THE RETURN OF THE STRIPE!!!
SCAVENGER
asked me to post it for him. enjoy!
----SCAVENGER
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"Don't call me Stripe." --Rogue, Richard Darwin #3
First off, I have a headache, so I'm afraid that I just can't write tonight,
honey...
HA! The Stripe is late enough as it is, so let's move on in and damn the
torpedos, damn the depth charges, damn all the innocent little jellyfish blown
to four pieces by all those weapons...
PRESENTING...
the return of
The Stripe,
being: the official newsletter of the Rogue Fan Club, published
monthly (more-or-less), sent out over the phosphor net.waves, to
seek out YOU, kind reader, and dwell in your brain.
Long time RFC'ers will notice that this is a large Stripe, even for Stripes.
This Editor is well aware of that, and will warn all concerned: this is
big, folks. Don't lift this without a doctor's permission.
Given that, let's get going....
*****************************************************************************
Contents:
--Dave's Id (Editorializing)
--Skunk Watch (Summer Swimsuit Edition)
--SoapBox (RFC'ers sound off)
--The RFC (what should we be?)
--Coda
--ob.LNH joke
*****************************************************************************
First off, thanks very much to everyone for putting up with the lateness of
the Stripe. As older RFC'ers know, the membership of the RFC grew to the point
that my poor, CMS-based mailer last year committed a horrible hari-kari all
over my local server, causing no less than four simultaneous core dumps
into my system, plus other assorted joy in the local area. This led me
and my sysop to have a meeting of minds, and it wasn't until recently that
I dared poke my head out again with another large mailing.
However, part of the reason why I made the Stripe: an email-forum for
discussion of things X-ish, has been, IMO, largely taken over by the
sudden appearance of r.a.c.x., where we can discuss mutants to our hearts'
content without other r.a.c.'ers getting annoyed at us.
This leaves me with some problems. What should the Stripe become? Just a large
Skunk Watch for Rogue fans? A place for us to trade Rogue/X-Men/Marvel fiction?
Hmmm..... Well, more on this later.
To the rest of you, welcome aboard. The Rogue Fan Club was set up in
about... well, somewhere in the early 80s, when the Secret Wars limited
series, of all things, convinced David R. Henry that Rogue was a fascinating
character. Membership is open to anyone who doesn't feel silly about being
a member, and dues, for at least now, are nominal (that is, FREE, y'all).
There are some other RFC's out there, I've heard, but this one has now
almost one hundred members (almost all of them net.based), an Official,
Top-Secret Club Greeting ("Hi."), and a Cheerful, Neat-O pin, which says
"Rogue Lives." Membership also gains you an email or snailmail subscription
to the Stripe, which you see, this time only, right here, right now.
Let's move on to the main body of the work right now, before returning to
the nuts and bolts of the RFC. Presenting:
*****************************************************************************
The Skunk Watch!
Every appearance of Rogue anywhere! If I've missed something, PLEASE, let
me know (my collection will not be complete! :-)
Since the last Stripe, which came out sometime near the Ice Age, if my
memory is correct, here's where Our Lady of Green and White has been showing
up...
***
The Infinity War (Limited Series, #s 1-6)
Writer: Jim Starlin
Pencils: Ron Lim
Inker: Al Milgrom
Well, here it is. ANOTHER cross-over featuring Golden Boy, Adam Warlock,
and his band of goofy space gods. Compared to the inaction of the Infinity
Gauntlet (yeah, sure, all the heroes are dead! Why don't you just kill
SUPERMAN while you're at it, huh? Oh, wait... too late), the IW has at least
a bit of myster: the source of the Magus' powers. For those of us only
buying it for Stripe purposes, though, the ratio of price to Greeness was
a bit too low. Luckily for you Editor, though, it also contained some decent
Dr. Doom stuff, and a passable script, if not plot, helping make it almost
palatable most of the time.
The plot, if you haven't already read it, was that Warlock's unlamented
vanished other-self, the Magus, returned from Comics Limbo, bringing with
him a whole gaggle of replicants of Earth's heroes. He then proceeds to
Take Over the Universe, with the usual expected outcome. Things go boom!,
bombs go whee!, much punching, much scowling, much energy blasting. The whole
thing is saved by Starlin's still-evident writing skills, Lim's able if
unstunning pencils, and some decent crossovers, which provided two vital
services:
1. Making the War seem even longer than it really was! I mean, there were
only three real fights in the whole war: at the FF Plaza, at the "relay
dimension," and at the "trap dimension" that Thanos led the heroes to to keep
them out of his... well, his hair, if he had any. However, thanks to the
miracles of crossover duplication, we saw the same fight from as many as FIVE
books, thereby making a small skirmish seem an unending Gotterdamerrung.
