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.
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.
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