The X-Axis – 16 May 2010
So, let’s bring you up to date. Last week, I skipped doing any reviews, because I was still waiting for that week’s books to arrive, and it’s rather hard to review books you haven’t read. Now, those comics duly showed up on Monday. This week’s comic, on the other hand, haven’t. And so what we’re going to do is review books that came out a week and a half ago.
Not that I’m particularly bothered, to be honest – I have a pile of trade paperbacks waiting to be read as it is. But that’s why we’re running a week behind schedule here.
Oh, and before anyone asks, no, I haven’t read the Sentry story, and no, I’m not planning to. It does sound god-awful, but it’s the sort of god-awful which gets quietly forgotten after a fortnight, so who cares? Perhaps it’s an ironic meta-twist: for the Sentry to save the Marvel Universe, everyone must forget him again, and to achieve that, he strives to appear in the sort of stories everyone would prefer to pretend they never read.
Amazing Spider-Man #630 – The first part of “Shed”, a Lizard story by Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo. There’s a tried and tested formula for Lizard stories which has been in use for over 40 years; well-meaning Curt Connors tries another experiment, it all goes terribly wrong yet again, and he turns into a man-sized lizard and goes nuts. “Shed” doesn’t depart from that formula, so much as do it in the creators’ own style. And it works well; there’s a nice slow build to the inevitable, and Bachalo is clearly enjoying himself with the transformation. Actually, this is some of the best work I’ve seen from Bachalo in ages. For a good long while, he was producing work which was visually interesting but frequently obscure or downright unintelligible. This, however, is visually interesting while being absolutely clear and easy to read. Okay, a couple of his characters seem a bit off-model – his Peter Parker still doesn’t look quite right to me, even allowing for differences in style – but that’s minor. A good issue.
Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #1 – The first release from Marvel’s new, vaguely-defined Astonishing imprint. From the sound of it, the idea is that these ought to be continuity-light stories. They’re being sold as entertaining stand-alone comics that don’t require any knowledge of history and don’t interact with any other stories. Not sure I’d have chosen a cod-Silver Age adjective as the brand, but it doesn’t really matter. This miniseries is by Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert, and it opens with the heroes already stranded back in prehistoric times. Unfortunately, the meteor that annihilates the dinosaurs is on the way. It’s a solid opening, but one that leaves you wondering whether six issues of Peter and Logan trapped in a jungle might be a bit much. But then the story races through an explanation of how they got there (kind of), and then it ramps up the plot to a whole other level of epic madness by the end of the first issue, so that instead of stretching the concept to six issues, Aaron is actually bashing through it in an issue and moving on to something more. And Adam Kubert gets to draw a lot of weird stuff. It’s a fun, unpretentious and fast-paced action story, and that’s good enough for me.
Batman & Robin #12 – Erm… I have a sinking feeling that I’m not really very interested in any of this. We’re now in the territory of setting up the return of Bruce Wayne and messing around with established members of the cast who don’t particularly interest me. And there’s some decidedly ropey fill-in art in the middle of the issue, which doesn’t help. But I just don’t find myself with a reason to care about any of this. I suspect I’ll be dropping this book quite soon.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Eight #35 – Evidently building to the big climax, as baddies invade the earth and supporting characters get together to help fight them. Brad Meltzer, writing this arc, certainly has decent instincts for pacing a comic. And there’s an interesting idea in here somewhere, with Angel wanting him and Buffy to move on a higher plane and leave the world behind them to sort itself out. The problem is that the outcome of their dilemma is never really in doubt – aside from the fact that we all know the title character isn’t going to write herself out of the series, it’s never really presented as an attractive enough option to make it a properly dramatic dilemma. If anything, the big mystery here is why Angel thinks it’s such a good idea. For this to work, Buffy and Angel have to at least be toying with the idea that it’s All About Them. And of course, since they’re the lead characters, in a sense it is all about them. But there’s a leap of logic in making that the basis of a dilemma, which isn’t quite convincing.
