REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 24 August 2008
Paul O'Brien
24 August 2008
==============
For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com
------------
This week:
X-FACTOR #34 - The Darwin Awards, part 3 of 3
by Peter David, Larry Stroman and Jon Sibal
X-FACTOR: LAYLA MILLER
by Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Andrew Hennessy and
Craig Yeung
YOUNG X-MEN #5
by Marc Guggenheim, Yanick Paquette and Ray Snyder
AIR #1 - Letters From Lost Countries, part 1
by G Willow Wilson and MK Perker
------------
Big event crossovers aren't what they used to be. Time was, a crossover
meant something like Infinity Crusade, a mind-bendingly convoluted
affair crossing over into ninety-seven titles, all of which you were
encouraged to buy. It was a nightmare. The kids loved it.
These days, Marvel are generally a little more reasonable about the
whole thing. True, we had "Messiah Complex" a few months ago, but
that's very much an exception in recent years. For the most part,
Marvel have settled into a formula where the basic plot is all in the
core miniseries, and the tie-in books tell stories in the margins. So
although there are tons of Secret Invasion tie-ins, for the most part
they're just stories where Hero X fights Skrull Y during the ongoing
invasion of earth.
Still, it boosts sales. And what's to stop some of the minor titles
crossing over with each other, to help the sales a little bit more?
That's what we've got with "The Darwin Awards", a three-part crossover
between X-FACTOR and She-Hulk which doubles as both books' Secret
Invasion tie-in. Both books are written by Peter David, and at least
She-Hulk has a convincing reason to be in the story: it's already got a
Skrull in its supporting cast. Oh, and it doesn't sell very well.
The first part of this story at least tried to keep the ongoing X-Factor
stories going, but with the concluding part, we find the book dutifully
playing its role in the greater scheme of things. In fairness, the story
does have an important function for this title - it adds Darwin, from
X-Men: Deadly Genesis, to the cast. But it does that by tagging him
awkwardly onto a story where a random Skrull happens to be passing
through Detroit, allowing X-Factor and the She-Hulk to gang up on him.
X-Factor have only just relocated to Detroit, so ideally they'd be
appearing in a story emphasising the new set-up. This is not that
story, and frankly, it feels like an intrusion into the book. I can't
really blame Peter David for that; there are understandable publishing
reasons for a B-title like X-Factor to join this crossover. But it's
not the story I particularly want to read.
This is also the first arc drawn by returning artist Larry Stroman, who
worked with David on a previous incarnation of X-Factor back in... oh
god, seventeen years ago. I'm so old.
Now, I really liked Stroman's work in 1991 (which sounds so much more
recent than "seventeen years ago", doesn't it?), when it was angular,
stylised, and generally rather interesting to look at. But I've got to
say, I'm not feeling it this time around, and to be honest, while I
haven't seen much of Stroman's art recently, it's been a while since
I've seen anything that really captured the freshness of his early
nineties work. There are some rather bland layouts here; there are some
flat-looking panels. There's some clumsy body language. And there's...
well, there's a deficiency of backgrounds. I've never been to Detroit,
but I could have sworn it was a city, not a desert wasteland with the
occasional vague outline of a ruin.
Mind you, there are also a few great dramatic moments, and a couple of
lovely panels with Madrox trying to swamp the She-Hulk in his
duplicates. There are glimpses of what I used to see in Stroman's work,
which makes it all the more frustrating that the rest of it isn't up to
the standards I know he's capable of.
This is an adequate story, and so far as the writing is concerned, it's
probably as good as you're going to get for a story that has the burden
of crossing over into two unrelated comics at once. But that's an
obstacle in itself, and the art isn't all it might be. Not one of this
book's better stories.
Rating: B-
------------
This week's other X-Factor offering is a LAYLA MILLER one-shot. Like the
recent Quicksilver book, The Quick and the Dead, this isn't really a
spin-off at all. It's essential reading for those following the regular
series, because it picks up on the fate of Layla Miller after she got
dumped in the future during "Messiah Complex."
