[Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Claremont's X-Men. For more in this series see the label below or the toolbar on the right. ]
“Charge of the Light Brigade”
Though it’s immediately followed up by more fill-in work, issue #218 marks the debut of soon-to-be-regular penciller Marc Silvestri (whose first and last name are spelled incorrectly in the opening credits). The artist’s style is direct, intense and detail-oriented, providing the series with a welcome shot in the arm. After a few months of relative meandering, Claremont’s new team of X-Men truly comes to life here, and we begin to see the potential in these new members.
The sheer energy and kineticism of Silvestri’s pencils – partly the result of heavily distorted figures, perfectly complemented by Dan Green’s gesturely inks – hit with the intensity of a laser beam ... or, in the case of the opening sequence, a “beam of focused plasma.” Silvestri’s take here on the unique visual created for Havok by Neal Adams almost two decades earlier is beautifully accomplished. Immediately on the Page 3 splash, we get a sense of Silvestri’s eye for contrast, as the crisp, clean circles emanating from Havok with sci-fi precision being are counterpointed by the prosaically messy detail of spilled grocery bags. The visual contrast struck by Silvestri subtly reinforces the tiny story being told in this opening sequence: Alex and Lorna’s normal life, beautifully described in Claremont’s narrative captions on Page 1, is being violently displaced (like their groceries) by the science-fiction universe of the X-Men, which over the course of this issue and the next will come to surround them on all sides (like the circles of Havok’s “plasma”).
Silvestri’s eye for subtle detail is so impressive throughout this debut issue, I can’t resist pointing out a couple other fantastic little visual touches. On Page 4, for example, note that one of the supports for Havok and Polaris’ makeshift tent is their jeep’s bumper. Or how on Page 16, when Rogue absorbs Juggernaut’s power with his own, his muscles shrink so that his arm bands slide down to cover his hands.
Silvestri’s style is also sleek and sexy when it needs to be. The protagonists of this particular X-Men story are mostly women, and Silvestri makes each of them supermodel-gorgeous. On the downside, with Silvestri’s style here, we’re witnessing the first seeds of what will eventually become the Image style, wherein all females are depicted as impossibly proportioned bimbos who fight their superhero battles as if they’re posing in porn mags.
This, however, is a more restrained Marc Silvestri – he’s several years from creating Witchblade, the only superheroine whose costume actually looks like someone is constantly fondling her. The Silvestri of the late 1980s makes his female superheroes seductively feminine, to be sure – long legs (Page 21, panel 4), slender bodies (Page 12, panel 1), come-hither eyes (Page 4, panel 2). But these sexy details don’t overwhelm the narrative; rather, they energize it. Silvestri’s work is, again, what I think of when I recall Geoff’s phrase “pop sexy X-Men.”
The crucial difference between this and typical comic-book “sexiness” as popularized by Image Comics, is that here Silvestri balances the hotness with a sense of whimsy and fun. Page 16, for example, sees Rogue assaulting Juggernaut, wrapping her legs around him and kissing him (as we’ve so often see her do in order to exercise her mutant power). But Silvestri’s motion lines in panel 4 show Rogue cartoonishly bouncing off the ground before leaping onto Juggernaut – reminiscent of nothing so much as Bugs Bunny bouncing into the arms of Elmer Fudd before planting a kiss on him. There is a constant push-pull in this issue’s fight-scenes between sexy and silly, which makes the whole story come vibrantly to life.
Amazingly, there is quietude in this issue as well. The two-page sequence in which a buried Ali slowly absorbs the sounds of nature over the course of checkerboard panel-layout is lovely and evocative. The visual rendering of the sound-effects by letterer Tom Orzechowski is excellent: the “fushfashFushFashFUSH” of a field mouse; the “gurglePLOPgurglegurgle” to render a stream. There is a lush sensory engagement to these pages that is quite beautiful. Even the branches covering Alison’s grave – backgrounded by Glynis Oliver’s delicate pastels – have an elegant tangibility.