Hellbound #1 – Or, if you prefer, X-Men: Second Coming – Revelations: Hellbound. But I’ll go with just Hellbound. This is a three-issue miniseries tying in with the “Second Coming” crossover. As it turns out, that means it’s a story taking place in the margins of the the crossover. Over in the main story, the bad guys are trying to take out all the X-Men’s teleporters, to mess with their transport. As a throwaway part of that story, Magik gets banished to Limbo. This story is about the team who get sent to bring her back – and while the likes of Gambit and Dazzler are in there to make up the numbers and give the cast some credibility, it seems to be mainly a sequel to the story where the New X-Men went to Limbo and got tormented by demons. This first issue is mainly devoted to Cannonball recruiting his team, and I quite like the way it’s played – the younger characters like Pixie and Anole flatly refuse to have anything to do with rescuing Magik until they’re directly ordered to do so. Partly it’s because of what happened to them in that New X-Men story, but partly – and this is the bit that intrigues me – they seem to be rebelling against their “second class character” status. They’ve seen nothing much to like or respect about Magik, and as far as they can see, they’re being told to drop everything and risk their lives to save her simply because she’s a more established character. The newer characters chafing against the X-establishment’s glass ceiling… I kind of like that as a dynamic.
iZombie #1 – A new series from Vertigo by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred. It’s one of those “monsters in the modern world” kind of set-ups. Gwen is a zombie, which wouldn’t normally be a promising start for a lead character. But fortunately, she remains pretty much normal as long as she remembers to eat brains once in a while. Which is why she’s working as a gravedigger. For the most part, this first issue is spent introducing Gwen and her similarly eccentric supporting cast, and it’s pleasingly quirky. The plotting is more dubious, though. The story tries to hold back the revelation that Gwen is a zombie for most of the issue, as if this could possibly be a surprise to anyone who had seen the cover or read the title. And it ends with a rather rushed scene where Gwen eats somebody who’s been murdered, and then promptly decides to go and investigate. Which makes me wonder whether the promising sitcom set-up that takes the greater part of the issue is going to end up turning into Tru Calling. There’s more good than bad in this first issue – much more – but it’s not an unqualified success.
Shadowhawk #1 – A relaunch of Jim Valentino’s 90s vigilante. It says “#1” on the cover, but I can only assume this is continued from somewhere-or-other. Basically, the original Shadowhawk is (for some reason) back in his old city, with nothing but the costume on his back. While he’s been away, a rather nicer Shadowhawk has been around. What sort of vigilante will he be? That’s more or less the deal. But it’s not very well done for new readers – the book seems to take familiarity with the character for granted, so it doesn’t even try to explain who he is, where he’s been, why he came back, or anything of that sort. From a combination of Wikipedia and guesswork, I’d assume this is something to do with Image United, but it would be nice to cover it here… or at the very least to sketch out the premise of the character. Not a good introduction to the character, and a bit clumsy in general – it’s pretty forgettable, all told.
Uncanny X-Men #524 – “Second Coming”, Chapter 6. This is basically a break in the action so that everyone can mourn Kurt and some people can glare at Scott. There’s evidently meant to be some tension here with Scott being blamed (and everyone being a bit unsure about Hope as well). In itself, this is a fine idea, but there are problems. If we’re now doing a story where everyone questions why Hope is so important and where Scott’s obsession with her is controversial, why has nobody questioned Hope’s importance until now? And is Kurt’s death really Scott’s fault in any meaningful way? It’s not like he sent Kurt on a pointless suicide mission. As so often with the X-books these days, the frustration is that the ideas are sound but the execution is wonky. “Why is Hope so important and do we trust Scott’s judgment?” is an interesting direction, but it’s a question that the characters should have been asking for two years, not two months. Still, there are good moments in here, and the book does go out of its way to give Kurt a proper send-off in his own title – though I’m still not sure which character is supposed to be officiating at the ceremony, because I can’t recognise him from the art…
I got the impression that it was Bobby performing the service. (Do Methodists have lay pastors? I have no idea, having grown up Anglican.) And, no matter how angry he is, Beast yelling “Summers!” at Scott just feels badly wrong.
Pretty sure that was meant to be Bobby performing the service, given Scott’s comment earlier about having him handle the rights, and the dialogue seems fairly in-line with his character, too.
What, there weren’t any Catholic priests available? Unglaublich!
