Week of 11/30/2016:
In which we discuss ResurrXion creative-team announcements; Inhumans vs. X-Men gives us the Emma Frost we’ve been waiting for; Extraordinary X-Men fizzles; and Old Man Logan gets rad.
REVIEWED:
- ResurrXion Announcements (00:34)
- *Inhumans vs. X-Men #0 (12:55)
- Extraordinary X-Men #16 (19:48)
- Old Man Logan #14 (25:21)
*Pick of the week (28:10)
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So my couple quick comments:
1) I think having the school in Limbo might have made for a neat story idea if they’d ever spent time with the folks staying there. Instead it was just a stopping over point for the cast, who had the Magick School Bus to take them through time or space as needed. An issue where the current students dealt with demons interrupting their math lesson or something would have done wonders.
2) I think I got the idea from the old Angst and Optic Blasts blog, but for years Hank McCoy has seemed to act like a scorned ex any time he deals with Cyclops (in stories like AvX for example). So opening up IvX #0 and seeing Hank gleefully “science-ing” to find a cure for M-Pox while working closely with Medusa and the Inhumans, and practically whistling while he works irked me again.
The subtext I was hearing was “See Scott, I was right all along and you were wrong. We’re not going to solve this your way. Now I’m going to be the hero and you’re just the idiot who died a villain.” In essence getting to gloat about how his brain was going to save the day.
Yeah I’m probably reading too much into it. But there’s no real evidence in IvX #0 that Beast regrets Scott’s death even a little. Even a single panel where Beast seems to mourn one of his oldest friends would have helped me out as a reader.
As you said in the video, he’s due for some kind of reckoning. Uncanny #600 was not remotely enough. I just kind of doubt we’ll get it.
Hello kitty!
Resurrxion’s disappointed me. The only X-title I’ll be getting is Generation X. Blue and Gold are insultingly white, and it’s just not acceptable. Iceman just doesn’t interest me as a character, so I’m out on that. Hopeless on Jean Grey is a good choice, but honestly, my pull list is too damn big as it is, so I’m giving it a pass. Weapon X has Greg Land, so I’m out. Generation X has a woman of colour writing, which is fantastic news, though I’m mixed on the cast, as I hate Quentin Quire and don’t like Eye-Boy. I do love Jubilee, Bling! and Benjamin Deeds, and it’ll be interesting to see Nature Girl get developed. (One thought on Gold: If Guggenheim has Kitty and Rachel in an open romantic relationship, then I’ll pick it up. Not that I expect it to happen.)
And we STILL don’t have any news on Laura! Argh! What the hell, Marvel? Tell us what’s going to happen with Laura!
IvX #0 was great. Really good. Happy Scientist Beast is wonderful to see again. And Emma being conniving, and also hiding her vulnerability. I actually really liked the diamond tear. As a side note: I don’t think removing the X-gene was a suggestion brought up lightly. Iso clearly understood exactly the weight of what she was suggesting. As far as the art, I would note that I thought the random shapes and colours worked better in Ultimates than it does here; I found it distracting here.
EXM #16 disappointed me so much. I loved the Illyana/Sapna story throughout the run, but this arc just drops the ball so thoroughly. Lemire didn’t do enough to explore exactly what Sapna meant to Illyana. And killing Sapna felt so cruel to do to Illyana. So, yeah, so much disappointment.
Old Man Logan #14 was pretty meh. I like Andrade’s art (and Bellaire is one of the best colour artists ever), though Sorrentino and Maiolo are missed. The story starts off meh. It’s looking like it’ll be a pretty middling Logan story. It’s not that it’s bad, obviously, just that it doesn’t strike me as memorable. Though I will say that Cerebra being uncomfortable about being handed a baby is possibly the most I have ever related to a giant murder-bot.
re Kitty / Rachel relationship — actually, I kind of expect it. I mean, this team is the super iconic early 80s post-Cyclops line-up — plus Rachel, who sort of joined years later and only stuck around a short while.