Infinity War, indeed!
2. Making some decent sub-plots to fill out Starlin's cosmic musings.
One of the best was provided by Starlin himself, in the Gamora solo in
Warlock and the Infinity Watch #9. The New Warriors and Quasar X-overs
weren't bad, either, although fans of the NW tell me that's just par for
the course in that book.
As far as I'm concerned, though, the main thing the IW did was bring Rogue
cameos to books she'd never been seen in before. So, on top of her being
in all six of the above issues, look for Rogue appearances in:
**Fantastic Four #367, 368, 369
Tom DeFalco does the "spotlight on individual members" storyline again,
with Paul Ryan doing unusually sorry-looking Rogues in the background,
although she does get the deathless lines "Archangel's down! Warlock
stunned him!" in #369. Oh, yes, not only do you get all this, Fervent Ones,
you also get the Return of LYJA! Yep, dressed for vengeance. Oh, joy.
**Moon Knight #41
Question: how far can a book get from its roots and still be good? Well,
see Sandman, Doom Patrol, or even Ghost Rider for the answer to that
question.
Question: how far can a book get from its roots and be so very, very bad?
Ah, here you see recent Moon Knights. Thankfully, Rogue only appears at the
FF fight scene, with no lines, memorable or no. Gary Kwapisz does the
art chores here (and it certainly looks labored), with the indestructable
Tom Palmer doing inks.
**New Warriors #27...
...wherein we start entering the area of "artists who draw Rogue kinda the
way Adam Hughes does." Darick Robertson is the artist here, although he
reminds me of Steve Lightle more than anything else. Aside from a general
boring posing routine in his crowd scene, his Rogue (staring down a She-Hulk)
is not bad. I am, however, beginning to look forward to the day she loses
the long-Lee 'do and changes costume again. The flight jacket can stay,
though.
**Quasar #38, 39
Mark Gruenwald keeps on filling in all those spaces and plot holes in
the Marvel Universe, and this time he's got Greg Capullo and Harry
Candelario doing the snapshots in 38, and the nicely-shaded Steve Lightle
for 39. Rogue, of course, merely aptly fufills her character in background
scene quotas here. And, yes, she is in #39. Look on the group shot on page
3, right above Cap's dialogue. And, yes, I bought this issue for that little
smudge alone. And, yes, it is true, the Star Brand is also in these issues,
brought to the Marvel Universe and tied into the Chief Examiner storyline.
I'm assuming that the MU Pittsburgh is not going to be a nice place to live,
soon...
**Wonder Man #13, 14, 15
And here we have Jeff Johnson, a man who draws enough like Adam Hughes that
I'd like to see the genetic analysis. He does a gorgeous job on Gerald Jones'
decent script, which includes a sly parody/observation on all the mass fight
scenes these crossovers generate to cover up their lack of plot. #13 also
has the first appearance of the "Dark Rogue" of the Magus, although only
on the cover, and not in the comic itself. Rogue actually gets to speak in
#14 (and to Thor, of all people!). Silliest bit is in #13, where the Magus-
Reed Richards punches Rogue in the face... and she reels from it! Dark
Rogue also is in #15.
**Warlock and the Infinity Watch #8
Jim Starlin writes, Tom Raney holds in for the always-vacationing Angel
Medina, and Rogue gets the usual guest-shot on the last page (with my
favorite Thanos line of the whole series right under her). More philosophical
space noodling from Starlin, which at least reads better than the then
subsequent five issues of non-stop fight.
And as for the IW itself, look for Rogue in all of the groups scenes including
the X-Men. My favorite bit is the Rogue/She-Hulk/Gamora dust-up in #4,
although Thanos, as usual, gets all the good lines. "Dark Rogue" appears on
the cover to #4, and in the issues #5 and 6.
Oh, and hey... if this wasn't enough fun the second time around, Jim
Starlin is going to go for the world record in "How many times can my
characters threaten the Universe, anyway?" with the upcoming Infinity Crusade.