I rather suspect that this is a story designed to give at least some
closure to a character who is being written out for the foreseeable
future. And on that level, it largely succeeds.
Layla does not lend herself to a solo story. Although she was
notionally created by Brian Bendis in House of M, she was little more
than a cipher in that series. The character as we know her was laid
down by Peter David in X-Factor, when he cast her as an enigmatic,
irritating child who was a literal know-it-all. Her role in the book
was to annoy other characters and nudge the plot along with shameless,
tongue-in-cheek contrivances.
Fine when she was on the margins, but this presents more of a challenge
once she takes centre stage. Layla's trademark is that she's a plot
cheat, and how do you build a satisfying story around that? The answer
is partly to focus on her limitations: Layla can only take advantage of
things that were going to happen anyway. And partly, the answer is to
let Layla have the importance her powers would suggest.
So what we get here is Layla escaping from the mutant prison camp where
we left her, thanks to particularly absurd, but paradoxically
satisfying, contrivance. And then she sets the ball rolling to start
the Summers Revolution. (Nitpickers will quite rightly point out that
the "Summers Revolution" is supposed to be from Bishop's timeline, which
ceased being a potential future back in the nineties when Onslaught
failed to wipe out the X-Men. But whatever.) And of course, because
we're probably not going to see her for a while, so it might as well
happen now, she gets to drop the mask and show emotion. For a couple of
panels.
This is the sort of story where Peter David really impresses me, not so
much because the results are fantastic, but because he's working with
such unpromising material and manages, yet again, to hammer it into
something worthwhile. For readers who are remotely interested to know
what happened to Layla, this is a thoroughly satisfying answer.
Rating: A-
------------
Of all the stories to launch out of "Messiah Complex", YOUNG X-MEN has
been by far the biggest misfire. This week sees the book conclude its
opening five-issue storyline, and leaves me none the wiser as to what
they could have been thinking.
Actually, my suspicion is that Marvel wanted to launch all these stories
out of "Messiah Complex", but had decided that they weren't starting the
San Francisco stuff until Uncanny #500, leaving everyone with several
months to twiddle their thumbs and fill time. That's just speculation
on my part - but it's the most plausible explanation I can imagine for
why this series would launch with a five-issue arc that doesn't
introduce the cast, doesn't set up the premise, and doesn't really
achieve anything.
Solicitations of upcoming issues suggest that we're about to get "the
younger mutants move to San Francisco and audition to be in the regular
cast", or something to that effect. That would have made sense for an
opening arc. What we actually got was a false start, in which an
impostor Cyclops recruits a bunch of minor characters into a new team,
and gets them to fight the original New Mutants. The big dramatic
pay-off is the death of one of the cast (as trailed in the first issue),
which is supposed to be a moving lesson about what it means to be a
proper X-Man - but the death toll in this book's predecessor, New X-Men,
was so far through the roof that bumping off another background figure
means nothing.
Marc Guggenheim writes the story passably, but the concept just doesn't
have much to it. It certainly doesn't seem to have engaged the interest
of artist Yanick Paquette, who turns in what I can only describe as a
cursory effort, with uninspired layouts and inexpressive, sketchy
figures. Sometimes he gets to draw naked women and he perks up a bit.
By delaying the San Francisco stories for a few months, instead of
jumping straight into them after "Messiah Complex", the X-books lost a
lot of momentum across the board. But Young X-Men has suffered more
than most, ending up with an opening storyline of no particular apparent
significance, and doing little to establish the premise of the series
beyond the bare bones that are obvious from the title.
For my money, they've botched this launch big time. A shame, because I
do like some of the characters, and I've enjoyed work by the same
creators in the past. But as an opening storyline, this hasn't worked
at all.
Rating: C
------------
Vertigo may have been returning to its old favourite themes of late, but
they haven't given up on being the HBO of comics just yet. Their latest
new series is G Willow Wilson and MK Perker's AIR, a curious piece about
a stewardess getting drawn into a world of vaguely surreal conspiracy.
