[Jason Powell continues his issue by issue look at Claremont's X-Men. If this is your first post, then you have a lot of archives to go through to catch up. Get started now. Right now. They are really good.]
“Scary Monsters”
Uncanny X-Men 261 to 267 comprise a sequence that is looked back upon ruefully by Claremont, as no two consecutive issues in the set feature the same penciller. Marc Silvestri’s last issue and Jim Lee’s first (as the new regular artist) bookend five issues by fill-in pencillers. It is the longest such string in Claremont’s run, although the sequence from 211 to 216 (the transition from John Romita Jr. to Silvestri) is similarly ragged. But the run from 261 to 267 apparently nags more incessantly in Claremont’s memory – he’s mentioned it in multiple interviews – because it is also the first time in years that Uncanny X-Men slipped out of the #1 slot in the sales charts. The lack of consistent visuals accounts for this, as does the contemporaneous debut of Todd McFarlane’s massively hyped Spider-Man #1 – both matters out of Claremont’s control. But surely the X-Men’s rotating cast was also frustrating readers as well. Granted, the series’ unpredictability had always been part of its massive appeal … but it seems as if Claremont finally went over the line in terms of how far he could perversely play on reader expectation. In issues 262 to 264, the protagonists are Banshee, Forge and Jean Grey – two of the canon’s lesser lights, and a third character on loan from Louise Simonson’s X-Factor. It’s a bit daring on Claremont’s part to trust in such a motley crew to carry the series over three issues, but commercially the risk didn’t pay off.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Union Station: An Appreciation
[Gordon Harries brings us a review of Union Station. I hardly read any comics anymore, so recommendations are more than welcome. For a lot of us, I bet.]
Ande Parks/Eduardo Barreto
Oni Press
$11.95
The recent period thriller tends to belong to a broad church, roughly breaking into two denominations: On the one hand you have James Ellroy, the self-styled ’demon dog of American noir’ his literary prowess dedicated to an evisceration of the recent past. On the other, near contemporary Walter Mosley who’s mannered approach of times masks an otherwise incisive intelligence. Alongside an oft-stated appreciation of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s ‘From Hell’, it was Ellroy that writer Ande Parks referenced in the interviews surrounding the publication of ‘Union Station‘.
Centering around the 1933 massacre referenced by the title, ‘Union Station’ concerns itself with both the resulting manhunt and the forces that drove it, eventually leading to the formation of J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. Such forces are personified by three protagonists; the good natured Agent Reed Vetterli, the criminal turned pariah Verne Miller and Newspaperman Charles Thompson, a recent arrival in Kansas City whose ambitions are undermined by his wife’s depression over her recent mastectomy.
The mastectomy is utilized to illustrate one of the central themes of the piece; that each character slowly becomes emasculated by the institution they serve. This is true of Thompson, who must navigate being a crusading journalist and surviving in a town wherein the legitimate and illegitimate economies have become much the same thing, just as much as it is of Verne Miller, the former lawman turned criminal who’s now hunted by his own kind. Reed Vetterli, on the other hand, is the equivalent of the western’s small-town sheriff: constantly half a step behind and facing down his own demons. In truth, the mastectomy is the weakest point of Parks’ elegant script, not because the idea of male emasculation isn’t well executed, but because the use of feminine decline to illustrate this is so male a conceit.
Ande Parks/Eduardo Barreto
Oni Press
$11.95
The recent period thriller tends to belong to a broad church, roughly breaking into two denominations: On the one hand you have James Ellroy, the self-styled ’demon dog of American noir’ his literary prowess dedicated to an evisceration of the recent past. On the other, near contemporary Walter Mosley who’s mannered approach of times masks an otherwise incisive intelligence. Alongside an oft-stated appreciation of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s ‘From Hell’, it was Ellroy that writer Ande Parks referenced in the interviews surrounding the publication of ‘Union Station‘.
Centering around the 1933 massacre referenced by the title, ‘Union Station’ concerns itself with both the resulting manhunt and the forces that drove it, eventually leading to the formation of J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. Such forces are personified by three protagonists; the good natured Agent Reed Vetterli, the criminal turned pariah Verne Miller and Newspaperman Charles Thompson, a recent arrival in Kansas City whose ambitions are undermined by his wife’s depression over her recent mastectomy.