//\Oo/\\
Who wrote/drew Hellbound? It sounds slightly interesting, but I’d like to know the creative team before deciding more…
Hellbound is by Chris Yost and Harvey Tolibau.
That was definitely Bobby. He is unfortunately not distinctive at all when he’s not made of ice.
You know, if it was Iceman officiating the service, you’d think that somebody on the team would object. I mean, Nightcrawler was a devout Catholic – hell, it was retconned, but he was an ordained priest at one point – and laymen officiating at a service is strictly forbidden under Catholic doctrine. You’d figure that somebody (Kitty? Northstar? Rockslide? One of the Hispanic characters?) would comment on this, either out of respect for Kurt or to question just how sensitive Cyclops is to his followers.
I imagine that, if nothing else, they probably didn’t want to invite a priest from the mainland over to Utopia at a time when there were a lot of people trying to kill everybody there.
Yeah, I’d say everybody understood it was a necessary “evil,” considering their current situation. (Also, “One of the Hispanic characters”?)
Kitty? The Jewish character that is currently in a stasis tube and incapable of communication should vocalize concern over Catholic rites??? Perhaps Wolverine given how vocal he was about his closeness to Kurt or Colossus who was with Kurt from all-new all-different, into excalibur, and back to uncanny.
uncanny: a typical fraction issue. good ideas, frustrating execution.
i was wondering wether the “ceremony-guy” was meant to be bobby. it doesnt make much sense, does it? the beast was written grossly out of character. and oh yeah, kitty! why did they even bother bringing her back at this point, if they were just going to forget about her like that?
hellbound: i dont like the art, and gambit bores the hell out of me, but the writing is solid and the team has the potential to be a lot of fun. was i supposed to recognize that beasty-thingy on the last page? im not very versed in limbo continuity. anyone?
Hellbound’s team was awesome! I’d love to see that grouping of X-Men in thier own title. It felt very fresh to me (which I don’t say often about the X-books these days sadly), good stuff!
Well, I’m sure Kitty’s got a role in this storyline, or they probably wouldn’t have. Magneto obviously does too.
As for Hellbound, I am into the team mostly, although I’m also not a fan of Gambit, and really, Dazzler doesn’t do a whole lot for me either. I’m crazy about Pixie and Anole though, and it’s nice to see Northstar doing something.
And the ending of Hellbound features S’ym and N’astirh, who were both major players in Inferno and appeared in a few other limbo stories.
Is it bad form to talk here about comics not directly reviewed (but at least mentioned in passing in the intro)? Because I’m really irritated with the conclusion of Siege in nearly every way, and have no other outlet that I frequent in which to talk about it.
I’ll throw out a few (spoileriffic) points, and if it’s a problem, Paul can delete the post, how about that? 🙂
The last issue of Siege was typically Bendis-ridiculous. The Void is unstoppable, though it doesn’t seem to DO anything. Loki powers up the heroes for two pages, then something very unclear happens to Loki, and the heroes aren’t powered up anymore. But they still beat the Void by, like, punching and zapping it. Bendis is master of the anticlimax.
Steve Rogers as the next totally unqualified America’s Top Cop? Meh. Registration repealed overnight? Well, glad to see it gone, but it didn’t even warrant a line of dialogue?
A pinnacle from the stupid stone version of Asgard that JMS’s run established is now sitting on top of Avengers Tower (along with the rainbow bridge to…where, exactly?). Stupid, and a lame visual.
Ben Urich leads the gods of Asgard in their rescue operations. Um.
Rogue’s been banging the (married) Sentry? WTF?
Thing hates the Sentry because the Sentry kept kept Thing from killing the Wrecker, who then went and murdered a bus full of kindergarden kids just out of spite? Yay Heroic Age!
And boy, aren’t I happy that at the end of all this, the same crowd of people will continue to write the Avengers-in-name(s)-only…
Things were going so well up until this week’s books, but boy, did the whole thing jump the tracks badly.
Well, I said Kitty primarily because of the time she spent with Nightcrawler in Excalibur and, as I understand her character she’s someone who’d speak up in these circumstances. Didn’t realize she was out of action.
