thursday, 3 June 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Hm. Okay, that's a pretty cool mix, even with Cyclops in there (maybe having the White Queen and Wolverine in the mix justifies Cyclops being around, I can live with that; I just picture a Whedon-written Cyclops being played by Riley, which makes me unhappy until I picture Riclops being eaten by Wolverlorne, and then it's all gravy. By "all," I mean "Scott Summers.")

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 3 June 2004 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Tep, did you read any of Morrison's New X-Men run? He totally validated Cyclops' existance!

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 3 June 2004 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

A couple of em, but not many, I admit. Can you validate him without changing him completely? I actually liked him best during INFERNO, of all things.

Still, Morrison is good at pulling that kind of rabbit out of the hat. I'm going to pick up the TPBs at some point soon.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 3 June 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, the entire "I love Jean now" thing is really making Scott interesting again (plus it finally ties together the disparate threads of his comic book portrayal from as far back as the introduction of Maddie Pryor vis a vis his "I love you when you are right in front of my face as long as your name isn't Jean Grey" tendencies).

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 June 2004 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Morrison really handled the fact that Scott is basically a complete mental case well. Without compromising his heroism.

didn't he list Cyclops as one of his ten favourite superheroes in the Face last year? I think - somebody correct me if I'm wrong - that the Flash was No.1.

― David Nolan (David N.), Friday, 4 June 2004 23:23 (twenty-one years ago)

(Er, I meant "Emma" but everyone knew that.)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Saturday, 5 June 2004 11:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, I didn't! Where did you mean Emma?

― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 5 June 2004 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

"I love Emma now"

― Jordan (Jordan), Saturday, 5 June 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I was about to say, Dan!

― David R. (popshots75`), Saturday, 5 June 2004 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

That is a classic Whedon design on the villain. (Is it anyone we've seen before?)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Saturday, 5 June 2004 23:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Finally picked this up, although I still haven't had a chance to get to the comic store (we haven't been home on weekends, and The Girl is in intensive language classes all summer). CCCCCClassic. Y'all are right; Cyclops actually has a lot of potential to be interesting now.

I'm a little befuddled by him and Emma being a couple, and don't know when Jean died this time, but let me guess, that's another reason for me to get the Morrison trades?

Kitty looks a little weird, but the quasi-flashback touches with her were nice. And all in all, this is a well-chosen team.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(Oh: also picked up #1 of Claremont's new Excalibur, which -- despite liking the original, and liking his FF, and having given his post-Twelve run on X-Men a shot even though it sucked that elephant thing hardcore -- I hated instantly. He has Xavier talking like Wolverine, sans "bub." Has the man completely lost his ability to differentiate dialogue?)

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

This really was surprisingly good. My main gripe is that I'm not at all interested in the relationships between these characters aside from Scott and Emma. (Kitty should be made to interact with the former New Mutants.)

John Cassaday is a god.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

GET THE MORRISON TRADES YESTERDAY ALREADY, TEP! ALL OF THEM! TWICE! (Don't mind the lack of consistent art when Frank Quitely's not drawring.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just sick of mutants when Morrison came on, I figured they'd be good -- but Marvel'd just started putting EVERYTHING in trades, so I knew I could catch up.

Which I'll do soon, then.

Dan, you aren't interested in seeing what Kitty and Wolverine are like now that she's not a kid? I figure that's potentially cool in a Faith-and-Wesley-if-they-were-the-other-way-around way.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I am completely uninterested in the Kitty/Logan relationship. We've already seen that go through about as many interesting permutations as I can think of over the past what, 25 years? Surely we can give it a rest, particularly since there about 8,000,000,000 other mutants in the X-Universe to read about.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 01:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, but it's Joss! We've seen it referenced/rehashed, but rarely when both (or either) character was well-written. (Granted, I don't know yet how good a job he'll do with Logan, who's pretty far outside his writing comfort zone. But I trust him to do well with Kitty.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

FYI, here are all the titles (ongoing or limited) currently on the Marvel slate (or upcoming) that involve X-related characters in the regular continuity stream:

- Astonishing X-Men
- New X-Men
- Uncanny X-Men
- X-Men
- Excalibur
- District X
- Weapon X
- Mystique
- Cable / Deadpool
- Wolverine
- Emma Frost
- Rogue
- Nightcrawler
- MadroX
- Jubilee(!!!)