The overall effect of all these wonderful visuals is to truly energize the series. Armed with a new artist whose emotional palette seems unlimited, and also with a set of relatively untested and untried team-members to play with, Claremont seems born again. His writing has a freshness and verve to it, which recalls the raw excitement of his very earliest X-Men collaborations with Cockrum. (Appropriately enough, Uncanny X-Men #218 was published contemporaneously with the Classic issue reprinting Claremont and Cockrum’s X-Men #102: the new X-Men vs. the Juggernaut.)
[Morrison is capable of such genius at times that this might be more than a coincidence, Silvestri's first X-Men issue is "Charge of the Light Brigade," named after the Tennyson poem about soldiers going into battle and being slaughtered; when he draws the X-Men with Morrison that is exactly what the arc he gets is about.]
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Monday, May 04, 2009
A Review of the new Bob Dylan
by Scott
(Note: As I don't consider myself a true Dylan afficianado, I'm curious as to what those of you who do consider yourself as such think of his latest- Scott)
For the first time in a decade, Rolling Stone has NOT given a new Bob Dylan album a five star review and hailed it as the best album of the year (but the year isn’t over yet); in fact, the review gives the album *GASP* a mere four stars! But don’t let this fool you, the review itself is mostly glowing (In part I think this is because it’s David Fricke who loves EVERYTHING... or at least always manages to find the silver lining on the cloudiest of albums). Well, the album is not an instant classic, nor is it the best album of the year. However, it is quite good.
I am no Dylan scholar, my favorite albums are his mid-sixties trilogy (Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde), beyond that, my knowledge is pretty sporadic: I know the ‘hits’ of his folk era, I like the John Wesley Harding Album, I’m familiar with Blood on the Tracks and Desire and a few songs here and there in between and, lastly, I own his last three albums and I was quite fond of Modern Times.
However, it would seem to me that the only time in his career that Dylan was truly innovative and groundbreaking is when, with those mid-sixties albums, he forged the way for rock music entering its adulthood (The Beatles and Stones helped in this transition as well… but Dylan was a BIG part of this). This is not to say that nothing else Dylan ever did was any good, just that this is the only time he really seemed to be a trailblazer. Together Through Life, along with his previous two albums, Love & Theft and Modern Times, seem to be less concerned with rock’s future than they are with its past; the albums steep themselves in the sounds of the boogie-woogie, blues and country music that were the predecessors of early Rock N’ Roll. However, unlike, say, the White Stripes or, even, T-Bone Burnett’s recent collaboration with Robert Plant and Alison Krause, Raising Sand; Dylan does not seek to contemporize this sound so much as re-create it (In fact, Dylan hasn’t seemed to have much interest in sounding contemporary since Time Out Of Mind).
Keep in mind, I do not intend this as criticism, merely as an observation; the tunes themselves are great. Dylan’s wit as acerbic as always; particularly on the ditty “My Wife’s Home Town” (which turns out to be Hell in case you’re interested). Other highlights include the album opener, “Beyond Here Lies Nothing”, and the darkly driven “Forgetful Heart”; the latter also being the most modern and, therefore, the freshest sounding track on the album.
As always, Dylan has assembled a tight backing band, including Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell on guitar, to bring these songs to life and they manage to create a sound that would almost feel more at home in a 1940’s juke joint than a 21st century arena. The band’s secret weapon may, in fact, be (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) the accordion playing by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo. I’m not sure how to explain, but it adds an interesting, almost exotic quality to the arrangements.
So, in short, I don’t think Dylan is breaking any new ground here, nor is this by any means among his best albums…. Or even the best of his recent albums (Modern Times was much better) but it is pretty darned good.
(Note: As I don't consider myself a true Dylan afficianado, I'm curious as to what those of you who do consider yourself as such think of his latest- Scott)
For the first time in a decade, Rolling Stone has NOT given a new Bob Dylan album a five star review and hailed it as the best album of the year (but the year isn’t over yet); in fact, the review gives the album *GASP* a mere four stars! But don’t let this fool you, the review itself is mostly glowing (In part I think this is because it’s David Fricke who loves EVERYTHING... or at least always manages to find the silver lining on the cloudiest of albums). Well, the album is not an instant classic, nor is it the best album of the year. However, it is quite good.