Look for it, probably accompanied by the sound of manly weeping if you're
near me, in stores, eventually.
Final evaluation: A decent idea, ruined by too many damn crossovers,
which extended what should have been a nice, tight story into a taffee-like
morass.
Rating: One glove, with a flight jacket patch thrown in for good intentions.
***
Now, hey, kids, as long as we're talking crossovers, let's talk Gratuitous
Crossovers. And when we're talking Gratuitous Crossovers, the Infinity War's
got nuthin', son, on the Marvel UK titles. They are required, in their
American versions, to have a guest star from Marvel US *every* *single*
*issue*. What's more, the pages with American guest stars *aren't in* the
British versions, or so I've been told, being added in the general belief,
I guess, that brain-dead American Marvel Zombies won't pick up any British
book without some American heroes in it.
Actually, a few of the titles have been handling it well... Warheads, in
particular, is an outstanding title, especially in how writer Nick Vince
managed to work the required crossovers in while:
a) not messing up the continuity and pacing of his own story
b) actually adding something to the storyline as a whole.
See the first issue, with how he treats the by-now cliche Wolverine
guest appearance, for the best example of this.
But, hey, this isn't the Logan Home Knitting Society (knit one, pearl
two OUCH!), it's the RFC. And Rogue, sadly, is stuck in Hell's Angel (soon
to be Dark Angel... don't want to offend any Satanist, after all), along
with the rest of the X-Men, MyS-Tech Corporation, a whole gaggle of half-
souled dead dudes, ninja dog warriors, and a whole parcel of other plot
elements, carefully selected so that only those elements which actively
muddy the plot actually make it in.
The plot involves Shevaun Haldane, daughter to Ranulph Haldane, who is
a techno-wizard of MyS-Tech, which is Mephisto's main soul collection agency
on Earth. Ranulph dies in an attempt to double-cross Mephy, and some
Phantom Stranger rip-off called the Dark Angel, "guardian of souls who leave
the mortal plane through the portal of death," (As if there are a lot of
other ways to leave the mortal plane) contacts Shevaun, and convinces her
that to clear her family karma, she should become the Hell's Angel, and
gives her a costume consisting of a "shread of the FABRIC of the UNIVERSE."
As shreads of universal fabric go, it's not exactly a thrilling costume,
being a uniform black, and it has the funky effect of turning Shevaun into
one big cosmic Hoover vacuum cleaner, except in reverse, with whole bunches
of odd stuff just starting to poke out of her stomach. Like the armor she
pulls out of her in #1, or the Guide who pops out to say hello in #2.
This is not a bad idea for a book, and it would have worked fine, until
the editor foolishly decided to add a plotline to the title, which soon
devolved into the goofy, almost Dr. Who-ish "random location of the week"
storyline us devoted Hell's Angel readers are now suffering through.
Oh, yeah, Rogue! Well, it turns out that the creation of Hell's Angel
is sufficient to trigger Cerebro (was it, then, a MUTANT shread of the
fabric of the universe?), but not, of course, all the mystic-tech do-hickeys
of MyS-Tech, which include a model of the world where anything that happens
on the model, happens on the world. Nice thing to have around the office,
if you can spare the change.
Anyway: Hell's Angel is detected. Charlie X sends the X-teams out. They
collect Shevaun, bring her back to the X-Mansion for testing, she blasts
through the roof of the Danger Room, and flies away. There. That's it.
The plot to issue #1, from the X-Men's point of view. Rogue stands in
the background, something she got a lot of practice in this summer, and
looks confused/pensive/upset/etc., as the situation demands. And that's
writer Bernie Jaye, Geoff Senior on pencils, and Cam Smith on inks you
can thank for it. I'd also like to add that the letterer is "Glib," which
goes beyond funky to the realm of "Oh, wow!"
Things just get more funky as we go along. Here, a quick tidbit of the plots
of HA, and what Rogue does in them...
#2: The Guide (that's his name, don't wear it out) warns HA by climbing
out of her stomach that there's something wrong going on. They
travel to the Dead Zone, and pick up bunch of half-souled dead
superpeople (all actual Marvel characters, from what I could tell),
and use them to fight ninja Psycho-Warriors in Japan, where
the X-Men appear, being able to trace Hell's Angel with Cerebro.
Much Butt is Kicked, and Wolverine flirts with HA. Rogue? She
hangs out in the assignment room, and looks apprehensive.