...and I know I missed a mini or 12.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

District X is surprisingly good, if you like cops and mutant ghettos. I especially like that it focuses on the mutants whose mutations don't happen to be fabulous superpowers, just weird shit that makes their lives tougher in more than a "oh, the boys at school are afraid of me because I have super strength" way.

I'm still reading Rucka's Wolverine but it's really pretty boring. Is there really going to be a Rogue book? I know there's a Gambit one coming up, but I hadn't heard about that.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 03:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh! And I forgot:

- NYX
- Starjammers
- X-Force
- and, yeah, Gambit

WE WANT LOCKHEED DAMMIT! (Also, I feel for Paul O'Brien, unless Marvel continues their spotty release schedule.)

Here's a rundown from Wizard World Philadelphia.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

MADROX?????

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

(Also Tep, remember that I'm not really into Buffy, ergo Joss himself is not automatically a huge draw for me.)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 11:25 (twenty-one years ago)

YES MADROX

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 11:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Damn, that actually sounds interesting (particularly since I skipped PAD-Factor and therefore missed the Jamie/Guide/Rahne show the first time around).

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 13:56 (twenty-one years ago)

PAD-Factor is choice stuff; of course, it's not collected.

One reason I kinda frown on Fabian Nicienza - for whatever reason, a scene from PAD's X-Factor (involving a jar of mayo and a bunch of dialogue) was redone in a Gus Van Sant-does-Psycho type way for an X-Factor annual FN wrote. There might've been some significance for that move/homage (aside from editors getting distracted by boobies), but I dunno what.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember that mayonnaise! What ever happened to the "big guy" character?

I seem to remember PAD leaving X-Factor without warning, and I was a little miffed. Great artist, tho'. Who was that?

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Thursday, 17 June 2004 00:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Larry Stroman

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 17 June 2004 01:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, Joe Quesada penciled the last few issues of PAD's run (as well as that Annual I alluded to in my last post). Jae Lee drew a few issues as well. I think he (PAD) jumped ship right after the X-Cution Agenda (circa X-Factor #90).

Strong Guy (AKA Guido, or Guide, if you're Venga) is gonna be part of the MadroX series, I think!

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 17 June 2004 01:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Man, I might actually pick up Madrox. I only vaguely remember PAD's X-Factor (although I remember Guido -- Lila Cheney's bouncer/roadie/something, right?), but I dug the character way back in Fallen Angels.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 17 June 2004 03:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Rucka's Wolverine is pretty boring, though what I've read of the ~~Naturalist~~ Native storyline is a lot better.

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Thursday, 17 June 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Am I right in thinking that the current lineup is five of the most experienced X-Men?

I couldn't find the thread where someone said tht Beast was getting dumber again, but I thought that was just a part of the nano-mite nonsense/Cassandra Nova messing with his mind. The last few pages of #2 seem to show him still pretty smart.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 1 July 2004 08:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, you're right Andrew re: the nanomite / Nova thing. My bad.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 1 July 2004 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 86 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

slock1: yes. The Superman issue of the DC1000000 was actually Solaris' best story, and wasn't written by Morrison (tho I reckon it probably was).

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 8 May 2006 08:03 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, Morrison plotted all four 1,000,000 Super-issues

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 8 May 2006 08:44 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, I don't think he's responsible for pissing on the Alien movies. He has loudly and frequently bemoaned what was done to his original script for that film.

― J (Jay), Monday, 8 May 2006 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

six months pass...

Revive. So, am I now to understand that this whole last story arc *wasn't* Whedon giving Morrison the kiss-off, but instead giving him a big wet kiss? I'm growing increasingly impatient with this title.

