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Unmature posted:Also, if I didn't like it I'd stop reading it because I'm a loving sane person. Welcome to Fandom where hate watching/reading/listening is a thing cause we all cling to how it'll become my favourite incarnation or at least something as good
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Jun 26, 2014 06:24
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Cerepol posted:Welcome to Fandom where hate watching/reading/listening is a thing cause we all cling to how it'll become my favourite incarnation or at least something as good It's kind of hard to ignore a book that the entire line revolves around.
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Jun 26, 2014 06:38
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HorseRenoir posted:It's kind of hard to ignore a book that the entire line revolves around. It's really not.
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Jun 26, 2014 06:41
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Honestly, I think Schism works, because it's basically the same dynamic the X-Men have always had, just with different leaders. I mean, the arguments wouldn't be less tired and the teams wouldn't be any less stagnant if it was Xavier and Magneto instead of Wolverine and Scott. This has the advantage of making Wolverine and Scott themselves not be dull as loving dishwater.
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Jun 26, 2014 07:16
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Honestly, I think Schism works, because it's basically the same dynamic the X-Men have always had, just with different leaders. I think an early 90s or start of Legacy Magneto & the Acolytes book would have been awesome. I thought the period where he ran the school in the 80s was great.
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Jun 26, 2014 08:49
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What's with the black things sticking out of each side of Magik's head? Please advise.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:22
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A Tin Of Beans posted:What's with the black things sticking out of each side of Magik's head? Please advise. She's 1/16 Galactus.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:30
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A Tin Of Beans posted:What's with the black things sticking out of each side of Magik's head? Please advise. It's a headdress and is a reminder that she can grow horns when all evil.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:07
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Codependent Poster posted:It's a headdress and is a reminder that she can grow horns when all evil. Makes sense. I convinced myself it wasn't a headdress or whatever because it doesn't seem to attach over the top of her head and couldn't figure out how it'd stay up as-is, but, comics. It's easier to worry over than trying to figure out why the gently caress Dark Beast was behind anything. Aphrodite posted:She's 1/16 Galactus. You make a convincing argument.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:53
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The headband or whatever it's attached to would be under her hair, presumably.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:56
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Halfway through Battle of the Atom and loving it so far. I don't know how it would make sense, but I hope the young X-Men never leave. Or at least stick around for a few years. EDIT: Just finished it. Pretty rad. Unmature fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 02:38
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Unmature posted:Halfway through Battle of the Atom and loving it so far. I don't know how it would make sense, but I hope the young X-Men never leave. Or at least stick around for a few years. 
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Jun 27, 2014 06:29
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Unmature posted:Halfway through Battle of the Atom and loving it so far. I don't know how it would make sense, but I hope the young X-Men never leave. Or at least stick around for a few years. Please don't troll me.
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Jun 27, 2014 06:33
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Battle of the Atom isn't bad per se, it's just a story that could have been easily told in 2 or 3 issues instead of 10. But thats an argument you can through at a bunch of x events.
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Jun 27, 2014 06:40
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Unmature posted:Halfway through Battle of the Atom and loving it so far. I don't know how it would make sense, but I hope the young X-Men never leave. Or at least stick around for a few years. There are... to be fair to you... some interesting concepts in it. Jean going evil? Mystique-Logan children? Ice-Man beard? Kinda cool... but... the future people are just cameos who have cardboard personalities that aren't even worth decompacting, and some rear end-pulls, nothing getting resolved, and a general "event book for sake of event book" whose only status quo change was, "Well, you can be definitely sure the O5 won't go back," which answered a question that only burned in Bendis' mind, really.
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Jun 27, 2014 06:40
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Oh no, someone likes a thing I don't like. Oh noooooooooooo.
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Jun 27, 2014 06:45
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Unmature posted:Oh no, someone likes a thing I don't like. Oh noooooooooooo. I guess that's a response. Though a review might help explain your side rather than that. People did provide points as to the general dislike of the event.
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Jun 27, 2014 07:13
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I like that they're keeping around Storm's future daughter. She's always felt like a more mature character to me so it's interesting to allow her maternal side to develop rather than stick her in arrested development with literally every other super hero.