The mastectomy is utilized to illustrate one of the central themes of the piece; that each character slowly becomes emasculated by the institution they serve. This is true of Thompson, who must navigate being a crusading journalist and surviving in a town wherein the legitimate and illegitimate economies have become much the same thing, just as much as it is of Verne Miller, the former lawman turned criminal who’s now hunted by his own kind. Reed Vetterli, on the other hand, is the equivalent of the western’s small-town sheriff: constantly half a step behind and facing down his own demons. In truth, the mastectomy is the weakest point of Parks’ elegant script, not because the idea of male emasculation isn’t well executed, but because the use of feminine decline to illustrate this is so male a conceit.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Lost Season 6, Episode 9: Ab Aeterno
My post about the newest LOST episode is over at Smartpop. Here is a sample; click for more.
But a lot of tonight’s episode felt like filler, and I think it would have even if I had not been lead to expect more with such a juicy focus at the halfway point in season 6. A lot of it had been implied before to great effect, like how Richard came to the island as a slave in the Black Rock. Some of it we had already been told, like Jacob making Richard eternal. And some of it did not really add much, like Richard’s accidental murder of a doctor to save his wife. The story of a man who wanted to kill himself but cannot, and who tries to redeem his earlier crime of murder, told with an unusual structure for the show (one massive flashback bookended by two scenes in the present) — I already saw this when Michael did it in season 4. The theory that the island was hell and everyone on it is dead had already been raised by fans AND incorporated (and dismissed) on the show when Locke’s Dad claimed it back in season 3, and when Naomi told Hurley that the rest of the world found flight 815 and everyone was dead.
One thing I did not mention there was how I was not real clear on how dramatically interesting it is to have The Man in Black successfully get someone to kill Jacob at the end of season 5, THEN show us a failed attempt in this episode, especially since we already had a sense that the successful attempt was the result of trying. And just as the Alt U is getting this repetitive structure (adventure of one player ending with that person bumping into some other member of the cast), the island U is also repeating s structure where people are picking sides every episode -- Team Jacob or Team Man in Black.
Also I don't know what to say about it, but I feel like I have to acknowledge my friend Katie's point that the women who used to be interesting strong characters, have less and less to do. Charlotte last episode being a particularly egregious example. She was like a super scientist linguist and now she is just another notch in Sawyer's formidable bedpost (along with Kate, Juliet and Anna Lucia). On a show where pregnancy is a big issue it was bound to happen; BSG destroyed Kara at the end (she SLAPS Baltar? really? Like a Dynasty character?).
But a lot of tonight’s episode felt like filler, and I think it would have even if I had not been lead to expect more with such a juicy focus at the halfway point in season 6. A lot of it had been implied before to great effect, like how Richard came to the island as a slave in the Black Rock. Some of it we had already been told, like Jacob making Richard eternal. And some of it did not really add much, like Richard’s accidental murder of a doctor to save his wife. The story of a man who wanted to kill himself but cannot, and who tries to redeem his earlier crime of murder, told with an unusual structure for the show (one massive flashback bookended by two scenes in the present) — I already saw this when Michael did it in season 4. The theory that the island was hell and everyone on it is dead had already been raised by fans AND incorporated (and dismissed) on the show when Locke’s Dad claimed it back in season 3, and when Naomi told Hurley that the rest of the world found flight 815 and everyone was dead.
One thing I did not mention there was how I was not real clear on how dramatically interesting it is to have The Man in Black successfully get someone to kill Jacob at the end of season 5, THEN show us a failed attempt in this episode, especially since we already had a sense that the successful attempt was the result of trying. And just as the Alt U is getting this repetitive structure (adventure of one player ending with that person bumping into some other member of the cast), the island U is also repeating s structure where people are picking sides every episode -- Team Jacob or Team Man in Black.
Also I don't know what to say about it, but I feel like I have to acknowledge my friend Katie's point that the women who used to be interesting strong characters, have less and less to do. Charlotte last episode being a particularly egregious example. She was like a super scientist linguist and now she is just another notch in Sawyer's formidable bedpost (along with Kate, Juliet and Anna Lucia). On a show where pregnancy is a big issue it was bound to happen; BSG destroyed Kara at the end (she SLAPS Baltar? really? Like a Dynasty character?).
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Uncanny X-Men #261
[Jason Powell. Chris Claremont. Every issue. That is all.]
“Harriers Hunt”
This issue is Marc Silvestri’s 32nd and last of Uncanny, making him second only to John Byrne in amount of Uncanny issues penciled during Claremont’s tenure. It’s also the last Claremont Uncanny issue to be inked by Dan Green, making his final tally a remarkable 58 issues – far surpassing any other embellisher.