― J (Jay), Friday, 17 November 2006 02:16 (nineteen years ago)

Dude, this entire run has been nothing but sloppy kisses to Morrison, or more specifically "E Is For Extinction." I get the sense that Joss kinda skimmed over the rest of the run.

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:29 (nineteen years ago)

The issue felt really anticlimactic to me, but I don't know, maybe that's cos the issues come far apart and the "gotcha" thing was figured out by fans a few issues ago. I really could've done without the whole Psycho ending with Scott spelling out his psychological interpretation of what Emma was doing, but I guess if he didn't make it fairly clear a lot of people would've been all "huh, wha?"

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Friday, 17 November 2006 03:33 (nineteen years ago)

Dude, this entire run has been nothing but sloppy kisses to Morrison, or more specifically "E Is For Extinction." I get the sense that Joss kinda skimmed over the rest of the run.

Apparently, I have missed the point entirely. BACK TO SCHOOL WITH ME!

― J (Jay), Friday, 17 November 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, I don't think he's responsible for pissing on the Alien movies. He has loudly and frequently bemoaned what was done to his original script for that film.

You can read the script here. Scanning it for a minute, seems like the main change is that the movie scaled down the climactic fight to keep it in space. The Newborn's still in it, though the concept's a bit different. Character bits are in it ("Father's dead, asshole.", etc.) Hm.

― lumberingwoodsman (Chris Hill), Friday, 17 November 2006 21:24 (nineteen years ago)

WHY WOLVERINE NOT FLOAT TO CEILING?

― Richard Baez (Johnny Logic), Friday, 17 November 2006 22:00 (nineteen years ago)

Screenwriter Joss Whedon was extremely unhappy with the final product. In a 2005 interview, when asked how the film differed from the script he'd written, Whedon responded, "It wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines...mostly...but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script...but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Resurrection

― J (Jay), Friday, 17 November 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

Just now sat down and got caught up on the last year or so of Astonishing, and I have to say I'm kind of impressed. I trailed off somewhere during "Danger," which was as sucky and draggy as the CW says, but this Hellfire arc actually did a number of things right, and I think kind of escapes the tag I had on this series of being nothing but a constant Claremont 1982 nostalgia trip. What Whedon's discovered here is that you can do a rewrite of the Dark Phoenix story that actually does something new - that you can fuse the tropes and associations of the canonical X-Men stories with the mind-trip gotcha widescreen of the Morrison X-Men and get something that's genuinely new. It may fail in places (certainly the storytelling is a little too rushed and jumpy), but it manages to simultaneously "feel" like Morrison and Claremont, in a way that makes both exciting again.

Of course, by going into outerspace he can obviously fuck it all up again, but I have some sliver of hope.

― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Saturday, 18 November 2006 02:10 (nineteen years ago)

It's important to remember that he doesn't like the X-Men movie either, so perhaps he is a little too precious about his lovely lovely words.

Is he actually writing Astonishing any more, I though that was his time up?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Saturday, 18 November 2006 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

He is writing one more year of Astonishing, though that really means six more issues. He's also going to be writing Runaways in a few months.

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Saturday, 18 November 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

Well, from what Whedon's said, only 2 lines in the X-Men movie were his, so it's more understandable if he didn't like the movie. But he does get kinda precious about his words - I remember he was very upset by the Buffy movie too.

― The Yellow Kid (The Yellow Kid), Sunday, 19 November 2006 07:36 (nineteen years ago)

Well, would you want people to think that you wrote something really awful when you actually didn't?

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Sunday, 19 November 2006 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

If I'd written the script for Alien Resurrection (and I'm talking about the original one online as well as the filmed thing), I'd know that people were saying I'd written something really awful when I actually really HAD!

Oh, and Buffy sucks too, so there! Yah! Boo!

― James Morrison (JRSM), Monday, 20 November 2006 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

I really liked "Alien Resurrection"

― 808 the Bassking (Andrew Thames), Monday, 20 November 2006 06:59 (nineteen years ago)

So yeah I finally got around to reading this last issue, and it's way better than its immediate predecessor. I suspect upon re-reading, the entire arc will seem a lot more sensibly paced though.