#3: The X-Men, flying over a Naszca-type line symbol (but in Mexico!),
encounter a large hive of MyS-Tech psychic insect spies (!!),
with poison stingers, too, and they have a Fight. HA, having broken
into Mys-Tech's headquarters and penetrated their tightest security,
all only by issue #3, uses their Un-Earth globe to teleport herself
to the X-Men to help them out. She blows up the insects' computer
system (!!) (!!), and BOOM!, Fight is Over. Meanwhile, there is a
cute scene at the entrance hall to Mephisto's Hell, and Bernie Jaye
actually lets Rogue make a reference to her immunity to most Earthly
poisons. Rogue activities: fights those nasty bugs, looks
apprehensive.
#4: Mephisto torments some souls, HA says "If my techno-mystical references
are correct, I may be able to contact Mephisto's realm IF I can
translate the symbology into a program for the MyS-Tech hardware,"
does so, takes a Big Gun to Hell and Shoots Demons, and then
goes and saves a U.N. battleship that MyS-Tech was going to sink.
Meanwhile, Professor X ONCE AGAIN detects HA's activities (something
MyS-Tech still can't accomplish), and sends the X-Men out after her
because "Hell's Angel in in DANGER!" The X-Men end up getting sucked
through a large interdimensional gate with HA. Rogue? She rides
in the X-wing, gets sucked through a window, and looks apprehensive.
#5: The X-Men and Hell's Angel are put on trial in the alternate dimension.
The charge? Introducing matter (themselves) into an all-energy
dimension. Indeed, the very presence of these mattery folk have caused
some of the energy to become... yes, super-villains, which they then...
yes, fight. I, at least, was surprised. Rogue: fights the energy
badguys, and even absorbs one (even though he stays conscious),
and gets saved by HA. The end? HA manages to free all the matter-
heroes from the energy dimension. Fight over. They fly on to
new adventures.
All in all? Well...
Final evaluation: An ok idea, being rushed into incomprehension by
spending one issue on what most authors spend three. There are some great
pictures of Rogue on the covers, though, which include some Bryan Hitch
artwork.
Rating: One glove, slightly muddy.
Best Rogue quote: "Aarggh!.. Cough!.."
***
Miscellaneous Rogue Appearances
Having survived those two series, we'll now stop to look at some of the
non-series titles that you could find Rogue in this summer.
**Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special '92...
A gorgeous Thorne cover starts out the usual festivities, which has
one, and only one (thank god), dull picture of Rogue, by Gary Dumm, about
half-way through the book. Gambit and Jubilee are also in the picture. Whee.
Far better is Stelfreeze's Kitty Pryde vs. Jubilee, the various sick
versions of Calvin and Hobbes, ever-cheerful Death shots, some timely
advice from Herman I. Vermin, an uncanny Charles Addams parody/tribute
by Roger Langridge, and the best parody of the Charles Atlas ad that I've
seen in a while.
**Marvel Swimsuit Issue, '92
In which the MU goes to Wakanda, home of the Black Panther for you Marvel
new-comers, and finds many excuses to dress up in swimwear. Marc Silvestri,
Adam Hughes, AND While Portacio all provide the Rogue shots (although only
the Silvestri is a solo), but my favorite is either the Kingpin/Dr. Doom
shot of them enjoying a day by the river, or else Keown's Margo (from the
Hulk). And, thank goodness, no Marvel Olympics this year.
**Wizard #14
This is the first Wizard I ever picked up. It may very well be the last.
It had an Art Thibert Rogue on the cover (and as a poster in the inside),
so I did get it, but... well, I've always collected comics just for the
fun of them. Never for money or resale (that's why I sold my Watchmen to
somebody, so they could enjoy them, but would never consider selling my
Secret Wars series). My fanboy tolerance is at a nice, healthy, low level.
But when I got to the "Crystal Ball" column, and read:
"The big news in the present for Valient is the departure of
President Jim Shooter. Initially, the news sent a wave of panic
through the market as holders of valuable back issues worried that
this event might pull prices down."
I nearly had
to take out my frustrations on my innocent cat, Death (she was named Death
a lot earlier than Sandman, let me reassure you. I know how to honor a cat!).
Yeah, right! Wave of panic, my Kryptonian ass!
