Cool Characters...Marvel

A while back i took a look back at my library and tried to pin point my favorite and least favorite characters. After a day or too i came up with a comprehensive list of characters i really adore for both Marvel and DC. As i attempt to share this list for Marvel, i have to make it abudnently clear that i have significant X-men bias so seperated my top ten lists for Marvel into the X-men and Marvel Universe proper in its own right. Because honestly thats how the Marvel Universe is divided anyway

X-Men

1.Iceman-Iceman is a character that is sort of misused by a lot of writers, he was one of those lame characters in the past with a basic power that when writers like claremont and simonson realized the depths of his true power and how it can be applied sort of became a god amongst characters. as a result, most writers play up the loser and underachiever aspects to the point where he is useless as a character. Out of the original five X-men i have always really liked Iceman the most and during Mike Carey's run the creativity and use his powers were put to use intrigued me and i sort of fell in love with his character which now in the new status quo has been reverted back down to the sort of background character when he really should be like a member of the a list roster of characters up there with Cyclops, Wolverine and even freakin storm. While he's being brought more into the limelight more recently he's always the character in the background or the character who Scott or Hank turn to talk to he's never really any prominent character movement. I tend to read any book with bobby in it as long as he is an integral character and not just a guest star no matter the creator just hopping that someone gives him his due as the power house of the X-men.

2.Cyclops-I love Scott and next to Iceman he is one of my favorite Marvel heroes in general up there in the top five. Now Cyclops has always been a "stick in the mud", but from a character stand point you would be too if you had to make the tough choices and lead an entire generation of mutant heroes. Thats why it annoys me when people claim aww cyclops sucks, or he's such a pussy, or he's such a dick. You see Cyclops has an implied danger to his power that unlike Wolverine he doesn't have to prove to people every five seconds for no reasons. So when he unleashes its a gratifying effect. This push to transform him into the general of the x-men has been one of my favorite developments of the last couple of years as the writers are finally seeing what i've seen since i started reading X-men comics. Professor X has been training Cyclops for in my head nearly two decades to become the leader of the X-men and to an extension of mutant kind and seeing him take up the mantle is satisfying

3.Havok-I really like Havok, i have no idea why but i think its his relationship with Cyclops and the underlying feeling that no matter how much he tries he'll never be as good as his brother when it comes to leadership though when it comes down to hit he's always pushed into the role.4.Surge-I have a softspot for asian characters in comics and when i was introduces to surge in the relaunch of New Mutants and Academy X i was intrigued she was an asian character specifically japanese who didn't really fall into the sort of asian trap of most characters. Then New X-men happened and they threw her into the spot light as the reluctant leader of the team and the sort of pressure and moral dilemas fell on her shoulders making her one of my favorite characters. Alas like many of the New X-men characters she has been relegated to background status and when she does get a speaking role theres either no characterization or she's protrayed as a raging bitch.

5.Jubilee-While i've gone on record to many people i know proclaiming how much i hated the 90's X-men cartoon Jubilee was one of the saving graces of that show in my opinion. It was the 90's and she sort of encapsulated that entire decades' mindset without going into dark and edgy. when i started getting back into comics however she had been relegated to a sort of absentee background role and when i began readign comics readily House of M happened and they through her own the bus. Soon she had appearences in the failed New Warriors relaunch and i was kind a jonsing for a return of Jubilee as fraction has pulled lots of characters into the X-men who really didn't need comebacks Jubes was the one i was really pulling for.

6.Warpath-An old character, my love of Warpath started when Ed Brubaker placed him on his Uncanny Team for no real reason and then i saw some of billy Tan's first dynamic pages of him. At that point he was on my radar and for a while he didn't really do anything impressive just kinda in the background. Then X-Force happened and he quickly became one of my favorite characters. A conflicted killer, whose angry and more then willing to lya some vengeance down but is horrified and sickend at his own actions. He's the wolverine i've always wanted

7.Cable-I have an unbiased love of the entire Summer's bloodline and despite cable being one of the poster child for out of control 90's hardcore action he still has a special place in my heart. Cable is one of those characters desgined to be really powerful but hard to use as a result. For a long time he had the T.O. virus and they just used that as an excuse to keep him underpowered. Then i think durin Fabian Niceaza's Cable and Deadpool he explored a side of cable thati quite enjoyed and while there were still unncessary over the top action he was a more cultured charactered. Hell he took on the Silver Surfer bare handed and surived. Then Mike Carey used him in adjectiveless X-men and it was really good

8.Cannonball-My favorite New Mutant, Sam is in my own little world the person i believe best suited to inherit leadership of the X-men should something happen to Scott and the older members. Out of all the New Mutants he was the only one to go to active X-man status and during Carey's run of X-men he was one of my favorite characters. Sense a pattern here, now i wasn't a fan of the revival of New Mutants simply because like the Titans revival i believed all it would do was sort of regress the character but sam has come out stronger then before. I also love the in-joke in the Xmen books that everyone comments on Sam's supposed immortality when he's brutally injured