It’s not the finest comic for Silvestri and Green to go out on. The Dazzler material of the previous issue was much more impressive – and more representative, for that matter. “Harriers Hunt” is, by contrast, an uninspired story that accomplishes nothing other than to return Wolverine to Madripoor. (The move was necessary in order to sync up Wolverine with the solo title, which at this point was being handed off to Jo Duffy for another saga featuring the Madripoor-based supporting cast.)
In a nod to the series that necessitated this story in the first place, Claremont brings in some of his own original characters from Wolverine #5 – Harry Malone, Battleaxe and Shotgun, or “the Harriers.” That earlier story hinted at the existence of a larger team, and so – in much the same way that, ten years earlier, the Claremont/Byrne “Weapon Alpha” story had eventually led to a sequel featuring Alpha Flight – here we get the ranks of the Harriers filled out with more than half a dozen new characters.
But whereas Alpha Flight were striking and memorable thanks to John Byrne’s canny designs, the Harriers are something else again. A promising double-page spread introduces them – a la the Reavers’ intro in Uncanny 248 – but ultimately they turn out to be a collection of ciphers, lacking the personality and mystique of teams like Alpha Flight, or the sheer dramatic impact of villains like the Marauders. Uncanny 261 is, in retrospect, a foretaste of the latter-day Claremont that flourished in the pages of X-Treme X-Men and other vanity projects – the lackadaisical writer who would gleefully introduce a team of new villains at the drop of a hat, providing some codenames and some vaguely defined sets of powers, but entirely failing to make any genuine impression.
We also get a single Banshee/Forge scene, setting up the upcoming Morlock two-parter. It’s a welcome bit of variety, but ultimately not enough of a diversion from the plain vanilla of the main plot: The Harriers show up, Wolverine is kidnapped, Jubilee and Psylocke rescue him, and another 22 pages have been filled.
“Harriers Hunt”
This issue is Marc Silvestri’s 32nd and last of Uncanny, making him second only to John Byrne in amount of Uncanny issues penciled during Claremont’s tenure. It’s also the last Claremont Uncanny issue to be inked by Dan Green, making his final tally a remarkable 58 issues – far surpassing any other embellisher.
It’s not the finest comic for Silvestri and Green to go out on. The Dazzler material of the previous issue was much more impressive – and more representative, for that matter. “Harriers Hunt” is, by contrast, an uninspired story that accomplishes nothing other than to return Wolverine to Madripoor. (The move was necessary in order to sync up Wolverine with the solo title, which at this point was being handed off to Jo Duffy for another saga featuring the Madripoor-based supporting cast.)
In a nod to the series that necessitated this story in the first place, Claremont brings in some of his own original characters from Wolverine #5 – Harry Malone, Battleaxe and Shotgun, or “the Harriers.” That earlier story hinted at the existence of a larger team, and so – in much the same way that, ten years earlier, the Claremont/Byrne “Weapon Alpha” story had eventually led to a sequel featuring Alpha Flight – here we get the ranks of the Harriers filled out with more than half a dozen new characters.
But whereas Alpha Flight were striking and memorable thanks to John Byrne’s canny designs, the Harriers are something else again. A promising double-page spread introduces them – a la the Reavers’ intro in Uncanny 248 – but ultimately they turn out to be a collection of ciphers, lacking the personality and mystique of teams like Alpha Flight, or the sheer dramatic impact of villains like the Marauders. Uncanny 261 is, in retrospect, a foretaste of the latter-day Claremont that flourished in the pages of X-Treme X-Men and other vanity projects – the lackadaisical writer who would gleefully introduce a team of new villains at the drop of a hat, providing some codenames and some vaguely defined sets of powers, but entirely failing to make any genuine impression.
We also get a single Banshee/Forge scene, setting up the upcoming Morlock two-parter. It’s a welcome bit of variety, but ultimately not enough of a diversion from the plain vanilla of the main plot: The Harriers show up, Wolverine is kidnapped, Jubilee and Psylocke rescue him, and another 22 pages have been filled.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Free Form Comments
Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If I forget, remind me. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.
ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.
AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.
You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.
WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.
ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy.
AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore.
You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.
WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If I see a big free form comment that deserves more attention, I will pull it and make it its own post, with a label on the post and on the sidebar that will always link to all the posts you write for this blog. I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music, books and iPhone apps.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