However, I did learn some things of interest. Rogue trading cards are usually
among the most expensive of their sets. Rob Liefeld looks really bad in
that dark t-shirt on page 103. Harbinger #1, which I bought for the hell of
it, is supposedly worth $70. My Fantastic Four #1 is still worth only
$5,200 (joke!). I can buy my Bone pin from Planet Studios (something I wasn't
aware of, earlier). And, hey, Travis Cook and Walter Schoenleber all turn
in fan-pictures of Rogue in the "Amazing Art" section, of alternate-Earth
Wizard covers, and they ain't half bad. And, it adds the following commentary
to the "Who is Cable?" question...
Cable is the Nth Man.
Enough! Next! My heart!
**Comics Interview #112
CI just keeps rolling along. Here, we get the animated X-Men issue, along
with articles on the Champions/Southern Knights coagulation, Bebe's Kids,
and the long-standing Ramona Fradon.
The Animated X-Men articles are with Will Meugniot, producer of the Fox
series, and Larry Houston, line producer for the show. There's no info in
the comics that you probably haven't heard in r.a.c.x., so I'll keep my
chatter to a minimum, this once.
The best interview was with Houston, who goes into the voice picks for the
characters. If we can believe him (:-)), the actress for Rogue is not only
a real Southerner, she also *looks* like Rogue. Sorry, but I'll wait for
the dailies to make sure, pal...
The only art of Rogue is actually right there, staring you in the face, on the
cover, with her holding a Sentinel head in front of the rest of the X-Men.
Pencils by Louis Williams, inks by Will Meugniot.
***
This completes the first part of our Skunk Watch. Let's go look at some of
our dust-covered mail... <<cough, cough>> GACK!/// ><>squint... squint...>><>
Here's one, from one of the RFC'ers last year, Joe Shidle, comes some of his
thoughts on the Green and White:
A FEW (OPINIONATED) THOUGHTS ON ROGUE:
I've got some idea as to where our favorite skunk-haired vixen is
going these days. Comments have been circulating around the net as to
who has been absorbed by Rogue, and how many times she has used her
"primary" power of absorbing psyches since her passage through the Siege
Perilous. I gave it some thought and went rooting through back issues and
it occurred to me that since she was cast through the Siege by Dazzler back
in Uncanny X-Men #247, I have been unable to find any instance of Rogue
unwillingly absorbing other people's powers. I say "unwillingly" with a bit
of emphasis, which I will clarify.
As long-time fans of The One In Green will agree, if Rogue ever
got involved in a fracas, somehow, some way she would absorb
somebody. She would fly up and kiss the enemy, she would get thrown
back into a crowd of people, she would get smacked by an unsuspecting
bare hand (except, of course, for Michael Rossi ;-> ), her costume would
shred and then she'd bump into someone, etc. SOMEHOW, the writer
would find some cool, nifty way for Rogue to use her power to augment the
script. So it has been, since U-X #247.
Since Magneto toyed with her genetically, she has only absorbed
one person. One. And that was Worm towards the end of the Savage Land
story-line (which kicked ASS, IMHO), whose psyche she willingly robbed
to save a lot of people who Worm was controlling. I've got this sneaking
suspicion that Marvel was and maybe still is planning to leave dangling the
possibility of Rogue finally having control over her absorption power. My
assumption is that Chris Claremont, when still in control of the title,
intended to grant Rogue such control as a result of either the Siege Perilous
or Magneto's tampering. When Jim Lee picked up plotting after Claremont
was booted, he probably thought it would make for interesting character
development if he ran with Chris' ball and had Rogue and someone get
romantically involved and then reveal this development.
Unfortunately, that 'someone' happened to be Gambit. Now I'm
not knocking Gambit. I enjoy his snappy patter and he amuses me quite a
bit. Along with the Beast and Jubilee, the dialogue is usually entertaining,
if not well-written or full of depth. But I never really caught on to the
prospect of a Rogue-Gambit thing. Maybe it was the way it was handled,
which is to say, rather poorly, if at all. Rogue went from panicky "Don't
touch me! Ah'll absorb your psyche!" in one issue to baking boysenberry
pies in the next. Just like that. No development, no rationale. I find it
hardly amusing that the only attention given to the revelation of Gambit's
secret marriage to Bella Donna Boudreaux (sp?) occurred in the FIRST
issue WITHOUT Jim Lee. Lee allowed this large potential for character
development just dangle. Yeah, right, as if there was *any* character
development of Rogue since the Rogue-Mystique episode at the end of X-
Factor #70, and that wasn't even her title.