And, yeah, I’m stereotyping, but given how deeply Catholicism is ingrained in Latin America, there’s a good chance that, say, Sunspot or Cecilia Reyes are likely to have been at least nominally Catholic. I figured one of them would at least comment on it. Probably not the most sensitive thing I’ve ever typed, but it’s not necessarily an unreasonable assumption either.
“Things were going so well up until this week’s books”
Whoa, hey now, buddy, that’s way out of line. Dark Reign was a mess to begin with.
Yeah, I misspoke. _Siege_ was going pretty well (tightly plotted by comparison to most crossovers, reasonably exciting and entertaining) prior to this week’s books. Dark Reign was an irritating fiasco, that’s true.
I ended my griping prematurely. Now that I think about it, there were still more things that annoyed me.
– Daken, the most irritating, worthless character to come out of Marvel in YEARS, slinked out of any of his well-deserved post-Dark Reign punishment completely untouched. If there was anybody that needed to be shown receiving multiple humliliating asskickings, it’s him. Instead, he gets off scot free. Yay Heroic Age!
– Well, at least we’re well and truly rid of the Sentry, so we won’t have any more stupid and pointless appearances from that personality-free character to deal with. Oh, wait, his pet robot is making vague threats and going off to await his return. Fantastic…
I thought Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine was one of the most fun comics I’ve read in ages. And I agree about Bachalo’s art in ASM 630. Although 631 has fill-in art and the story takes such a dark turn, I don’t know what to think. I’m not against extreme violence against a defenseless person, but I’m not sure I want that in a Spider-Man comic. (I hope that wasn’t a spoiler, I tried to keep it vague.)
I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to consider plot points from tie-ins when considering Siege itself, since Bendis probably had nothing to do with those. But regardless, Siege has turned out to be exactly the disappointment that Secret Invasion was, as well as Civil War before it. The difference being that I actually thought Siege was good for the first three issues.
I’m into Steve Rogers as “top cop” (there has really got to be a better way to describe that post), and I liked his interaction with Victoria Hand in Dark Avengers #16 (which was actually a good issue). But I don’t really buy that the Superhuman registration act was repealed overnight. Silly.
The Avengers Tower thing sort of confused me. Is it supposed to look like a sword or something?
The Urich stuff in Embedded was also silly as hell, I agree. Why would a bunch of gods need a middle-aged reporter to lead them around?
I don’t really know what to say about the Thing’s speech in Fallen Sun. Completely insane.
Incidentally though, the finales of Avengers: The Initiative and Mighty Avengers were pretty good!
Apologies if this is already “common knowledge”:
If “Astonishing” is going to be a new, continuity-light imprint, what does that mean for Astonishing X-Men? Is it being cancelled, renamed, shuffled off to the new imprint with the acknowledgement that it never really fit into continuity, just left as it is to be a source of confusion, or what? Does anyone know?
I’m pretty sure that Astonishing is done for. Warren Ellis has made some comments about the mini and the current arc representing the last of his Astonishing output.
It’s most likely that Astonishing is being replaced by the new X-Men series.
I’m very surprised that, having read as many X-comics over the years as you have, you’re not offended by Fraction’s horrible tone with the characters, his lack of respect for anyone but Cyclops (although he still can’t write him), in addition to his lame plotlines. It’s very obvious that he has never read the X-comics of yore and relies on interns to tell him continuity facts. I’m amazed that the X-editors don’t realize this and give a funeral issue to someone who actually does care about the X-men, like Yost or Carey. There are many problems with this issue – Bobby as a Methodist priest, Beast spraying spittle in Scott’s face, Scott referring to Amanda Sefton as Kurt’s sister – and they’re really too numerous to mention beyond that. I understand you try to take an objective, critical point of view, but why don’t you let the X-fan inside of you out and say something about it! Perhaps at this point, vast character consistencies aren’t something that matter to you anymore.
Not to be too negative or anything.
*inconsistencies
Also, if you would just like to see the offending material from that Sentry: Fallen Sun comic, a quick google of “Sentry Rogue” should bring it up quite nicely.