I am no Dylan scholar, my favorite albums are his mid-sixties trilogy (Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde), beyond that, my knowledge is pretty sporadic: I know the ‘hits’ of his folk era, I like the John Wesley Harding Album, I’m familiar with Blood on the Tracks and Desire and a few songs here and there in between and, lastly, I own his last three albums and I was quite fond of Modern Times.
However, it would seem to me that the only time in his career that Dylan was truly innovative and groundbreaking is when, with those mid-sixties albums, he forged the way for rock music entering its adulthood (The Beatles and Stones helped in this transition as well… but Dylan was a BIG part of this). This is not to say that nothing else Dylan ever did was any good, just that this is the only time he really seemed to be a trailblazer. Together Through Life, along with his previous two albums, Love & Theft and Modern Times, seem to be less concerned with rock’s future than they are with its past; the albums steep themselves in the sounds of the boogie-woogie, blues and country music that were the predecessors of early Rock N’ Roll. However, unlike, say, the White Stripes or, even, T-Bone Burnett’s recent collaboration with Robert Plant and Alison Krause, Raising Sand; Dylan does not seek to contemporize this sound so much as re-create it (In fact, Dylan hasn’t seemed to have much interest in sounding contemporary since Time Out Of Mind).
Keep in mind, I do not intend this as criticism, merely as an observation; the tunes themselves are great. Dylan’s wit as acerbic as always; particularly on the ditty “My Wife’s Home Town” (which turns out to be Hell in case you’re interested). Other highlights include the album opener, “Beyond Here Lies Nothing”, and the darkly driven “Forgetful Heart”; the latter also being the most modern and, therefore, the freshest sounding track on the album.
As always, Dylan has assembled a tight backing band, including Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell on guitar, to bring these songs to life and they manage to create a sound that would almost feel more at home in a 1940’s juke joint than a 21st century arena. The band’s secret weapon may, in fact, be (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) the accordion playing by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo. I’m not sure how to explain, but it adds an interesting, almost exotic quality to the arrangements.
So, in short, I don’t think Dylan is breaking any new ground here, nor is this by any means among his best albums…. Or even the best of his recent albums (Modern Times was much better) but it is pretty darned good.
Andy Bentley on The New Gods 5: New Gods 1
[Andy Bentley continues his issue by issue look at Jack Kirby's New Gods. For more in this series see the label at the bottom or the toolbar on the right. I make a comment below. ]
Orion Fights for Earth!
New Gods #1 opens on an epilogue which tells the tale of Ragnarok for the old gods and the subsequent blast of energy which tears their world into two opposing planets, New Genesis and Apokolips. Cut to the present where we first meet Orion, warrior of New Genesis, who commands the astro-force. He has been summoned home to New Genesis by Lightray, a more optimistic and light hearted New God than Orion. The two disagree on the on the ideas of war and destiny, but still remain friends. Together they travel to Highfather, Orion’s father and leader of New Genesis. Highfather brings Orion to the Source Wall, their link to the source which is the eternal life equation. Metron, a fellow New God who is consumed with acquiring knowledge joins the two as the source wall sends them a message: “Orion to Apokolips -- Then to Earth -- Then to war”. Orion heeds this advice and takes off towards New Genesis while Metron and Highfather discuss Orion’s hidden origin. Orion lands on Apokolips and is met with attacks from Parademons, the sentries of Apokolips, and Darkseid’s dog calvary. Orion’s strength and will power help him defeat these forces as he continues to push onward towards Darkseid’s chambers. Orion discovers Darkseid is absent but has left a mass director unit in his stead to transmit his commands. Orion believes this to be what rules Apokolips until he is corrected by Kalibak, the cruel. They approach one another for battle but are interrupted by an emerging Metron who has followed Orion’s adventure through his time traveling Mobius Chair. Metron contains Kalibak and offers his assistance to Orion only to be rebuked. Metron then informs Orion that he’s too late and that Darkseid has not only moved to Earth to enslave the human race, he’s brought humans to Apokolips to experiment on their minds. Orion proclaims Darkseid has broken the rules and by doing so defied Highfather. The humans are freed by Orion who then opens a boom tube for their escape. Kalibak returns, but Orion is able to evade his attack. On Earth, the human prisoners ask Orion questions which fall of deaf ears. Orion proclaims to the sky that he has come to Earth ready to do battle with Darkseid. The issue ends on a prologue with Darkseid sensing the proclamation from Orion and welcoming his threat.