Which brings up Mystique. Why, in the amount of time that
Mystique was spending in the X-Men's mansion, didn't they devote at least
one panel (ONE) to Rogue and her foster mother just hanging out?
Especially when Mystique started going loopy towards the end. You'd
think that either Rogue would have noticed her mother flipping out or that
Mystique would have tried to talk to her daughter just once. I don't know.
Mystique always was this *strong person* who didn't need help from
anyone, so I guess I could see her not turning to her daughter for help. But
it still would've been nice to see them together again.
It just kind of annoys me when I read old issues of Uncanny X-
Men (250's and before) and see scads of effort devoted to Rogue's
character development, and then read the last year or so of the mutant titles
and see nothing but "Ah'm gonna git you, suckah", "Ah'm Rogue,
shugah", and unsubstantiated flirting with Gambit. Now, admittedly, I was
immeasurably pleased with the page devoted to Rogue-Gambit relations in
X-Men #12, which I think showed a relatively agreeable Rogue personality
("Whichever way the wind blows" seemed pretty accurate to her personality
as a whole). But most recent appearances of Rogue have been token at
best. I miss the "old" Rogue. Not that I'm stuck in the past; I just don't
like the present. If they would just *do* something with her, *take* her
personality *somewhere*, that's all it would take to make me happy.
Well now, I must admit I was kind of amused by Rogue's two
panel-takedown of Boom Boom in the most recent X-Force. At least she's
more powerful than *somebody* (*grin*).
*-----------
I remember a while back you asked for everybody's favorite things
regarding Rogue. Here are some of my favorites:
FAVORITE ROGUE ARTIST: Mark Silvestri/John Romita Jr. toss-up
FAVORITE ROGUE PANEL: Shot of Rogue in Japan, when she's standing
in the gensen to be introduced to Wolverine. She looked so
vulnerable and timid, it broke my heart; UX #172
FAVORITE ROGUE SCENE: In UX #218, Stopping the speeding train in Edinburgh,
inches from falling on Dazzler and Psylocke's heads. "Ah'm
gettin' too old for this!"...
FAVORITE ROGUE SPOTLIGHT: Character development in San Francisco,
in UX #203 where she lays rest to her personal demons about
Carol Danvers
COOLEST ROGUE ABSORPTION SCENE: In UX #194 (I think), when fighting
Nimrod and Juggernaut, she absorbed Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler and
Colossus and had Colossus' strength and armor (plus her own) and
could fly, teleport and phase, and had blue fur and armor. She
kicked tall ass.
FAVORITE ROGUE COSTUME: The black-spandex-jumpsuit-with-green-bikini-
briefs-and-green-halter-top-with-crossed-belts-and-green-gloves-
and-boots outfit that she had from about #192 to #225.
RUNNER-UP OUTFIT: The orange-tunic-and-gloves-with-black-spandex-
underneath outfit she had before that, since after Secret Wars.
FAVORITE "EVIL ROGUE" SCENE: In the Dazzler series, when she beat the
pants off of Power Man and Iron Fist. Probably the only highlight
to her otherwise embarrasing appearance in Dazzler.
("Ah love walnuts...*CRACK*")
FAVORITE ROGUE QUOTES: (too many to list. Here's a few)
"Ah can't speak for the *rest* of the team...but it kind of
tickles...Ah mean, as far as bio-electric furies go."
-- X-Men #6, after being struck dead-center by Fenris' self-
styled "bio-electric fury"
"'Mutie'. Short for 'mutant'. He means me. May ah see the
other shade o' lipstick, please?"
-- UX #210, to a saleslady after being confronted in
Bloomingdale's by a rabid anti-mutant person
"Say 'uncle' now -- real nice -- an' maybe ah'll let you up to
finish your beer."
-- UX #223, to Wolverine, who she has just pinned to the
ground in a training session
"Get *offa* me, buster! Ah ain't no dino dinner!"
-- UX #275, to a Tyrranosaur, who has her in its mouth
LEAST FAVORITE ROGUE ARTIST: The dude who drew Rogue in the UX-Men
annual with the Impossible Man. I forget the number. I forget his
name. I'd like to forget the art.