I liked the core Siege miniseries. I thought is was well-paced (especially compared to Bendis’ previous big events), reasonably exciting, and had a proper ending, rather than simply leading into the next status quo. (I mean, it did that too, but it still felt like the end of a story. Compare to Secret Invasion or House of M.)
I tend to agree about Daken, but remember he does have his own book with his own plotlines. Concessions must be made. Console yourself with the fact that Thor zapped the crap out of him in issue 2.
I didn’t mind the Sentry special until Thing’s speech, which was jarring. Then I remembered that this was written by the same guy who had a character say that Captain America sucked because he didn’t know what MySpace was. Jenkins can write some clunkers sometimes.
Why shouldn’t the SHR Act be repealed overnight? It was passed overnight… I had a bigger problem with a line (I don’t remember which book, but it wasn’t the main one) saying that the President overturned it. The President can’t overturn a law; only Congress can. (I suppose the President could have his agencies stop enforcing it, which may or may not provoke a Constitutional crisis, depending on which party controlled Congress at the time.)
Embedded was average; neither wonderful nor offensive. I didn’t mind Urich directing a rescue; he was the protagonist after all.
RE: ASM, only the first few pages of 631 was fill-in. Bachalo did the rest. And yeah, that ending was a gut-punch. Very well done, I thought, but I’m not a big fan of child-endangerment in my entertainment. At least, not when it goes beyond endangerment and into…
(I’m about to reveal spoilers)
…death. At least they kept it off-panel. On the other hand, I’ve never wished harder for an 11-year-old girl to be horribly killed before, and I’m not sure how I feel about THAT either. Regardless, I don’t know how Curt Connors can be usable after this arc.
ASM&W was great. Get Aaron on the Spider-crew, stat!
Andrew J, while I agree with most of your points about Fraction’s X-MEN, I thought I’d point out that Amanda Sefton IS actually Nightcrawler’s sister, just not through blood. Margoli Szardos raised Kurt as a foster son, and he grew up with Amanda as his sister.
“And is Kurt’s death really Scott’s fault in any meaningful way?”
Well, sure, in that he made at least one really stupid tactical mistake by sending Nightcrawler, the short-range teleporter, out to retrieve Hope (and thus exhausting him with a cross-country teleporting trip) when he had at least one long-range teleporter ready and willing to do the job. And of course, if you don’t think Hope is going to magically save the rest of the mutant species – and thus far the X-Men have no reason to believe that she will – then you’re going to think Cyclops got Nightcrawler killed for nothing.
Bachalo’s art has been great this arc but, having never read a Lizard story before, Connors’ missing arm popping in and out of existence a couple times was a bit confusing. If it wasn’t just an art mistake, I assume it was supposed to show he was on the brink of transforming, then stopped himself?
And that Sentry tie-in was just insane. The Thing hates the Sentry because he’s just so “right” about not killing bad guys who will later kill innocent people? Even though the Sentry just got the not-killing heroes to kill him in Seige, so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else? Okay then.
@Chris M. I know she’s his foster sister. What’s ridiculous is that Cyclops would even address her as such, given that it’s their most tenuous connection. She was his longtime lover. Cyke knows this, so does everyone else – they all spent time together. Having him stammering about it the way Fraction stammers about it when looking at an intern’s notes is not appropriate.
@Andrew J – Okay, when you put it like that I see what you’re saying and I agree with you. I thought you were pointing out Scott’s comments because you didn’t know they were foster siblings. My apologies.
Didn’t the 1980’s Iceman mini series establish that Iceman was half-Catholic half-Jewish? I remember him making a joke about his friends being jealous that he got both a Bar Mitzvah and a Confirmation party. I think it was issue #1.
Rob
Yes, it was Bobby, and Fraction went out of his way to qualify using him. He felt it was “important” to use an original X-man despite the fact that Bobby and NC don’t have the greatest history. Fraction was using this scene to bump Bobby into the position Beast and NC held as semi-important background characters if his interview on CBR is anything to go by.