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Jun 27, 2014 07:38
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Being able to read BotA at your own pace probably does make it more enjoyable. At very least, it removes the "gawwwwd, this is taking all summer!" element. I know people in the Transformers thread often complained about the Dark Cybertron crossover which lasted the better part of the year; I held off and read it all at once and didn't hate it. Problem is I don't wanna test my theory since I have no real desire to read Battle of the Atom ever again.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:08
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In retrospect, I don't have a problem with BotA's central conflict (the whole "kids' free will" vs. "preserving timestream order") thing the story presented, I just think the story should have... come earlier? I guess? I don't know how to phrase that correctly. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think the big conflict on whether to send back the Original 5 should have come way earlier than BotA. Like right near the beginning of All-New X-Men and Beast bringing them back, but I guess everybody wanted a little bit to establish the series before starting a crossover. But as it is, the O5 have been in the present for a while and then something big has to happen to stir a debate. Which by the way, it really shouldn't, because there really shouldn't be a debate after Young Cyclops nearly dies and current Cyclops pulls a Marty McFly and disappears for a few seconds, but still half the cast is acting like this is a big moral gray area. And yes, it turns out that this is the wrong stance later because it's the stance the Brotherhood take, but we don't find out they're the Brotherhood until much later. By then old Cyclops is harboring his young self and Kitty Pryde and the rest of the X-Men are busy fighting each other over conflicting ideologies.
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Jun 27, 2014 08:52
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Diet Poison posted:Being able to read BotA at your own pace probably does make it more enjoyable. At very least, it removes the "gawwwwd, this is taking all summer!" element. I know people in the Transformers thread often complained about the Dark Cybertron crossover which lasted the better part of the year; I held off and read it all at once and didn't hate it. I read the monthly issues and I liked most of it, too. But I did ultimately think it was pretty disposable; I couldn't tell you what happened if you put a gun to my head.
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Jun 27, 2014 11:04
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Hakkesshu posted:I read the monthly issues and I liked most of it, too. But I did ultimately think it was pretty disposable; I couldn't tell you what happened if you put a gun to my head. The only good thing about Battle of the Atom was Ice Gandalf.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:03
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irlZaphod posted:They repeated the same argument every issue or two, some characters totally overreacted to things, there was something involving a Future X-Men... Oh, so it was an X-Men comic.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:19
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TwoPair posted:In retrospect, I don't have a problem with BotA's central conflict (the whole "kids' free will" vs. "preserving timestream order") thing the story presented, I just think the story should have... come earlier? I guess? I don't know how to phrase that correctly. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think the big conflict on whether to send back the Original 5 should have come way earlier than BotA. Like right near the beginning of All-New X-Men and Beast bringing them back, but I guess everybody wanted a little bit to establish the series before starting a crossover. But as it is, the O5 have been in the present for a while and then something big has to happen to stir a debate. Which by the way, it really shouldn't, because there really shouldn't be a debate after Young Cyclops nearly dies and current Cyclops pulls a Marty McFly and disappears for a few seconds, but still half the cast is acting like this is a big moral gray area. And yes, it turns out that this is the wrong stance later because it's the stance the Brotherhood take, but we don't find out they're the Brotherhood until much later. By then old Cyclops is harboring his young self and Kitty Pryde and the rest of the X-Men are busy fighting each other over conflicting ideologies. I was rereading BOTA recently and this is the reason why, even with the improved pace, my opinion didn't really change on it. By changing the rules so that the O5 can affect the timestream, the central conflict goes from "this seems like a really bad idea, the O5 should go home" vs. "let them stay, they're presence isn't hurting anything" to "really bad things are starting to happen because the O5 are in the future, we need to send them back now" vs. "NO, WE DON'T WANNA!". At least with Schism and AvX, you could argue that either side is in the right. The O5 staying in the future is an objectively bad thing, but the whole event's conflict hinges on half the characters just brushing aside the big thing that started the event in the first place. And then it turns out that this conflict doesn't matter, because the time machine magically doesn't work on the O5 anymore, and the future X-men/Brotherhood trying to sent the O5 back are suddenly evil for poorly-defined reasons. And then everyone gets attacked by Sentinels, piloted by Dark Beast for some reason? BOTA doesn't just suck because its pacing is bad, it sucks because it's an incomplete story built on a fundamentally stupid concept. It's just the beginning third of some arc Bendis wanted to do for ANXM, and it somehow got promoted into a big event. I think some of the recent issues with the Brotherhood makes some of the BOTA stuff make more sense in retrospect, but I don't get why we couldn't have learned that information during the event itself, instead of wasting time on even more "heroes slap-fighting each other" bullshit.