I'm told this series started off as a graphic novel before being
converted into an ongoing series. (Which might explain the cover quote
by Neil Gaiman, who claims to have read the first six issues.) It's
certainly an unusual premise for an ongoing. Blythe, a stewardess for
Clearfleet Air, finds herself crossing paths repeatedly with the same
ethnically indeterminate passenger, who keeps changing his identity and
purported nationality. Meanwhile, she's also approached by a bunch of
oddball in-air vigilantes, with some rather unusual ideas about what
constitutes safe flying.
The plot fairly races by, and - aside from one awkward segue to a
flashback - the story bounces along with unusual speed. I'm not
altogether sure what to make of it, at least just yet. It's notionally
realistic, but at the same time, completely divorced from reality.
Wilson describes it as "the ordinary unreal" in her introductory essay,
which is as good a description as any. Artist MK Perker follows that
line, rendering everything as a superficially banal dreamworld.
It's the sort of story where most of the characters aren't people at
all, so much as personifications of fears about security. Blythe
herself, in uniform throughout, seems to embody the traditional
perception of air travel as a closed system somehow separate from the
real world. The other characters seem to be mainly influenced by the
paranoia over security which still doesn't seem to have subsided after
9/11 - although the story isn't interested in the nuts and bolts of
terrorism, so much as the way it's intruded into what was formerly a
psychological bubble.
All this makes it a story of ideas rather than of recognisable human
beings, plugging downright weird characters into a seemingly
conventional thriller story, to unusual effect. Provisionally, I rather
liked it, but it's the sort of series where after a single issue, you
could very easily be missing the point, or equally reading in something
that isn't actually there. Still, it's got my attention for now.
Rating: B+
------------
Also this week...
UNCANNY X-MEN #501 - Um. Anti-mutant Hellfire Cultists take to the
streets of San Francisco to beat up the newcomers, and meanwhile, the
X-Men move into their new base. (Again.) I wanted to like this more
than I actually did. There are plenty of decent ideas: I like the fresh
start, I like San Francisco, I'm happy to see Empath dusted off. The
crib is still a nice touch, even if Cable got there first. But this
isn't clicking for me. Partly, it's Greg Land's plastic, air-brushed
art, which is problematic at the best of times but just plain
embarrassing when the script actually calls for him to draw a
dominatrix. In concept, the Red Queen is nothing we haven't seen before
from endless Claremont stories; but Land's pornalike tracing really
brings out how stupid the whole thing is, in a way that's tough to
ignore. Moreover, though, the whole issue is shot through with that
"Isn't this cool? Isn't it? Isn't it? No, isn't it? No, but really,
isn't it? Isn't it, though? Isn't it?" vibe that used to get on my
nerves when Mark Millar was writing Ultimate X-Men. It's just trying
too hard and needs to chill out a bit, and it feels so excitably keen to
be loved that I feel terribly guilty for not loving it. Y'know, just
tell the damn story and let me figure out for myself that it's cool,
hmm? B-
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #15 - X-Men Team-Up continues with the Silver Age
version of Medusa, back in the days when she was an amnesiac member of
the Frightful Four. We're going way, way back here, and this is getting
into dreadfully indulgent nostalgia territory. There really doesn't seem
to be much point to it, other than to put the X-Men next to a version of
Medusa who hasn't been seen in decades, and say, "Look, remember 1967?"
I'm starting to tire of these formula guest star stories - have you
guessed? Rather more remarkably, the "Angel quitting" storyline is
hastily tied up when he just shows up on the final page, with his return
explained in a one-page epilogue drawn by Colleen Coover. It's a
baffling way of ending the book's first multi-issue arc, and frankly,
this book is in danger of losing its way. C
------------
There's more from me at If Destroyed, and apparently the Ninth Art
archive is going back online at some point...
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
Next week, ooh, tons. Angel: Revelations #4 continues Angel's revised
origin story. More Napoleonic fighting in New Exiles #10. The Banshee
arc wraps up in Ultimate X-Men #97. "Old Man Logan" continues in
Wolverine #68. Siryn guest stars in Wolverine: First Class #6. X-Force
#6 completes the first arc of mass slaughter. And Professor X confronts
Cyclops in X-Men: Legacy #215.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com
Billy Bissette
news:Xp9StdAb...@esoterica.demon.co.uk:
> THE X-AXIS
> 24 August 2008
> ==============
>
> Also this week...