― CROWS don't FLY in STRAIGHT LINES (orion), Monday, 20 November 2006 07:41 (nineteen years ago)

(I don't care about Alien Resurrection one way or the other, since I've never seen it or any of the other Alien movies! I was just reporting yknow)

― J (Jay), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

MAGIC ADAMANTIUM

― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 21 November 2006 20:29 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

Okay, i'm right in thinking that Astonishing X-Men has nothing to do with the rest of X-books continuity?

It's kinda wishy-washy really.

― jel --, Monday, 26 February 2007 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

Well, it's clearly written to be read out of continuity, which is fine by me. I was really really impressed by the way Joss dodged the "Decimation" thing -- he acknowledges that there are very few students now, but never says why. If you're only reading Astonishing X-Men, you can just assume it's because of what happened with the students in the Dangerous storyline.

― Mr. Perpetua, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 01:11 (nineteen years ago)

Do you mean out of continuity as in "not tightly crossing over with the other books" or as in "non-canonical"? The former seems plausible enough, and probably AXM will work best if it's cancelled after Whedon and Cassaday are done with it, collected as an omnibus, and sold as one fairly continuous X-Men story from 2005.

Even in that format there's a lot of stuff that I expect won't work. Joss's decision to have the series largely revolve around this Breakworld plot is commendable in a certain sense - the X-Men are in need of new villains and plot points, which is why "E is For Extinction" and killing off Jean Grey were the best parts of the Morrison run...and if you're going to bring back a dead character, I like the angle of having it gradually emerge that the resurrection isn't just a clean reset but brings in all sorts of larger things. Unfortunately, the larger things here basically means the Breakworld, which has been painfully generic even by the standards of Marvel. Really couldn't care less, and if it was being drawn by hacks (like Uncanny's space story is right now) it would fall off my reading list very very quickly. The little character touches continue to be great, and I still think his fusion of Morrison's story arcs and Claremont's characters is something new (rather than just "the formula done well") but POB is right to say that at this pace, ship-wise and story-wise, it's hard for it to be a flagship book.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:23 (nineteen years ago)

FWIW, Joey Q has an EXCITING NEW ANNOUNCEMENT re: the future of AXM post-Whedon COMING SOON TRUE BELIEVERS. Which I'm assuming means a) it ain't getting cancelled, and b) "disappointment" is bound to be the word of the day when the new creative team's announced. When the word's not "kumquat," that is.

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

The sad thing is, it's hard for me to really imagine what an exciting lineup for this tittle would be...

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:41 (nineteen years ago)

CHOOSE ONE:

a) Dinesh D'Souza & Jim Woodring
b) Tom Wolfe & Gary Panter
c) John Byrne, using Eno's Oblique Strategies cards as "co-plotter"

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

I think they are giving the book to Millar.

― Mr. Perpetua, Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

WRONG MOVE MAR-VELL

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

Unless:

a) Millar draws
b) Liefeld draws
c) Liefeld writes & Millar draws

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

Also, wasn't New X-Men a "fusion of Morrison's story arcs and Claremont's characters"? That seemed to be the appeal. All Whedon is doing, and he is the first to admit this, is do New X-Men season 4 and 5. They changed the name to Astonishing X-Men for commercial reasons -- he's said several times that he didn't really ask for that, that it was supposed to just be New X-Men still.

They would be insane to break up the core cast of NXM/AXM (Cyclops/Emma/Wolverine/Beast) or toss off the core book, and so of course it's going to carry on with a new creative team. Would you rather have Ed Brubaker inherit them? Dude is great on some things, but he's godawful on the X-Men.

― Mr. Perpetua, Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:57 (nineteen years ago)

Right now, I'd be totally happy if MM just disappeared for about 15 years after getting the last issue of Ultimates 2 to his editors / Hitch, & limited himself during that time to just posting about his greatness and the greatness of his half-ass theories and the purported greatness he's inflicting on Hollywood on his MW board.

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

(hi dere I want to go home now)

― David R., Thursday, 1 March 2007 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

Also, wasn't New X-Men a "fusion of Morrison's story arcs and Claremont's characters"? That seemed to be the appeal.