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Jun 27, 2014 21:42
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Battle of the Atom gave us Ice Gandalf and Colossus with a mustache, which goes a long way in justifying itself, but it's a story that should have been told in 2 or 3 issues, not 10.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:22
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And Logan swearing off sex. At least we know now that everyone was being mind controlled by X Jr, so I don't have to feel bad that Molly Hayes grew up to be evil.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:43
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I would be totally fine with a mature writer plotting out Molly Hayes' life to that end. Looking at how screwed up her childhood got and how exposure to the bullshit the X-people sling at each other isn't good for a developing mind, then writing a story that ends with her losing faith with the X-men and becoming 'evil' in a reasonable fashion, but I think that kind of mature timely development is hopeless in modern day marvel. Skipping to the end is loving bullshit and it kinda blows my mind how much we're supposed to fill in with our imaginations when it comes to Bendis/Aaron x-books.
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Jun 28, 2014 01:21
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Spiderdrake posted:I would be totally fine with a mature writer plotting out Molly Hayes' life to that end. Looking at how screwed up her childhood got and how exposure to the bullshit the X-people sling at each other isn't good for a developing mind, then writing a story that ends with her losing faith with the X-men and becoming 'evil' in a reasonable fashion, but I think that kind of mature timely development is hopeless in modern day marvel. Criticize the modern stuff all you like for a lack of mature development, but I hardly think it makes sense to hold Timely up as a counterexample.
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Jun 28, 2014 08:03
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I'm just going to admit that I'm a child of the 90s X-Men comics and I've always had a place for Gambit. So I just found out that he had an third "on-going" series that ran from 2012 to 2013 for 17 issues. I checked out the covers and they're just hitting me right in the nostalgia. Any one read that series? Any thoughts? And while on the topic, what about All New X-Factor? Seems like an odd assortment of characters, but I loved Peter David's Madrox miniseries and the following X-Factor volume 3. How tied into the rest of the time-travely, crossovery, Brian Mike Bendisy stuff are they? I like a good Mutant mash-up every once in a while, but I also like Peter David to be left alone.
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Jun 28, 2014 12:14
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I've heard really good things about that Gambit run, and it's referenced in All New X-Factor also, which is so far completely stand-alone. I was a bit iffy on it until it picked up the full team and I'm enjoying it quite a bit now.
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Jun 28, 2014 12:27
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Peter David makes minor references to both the Gambit's series and the last New Mutants series, along with the previous X-Factor iteration of his. Nothing is required reading, though, and you will be able to follow All-New X-Factor just fine. All of those three series were rather good, too, in case you want to track them down. Funny enough, if I'm not misremembering anything, I'm fairly sure PAD has avoided making even minor references to the "time-travely, crossovery, Brian Mike Bendisy stuff" as you put it, which is impressive seeing as it's supposed to affect the entire line.
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Jun 28, 2014 12:57
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That's helpful. I think I'll give ANXF a whirl, starting with the collection that's coming out next week. I might try a few Gambit and New Mutants collections as well. And as to my mention of time-travel, crossovers, and Bendis, I'm just not a regular comic reader anymore. But I do jump back in on occasion and like to be able to pick something up and read it and generally get what's going on without having to delve through years worth of back story. Plus, everything I've seen and heard about the Bendis-lead X-books makes me want to avoid them like the plague.
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Jun 28, 2014 13:53
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The Gambit series by James Asmus is really good. Totally worth reading.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:31
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notthegoatseguy posted:The Gambit series by James Asmus is really good. Totally worth reading. That series and the end of the X-23 series before it where Gambit became Laura's mentor pretty much totally redeemed Gambit for me.
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Jun 28, 2014 20:55
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Soonmot posted:That series and the end of the X-23 series before it where Gambit became Laura's mentor pretty much totally redeemed Gambit for me. Yea, that was pretty much the first time I said to myself "I like Gambit".