>
> UNCANNY X-MEN #501
> The crib is still a nice touch, even if Cable got there first.
To me, the crib shows yet again just how crappy a husband Cyclops
is. He left Maddie and child for Jean. He left Jean for Emma. He
would have abandoned Emma for Jean's memory if it hadn't been for
Phoenix getting him past his sense of guilt.
He's deliberately hiding X-Force from Emma, knowing that even if
she didn't disagree with its purpose, she would disagree with some
of its roster.
Now he's pushing Emma away with his downright unhealthy and/or
creepy obsession with the new mutant baby that isn't his, but has
pretty high odds of being the reincarnation of his dead wife, or at
least in some manner related to her.
grinningdemon
<bai...@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>Paul O'Brien <pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote in
>news:Xp9StdAb...@esoterica.demon.co.uk:
>
>> THE X-AXIS
>> 24 August 2008
>> ==============
>>
>> Also this week...
>>
>> UNCANNY X-MEN #501
>
>> The crib is still a nice touch, even if Cable got there first.
>
> To me, the crib shows yet again just how crappy a husband Cyclops
>is. He left Maddie and child for Jean. He left Jean for Emma. He
>would have abandoned Emma for Jean's memory if it hadn't been for
>Phoenix getting him past his sense of guilt.
I chalk all this up to bad writing...Cyclops is one of my favorites
and, unfortunately, has rarely been written well...though I am fairly
happy with his recent portrayal.
>
> He's deliberately hiding X-Force from Emma, knowing that even if
>she didn't disagree with its purpose, she would disagree with some
>of its roster.
We'll have to wait and see how that plays out...I don't think Emma
WOULD disagree with the purpose...I just can't imagine why SHE would
given that her major motivation has always been protecting her own
(especially her students)...Jean, on the other hand, would be a
different story...and I'm not sure Emma would disagree with the roster
either...the only one she might have a problem with is X-23...and
that's debatable...Rahne is the other possibility but she's there by
choice so that's not really on Cyclops.
>
> Now he's pushing Emma away with his downright unhealthy and/or
>creepy obsession with the new mutant baby that isn't his, but has
>pretty high odds of being the reincarnation of his dead wife, or at
>least in some manner related to her.
He doesn't know about any possible connection to Jean or Phoenix (and
I"m still praying they won't take it in that direction)...he's just
trying to lead his people...he thought his species was dead and
everything he'd been working toward was done but that baby is the
ultimate hope for him...and I think Cable's involvement only heightens
this for him...his reaction works for me...and I don't know if you
read the Layla Miller one-shot, but it looks like he and Emma aren't
nearly done yet.
Billy Bissette
news:mta4b4te84411mdgo...@4ax.com:
I don't think Emma would disagree with the purpose.
I do think she'd object to X-23 being on the roster. She's been
written as protective of the kids. The whole reason Emma was bent
on driving X-23 out of the mansion and off the kids team was in an
attempt to protect the rest of the kids from her. Then she finally
became protective of X-23 as well.
Emma's presumably have the same objections that Wolverine had to
X-23's inclusion.
There's your bad writing. Remember when Scott was the one
protecting X-23? Now he's the one who doesn't care about her
mental state or emotional or ethical progress, not as long as he
gets something out of her being a killing machine.
>> Now he's pushing Emma away with his downright unhealthy and/or
>>creepy obsession with the new mutant baby that isn't his, but has
>>pretty high odds of being the reincarnation of his dead wife, or at
>>least in some manner related to her.
>
> He doesn't know about any possible connection to Jean or Phoenix (and
> I"m still praying they won't take it in that direction)...he's just
> trying to lead his people...he thought his species was dead and
> everything he'd been working toward was done but that baby is the
> ultimate hope for him...and I think Cable's involvement only heightens
> this for him...his reaction works for me...and I don't know if you
> read the Layla Miller one-shot, but it looks like he and Emma aren't
> nearly done yet.