[Ed.: It was Mike Golden, but Joe's probably remembering the fill-in
art by Blevins, half-way through it]
LEAST FAVORITE ROGUE DEVELOPMENT: Gambit. I've been through this.
LEAST FAVORITE ROGUE SCENE: In the X-Men Annual #1, the armpit-sweat-
flirting-and-sewer-pipe-groping that occurred in the beginning of
the issue. It was so stupid. But don't get me started
MOST GROTESQUE ROGUE TRANSFORMATION: In UX Annual #11, when she tries
to absorb Mojo and fails, and gets all lumpy and covered with pus.
*-------
I could go on, but I'll stop there.
Hey, an idea...I think it would be cool to start a canonical list
of all the choice Rogue-isms throughout the ages...just to collect
all of the verbal gems of our lady in green in one place would be
truly cool, at least I think so.
****
And thanks to Joe for that. I'd like to add that the contest lines are
now open for any of the above categories that Joe opined on. Cast your
votes, RFC'ers!, and let's see which Rogue is your favorite.
And, now, back to your regularly scheduled Skunk Watch...
****************************************************************************
Web of Spider-Man #90
Writer: Howard Mackie
Penciler: Alex Saviuk
Inker: Sam DeLarosa
Okay, fine, it's not really Rogue in the middle of this episode, but an
actress hired to look like her, but I'd been waiting for a Saviuk Rogue
for some time, and this was nice. The plot appeals to me, as a long-time
Spider-fan from like 1972 or '73, featuring the villany of my ALL-TIME
fave Spider-foe, Mysterio.
But what's really neat is that they've found *somebody else* from Spidey's
origin story to reintroduce! I mean, I thought after the wrestler, the
burglar, and even the security guard at the station had been brought back,
that was it... but I had forgotten about the agent that Spider-Man hired.
He's back, and apparently wants to remind our Web-Slinger about the
agreement they made all those years ago. I think I'll stop reminiscing...
my eyes, they is getting foggy.
No real Rogue, thus no Evalutation, Rating, or Quote.
***
What The--?! #21
Oh, boy, quality fun, and you know it! Rogue makes an appearance on the
Mutant Mishaps page on the back cover, by Todd Nauck. There's also a Cable
joke there, and I, for one, believe there is no possible critical mass for
Cable jokes. Keep 'em coming, I love 'em all.
Otherwise, this issue boasts "Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape," where Hilary
Barta, Doug Rice, and Joe Staton does the parody thing of Wolverine's
"all-body-spike" hair days; "Who was that Skrull I Saw You With Last Night?",
by Ed Lazellari, Darren Auck, and Mike DeCarlo, where Lyja's replacement
of Alicia Masters is taken to its most absurd possible limits; "What the
*(#@! Is It?", a cute picture game by Rurik Tyler; "Be My Valentine... or
Else!! (or: Cupid's Error)", featuring Sheeza-Hulk in a Rusty Haller,
Diana Albers, and Michael White feature; and "Driving Medoozy," where the
Siskel and Ebert of Watchers show us Medusa having a mid-career crisis
compared to the Grim-n-Gritty heroes around her.
Evaluation: Nothing better than average, What The--?! just keeps on rolling
along.
Rating: Two flight jackets.
"Who let Gambit deal?"
***
What If... #43
"What If Wolverine Had Married Mariko?"
Writer: Ron Marz
Pencils: Scott Clark
Inks: Steve Montano
Scott Clark does a fine job trying to emulate Paul Smith's artstyle, but
ultimately loses. Close fight, though. As usual with any Wolverine What If...,
the Clawed One gets seriously screwed over in the deal.
Here, Ron Marz would have us believe that the Kingpin would take control
of the Hand, and challenge Wolverine to a duel, a la the battle against the
crimelord in the Wolverine limited series. In the process, the Kingpin
tries taking control of Clan Yashida, Silver Samurai dies, and even Mariko
dies, leaving the whole story somewhat self-defeating, IMO.
Rogue can be seen, in her by-now-preferred in the background shot, on page 3,
although why she wasn't in her wheelchair is beyond me (see X-Men #173, or
Classic X-Men #77, for more info on *that* statement).
***
[drh to Scav... read enough yet? This is about one half the file, and I
have to clean out now and do some real work. Personally, I'd wait for
the second half (coming tonight, when I'm back on.net), but hey, if you
get excited, go ahead, post it... just leave notes so people can follow
what you're doing!)]
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