You're right; I mistyped - change "Claremont's characters" to something more like "Claremontian soap opera." That first scene in the first issue with Kitty stepping into the mansion is as explicit as you could get of a "Hi, I grew up on Uncanny X-Men from 1982" statement - but he's continuing forth with Morrison's plots, especially re: Cyclops and Emma, as you very correctly point out. The reintroduction of Kitty and Peter to the core cast, the teasing use of the Hellfire Club, the costumes - it's a rather nice (and I think deft) rejiggering of twenty-five-year-old X-Men stuff into the status quo from the moment Morrison left the book, whereas Morrison's run was very much about keeping the status quo up for grabs - kill off millions of mutants in one issue, out the school, skip months of time, establish "mutant culture," Xorn, Magneto, two major characters dying in one issue. Whedon has been relatively sedate IMO, because he'd rather just get the characters into a room and enjoy watching them talking to each other. That's the flavor of the Claremont X-Men (and especially New Mutants) that people really got attached to.

― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 1 March 2007 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah. I kinda like that Astonishing X-Men is more about playing with the characters, getting in their heads. I think the problem a lot of people have is they don't get too into that, and try right away to mess about with continuity or make big changes. There's been so much of that in the X-Men over the past several years that it's nice to have some stability, even if the book comes out sporadically. When Grant came in, things really needed to change, and he had amazing ideas and executed most of them quite well. Chuck Austen, latter day Claremont, Ed Brubaker -- much less so! Much, much, much, much less so.

― Mr. Perpetua, Thursday, 1 March 2007 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

I never thought I'd say this but I'm kind of hoping Kitty dies at the end of the Breakworld story.

Also I kind of hope the book gets taken over by Ennis (for no good reason).

― HI DERE, Friday, 2 March 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

I think Brubaker's stuff is OK - the miniseries with its monster retcon was a bit feeble but the space stuff is a decent passes-the-time superhero romp. It's not X-Greatness at all but it's comofrtably better than late Claremont and Chuck Austen! Better than Milligan too. :(

Astonishing is fine as a "Legends Of The X-Men" type showcase series - superior solidity.

Carey's book seems to have the most plot drive of any of them but some spark is lacking.

― Groke, Friday, 2 March 2007 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

Oh c'mon, Milligan's stuff even when it wasn't very inspired trounces Brubaker's X-stuff! At least Milligan was funny. Brubaker just seems like he's totally out of his depth and perversely trying to make it harder on himself.

I like Carey's X-Men, but he has really bad taste in villains, which is also the case for his Ultimate Fantastic Four. He's definitely got some plot momentum, and I appreciate that quite a bit, and I think his cast is really good too. I wish he'd spend more time developing the relationships between the characters rather than throw the X-Men into these really inconsequential battles that take up most of the time. I mean, what the hell does he really need villains for when Mystique, Sabretooth, and Mastermind are part of the regular cast?

― Mr. Perpetua, Friday, 2 March 2007 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

Oh c'mon, Milligan's stuff even when it wasn't very inspired trounces Brubaker's X-stuff! At least Milligan was funny. Brubaker just seems like he's totally out of his depth and perversely trying to make it harder on himself.

Two minutes for TOTALLY WRONG / YMMV, Mr P. Unless you go for "oh, he's having a laugh / oh, he's not; why don't U DECIDE" shenanigans coupled w/ interpretive characterizations and crap adventures. The Rogue / Gambit / whatever the hell Mystique was calling herself triangle was klutzy (to be kind), and the dude only seemed to find his sealegs right before he left (w/ his Apocalypse arc), and that's only in comparison to the 20+ issues of spotty floundering that preceded.

Like Tom says, Bru's just telling a straight adventure story - it's nothing spectacular, and it's nowhere near his best work, but it's totally fine for what it is. Gimme that - a writer w/ a plan, and the sticktoitiveness to, um, stick to it, & pump out serviceable, enjoyable stories - over someone that's just flouncing around, trying all sorts of crap, and falling short in nearly every respect. & it's not like PM was seemingly going for anything spectacular (unless you think he actually was trying to poke fun @ the inherent soap-operatics of the X-Verse - from my POV, that's a stretch).