Scott did have that locket moment with the baby. And he is
clearly obsessing over the child. This isn't leading his people.
It isn't seeing new hope for the future of mutants.
This is Scott building a crib for a kid that is not his own, who
is currently in the guardianship of another person, knowing his
significant other has some issues with having a kid of her own,
because he didn't get to raise the kid he had with his previous
wife, and because he has formed some sort of emotional attachment
with this child that has to be touching upon some similarities
with that same previous wife.
grinningdemon
<bai...@coastalnet.com> wrote:
Just because it's MORE bad writing doesn't absolve earlier writers for
their bad writing.
That said, I think they are purposely trying to show that Scott is
willing to go much further than he (or Xavier) ever was before...he's
seen Xavier's dream utterly fail and most of his people dead or
de-powered so he's reacting as though he's at war and taking steps
accordingly...he's fighting for the survival of his species and he's
willing to make moral sacrifices to get the job done.
>
>>> Now he's pushing Emma away with his downright unhealthy and/or
>>>creepy obsession with the new mutant baby that isn't his, but has
>>>pretty high odds of being the reincarnation of his dead wife, or at
>>>least in some manner related to her.
>>
>> He doesn't know about any possible connection to Jean or Phoenix (and
>> I"m still praying they won't take it in that direction)...he's just
>> trying to lead his people...he thought his species was dead and
>> everything he'd been working toward was done but that baby is the
>> ultimate hope for him...and I think Cable's involvement only heightens
>> this for him...his reaction works for me...and I don't know if you
>> read the Layla Miller one-shot, but it looks like he and Emma aren't
>> nearly done yet.
>
> Scott did have that locket moment with the baby. And he is
>clearly obsessing over the child. This isn't leading his people.
>It isn't seeing new hope for the future of mutants.
Nothing we've seen has suggested that the "locket moment" meant
anything to Scott...as far as we know, it was just a clue (or mislead)
for the readers. He's obsessing over the child because she is new
hope for the future of mutants...he says as much in the issue itself
and, given importance that has been placed on the new mutant birth in
the various x-books, it doesn't seem out of place at all.
>
> This is Scott building a crib for a kid that is not his own, who
>is currently in the guardianship of another person,
In the guardianship of his own son...who took the kid with the express
intention of safely delivering her back to him once it was safe to do
so (it's not really in the Messiah Complex storyline but it has been
made clear in Cable)...and, yeah, he's probably projecting some of his
own fatherhood issues but that seems understandable to me given the
situation.
knowing his
>significant other has some issues with having a kid of her own,
>because he didn't get to raise the kid he had with his previous
>wife, and because he has formed some sort of emotional attachment
>with this child that has to be touching upon some similarities
>with that same previous wife.
Again, we don't know that at all...we don't know that he thinks there
is a connection or even that there actually IS a connection to
Jean...you're just guessing...and guessing based on hints that have
been mainly for the reader...even Cable (who has obviously spent the
most time with the child) hasn't seemed to notice any of the hints.
Emma may not want to have kids of her own (yet) but she's been all
about caring for and teaching kids going all the way back to her
earliest days as a villain (the difference is her motivations)...that
said, the points you've brought up will probably be addressed down the
line as the scene seems to be setting up just that (and it doesn't
hurt that a future cover of Cable shows Emma holding the baby in
question) so give them a chance to get there.
Jinx
> THE X-AXIS
> 24 August 2008
> ==============
>
> For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
> X-Axis mailing list, visithttp://www.thexaxis.com
>
> ------------
>
> YOUNG X-MEN #5
> by Marc Guggenheim, Yanick Paquette and Ray Snyder
>
> For my money, they've botched this launch big time.
I'd go further and say they've botched the launch of the "younger
generation of mutants" title AGAIN.
New Mutants/Academy X/New X-Men stumbled badly out of the gate and
never found solid footing despite a number of makeovers.