9.X-man-The opposite spectrum of Cable, Xman is what Cable should have been as a character and he sort of languished as a character for a while because no one really knew what to do with a character that powerful. My unbiased love for the summers family initally drew me to the character and i've been pining for his return to comics since his original book's cancellation and his shunting into limbo

10.Juggernaut-I really love the Juggernaut and ignoring the Randy Hayes internet parodies i've always had an affection for him. He never seemed like that bad of a villian for a long time and then when he became an active X-man i was delighted because during a period with no colossus the X-men needed a strong man. Plus it was one of those great reform stories like Rogue and the White Queen where despite a dark background the character could come out on top as a good guy. However alot of people hate me so they took the first opportunity they could get to book Juggs out of the hero buisness and while he's not returned to active villinary i'm quite angry that he's returned to being a bad guy.

Office Rants....probably talk about X-men

Just chillin in the office and playing around with my ipod touch which i'm finally warming up too and thinking of a subject to rant about. Let me just rant about the X-men line of books and what i like, what i don't like and what people must pick up. I don't count any deadpool books among the ranks because i refuse to talk about the pool anymore.

First uncanny X-men which is the flaghship x-book and written by Matt Fraction with revolving art chores between Greg Land and Terry Dodson. Now previously it was done by Fractions life partner Ed Brubaker and when Fraction took over he set out to make Uncanny both the flagship book once more as well as an ensemble book. He succeeded in both but suffered prblems in the process. I like the idea but he throws charcters in for brief cameos and then does nothing completely eskewing past characterization to fit his weird indie kinda plots. According to the current team list there is like 19 X-men and he keeps adding characters when he feels like with no real plans leadign to a sort of stagnation in the X-men line as alot of the characters have no real purpose on the X-men outside of they are classic X-men and he just keeps pulling in more characters from limbo just because. In the good year or two of writing he's done, Psylocke, Namor, Cloak and Dagger, Northstar, Domino, Fantomex, the X-men Science Club its alot of characters who really don't get much focus or characterization. As a result characters come off as redudant with Nightcrawler serving as a core example of characters suffering from his hand and i'm guessing a big bullseye has been painted on his forehead for the upcoming second coming crossover. Another major upset of this book isthe portrayal of pixie who Fraction set out to be the next kitty pryde in the absence of both Kitty and her awesome replacment Jubilee. Now two problems, one Pixie was a side character in New X-men a 14 year old welsh girl who was the sort of typical "genki" girl character. Under Fraction's pen, she suddenly became a 19 year old straw hat hippie valley girl completely outshadowing other members of the New Generation of characters who were far cooler then she was. I mean what happened to Surge and Hellion, now their just used in crowd scenes and nothing significant has happened to these characters in forever not counting their cameo appearences in X-Force. Secondly Fraction ignored the fact that Joss Whedon the person who put Kitty on the bus or is should say space bullet had already created a replacement in Armor. He also tries to be witty and weird for no reason and sort of the voice of the character seem weird, coupled with his sort of weird characterizations this causes so characters to just seem off. I remeber during Utopia, Hellion who appearently became a radical anti-human terrorist showed up randomly with a collection of characters including Sunspot who should no better to wage war against Norman Osborn and San Francisco. My final issue with the book is the art because i hate Greg Land, as someone who draws themselves i take offense to his tracing style and miss the days when he drew nightwing and it was good. Now i'm not saying the book is crap, Fraction's core ideas are really cool like the X-men having their own island and sort of creating a genosha esque island for the rest of the mutant race. Terry Dodson's art is also a good draw and its constrasting nature to the horror of Land makes me crave it more and i'm excited when i turn the page and see some Dodson art. I really miss the days prior to Messiah Complex when the X-books were dividied into teams and if you wanted to read the adventures of this character they were in this book and would really like Fraction to narrow down the cast to a core team.

Thought dump-Comics the Contrived Cameo

Has been a long time since i've even attempt to post anything on this site....wow. Earlier in the year my computer died and i forgot about The Throne for the longest time but now i'm back to ramble on various subjects. This is essnetially a rant based upon the idea that Contrived Cameos to boost sales need to stop and if you going to be contrived at least make it worth while.

Got into an argument recently about Wolverine Publicity or the fundamental practice in comics to take one character and completely overhype them by throwing them in hundreds of books for no real story reasons outside of contrived popularity. Marvel is the major culprit throwing Wolverine in books where he has no buisness in(I'm looking at you New Avengers) and now its spread to Deadpool who for the longest time i was a major fan of.

