X-Men In General

Ah. Thanks.

Another thing: can I just say that I love Dr. Nemesis? It's amazing seeing a character who's on the side of good, but talks and acts like a silver age supervillain.

Nemesis is definitely awesome. He gets so many hilarious lines.

As long as I still have Marvel Unlimited, I've decided to read the rest of Claremont's original UXM run (I'd previously only read up to #144, when Scott meets Man-Thing and some demon dude with a dumb name).

I recently encountered this page. It may be my favorite page in the franchise.

I've noticed that Claremont suddenly became a lot less wordy after the Brood arc. I kind of like it.

It's definitely one of my favourite moments. The expression on Maddie's face is perfect. I highlighted the page in my own review of the issue.

Paul Smith's time as penciller was really good. He was a solid artist. Sadly, he's followed by John Romita, Jr. Who wasn't as bad then as he became, but still, it's not a style I enjoy.

Is the rumor that Maddie was intended to be a normal woman and Jean was never intended to come back true or not? I've heard several versions of what the original intent was.

Pretty much. My understanding is that Claremont planned on having Scott more or less retire after marrying Maddie, giving him a happy ending. He'd still show up now and then, but he would be mostly retired. Then Kurt Busiek pitched his idea on how Jean could be brought back, and Marvel decided to do it, and launch X-Factor. Claremont practically begged them not to bring Jean back. He suggested they use Dazzler, instead, and even suggested Jean's sister. But they decided on Jean, instead.

Even so, Scott's "happy ending" being with a Replacement Goldfish seems kinda.... eeehh...

And thus, the grand tradition of bringing back Superheroes from the dead years after the fact was born. (Technically, you could argue this was done back in the mid 70's with Wonderman, but all he amounted to was a one-shot bit character before being brought back. But Jean? Not so much.)

Though honestly, I might have actually been a bit miffed if Madeline just turned out to be some normal woman that just happened to look exactly like Jean. Maybe it's just me, but Madeline looking just like Jean, and popping up not too long after Jean kicked the bucket the first time, was too coincidental for her to just be some 'normal woman.' And while they could have handled what happened to her a bit better, I'm still glad there's an actual reason as to why Madeline just happened to look so much like Jean.

edited 16th Dec '14 7:50:56 PM by kkhohoho

Heh. The letter column in 179 was full of fans who absolutely livid at Rogue joining the team.

...and Rogue was answering the fanmail. Poor thing.

Yeah, there were a lot of people who hated her at first. Later on, readers came to absolutely love her, so they'd write angry letters any time something bad happened to her. A testament to Claremont's handling of her that the audience came to accept her so fully.

The issue where she actually joins has probably Rogue's woobiest moment ever, where she's sitting on a chair with her arms pulled up to her chest, visibly trembling. Which reminds me, awesome work on Paul Smith's part, as he made her visibly tremble. Not easy with a static image, but he managed it.

Funny observation about Marvel Unlimited:

With the exception of Uncanny, every X-Men series active in the 90's only has a handful of issues available. X-Men has the first ten issues and a few random ones throughout. X-Force has like the first four and a few random ones up until the last six or so. Generation X only has the final six issues. Excalibur only has the first 20 or so issues. X-Factor has seemingly random clumps of issues available. Cable only has a handful. Deadpool... actually, Deadpool's fully available.

I don't think it's out of some shame for the 90's. New Mutants also only has the first 25 issues and the last 3. But the missing issues thing seems to effect the 90's series disproportionately.

Just finished reading "God Loves, Man Kills". That was a damn good story. It was especially refreshing after all the space opera stuff with the Brood. Don't get me wrong, Claremont does the space stuff well (Dark Phoenix, anyone?), but I much prefer the stories about anti-mutant prejudice, like this one and Days of Future Past.

I've noticed there are three types of comics that are generally missing from Unlimited: annuals, anthologies, and '90s stuff, especially late '90s stuff.

It's not Busiek's fault about Jean. Shooter wanted the original X-Men back ; he just interjected when they were planning how to revive her.

Of course the fact that she was never Phoenix was important, until they confusingly retconned that. I doubt she could have kept the powers though. Didn't fit with the theme.