This issue marks the first appearance of many Fourth World characters and concepts and sets the stage and tone for the saga. The opening page depicting the old gods final battle indicates the idea for the New Gods is the next iteration of Kirby’s work in the pages of Marvel’s Thor. The shadows of the old gods have a norse look to them while the New Gods are based in silver age superheroes. Kirby melds mythology from lessons from the bible, to ancient greece, to conflicts of Shakespearean proportions. When Lightray and Orion meet Highfather, he’s listening to a choir of children singing. In one panel, Highfather uses the words “free” “flowers” and “freedom” referring to the children. This continues Kirby’s underlying theme of the potential of 1960’s youth and the idea of free will vs oppression. I look forward to more background on the source wall.
Orion is depicted as very serious and determined but also conflicted and restless. It suits him better than the rabid war dog approach Morrison took in the pages of JLA. He’s a dichotomy who bears the symbol of light and frees the enslaved, however his symbol adorns a war helmet and he revels in battle on Apokolips and is listless on New Genesis. Metron and Highfather hint that Orion is not Highfather’s true son and Orion speaks of being from both worlds to Lightray. Couple that with his salute to the statue of Darkseid and it’s apparent that Orion has some origin to Apokolips though he believes in the ideals of New Genesis.
Although Kirby’s artwork is gorgeous, his dialog still needs work. A principle rule of storytelling is to show, not tell and there’s a lot of telling between Orion and Lightray. To be fair, this was a common staple of comics until at least the mid 80’s, but it comes off amateurish. The pacing for this issue is fast and exciting and we’re treated to just enough reveals and new mysteries to continue on Orion’s journey. The final scene is vaguely similar to Darth Vader sensing Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.
This issue marks the first appearance of many Fourth World characters and concepts and sets the stage and tone for the saga. The opening page depicting the old gods final battle indicates the idea for the New Gods is the next iteration of Kirby’s work in the pages of Marvel’s Thor. The shadows of the old gods have a norse look to them while the New Gods are based in silver age superheroes. Kirby melds mythology from lessons from the bible, to ancient greece, to conflicts of Shakespearean proportions. When Lightray and Orion meet Highfather, he’s listening to a choir of children singing. In one panel, Highfather uses the words “free” “flowers” and “freedom” referring to the children. This continues Kirby’s underlying theme of the potential of 1960’s youth and the idea of free will vs oppression. I look forward to more background on the source wall.
Orion is depicted as very serious and determined but also conflicted and restless. It suits him better than the rabid war dog approach Morrison took in the pages of JLA. He’s a dichotomy who bears the symbol of light and frees the enslaved, however his symbol adorns a war helmet and he revels in battle on Apokolips and is listless on New Genesis. Metron and Highfather hint that Orion is not Highfather’s true son and Orion speaks of being from both worlds to Lightray. Couple that with his salute to the statue of Darkseid and it’s apparent that Orion has some origin to Apokolips though he believes in the ideals of New Genesis.
Although Kirby’s artwork is gorgeous, his dialog still needs work. A principle rule of storytelling is to show, not tell and there’s a lot of telling between Orion and Lightray. To be fair, this was a common staple of comics until at least the mid 80’s, but it comes off amateurish. The pacing for this issue is fast and exciting and we’re treated to just enough reveals and new mysteries to continue on Orion’s journey. The final scene is vaguely similar to Darth Vader sensing Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.
[The Old Gods -- Third World seems like the wrong term -- are often seen as being the Gods of Norse mythology. Seeing them as specifically MARVEL'S Norse mythology of Thor is kind of awesome, especially as Kirby left Marvel to make this project. Old Kirby is Dead and his world is in ruins. Long Live New Kirby playing in this new universe.