What i'm essentially talking about is back during Warren Ellis Thunderbolts, there was a mini-series about former New Warrior turned thudnerbolt Penance and his struggle with his guilt over the Stamford incident. Now it was a mini that needed to be told due to the fact that many disliked the joyful Speedball becoming the gloomy Penance. Now Penance has gone awol for a good portion of the story out of Thunderbotls control to search down Nitro who caused the stamford incident. Now Wolverine Civil War one of the few Wolverine storylines i'm not ashamed to own dealt with Wolverine hunting down Nitro for his involvement in the civil war while everyone else was busy fighting eachother. Now there is clearly common ground for a good wolverien cameo in this storyline, as Penance could have gone to meet with Wolverine to discuss what happened with him and Nitro and being comics had a fight. However they ignore this obvious tie and Wolverien just shows up in the third issue for no particular reason...or there was but i didn't care enough to keep reading. This was a cameo for no reason only to put in to ape sales for the book by luring people in with Wolverine on the cover. Whats also glaring is that the issue he shows up in the Initative, you know the Civil War registered heroes were on the move and on the scene when Penance showed up but ignored the fact that Wolverine was there simply to allow the cameo. Now you can just complain that this is more bad writing then bad wolverine and its a little of both. The writer didn't need to shoe horn him in and Wolverien himself even if written well is completely irrelevant to the story that was told.

On the flipside i recently read the end of the Psylocke Mini and while not being as good as the storm mini which despite my dislike of Storm was really good, Wolverine showed up at the end of the third issue and was the main draw of the fourth. Now why didn't this appearence anger me. Well its because Wolverine not only had a connection with Psylocke but a connection with the major draw of the issue her assailant Matsuo who killed Wolverine's wife.

I also mentioned Deadpool in this rant and while i'm shamed to say i didn't read much of his 90's or early 2000 material the run on Cable and Deadpool by was really good. It made me fond of the character and he i enjoyed his oddball antics. Somehow Deadpool however has morphed into the sort of opposite Wolverine as Wolverine showing up something must be serious and when Deadpool shows up something is supposed to be not serious. Now theres a storyline running right now called doom war which is about the black panther and how doctor doom has conquered Wakanda. Now i don't care for Black panther for a various reasons which i'll probably list in another post but it suffers from a couple of issues right now. One Doom is congruent in like three storylines at the time so i see no suspense or urgency, two the Black Panther picks a team of X-men to help him fight which include boringly enough Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler no one else. Yeah the X-men literally became an army and you pick only three dudes who rate C to be when it comes to destructive power. Anyway one of the recent teasers had Deadpool thrown into the mix which is an isntant i don't care anymore.

The solitician is as followed

So far, Doctor Doom has won every round. With an army of indestructible shock troops, a horde of enhanced super-villains, and a new and terrifying level of personal power at his disposal, Doom is ready to crush the Fantastic Four, Storm and the Panthers for good. The only chance our heroes have to survive Doom’s deadly game is to change the rules. Enter: Deadpool.

Really there is no reason Deadpool should be in this mini-event.

Like with Wolverine Deadpool can be used as a tool for good and done well in contrived cameos. Now i mentioned how i loved Cable and Deadpool and the two characters have a good chemistry and history. So in the recent x-men crossover Messiah War Deadpool was thrown into the mix in a contrived Cameo. You know what made this one work, it was essentially a reunion of Cable and Deadpool for the first time in like two years. He had a connection to the characters in the story and while he played no real role in the story his appearence was appreciated so much as uneeded.

But i've ranted on about contrived cameos and how Deadpool and Wolverine are the culprits. Nigh every character is guilty of this but with most of them there not so overexposed and overhyped that there appearence throws me out of the story. A good example is Ghost Rider, while a popular character is not as overhyped as Wolverine and Deadpool so when his unnatural appearence graced the pages of X-Force i was a little giddy with glee rather then groaning(sigh..again). You see the story involved apache x-man and member of X-Force Warpath and his fight with a demonic bear. Warpath is a mutant with no magical abilities despite havign the indian spirit so the fight went one sided. Now any magical character would have done and but the writers chose Ghost Writer and while the coincendence of him riding down the desert in his bike while Warpath fights the bear was contrived it was awesome cuz it added something to a book primarily steeped in the center of the x-men world

Spiderman is also a character guilty of this, showing up in hundreds of books as a suprise Cameo but what makes Spiderman tend to work is that Spiderman is primarily stationed in New York so if a book takes place in New York and webhead shows up i'm okay with it. The same came be said about D.C. and there whoring of their Trinity specifcally Batman and Superman who do to the weight they hold in D.C. comics gives a grandeur to their appearences in random books for contrived reasons. When those two show up something is going down when Wolverine and Deadpool shows up...someone is looking to boost sales

I think i'm down ranting right now though i have a lot more rants to get out of my system..stay tuned while i explain my dislike for Wolverine and piss off one of my best friends in the process