Maddie turning out to have been Jean all along would have been stupid, but it could have avoided the problems with Scott.

I grew up on the late 90's stuff. I have a soft spot for some of the Alan Davis stuff, but by and large I knew even then it wasn't great.

edited 19th Dec '14 8:49:30 AM by c0mraid

I didn't say it was Busiek's fault. I said he pitched his idea, and Marvel went with it.

You still implied cause and effect. Shooter decided on it, then Busiek pitched the "how".

According to Busiek, he came up with how to revive Jean basically for fun, and shared his idea with a few people during casual conversation. It traveled down the grapevine until the X-Factor writers heard it and brought it to Shooter. Busiek didn't even know it had spread past his initial conversation until after Shooter approved the idea. It was basically a fanmade WMG that was accidentally made canon.

So Claremont's Nightcrawler is ending. Not sure if it was canceled or if it was a 12-issue job from the beginning; it's hard to tell with these NOW books.

It just occurs to me that they could have had Madeline turn out to be Jean, by keeping the body clone thing for Phoenix and revealing that after Phoenix Jean died, the real one woke up with no memories and became Madeline Pryor.

Would have been easier to be honest.

. . . Huh. I never even thought of that. That would've worked great. Maybe even perfectly. Certainly way better than the story we got.

Clearly nobody ever thought of it.

I myself just came up with it this morning.

Also, I looked at All New Xmen 34 via Scans daily today.

The part where Part 616 Jean and Ultimate Jean mind whammy each other (apparently by accident) shows why it's a bad idea to let two powerful telepaths with known Power Incontinence who happen to be the same person read each others minds.

I like to think, they also pictured each other naked, which for Ultimate Jean would be a big heaping plate of irony.

edited 22nd Dec '14 7:05:31 PM by HandsomeRob

My favourite moment in the issue might've been the two of them hugging near the end. It was sweet, in such a weird way.

Yeah.

Even without Mind reading, they'd probably understand each other pretty well.

Or am I assuming too much just because they are different versions of the same character?

Edit: And now I'm picturing that they saw every dirty little secret and fetish the other has.

edited 22nd Dec '14 8:48:41 PM by HandsomeRob

So going by the Wikia (haven't read it myself), Elixir died today. Shoot; I liked him. Then again, given that he's one of those characters who's so absurdly powerful the writers clearly have no idea what to do with him, some closure might be okay...

edited 24th Dec '14 7:36:23 PM by HamburgerTime

So, Bendis delivered two fantastic issues today.

UXM was full of great, compelling conversations. Scott and Magneto being catty with each other, Eva and the other students debating her changing the past, Scott trying to tell Matthew he's worth saving. Even a nice moment between Emma and Dazzler. It looks like those two are going to start doing some bonding, which should be fun. At least, I hope they're going to start doing some bonding. Emma gave Dazzler a kiss on the cheek, which really should be an indication that they're going to become friends. Anyway, the issue was just full of great dialogue.

Then there was the ANXM Annual. Which was just brilliant. Bendis knocked it out of the park on the writing, keeping the story intimate despite a bit of largeness to it, and making Eva come across as genuinely heart-broken. Sorrentino's art was absolutely stunning. Lots of big splashes, including a five-page spread. Who the hell does five-page spreads? And it's just gorgeous work, huge but with tons of detail, and really expressive. Amazing work. The two-parter is well worth buying, because it's such a brilliant story.

Edit: Elixir was indeed killed off, in order to show how dangerous some monster thing was. It was such a bullshit C List Cannon Fodder death. Elixir was there solely so he could be killed off, and that is lazy writing. The New X-Men kids deserve better treatment than this shit, and that includes Elixir. The fact that his death doesn't matter one single solitary bit is insulting. I'm not saying characters should only ever go out in blazes of glory. But someone should give a shit. There should be at least one other character who feels something about a character dying. But we're not going to see anyone actually give a shit about Elixir being dead. I normally like Soule's writing, but this was some serious bullshit right here.

edited 24th Dec '14 9:13:03 PM by Tiamatty