Speaking of dialogue -- one of Kirby's most annoying quirks is the number of straightforward phrases that are in quotation marks for no real reason ""What I wouldn't give to possess knowledge of the 'Source'" "Be content with your 'Mobius Chair'". I see that they are introducing these things but they cannot seem to my eye to suggest anything other than irony, irony that does not fit here. ]
Friday, May 01, 2009
LOST 5.15
Lost's The Variable. I have to admit that this episode did not really grab me fully until the end. As I began to envision a season finale that would get our guys out of the 70s and into the present with John and Ben, I began to feel like the whole 70s thing was just one big diversion, a chance for the writers to indulge in the kind of "and that is the origin of that" game that pissed Patton Oswalt off so much in the Star Wars prequels.
You like the numbers on the hatch? Well here is the guys putting them on. You like Ethan Rom? Well now you get to see him as a little baby. You know that journal Daniel has? Well now you get to see where he got it from, and so on.
Daniel's speech about people being the variables that can change things was a but cheesy for me too -- I thought for sure he was going to say that the time travelers are the variables -- that would have been better I think. The reveal about Widmore as Daniels father -- I think most of us saw that coming. Also Daniel seems properly dead now, which is odd -- are we not going to find out what happened in those missing three years to make him change into the man who will tell Charlotte not to come back or to think variables are possible now? I am also not super clear about all the sadness about Sawyer and Juliet loosing their little life, since they knew it was doomed from the beginning what with the "incident" and the "purge" and whatnot. Though I suppose we all tell ourselves little lies. I also did not need Daniel recapping that they can die because it is the present for them.
But by the end I was totally back. The horror of sending your kid back to the island where you know he will be killed was some powerful stuff and shocked the hell out of me. And I love that the plan is to use the bomb to change the past so the plan never crashes in the first place. I have heard that idea tossed around by fans as the end of the SERIES. The fact that LOST is going to use it only as a SEASON finale is ballsy in the best way. It is so much less predictable at this point in the narrative. I am also just so happy that we can see what the season endgame is going to look like -- I would have liked to have a sense of it earlier, but mostly I am just happy it looks like a good one.
And without putting spoilers for future episodes here on the blog, Wikipedias Lost episode by episode listing for season 5 has a detail -- one word -- in its 20 word description of next weeks episode that has me more excited about LOST than I can remember being in forever. Click here if you want to see what it is. The word starts with an R.
| Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour | September 29 1a/12c | |||
| Patton Oswalt - Star Wars | ||||
| ||||
You like the numbers on the hatch? Well here is the guys putting them on. You like Ethan Rom? Well now you get to see him as a little baby. You know that journal Daniel has? Well now you get to see where he got it from, and so on.
Daniel's speech about people being the variables that can change things was a but cheesy for me too -- I thought for sure he was going to say that the time travelers are the variables -- that would have been better I think. The reveal about Widmore as Daniels father -- I think most of us saw that coming. Also Daniel seems properly dead now, which is odd -- are we not going to find out what happened in those missing three years to make him change into the man who will tell Charlotte not to come back or to think variables are possible now? I am also not super clear about all the sadness about Sawyer and Juliet loosing their little life, since they knew it was doomed from the beginning what with the "incident" and the "purge" and whatnot. Though I suppose we all tell ourselves little lies. I also did not need Daniel recapping that they can die because it is the present for them.
But by the end I was totally back. The horror of sending your kid back to the island where you know he will be killed was some powerful stuff and shocked the hell out of me. And I love that the plan is to use the bomb to change the past so the plan never crashes in the first place. I have heard that idea tossed around by fans as the end of the SERIES. The fact that LOST is going to use it only as a SEASON finale is ballsy in the best way. It is so much less predictable at this point in the narrative. I am also just so happy that we can see what the season endgame is going to look like -- I would have liked to have a sense of it earlier, but mostly I am just happy it looks like a good one.
And without putting spoilers for future episodes here on the blog, Wikipedias Lost episode by episode listing for season 5 has a detail -- one word -- in its 20 word description of next weeks episode that has me more excited about LOST than I can remember being in forever. Click here if you want to see what it is. The word starts with an R.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Jason Powell on Uncanny X-Men #217
[Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run. For more in this series, see the toolbar on the right or the label below. I ask a brief question at the end of this post.]