Though interestingly, I was going to say Rachel first appeared around #185, but that’s not right — her real first appearance is what, #141? This line-up is exactly X-men (present and future) who appear in Days of Future Past, no?
Anyway, what I was going to say was her relationship with Kitty seems to me to be the most logical reason to have her on the team. But now that I’ve typed this out, I suppose it might be some weird Days of Future Past connection instead?
It’s the mid-’80s line-up, minus Rogue. I don’t think there’s really a need to justify Rachel’s presence beyond these six characters having been a team 30 years ago. It’s already justified. Plus, Kitty and Rachel have a long history as friends.
I don’t expect Kitty and Rachel to be a couple. I’m doubtful they’ll ever actually out Kitty as bi, but they definitely won’t do it right now, because they’re still on Iceman being gay. I can imagine the argument being that making Kitty bi would steal Iceman’s thunder.
So, yeah, there’s no way Kitty and Rachel will be a couple in Gold. At best, we’ll get subtext, but even that’s probably going to be a stretch.
I think it’s quite possible that they’ll casually but non-ambiguously refer to Kitty and Rachel having had a sexual relationship (whether or not they get back together during their time on this team) and not have any coming out or anyone treating it as a revelation. I’m reminded of how Ben Grimm’s Jewish heritage was introduced – the implication was that anyone who knew him already knew that, even though it was never explicitly referenced for his first forty years (or however long) as a character.
Not even that much. I would be legitimately shocked if there’s even any significant subtext. They’ll be written as friends, and that’s it.
Watching the Resurrxion stuff get announced has been strange for me. I totally understand the disappointment with Marvel and how “safe” a lot of it has been as well as lacking in diversity. It’s an important conversation and it needs to continue.
In a vacuum, though, and admittedly a bit selfishly, X-Men: Blue is the X book I never knew I wanted but am now super jazzed about. I have a major soft-spot for the 05. If the X-Men have one signature team for me it’s them. And the idea of them being mentored by Magneto is ripe with story potential and is something you could only really do right now, so strike while the iron is hot.
And everything I’m hearing about the Jean Grey book (my favorite character notwithstanding) makes me want to count the days until it’s release. I try to keep the hype contained but I want to read this SOOOO bad.
The thing is, and again selfishly, the X-men Gold team announced is exactly the X-men lineup that was current when I started reading the book, plus probably my favorite character introduced after I started reading. (Well, given Logan / Old Man Logan swap.) With my choice for leader in charge! After a long period of not reading any of the core books (unless 2015 All-New counts?) this guarantees I will be checking the new book out. It might well suck, but the nostalgia factor is HUGE.
Which is funny for me because even though I love the 05 I don’t exactly have nostalgia for them as when I started getting into the X-Men the 90’s were well underway.
But to me the 05 are kind of like the Fantastic Four. If you’re writing about that team but one of the original members is missing something just feels off, and they’re the only group of mutants I get that feeling with.
Given that Charles Soule is writing the book, I’m surprised at how one-sided the narrative appears to be so far (I too expected it to basically be two likable sides fighting). Granted, Inhumans are not warm and fuzzy. They’re not superheroes. Therefore, there’s always going to be a bit of an uphill battle when their people are the ones causing suffering and death in order to make them likable.
Still, when Inhumans fans are asked about their favorite stories this year, Death of X tends to be at the bottom of the list because it’s a bad Inhumans story (even if it’s a good Cyclops story). I would have liked a bit more balance overall.
I just wanted to point out that Black Bolt did kill Cyclops. He released the mists into the atmosphere, with no regard for how they might affect non-inhumans. He is the one that I could see characters comparing to Hitler.
The whole Ivx thing is just so weird… There’s a huge disconnect between the things that happen and how the characters in the story see and react to them.
I’m suddenly pondering… what race is Kurt Wagner? Neither of his parents has a human appearance nor much of a backstory. Is it reasonable to assume Mystique is white from Graydon Creed’s appearance? Could Azazel be Middle Eastern?