― David R., Friday, 2 March 2007 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

Hey, I think both Brubaker and Milligan are being hacks on the X-Men. It's just that I could deal with Milligan cos he was funny, at the very least. Brubaker is just being a snooze, and I know he can do far better.

― Mr. Perpetua, Friday, 2 March 2007 22:36 (nineteen years ago)

He wasn't funny enough! Nothing Milligan wrote was as amusing as the guy with the enormous sword in Brubaker's run, for a start. There was one point in the Milligan run where it looked like he was going to make everything that happened be some kind of mental plot of Doop's, which would have been enjoyable, but he didn't. :(

I do agree that Brubaker has managed to somehow pick the five most boring possible X-Men for his TWELVE-PART saga (how did they allow it!) but given that he's doing an OK job.

― Groke, Saturday, 3 March 2007 03:08 (nineteen years ago)

Well, the thing is, Brubaker and Carey were basically hired to do a year of filler before the X-books could enter whatever crossover is coming this summer. A twelve-issue space epic is just as good as any other plan, really. It's not like any of the core X-books are actually going to deal with the Decimation plot! X-Factor got saddled with that whole thing.

― Mr. Perpetua, Saturday, 3 March 2007 03:19 (nineteen years ago)

Really, you'd think if they had to crank out a year of filler (kind of ridiculous way to go about things obv) they could have cranked out some vaguely Decimation-themed filler, right? Tracking down isolated mutants, something? Even if Decimation isn't going anywhere it'd be nice to maintain the illusion that it made some sort of difference, rather than having Professor X run off into space right when you'd expect mutantkind would need him the most. At least the last Unadjectived annual did something with the whole idea, but that was long long long overdue.

As for Milligan, I read his run and can't tell you a thing about it except that Gambit turns evil, which I found sort of harmless and irrelevant. There was an awful lot of Havok and Polaris, who both annoy the shit out of me pretty much any time they're ever in a comic. And there was a sorta okay Red Ghost story that got completely scuttled by confusing crossover stuff IIRC. Definitely a disappointing run though.

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 3 March 2007 03:28 (nineteen years ago)

Even if Decimation isn't going anywhere it'd be nice to maintain the illusion that it made some sort of difference

This sounds like wrongthink to me - a demand that the universe respect your pain. If they can't think of a good way to face a situation, I'd rather they didn't face it.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 8 March 2007 11:37 (nineteen years ago)

I'd rather they get rid of it rather than pretending it didn't exist.

― HI DERE, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:55 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno about wrongthink - isn't serialized comic storytelling in large part the art of making stuff that isn't going anywhere feel like it is? I don't mind being strung along in circles for that type of thing. I guess what I'm getting at is, rather than write mediocre generic space epics for filler, why not write mediocre specific post-Decimation stories for filler? Those would at least have the illusory cachet of novelty, no? Plus, so long as it stands as a plot point (and the xbooks certainly ACKNOWLEDGE that it does) it just seems bizarre for it not to drive more of the stories.

― Doctor Casino, Friday, 9 March 2007 00:35 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

oh he didn't.

― thomp, Friday, 4 May 2007 04:06 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, you're probably right.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 4 May 2007 06:07 (eighteen years ago)

my call is that "one of them isn't coming back" means that one of them, uh, decides not to come back, actually.

― thomp, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:02 (eighteen years ago)

four years pass...

so the cartoon version of this is on watch instantly and it's the ugliest thing i've ever seen. i guess they spent basically nothing to make it?

― Mordy, Saturday, 7 May 2011 00:55 (fourteen years ago)

You mean this thing?

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2010/08/wolvielovespizza.gif

Never seen, but it sounds just ridiculous. See this review. Anyone else remember this kind of thing being sold for like $20 a pop as "CD-ROMix" back in the early 90s?

― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 7 May 2011 03:01 (fourteen years ago)

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