“Folly’s Gambit”
A common complain about Claremont – one that, as of this writing, I’ve come across online TWICE this past week, both times completely by accident – is that Claremont is overly verbose. His prose is dense and “impenetrable,” his word-choice inelegant. But this is the opening sentence of Uncanny X-Men #217: “Above Cape Wrath – on the north coast of Scotland – is a lonely slab of rock, jutting out of a sea that’s silver-slashed obsidian, rolling in the light of the just-risen moon.”
Later, in describing the scene when Alison sings at a local tavern:
“The pub falls silent as her voice – glazed into a rich contralto by the pure malt she’s indulged in – washes over the crowd. The songs are old, and she does them justice.”
Consider the crisp alliteration of “silver-slashed obsidian,” the tactile imagery of a voice “glazed into a rich contralto.” Claremont’s narrative voice has more in common with a classical poet than, say, Stan Lee, which is perhaps why superhero fans so often deride his talent as a wordsmith. But whereas the Marvel authors who tried to emulate Lee’s brilliant hyperbole (e.g., Len Wein, Gerry Conway) were more often than not excruciating, Claremont’s voice is richly imagistic, and actually takes into account rhythm and meter. The resulting phrases are rhetorically elegant, possessing a subtle flow that the work of his peers almost always lacked. The critics who say Claremont ought to have curbed his verbosity for the sake of narrative expediency are missing the point, and failing to get on board with Claremont’s enjoyment and relish of the English language. The people who are sick of the Wolverine catchphrase “I’m the best there is at what I do” have probably never noticed that it’s written in iambic pentameter.
Getting back to this issue, “Folly’s Gambit” serves primarily to consolidate the “Dazzler as diva” characterization first conceived by Ann Nocenti in the “Beauty and the Beast” mini. She rationalizes her cowardice -- “All I ever wanted was to make people happy,” she thinks to herself, “to bring some light and color and joy into their lives...” But the dark truth is that she is addicted to fame. She thinks she deserves to be in the spotlight, and becomes petulant when she can’t have what she wants. It’s interesting to watch her arc unfold over the next three years, as she becomes less and less sympathetic, the diva-aspect of her personality brought more and more to the fore. Indeed, Claremont will prove much more inclined to bring out the worst in every member of this third generation of X-Men, possibly because they lack that bright and beautiful Cockrum sheen of purity to protect them.
Claremont has fun with the Juggernaut here too. That he’s a Dazzler fan is a humorous touch (“I got your records, I saw you perform, I love your music”), as is his subsequent reluctance to beat on Alison TOO badly.
A good issue, this one. Lightweight, certainly, but lots of fun.
[A great point about Claremont's word choices, Jason. There is something odd, though, about a writer who as you have pointed out cares about language so much -- and even has Banshee name drop Joyce -- ending up primarily as a comics writer rather than a novelist. (How do his novels compare on this point?) The phrases you point out are well constructed but the iambic of "I'm the best there is at what I do" is the genius phrase for comics I think because its poetry is very subtle. Like Dickens' famously iambic pentameter "It was the best of times it was the worst of times" it does not scream I AM POETRY but it sticks in your head and you always remember the phrase without knowing exactly why. I think the other quotations you point out deserve the praise you give them but they also unbalance the comic just a bit -- that kind of language really draws attention to itself, and I am not sure that is what comic book captions should do. This is a problem so subtle, and based in Claremont being a good writer, that is barely deserves the name "problem" but I wonder if "silver slashed obsidian," which might work well in a poem, and is certainly a nice turn of phrase, is a little precious for a comic book? Raymond Chandler's language as used by Frank Miller works fantastically for comics because it is so terse. Also, and just for fun, I do not think it would be totally out of left field to compare Claremont's editorially mandated repetitive phrases used to re-introduce characters every issue (e.g. "I'm the best there is at what I do") to Homer's use of the same adjectives to describe places and people -- the sea in Homer, for example, is always "wine dark." Those phrases were commonplace in ancient Greece because they fit the strict meter of ancient poetry and so worked every time. That you point out that Wolverine's is also metrically sound is really interesting. ]
“Folly’s Gambit”
A common complain about Claremont – one that, as of this writing, I’ve come across online TWICE this past week, both times completely by accident – is that Claremont is overly verbose. His prose is dense and “impenetrable,” his word-choice inelegant. But this is the opening sentence of Uncanny X-Men #217: “Above Cape Wrath – on the north coast of Scotland – is a lonely slab of rock, jutting out of a sea that’s silver-slashed obsidian, rolling in the light of the just-risen moon.”
