Honestly there are a lot of evil bears in the Marvel universe.
I’m just now getting back into the X-books. I started reading Uncanny X-Men with issue 207; the one with that bad ass drawing of Wolverine cutting the cover. Shortly after that, I started reading New Mutants and X-Factor. I was a really big fan until the X-Cutioner’s Song tie in. I left the books after that. I’m now reading Astonishing X-Man and X-Factor. Ellis’ run on Astonishing is much slower than Whedon’s but I expect it will hit its pace very soon. I’m really loving the crime noir feel of X-Factor and the focus on the second string mutants.
I just finished reading the new New Mutants trades and am considering following that group into Young X-Men.
Hold up right there mate; Young X-Men is rather slow and not much interesting stuff have happened in it yet, I say put it on hold til it gets good.
Instead, read X-Men Legacy and the current X-Force series, they are awesome.
That actually looks like it could be entertaining. I think the colors are a little too modern-looking, though. They could stand to be a little more washed-out looking, especially the lighting effects. The colors don’t jibe well with the lettering style. Too bad it’s $3.99.
I say this for like every book, but it could have used some Mignola. Preview was really interesting though, I’d never even heard of it before now.
Fred Van Lente? What’s this guy done? I’ve never heard his name before.
He also worked on the first Herc story arc post WWH.
young Xmen really sucks. Even with this new arch about ink. the book pales in comparison to NEW Xmen which was AMAZING!! New xmen had everything a new xbook needs challenging situations, a bit of desperation in the air, love triangles, distrust, a killer cast of mutants that could be killed off at any moment, great artwork…
yeah new xmen was awesome young xmen sucks. And where the fuck is prodigy!
Legacy and xforce are currently the only real intresting xbooks. uncanny is a little to pixie centered I hope uncanny gets better once rogue comes back.
I pretty much agree fully
X-Infernus #1
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=92159514&blogID=452023400
WHOA loved Magik’s original mini-series and Inferno. Looking forward to this one. :lovin:
So I finally read Magneto: Testament a few days ago. It’s worth reading once, I suppose, but I don’t think it is an essential read, not for Magneto fans, and probably not for Holocaust fans.
I appreciate the time and effort Greg Pak put into his work to make the story historically accurate. And out of all the Pak comics I’ve read, this is probably the one that I feel has the most of his heart and soul. It’s obvious that this is an ambitious work.
And while it’s eminently readable, even laudable for its intent, ultimately I don’t think it’s an exceptionally good comic. I found it to be deeply flawed, though I know that the intentions behind it were pure.
The problem for me is that there’s absolutely no reason why this comic has Magneto in it. If it had concerned itself primarily with being a WWII Holocaust story, it would have been far more powerful. Inserting a fictional character into a historical event is often tricky to pull off successfully, and I think Testament fails because Magneto adds nothing to the story. Putting Magneto into what is a very serious and painstakingly-researched Holocaust story just doesn’t work because it cheapens the whole thing. Pak constantly inserts little details or events that remind us that young Max is the Master of Magnetism, but the story honestly would have been much better if those parts were removed. It’s all so needless.
(A better example of inserting a fictional character into a historical event is Millar and Kaare Andrews’ work on Wolverine #32, where Logan is placed into a WWII concentration camp. Here, the story is not so much about the Holocaust but more of a vehicle to tell a '50s style horror comic book tale while remaining true to its historical setting. Surely, a different ambition from Testament, but far superior execution.)
As a Magneto story, Testament doesn’t work, either. What does it really add to the Magneto mythos? Little tidbits like young Max having an uncle named “Erich” which I suppose meant to foreshadow Magneto’s later alias, Erik Magnus Lensherr? Seriously, who cares about minutiae like that? I guess the counterargument would be to say that Testament shows what Magneto had to go through in his life. I actually find that reasoning somewhat insulting because Magneto grew up to be (as Grant Morrison would say,) “a terrorist twat.” It’s not that I am uncomfortable sympathizing with an unlikeable protagonist, but trying to encourage the audience to root for Magneto because he was a victim of the Holocaust cheapens the ordeal.
I also found it funny that the TRADE, BABY contained a heavy amount of backmatter, including a teaching guide. That’s very admirable, but also kind of, well, pretentious in a kind of self-aggrandizing way. I mean, if you’re a teacher and you’re going to teach your students about the Holocaust, why not teach them using a much more highly-regarded book? Why use a random, obscure (in terms of the mainstream consciousness) X-Men-related comic book? And if you really insist on using comics to teach them, why not use Maus? Or Joe Kubert’s Yossel? This goes the other way, as well: if you’re a teacher and you wanted to teach your students about comics, why not use a better comic? Like… Maus?
I know Sano loves this comic and I don’t mean to crap on it. There are things about it that I do admire, particularly the heart behind the story. But the execution just did not succeed in my view and that is why I think Magneto: Testament is a deeply flawed comic.
Oh hey don’t worry about it. Always good to hear different opinions.
Hope the last hope of survival muties all over is being protected by Cable who for the most part doesn’t even have any mutant powers anymore. That’s… ironic. And funny too.
Was being protected by Cable, who is apparently dead now. Rogue remains as her guardian of sorts presently.
That post before you was from April lol. Nice thread ressurection. I wouldn’t consider her Hope’s guardian, I believe Hope is big enough to look after herself now. She’s just important, thus they always keep a big gun near her.
BTW: Rogue sucks.
How is X-treme X-Men? It seems to have been written by Claremont, which is shying me away from it.
For those that have read it, could you give some impressions please? If there are some story arcs better than others, please recommend them I wouldn’t mind skipping some stories with this book.
Don’t read it. Almost nothing of any importance happens and it never gets referenced. Maybe Psylocke’s death, but she’s alive now so that doesn’t matter. No new characters and villains resurface from it. It’s pretty much a forgotten run. You might as well read fan fiction instead.
The only plus is Larroca’s pencils were at their best which is why I read it when the issues were dropping. He’s still a great artist though but I liked him more before his art style changed drastically. His short Ryu vs. Ken story in the SF comic was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen from him. That point is right around his style change, but he’s gotten a lot better with that style since.
I still can’t believe Claremont named an alien villain KHAN…
aLRIGHT thanks for the info Sano. I ask because they gave Storm a color pallete that is the same as her default one but the cape is red XD. …and that outfit is from when Storm went to Japan.