Bobby, however, is not a methodist. He’s a non-practicing Jew/Catholic. That’s what his parents were and that’s what he was exposed to. Despite this, his 50 year history has always shown him as a WASP. He really had no business doing what he did in this issue when Xavier, Storm, and Northstar were there. With all the characters popping up on that island, I’m sure he could have found someoen more appropriate. Regardless, this issue felt more about Cyclops than it did about NC. THe opening 5 pages cement it. Who coldly steps over a dead body (Emma: “Dummy.”) to go calm down someone else? Why was Colossus not outside with NC, but instead was showing Kitty DVDs? Why was Domino there? So many problems.
Maybe the real problem is that Kurt and Amanda started dating even though they were raised together. And that’s a lot creepier than I ever really thought back in the day.
And actually, something that really weirded me out about the Sentry one-shot was how everybody was describing a character we never really saw on the page. When Bendis first brought the Sentry back (and during the second Sentry limited series), he did sort of work, or at least he had the potential to work. But over the last few years, he’s been 100% fucking insane, barely functional, and pretty much willing to do anything you say as long as you tell him he’s not crazy. They kept saying he always strove to do right, but the Sentry we knew had no idea what right even was.
But yeah. The bus full of kids thing. Yikes.
@Wanderer –
Xavier and Storm I can see, but why would Northstar have been appropriate?
Northstar is a catholic (and studied it for years, as did his sister), and it would have given him something useful to do other than being Dazzler’s gay BFF and background filler in UXM. If the writer chose to use an entire arc to bring Northstar into the book at the expense of other characters, then I expect him to actually do something with the character from time to time.
@moose n squirrel
At the very least, Nightcrawler died saving a teenage girl’s life, mutant messiah or not. As for teleporters, where in the world is Lila Cheney? Surely she’s worth tracking down as a pretty solid escape policy?
The real shame is that NC’s death is handled so poorly that it looses most of its impact. Why is Rogue not more torn up over her half brother’s death? Particularly when shes the one that saw it best? I don’t know where Nocturne is at the moment but shouldn’t she make an appearance if possible? What about Mystique? Now ive only ready the story synopsis since i buy x-men in trades, but it just seems odd that Rogue flips out at the Sentry’s funeral, but didn’t do the same at Kurt’s.
@Wanderer –
Aurora spent her childhood being taught by nuns at a very strict Catholic school, but the twins didn’t grow up with a shared background — they didn’t even know each other until they were adults. There’s nothing in his history suggesting that Northstar is anything but nominally Catholic, if even that. I do agree, though, that it’s a shame he’s been used as nothing more than filler since he arrived, though the same can be said for most of Fraction’s cast of hundreds.
Since when is Northstar catholic? Aurora was raised in a catholic boarding school, but he wasn’t (their real parents died, she was sent away to the convent, he was adopted by another couple who also died – Jean-Paul was a very unlucky toddler) and I don’t remember there ever being any mention of his religious background.
@Suzene – heh, beat me to it 🙂
It’s a fun, unpretentious and fast-paced action story, and that’s good enough for me
Me too, but it does make me a little sad that they need a new imprint for these stories, instead of having them in the main titles. Obviously there isn’t a Wolverine/Spider-Man main title, but you get my idea; I’d much prefer stuff like this in the core books than the endless Dark War Hulk Reign trudgery.
The title of iZombie is annoying. Is there a good reason why they’ve not gone with the more sensible I, Zombie, other than some bizarre attempt to seem “modern”?
And boy, aren’t I happy that at the end of all this, the same crowd of people will continue to write the Avengers-in-name(s)-only…
Yeah, I’m not interested in the “Heroic Age” of the Avengers, given that it’s being masterminded by the same bloke who’s misunderstood the Avengers for the past few years.
Like most people, I had a hell of a time figuring out who was supposed to be officiating at Kurt’s funeral. I had no idea what Iceman’s previously established religion was, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t a minister – still, I probably would have figured out it was him (his comment in the montage of people eulogizing Kurt made it clear he was an X-Man and not someone from the support staff or someone brought in for the funeral) if not for the fact that he had blond hair. Hasn’t Bobby always had brown hair? Is my memory that bad?