Generation X had a solid run, but the characters, with a couple of
exceptions, got lost after the title ended.
Was the success of the original New Mutants book such a inimitable
fluke? Or perhaps my view is skewed by nostalgia because those
characters were my peers.
But really, can it be THAT HARD?
>
> Also this week...
>
> UNCANNY X-MEN #501 - Um. Anti-mutant Hellfire Cultists take to the
> streets of San Francisco to beat up the newcomers, and meanwhile, the
> X-Men move into their new base. (Again.) I wanted to like this more
> than I actually did. There are plenty of decent ideas: I like the fresh
> start, I like San Francisco, I'm happy to see Empath dusted off. The
> crib is still a nice touch, even if Cable got there first. But this
> isn't clicking for me. Partly, it's Greg Land's plastic, air-brushed
> art, which is problematic at the best of times but just plain
> embarrassing when the script actually calls for him to draw a
> dominatrix. In concept, the Red Queen is nothing we haven't seen before
> from endless Claremont stories; but Land's pornalike tracing really
> brings out how stupid the whole thing is, in a way that's tough to
> ignore.
I can't help but think that artists like Greg Land and the Dodsons are
being somewhat wasted on xbooks (which are somewhat artist proof wrt
sales) when other books could be bolstered by their cheesecake
influenced styles (no judgement on the validity of said style
intended, it has its place). Perhaps working on an Xbook is a request
from the artists themselves. I would think struggling books like
Ms.Marvel or She-Hulk would benefit from the boost of such a high
profile artist team that draws "hot" women.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Aug 24, 4:20 pm, Paul O'Brien <p...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> THE X-AXIS
>> 24 August 2008
>> ==============
>>
>> For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
>> X-Axis mailing list, visithttp://www.thexaxis.com
>>
>> ------------
>>
>
>> YOUNG X-MEN #5
>> by Marc Guggenheim, Yanick Paquette and Ray Snyder
>>
>
>> For my money, they've botched this launch big time.
>
>I'd go further and say they've botched the launch of the "younger
>generation of mutants" title AGAIN.
>New Mutants/Academy X/New X-Men stumbled badly out of the gate and
>never found solid footing despite a number of makeovers.
I quite liked this incarnation throughout the run and was disappointed
when they ended New X-Men...especially given it's replacement...which
is actually the same generation...it's just awful. New
Mutants/Academy X/New X-Men had a lot of great characters (even after
they started killing everyone off) and an interesting premise...at
least to me.
>Generation X had a solid run, but the characters, with a couple of
>exceptions, got lost after the title ended.
I could never really get into this book...I liked Emma Frost and
Banshee but I really only liked a couple of the team members and very
much disliked most of them...I wasn't sorry to see this one go but I'm
glad that the characters I actually liked have been incorporated into
other teams.
>Was the success of the original New Mutants book such a inimitable
>fluke? Or perhaps my view is skewed by nostalgia because those
>characters were my peers.
>But really, can it be THAT HARD?
Why not? As popular as the X-Men still are, have they ever really
made it back to the popularity or quality level of the heyday of the
first Claremont run? Because I don't think so. Part of the reason
New Mutants worked so well back then is that the X-Men Universe was
still a relatively small place back then...a spin-off was a welcome
addition...these days, there have been some many x-titles that have
come and gone over the years and many fans groan at the mention of a
new book springing up...the market is saturated.
>
>
>>
>> Also this week...
>>
>> UNCANNY X-MEN #501 - Um. Anti-mutant Hellfire Cultists take to the
>> streets of San Francisco to beat up the newcomers, and meanwhile, the
>> X-Men move into their new base. (Again.) I wanted to like this more
>> than I actually did. There are plenty of decent ideas: I like the fresh
>> start, I like San Francisco, I'm happy to see Empath dusted off. The
>> crib is still a nice touch, even if Cable got there first. But this
>> isn't clicking for me. Partly, it's Greg Land's plastic, air-brushed
>> art, which is problematic at the best of times but just plain
>> embarrassing when the script actually calls for him to draw a
>> dominatrix. In concept, the Red Queen is nothing we haven't seen before
>> from endless Claremont stories; but Land's pornalike tracing really
>> brings out how stupid the whole thing is, in a way that's tough to
>> ignore.