Later, in describing the scene when Alison sings at a local tavern:
“The pub falls silent as her voice – glazed into a rich contralto by the pure malt she’s indulged in – washes over the crowd. The songs are old, and she does them justice.”
Consider the crisp alliteration of “silver-slashed obsidian,” the tactile imagery of a voice “glazed into a rich contralto.” Claremont’s narrative voice has more in common with a classical poet than, say, Stan Lee, which is perhaps why superhero fans so often deride his talent as a wordsmith. But whereas the Marvel authors who tried to emulate Lee’s brilliant hyperbole (e.g., Len Wein, Gerry Conway) were more often than not excruciating, Claremont’s voice is richly imagistic, and actually takes into account rhythm and meter. The resulting phrases are rhetorically elegant, possessing a subtle flow that the work of his peers almost always lacked. The critics who say Claremont ought to have curbed his verbosity for the sake of narrative expediency are missing the point, and failing to get on board with Claremont’s enjoyment and relish of the English language. The people who are sick of the Wolverine catchphrase “I’m the best there is at what I do” have probably never noticed that it’s written in iambic pentameter.
Getting back to this issue, “Folly’s Gambit” serves primarily to consolidate the “Dazzler as diva” characterization first conceived by Ann Nocenti in the “Beauty and the Beast” mini. She rationalizes her cowardice -- “All I ever wanted was to make people happy,” she thinks to herself, “to bring some light and color and joy into their lives...” But the dark truth is that she is addicted to fame. She thinks she deserves to be in the spotlight, and becomes petulant when she can’t have what she wants. It’s interesting to watch her arc unfold over the next three years, as she becomes less and less sympathetic, the diva-aspect of her personality brought more and more to the fore. Indeed, Claremont will prove much more inclined to bring out the worst in every member of this third generation of X-Men, possibly because they lack that bright and beautiful Cockrum sheen of purity to protect them.
Claremont has fun with the Juggernaut here too. That he’s a Dazzler fan is a humorous touch (“I got your records, I saw you perform, I love your music”), as is his subsequent reluctance to beat on Alison TOO badly.
A good issue, this one. Lightweight, certainly, but lots of fun.
[A great point about Claremont's word choices, Jason. There is something odd, though, about a writer who as you have pointed out cares about language so much -- and even has Banshee name drop Joyce -- ending up primarily as a comics writer rather than a novelist. (How do his novels compare on this point?) The phrases you point out are well constructed but the iambic of "I'm the best there is at what I do" is the genius phrase for comics I think because its poetry is very subtle. Like Dickens' famously iambic pentameter "It was the best of times it was the worst of times" it does not scream I AM POETRY but it sticks in your head and you always remember the phrase without knowing exactly why. I think the other quotations you point out deserve the praise you give them but they also unbalance the comic just a bit -- that kind of language really draws attention to itself, and I am not sure that is what comic book captions should do. This is a problem so subtle, and based in Claremont being a good writer, that is barely deserves the name "problem" but I wonder if "silver slashed obsidian," which might work well in a poem, and is certainly a nice turn of phrase, is a little precious for a comic book? Raymond Chandler's language as used by Frank Miller works fantastically for comics because it is so terse. Also, and just for fun, I do not think it would be totally out of left field to compare Claremont's editorially mandated repetitive phrases used to re-introduce characters every issue (e.g. "I'm the best there is at what I do") to Homer's use of the same adjectives to describe places and people -- the sea in Homer, for example, is always "wine dark." Those phrases were commonplace in ancient Greece because they fit the strict meter of ancient poetry and so worked every time. That you point out that Wolverine's is also metrically sound is really interesting. ]
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