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Jun 28, 2014 20:57
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I'm working through a bunch of secondary X-titles I never paid much attention to growing up, and you know what? Jeph Loeb's X-Force is not bad. I was very pleasantly surprised by Nicieza's run, but as much as it plays to Nicieza's strengths, it also gives free reign to a lot of his weaknesses. It's clever and sharp, but loses out on a bit of subtlety in its hurry to cover as much stuff as possible. Some major character relationships are established without any buildup, for example, but make sense if you just keep clipping along. The dynamics between Proudstar and Siryn, Rictor and Shatterstar, and to a lesser extent Boomer and Cannonball are for the most part announced in big bold declarative sentences or caption boxes, but Nicieza sells it all anyway on the strength of brio and momentum. Loeb's stretch is warmer, and the characters feel younger. Nicieza, working with Liefeld's aesthetic, made the decision to run with "The New Mutants grow up" as his theme, and Loeb dials that back a little. Cable's more paternal than ever, they live in the X-Mansion for a big stretch of it-- this could come across as back-pedaling on character growth, but it really does work well, especially when its framed as a reaction to Cannonball, the character who matured the most over Nicieza's run, leaving the team. He does some nice, sensitive character work with Proudstar and Boomer/Meltdown in particular, and there are some rather phenomenal scenes between Rictor and Shatterstar too. I came back to comics after a long break just as Loeb slid into total self parody, so it was a real treat to see him producing such competent, likable comics. A lot of it, of course, probably comes down to Adam Polina too, who just gives every character a sense of expressiveness and charm that couldn't be further from Liefeld's choppy, abrasive dynamism (although even those first dozen or so issues hold up pretty well, to be honest). What's most surprising is how restrained and thoughtful early-mid 90's X-Force, of all comics, is compared to other X-Titles around the same time. I was constantly taken aback by a willingness to have characters talk things out and develop comparatively nuanced relationships, often skipping the obligatory "misunderstanding fight" completely. There's a fantastic two-parter, for example, in which Siryn and Proudstar deal with Black Tom Cassidy and Juggernaut without a single fight scene. It's just really fun, fresh stuff that's aged remarkably well (especially relative to X-Factor, which slides fast after PAD leaves, in my opinion). Edit: Another thing I learned is that, as much as people complain about New Mutants-era Doug Ramsey, he's nothing compared to Rusty loving Collins, who is a non-entity throughout most of Simonson's X-Factor but starts off as absolutely insufferable, like, Howard Mackie insufferable. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 01:31
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The Doug Ramsey stuff was only bad because every fight there was a panel of him cowering behind something going "I wish my powers worked in combat!". It was all built up to Fall of the Mutants but it didn't make it any less annoying and dumb because it wasn't there weren't half a dozen X-Men who, while having a combat power, were still perfectly capable hand to hand fighters, christ look at Storm around that time. There was an entire arc where she runs around Japan beating people up without her powers.
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Jul 2, 2014 12:08
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PaybackJack posted:The Doug Ramsey stuff was only bad because every fight there was a panel of him cowering behind something going "I wish my powers worked in combat!". It was all built up to Fall of the Mutants but it didn't make it any less annoying and dumb because it wasn't there weren't half a dozen X-Men who, while having a combat power, were still perfectly capable hand to hand fighters, christ look at Storm around that time. There was an entire arc where she runs around Japan beating people up without her powers. Yeah, the New Mutants Classic trades were my most recent binge-read and that was pretty pronounced (some other observations: the Secret Wars II tie-in was dark as hell, and the New Mutants' "graduation costumes" are pretty bad, except Magma's). Claremont could've gone in for the "understands any language -> reads body language -> invincible martial artist" angle a full decade and a half before Kelley Puckett did the same with Cassandra Cain, but I guess it never occurred to him. Anyway, I'm actually reading "Mutant Massacre" at the minute. Sure, DC had Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, but this is pretty much where the Dark Age begins for Marvel, isn't it?
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Jul 2, 2014 12:28
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I don't know that it didn't occur to him, I think he thought it was cool to have a non-combatant dude on the team. I think it's pretty cool, although I can see how Claremont's repetitive phrasing could grate.
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Jul 2, 2014 13:12
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Don't get me wrong, I think Doug Ramsey is a terrific character, and the stuff with Warlock was a perfectly good workaround to him not being very fight-savvy on his own. It never felt like Simonson was as interested in pushing his powers to interesting conceptual places as Claremont was though, which is fine I guess, although his death and the issue shortly after where Warlock animates his corpse both struck always struck me as kind of tacky.
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Jul 2, 2014 17:46
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