NEW COMICS DAY OPEN THREAD – 8/13/2014 –

Wow, that was fast!

So the Wood era of adjectiveless has come to an end. I thought it started off fairly strong, with Arkea as a new and interesting villain, and Jubilee’s new family situation. Issue four felt like a classic X-men downtime issue, with most of the team helping a crashing plane, and Jubilee reconnecting with Wolverine. I though Wood did a fairly good job getting us up to speed, although some bits still left me confused(Has Rogue lost the powers she stole from Ms Marvel?)

Part of the problem I did see is contained in that phrase, “The team.” It really did seem less like a well-defined team and just “whatever X-Women are hanging around the school that day”. Which wasn’t all bad – I liked the interactions with the students and I hope Guggenheim includes that in later arcs. And it means they’re kind of at the mercy of the main-arc books. We lost Kitty(and I think Rogue?) when she went over to Cyclops’ team.

And really it seemed like everything was being thrown in at once towards the end. The second Arkea arc got so big it had subplots being resolved in backup stories. And the last one with Shogo’s father seemed to bring stuff up only to resolve it with almost no conflict.

SPEAKING of the littlest X-Man, can I just say how much I liked the handling of future-Shogo in Battle of the Atom? We’ve seen so many future kids come back in time messed up, or villainous, or angry, that having Shogo come in and tell Jubilee, “It’s me, I turned out OK, you were a great Mom, I love you,” felt like a real breath of fresh air.

Hopefully Guggenheim will keep what’s working and fix what’s not. His first issue made me think of a comment over on Tardis Eruditorum about “continuity Swedish art-film”. We’ve got Deathbird, references to End Of Grays and Vulcan, and in a surprise return engagement, the Sidrian Hunters! I’m not thrilled about the first arc revolving around a pregnancy, but since Deathbird is part of the Shi’ar royal family, there’s the possibility of juicy political consequences.

I thought X-Men 30 was… a mixed bag. Bendis is good with the downtime style issues and the psychic lesson was kind of cool. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of the way he writers X-23. It’s like she’s a different character.

Mostly, though, I was amused that Professor Pryde was busy making time with her space boyfriend while someone else was training her students. Professor X would be proud.