X-Men

[Andy Turnbull]

X-Men Manga designs courtesy of blog@newsarama.

Beast is pretty much Totoro.

Andy

[legios]

Yeah, pretty much. Difficult to see that as anything other than homage.

The rest of them feel pretty much generic, without anything to make them feel like much design has gone into them. Not my thing at all to be honest. They can't all be winners mind you.

Karl

[Andy Turnbull]

Astonishing X-Men #25 Preview

Over at CBR

Looks good and Warren has an ear for the cast already.

Andy

[legios]

Jun 26, 2008 19:33:43 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

Over at CBR

Looks good and Warren has an ear for the cast already.

Andy

Indeed - his Beast and Emma ring particularly true. I am swithering about picking this up. On the one hand I quite like a lot of Warren Ellis's work - on the other hand I was burned by the previous run of "Astonishing" and I know Mr Ellis can go one of two ways. Either he will maintain a cracking pace or it will be decompressed enough to give me the bends. There isn't a lot of in-between with him.

Karl

[The Doctor]

I have a lot of time for Ellis as a writer but rarely buy his comics any more as he appears to get bored. Well, that's my impression. His series either drift into limbo or come out very slowly (hullo, Planetary, Fell, etc) and I can't be arsed with that. A shame. He really is good when on form.

Bit tired so will read the x-men preview tomorrow.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Allegedly John Cassady has started drawing issue 27 of Planetary.

Andy

[The Doctor]

Good for him. I lost interest about 2 years ago.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

So what's changed in a year ?

Not a lot. X-Factor dipped but recovered and X-Force is doing a small team book brilliantly. Legacy is nearing the end of it's Xavier voyage after which ???? (Dark X-Men ?) Astonishing is flopping around occasionally deceiding to release an issue - put it out of it's (and our) misery please.

Dark X-Men actually looks like a decent idea, might shake things up a bit.

[Philip Ayres]

X-Men crops up on A Year Of Cool Comic Book Moments today

[Cullen]

E is for Extinction is...

...disappointing. I enjoyed it as an X-Men yarn but I think my problem was that I read the Morrison Manifesto before I read the story. Judging it on his own criteria for success I would say it was a failure. He wanted to abandon continuity but there were umpteen references to past X-Men stories. He wanted to get rid of the costumes to make X-Men look 'cool' when the leather jackets with big yellow X's are anything but (unless you are 14). He complained that characters don't stay dead, then kills Magneto - a quick wikipedia search reveals, shock, he does come back. I don't know if he brought Magneto back in his run but he should have known.

The main thrust was to shoot for mainstream audiences - I don't have the sales figures but I'd be surprised if he succeed. I can't imagine any Hugh Jackman-loving woman would have read the first issue for more than 5 pages, or picked up subsequent issues (especially the one with Emma Frost, tits oot, on the cover).

I've always thought the Sentinels were the X-Men's lamest enemies, especially Mastermold (a factory in the shape of a giant robot sitting down - I mean come on. That alone would have turned me off if I was one of these mainstream readers). At least we got to see a different kind of Sentinel. The genocide on Genosha fell completely flat on me and I hardly felt it impacted the characters at all. I was also disappointed to see the Shi'ar Empire at the end - X-Men in space has never been something I liked.

Overall as a story that would appeal to people who already like X-Men it was pretty good, certainly better than the toss they were churning out in the late nineties when I stopped reading. As something that would appeal to a mainstream audience it was poor, and Morrison comes across as a ranting fanboy in his manifesto.

[Philip Ayres]

Morrison did indeed kill Magneto stone dead, only to have it retconned just a few months later by another writer.

Of course Morrison did it towards the end of his run so ......

Dead is Dead was a directive from on high iirc.

[The Doctor]

My point of view is entirely the opposite of the esteemed Mr Cullen. I didn't give a toss about X-Men comics but enjoyed the movies, thought these were more in the spirit of them and found it extremely accessable. Actually, it's been the only time I've found an x-men series to be 100% accessable without me having to ask people what stuff means. I think it's the most mainstream x-men comics have been in the last 10 years by a country mile.

-Ralph

[legios]

I must admit I quite like E For Extinction. Not as much a I like some of the later material in Grant Morrisons run, but it worsk very well for me as the basic foundation that the rest of the run builds on. Not going to be to everyone's taste though, I can fully understand why some people don't like it.

I may be alone in being really quite fond of the leather jackets, which I've always felt were less like superhero outfits and more like gang colours(or the "Mutant Gehstapo" as I sometimes refer to them) which I felt was quite appropriate to the X-Men - who have, since the 90's looked more and more like a sort of ethnic gang for Homo Superior.