>
>I can't help but think that artists like Greg Land and the Dodsons are
>being somewhat wasted on xbooks (which are somewhat artist proof wrt
>sales) when other books could be bolstered by their cheesecake
>influenced styles (no judgement on the validity of said style
>intended, it has its place). Perhaps working on an Xbook is a request
>from the artists themselves. I would think struggling books like
>Ms.Marvel or She-Hulk would benefit from the boost of such a high
>profile artist team that draws "hot" women.
It's the nature of the industry...high-profile creators get the
high-profile assignments...you're right that the lower-tier books
could benefit greatly from some A-List talent but it's just not they
way they operate...aside from the occasional fluke like Dave Finch on
Moon Knight or Neil Gaiman on the Eternals.
Taff...@gmail.com
characters. But Marvel screwed around with it and it lost
readership. Seems current Editorial policy to to put Ms. Marvel and
She-Hulk into every conceivable crossover as major characters (She-
Hulk in particular, which was crossed with World War Hulk, Avengers
Disassembled, and now Secret Invasion, and still sucks in the sales
department) but Academy X was not liked by the EiC and got canned
without much of a push. She-Hulk sells an abysmal 20,000 or less a
month but the EiC simply loves the character (3 reboots in one year
where some more popular books get canned or get one relaunch every
decade).
Says a lot about why Young X-Men is so bad, the writer is trying to
please Editorial. Or Editorial is trying to please Quesada and
Brevoort.
grinningdemon
Or maybe Guggenheim just isn't any good...I've yet to read anything
he's written (Spiderman, Wolverine, Young X-Men, etc.) to make me
think otherwise.
Billy Bissette
news:r5s6b4t3agju2v6gg...@4ax.com:
>>I can't help but think that artists like Greg Land and the Dodsons are
>>being somewhat wasted on xbooks (which are somewhat artist proof wrt
>>sales) when other books could be bolstered by their cheesecake
>>influenced styles (no judgement on the validity of said style
>>intended, it has its place). Perhaps working on an Xbook is a request
>>from the artists themselves. I would think struggling books like
>>Ms.Marvel or She-Hulk would benefit from the boost of such a high
>>profile artist team that draws "hot" women.
>
> It's the nature of the industry...high-profile creators get the
> high-profile assignments...you're right that the lower-tier books
> could benefit greatly from some A-List talent but it's just not they
> way they operate...aside from the occasional fluke like Dave Finch on
> Moon Knight or Neil Gaiman on the Eternals.
Marvel will switch up artists when they want to push a book,
though they probably do this more for launches and major writer
changes.
Considering that they've on and off pushed Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk
for the last few years though, I actually am a little surprised they
haven't tried putting a more cheesecake (or pornface) artist on them.
Of course the "high profile artists" probably prefer being on big
titles themselves.
grinningdemon
That's probably true...when it comes to putting the big-name creators
on less popular books or characters, as you say, it usually only
happens for the initial launch...and, even then, usually only when the
character(s) have been idol for an extended period...She Hulk and Ms.
Marvel have essentially been constant fixtures in the Marvel Universe
for the last several years so getting that type of creative push is
unlikely at this point.
Donnacha
"Billy Bissette" <bai...@coastalnet.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9B06825AF315...@216.168.3.70...
>
> Considering that they've on and off pushed Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk
> for the last few years though, I actually am a little surprised they
> haven't tried putting a more cheesecake (or pornface) artist on them.
> Of course the "high profile artists" probably prefer being on big
> titles themselves.
Hmmmm, just thinking - Dazzler relaunch where she doesn't look like a manga
character drawn for 6-year-olds (not a fan of the New Excalibur look),
mmmmm!
D.
grinningdemon
I don't think a solo book is going to happen any time soon but I
believe Dazzler is about to pop up in Uncanny X-Men...don't know about
the look though (I'm not a fan of the New Excalibur look either).