And Cyclops calling Amanda Kurt’s sister struck me as odd for a moment, but I sort of dismissed it as Scott not wanting to air dirty laundry. Even though it was always handled really poorly, they’d been paying a lot of lip service in recent years to Kurt being – or at least acting as – a priest, so mentioning (over his still warm corpse) that he used to have sex with a woman he hasn’t even really been keeping in touch with lately might seem awkward to Scott, especially when he can just basically say she’s family and need no further explanation as to why they should contact her. I don’t have the issue in front of me, but doesn’t he hesitate before calling her Kurt’s sister, like in “He had a … (oh lord, how do I describe THAT relationship in front of the kids?) … sister. We should call her.”
iceman has brown hair, but he has been drawn with blond hair for a while now. i remember first noticing it way back in the supernovas arc. i guess hes bleaching it, and it actually makes sense that they wouldnt make a big deal out of that.
and speaking of amanda: ist she a teleporter, too?
@kelvingreen
The book is titled “I, Zombie”, not “iZombie”, although to a certain point it can seem otherwise. The indicia has it as “I, Zombie”, while the little write up shows both “iZombie” and “i,Zombie”. I’ve got the Darwyn Cooke cover to the issue and it appears as “I, Zombie”.
‘Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine’ was absolutely terrific. More comics should be like that – great story, lovely art, nice pacing, just plain good fun. Loved the random baddie that turned up at the bank and his “orblings”. Really looking forward to more.
The conclusion to ‘Siege’ only highlighted how Bendis still doesn’t know how to write conclusions to big event books. It was a really weak finish. Loki just seemed to die somewhere and the final battle felt really flat. And the finales to ‘Dark’, ‘Mighty’, ‘Initiative’ & ‘New Avengers: Fallen’, were definitely needed to get the full picture, though in fairness they were all pretty good.
Will anyone really care that The Sentry has died? They had plenty of time and opportunities to do something with him but they continually failed. I had a flip through ‘Fallen Sun’ and just couldn’t believe how bad it was. I felt more sad for CLOC & the dog than any of the characters.
Would it be fair to guess that The Sentry was killed off to make room for Marvel Man? And what in the blue hell is the difference between the upcoming ‘Avengers’ & ‘New Avengers’ books?
@Wanderer
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed that Colossus error. The previous issue (I believe it was X-Force) he came back on the plane with the away team. Then in the Uncanny issue, he’s at Utopia with Kitty as the away team is returning? Seriously editors, do your job.
“iceman has brown hair, but he has been drawn with blond hair for a while now. i remember first noticing it way back in the supernovas arc. i guess hes bleaching it, and it actually makes sense that they wouldnt make a big deal out of that.”
I feel like they’ve been going back and forth for a little while now, for whatever reason.
“and speaking of amanda: ist she a teleporter, too?”
I doubt the X-Men know how to track her down at the moment though, since she was deposed.
“I had a flip through ‘Fallen Sun’ and just couldn’t believe how bad it was. I felt more sad for CLOC & the dog than any of the characters.”
Funny. So did I. I also felt bad for the Thing though, because he was obviously never treated for his severe mental illness.
Also, isn’t the Sentry’s dog just a robot offshoot of Cloc?
Yes, that Sentry book was awful. Nearly everyone acted out of character and the tease for Sentry’s return was completely inappropriate (yes, we all know he’ll be back, but at least try to make it seem permanent). I can’t believe Paul Jenkins still gets Marvel work after the Penance and Captain Marvel debacles.
I actually really like the first three issues of Siege – really fast paced, never boring, genuinely portentious… however, the way Sentry was defeated seemed flimsy and inconsistent. Helicarrier + Thor beat a guy that came back from the dead after every few issues of Dark Avengers and overpowered the Molecule Man? Really?
Hrm, I could have sworn Northstar made allusions to being catholic at some point. My bad if I only imagined it. 😛
Still, my problem with Fraction is that he has some nice ideas and never seems to follow through on them well. Most of his interviews make him seem like he understands his issues and is trying to fix them (most of the interviewers are really easy on him though), but he never really does fix anything. It’s so irritating.
@a_face, what was the debacle with Paul in regards to Penance and Captain Marvel? Paul seems to be really mixed in his abilities to deliver. I still remember how disappointed I was in his Front Line resolution with that female reporter going on about how out of touch Steve/Captain America was with today’s world.