Morrison actually killed and brought back Magneto very specifically as set up to make a point about his relevance, or lack thereof as a character, and then kill him off properly and permanently. Unfortunately, like pretty much all of his run it was bulldozed into the ground within a month or so of his leaving the titles. Which inadvertantely actually just helped to reinforce the meta-point that he had been making......

Karl

[Jaymz]

Sept 24, 2009 10:32:55 GMT Cullen said:

The main thrust was to shoot for mainstream audiences - I don't have the sales figures but I'd be surprised if he succeed.

Not mainstream, but he definitely succeeded with bringing in non-X-Men comic readers. Sales of the Morrison X-Men were easily more than double normal X-Men sales in my shop.

I'd easily rank the overall 40 issue run as one of my favourites on X-Men, just some of the rushed artwork that harms it.

[Philip Ayres]

Proof they'd have been better waiting for Quitely to draw it

[Andy Turnbull]

No.

They should have just scheduled things a bit better and given Kordey more time. If it's a monthly comic schedule it as such and factor in such a thing as slow artists. It's not exactly a newsflash that Quitely is slow. Editorial can carry the can for that. Might be one of the reasons why Mark Powers was let go.

Andy

[The Doctor]

No. If Quietly had drawn it we would have had a handful of issues a year and I would have dropped it. Look at how bloody slow he was on All Star Superman for one thing. The model for comics is still that to make money they have to be published in serial form first then as a trade. It isn't financially viable to just do OGN trades or that is what we would have. Which is why I have contempt for creators who can't be arsed to get their comics out in time. This also causes silly delays between trades.

Oh for the days of the newsstands when creators knew they had to get books out on time or be shit canned.

-Ralph

[blueshift]

Mr Frank Quitely
Sitting at his little desk
Drawing potatoes

[Philip Ayres]

More on Dark X-Men and the current state of play to come, but (repeated from the comics review thread)

the idea of Mutants on a floating island nation in the Pacific made from the remains of Asteroid M. Well the original was properly destroyed waaaay back in New Mutants 19 (with the remains slavaged & destroyed in X-Men/Avengers) Whereas the second was rebuilt from Graymalkin and rebuilt to form Providence the floating the island home to Mutants in the Pacific ..... Oh dear ... so we've got a derivative storyline managing ignore an established story ? oh deary me....

[The Doctor]

I've been waiting for the Panini UK newstand reprint titles to reach a jumping on point for me and the X-Men one now has (Just starting Messiah Complex) anyway so I picked it up. £2.95 for 4 US comics? Can't argue with that. 5p cheaper than 1 US comic!

These titles are the ideal price-point for me if I just want to read certain stories in a disposable format that I wouldn't buy in trades or in expensive US single issue form as I don't have that level of interest but just want to know what's going on.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Poll of some interest over at CBR

goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/10/15/you-decide-09-who-was-your-favorite-penciler-during-claremonts-1st-x-men-run/

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

result: goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/10/20/you-decide-09-week-3-results/

New poll: goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/10/20/you-decide-09-who-do-you-prefer-cyclops-with/

[The Doctor]

The mind boggles. Coming soon: New Mutants Forever.

www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showpost.php?p=1508885&postcount=664

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

I wonder if they will extend this kind of thinking to all the titles, I bloody want Incredible Hulk: Forever by PAD and of course Warlock & The Infinity Watch Forever by Cosmic Jim and Street Poet Ray Forever.

Andy

[The Doctor]

And I want Excalibur: Forever in which Alan Davis picks up after #67 before it devolved into random x-pish.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Yes indeed!!!!

Andy

[jameso]

The first thing that popped into my head for what 'Forever' series I'd like to see was genuinely Furman and Wildman carrying Marvel US from issue 80.

[primenova]

Just seen cover for Dark X-men #2 - X-man is back in the same outfit from the end of the series [around #68-75]

[The Doctor]

Nov 2, 2009 11:15:32 GMT The Doctor said:

The mind boggles. Coming soon: New Mutants Forever.

www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showpost.php?p=1508885&postcount=664

-Ralph

And now, X-Factor Forever:
www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24084

-Ralph

[legios]

Dec 17, 2009 20:45:08 GMT The Doctor said:

And now, X-Factor Forever:
www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24084

-Ralph

As the possesser of a great, and self-admittedly irrational, affection for Louise Simonson's run on X-Factor I think it is fair to say that I will almost certainly be picking this up.

Karl