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In which Chris Bachalo changes things up; we theorize about Prime Sentinel hierarchy; the headmasters go undercover; fictional characters spend a lot of time in sewers; M’s secret comes to light; J. Jonah Jameson is at his best in X-books; Jay pitches a video game; Marrow gets a makeover; and part of journalistic integrity is choosing what not to cover.
X-PLAINED:
- Banshee, recently
- Generation X #29-31
- Uncanny X-Men #346
- Bastion
- Daria
- Leave It to Chance
- Miguela Torres
- Venice Beach
- Skin’s cousin Gil
- Inconsistencies that may or may not be deliberate
- Jolt Cola™
- Yet another take on Prime Sentinels
- The Mullet of Leadership
- A cool kid
- Cat drama
- DOA (again)
- Cars
- A kiss
- Several attempted murders
- Marrow’s appearance
- Boyd and Mathers
- X-fighting games
- Mutant leadership philosophies
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This is making me want a JJJ/Trish Tilby team-up.
I remember Jolt Cola! It was the soda I usually bought when I had the money to do so as a kid. I don’t remember it being anything special unless you drank too much. In, which case, you ended up with a stomach ache. It also did nothing to make me an elite hacker, which was disappointing.
I’m wondering if James Robinson actually had that Banshee characterization in mind or if that was Bob Harras dictating a storyline? James wasn’t on the book long enough for that to play out so I can’t imagine him seeding that if he was going to be off of the book in the next issues. And crossovers are usually driven by comity to have characters set up for future stories.
I vaguely remember Larry Hama on Gen X and I think it might have been one of the low points of the book. Not terrible, just not good either. Still I’m sure it’s more worth reading than the a certain creator who follows him, which I will not mention by name.
I meant “committee” not “comity.” I don’t know how I did that.
My memory is the Hama Gen X is awful. Lots of convoluted silliness and bland art. I became an irregular reader until until the team after that.
I was the right age to be a big fan of Generation X. I remember being bummed about the change in art after #31. It’s been fun to revisit these issues. I’m bummed that a ton of this title is still not on Marvel Unlimited.
Doug in a fighting game would have him back carefully out of the playing screen at the start of the bout and either come back with a Warlock battlesuit, or come back in followed by Bei the Blood Moon who’d fight for him. If all else fails, we find out the fighting arena is actually Krakoa, and if it has to pick a side….
Warlock was in the Contest of Champions online game a few years ago, where the animators appeared to have some fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVAe6B8-t6Y
Imagine if Rahne was in a fighting game and one of her moves was to call in Doug to take the hits for her?
Rahne – I invoke ‘Summon meat shield’!!
Doug – I don’t like this game any more!
RIP Moira’s characterization. I know that was just the opening riff and not the actual content of the episode, but the way Hickman’s written her is the biggest storm of character assassination I’ve seen since. . .ever, really. On that note, a friend of mine noted that if you wanted to do a “someone who we thought was human was a mutant all along + really HATES mutants”, Graydon Creed would have been the better choice. You don’t require totally warping his personality, and his past can actually work pretty well like that since the whole “reborn and restarts the timeline again and again” thing isn’t going to be detectable to anyone, so Mystique can still reject him as a child. You could also pile on that he’d been rejected over and over by her! It would work so much better, but then, almost anything would.
I have NEVER been able to decide if I like Bacchalo’s style or not, I sometimes do and sometimes don’t, but it is definitely distinct, that’s for sure. I always know when it’s his work I’m looking at, whatever the era. I think it really depends on the book whether I think it’s working. I remember Emma in the panel where she’s bargaining with Emplate though and it drives me nuts how she looks, like, 12 there.
“Mullet of leadership” might have been what Fabian Cortez was trying to go for XD
I don’t think DOA has ever gotten explained and it drives me nuts
I just realized I genuinely never questioned how it was that the St. Croix twins were fully clothed and whether that made sense, and you know what? I’m also good with that.
Oh god, I love JJJ!
Super here for monstrous Marrow. Agree with Jay on all counts.
I like characters like Gyrich, who are antagonistic and even bigoted, but still have some moral limits. It feels more realistic than if every single villain/mutant-hater was a 100% “all muties must die” vile monster.
Also not good at fighting games, alas.
AW YOU MENTIONED HAVEN it always makes me happy when you bring her up. But yeah, much as I love her and as much as I wish her being set up as a third option to Charles and Magneto had gone anywhere, given what we did get of her views it doesn’t seem to me like she could have panned out as anything except a fringe religious group and not a comparable third figure. Would have been interesting though, for me at least!
I hear you about Moira. I was okay with the way things went with her in HoX/PoX because it was so unexpected and was genuinely interesting and engaging, but the stuff she did in Inferno and X Lives/Deaths of Wolverine… That was just too far. It kind of reminded me of the character assassination of the Xavier-made-everyone-forget-the-dead-kids retcon of X-Men: Deadly Genesis… And now that I think of it, both sets of stories involved killing Banshee for shock value!
On that note, a friend of mine noted that if you wanted to do a “someone who we thought was human was a mutant all along + really HATES mutants”, Graydon Creed would have been the better choice.
Well, they already had Larry Trask who that exact arc, the second generation Sentinel creator who turned out to be a mutant too, because something something irony.
As for Moira, I do wonder how much of her heel-turn to monstrous villainy was Hickman (who was on his way out when it came to pass) and how much of it was the X-writers room wanting a serious threat to Krakoa and her being the wild card, because it really did seem to come out of nowhere.
Also as a note, after the conclusion of Judgement Day, I’ve quit reading X-Men and Marvel as a whole for the time being. I’m just burnt out on it, and I unfollowed all related content…except for you guys!
Late as heck but it just hits me that the scene with Emma tricking Emplate and Banshee believing she meant it for real would repeat in Morrison’s New X-Men —- Emma appears to sell out to Cassandra Nova in exchange for the lives of herself and the Stepfords, and not only does Nova buy it, Beast does too and gets mad af (and then Emma saves the day and everyone else with said trick , lol)
Emma deceiving Beast at the start of the Morrison run I could buy, they’d never actually interacted much at that point had they? I think he was away being in X-Men (or replaced by Dark Beast) when Emma was running the Academy.
Emma deceiving Banshee, and Banshee falling for it, seems a lot less likey given they’d been working together for many months running the school and had been shown to be there for the other when they needed emotional support.
Yeah, and didn’t they literally meet in the context of saving the kids from the Phalanx? So he knows she’ll risk her life for them. Maybe his reasoning is the Phalanx can’t be bargained with but Emplate can but ehhhh still not likely to me.
Beast and Emma did become friends in New X-Men but I can’t remember if that was before or after this. After, I think. I don’t think they’d ever even met til that era.