Also, how can Rachel and Kitty not be dating in the new series when they have clearly gone and got the exact same hairstyle?
I know you probably don’t count it as an X-Book, but last weeks New Avengers #18 did have a cameo by the New Mutants (Well, Amara, Dani, Doug and Warlock) at Roberto’s funeral (and gives possibly the best line in the entire, excellent, run of the series to Warlock)
Yes! I actually wanted to mention that but forgot! New Avengers #18 was AMAZING! Doug: “The first New Mutant to die.” Dani: “Doug, what?” And Warlock: “Query: When should self enter FriendBobby’s corpse and ride it around?” Why, Warlock. Why would you say that. Why remind us of that horribly sad thing you once did. Warlock.
Also: I’ve been saying for years that Karma would make a fantastic spy. This issue has her infiltrate the guys infiltrating AIM. Which is basically spy stuff. So I felt pretty happy about that. And about seeing Karma at all. I love her, and she’s not someone who gets used much, so I take my joys where I can get them, where she’s involved.
New Avengers #18 is basically why I loved this entire run of New Avengers.
At first I thought Doug was being deeply sarcastic in a “Yeah, like he was the FIRST New Mutant to die” sense, but then realised that, from his POV, it IS his first New Mutants funeral, that he wasn’t actually attending as the corpse.
A friend on tumblr came up with the perfect reaction, based on the not unreasonable assumption that no one ever actually TOLD Doug about the events of New Mutants #64 after he came back for real. 🙂
http://stem-cell.tumblr.com/post/153656396450
It is Ardian Syaf. His first comics work was written by a friend of mine (called Take a Chance) and I’m super happy that he’s taken off and doing big things.
Thank you for touching on it in the outro. I was just about to ask when, since they covered titles like Uncanny & X-Factor that we’re working through now, were you planning on covering the -1s? We are in the ’90s now after all…
Two non-content comments
1. Did you guys use a Barbara Walters filter for this?
2. Jay’s glasses are *AMAZING* <3 <3
i’m glad jay mentioned what is so painfully obvious about ressurXion: it feels like a total whitelash, and oddly timed, given the outcome of the election. very upsetting to those of us who look to x-men comics as a corrective to the politics of representation in most genre fiction. that’s why the original 5 can’t be a relevant anymore, i’m sorry, without some additional characters to break up the whiteness, and make them confront the fact that when they went to the xavier school in the 60s, it was essentially segregated. which is why the 1970s international x-men was so important, and even that team was more mixed that the lineup for the current gold team, with thunderbird and sunfire briefly included… and why the new mutants where such a great team: they truly deliver on the promise of mutant intersectionality, and felt like real characters and not just tokens of diversity. same goes for the original generation x, and then the new x-men… even the last junior uncanny team. so it all feels a bit like a slap in the face to minority fans.
—> but reading thru the comments, i have to ask: wait, what happened to sunspot? did he die of mpox? can someone please let me know who all died of that damn inhuman pollution? i saw somewhere that poor hellion is sick now… it’s really rough. stupid medusa and her dumb hair needs to take several seats, and that creep black bolt needs to be tried for crimes against mutanity.
MPox is not always instantly fatal, though it can be. Like the Legacy virus, there are a number of characters who have it, but aren’t dead (yet); Sunspot is one such character as are Hellion and Lady Mastermind.
I think it generally depends on them not using their powers, so Roberto can’t switch to Sunspot form without severely risking his health (I think that also explains the white streak in his hair, the stress of using his powers literally ages him… though I don’t think it explains his consistently lighter skintone).
Rest assured that Sunspot isn’t dead (He’s leading the team in the forthcoming USAvengers title), he faked his death (and had his allies and the New Mutants play along) in order to lure out a couple of former AIM bosses who weren’t happy with the way Roberto was taking the group.
thanks, that’s a relief. i guess i will read it then… or at least look at it. i’ve gotten queasy about mutant deaths of late. doesn’t rogue have it, too? i’m curious about who actually is dead. it’s hard to keep track of these things.