Comics read recently
Where were we?
Ah yes, first, Alan Davies' run on Excalibur wrapped up. It was cute, it had some great Nightcrawler and Rachel moments and Phoenix lore that would be utterly ignored in future crossover events, but it was also high on a wacky, and to be perfectly honest, I retain, at most, a very fuzzy memories of it. Oh, and suddenly Brian wasn't an ass anymore. I guess there was that.
I actually read the first handful issues of Lobdell's run too. Because, that other arc he wrote, with Doom, that was actually good. But then he tried to be grimdark, with Excalibur, and well, that didn't work out so much.
Judging by the fact he wasn't awful on X-Factor either; I think that's an on going issue with Lobell. He's good when he allows himself to be fun and light, but if he tries to be serious, he this subtlety problem in which that he has none. 'Tis very sad. So yeah.
Which brings us to Fatal Attractions. The thing is, it isn't awful. By which I mean there's a bunch of good scenes in it. All the stuff with Kitty, for one. Quite a few with Storm. Some of the scenes of pathos in general - around Illyana's death - are pretty good for all that they are awfully forced and "subtle". And there's even some interesting things with Xavier's characterisation and his discussion with Magneto - except most of it didn't make sense in the end -- but between that and a few other things, I do actually rather like Lobdell's Xavier. At least when he isn't trying too hard to be edgy and nineties. And the summary of Magneto's backstory is actually pretty damn good which makes the absolute breakdown in characterisation later on all the more baffling and frustrating.
The story structurally is quite weak because both in terms of actions following from actions and from the characters acting out their motivation, it makes no damn sense. Stuff just happen because the writers thought it'd be cool for them, I guess? The overall result is a handful of gems amid a confused mess of crap. Sad.
Bloodties is at least better structurally; although it of course also suffers from the SUBTLETY problem, and apparently decided that after going through the troubles of showcasing Pietro and Crystal all along and bringing them in the centre of it, they were now going to stop allowing them any agency and let everyone else resolve the story. I dunno.
Anyway, to answer Yo!'s liveblogging '90's question; I have actually for some time done something similar to that on tumblr; and since I have recently fixed a tag problem I've had; I can now even link you right away to those stuff: http://demoiselledefortune.tumblr.co.../reading-x-men. If you want to see me flail a lot about Magneto & relatives, that's the place!
Moving on!
Black Widow: the Things they say about her suffer from the same problems as Homecoming except worse.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin also suffers from similar problems except it's also not as good a story and rather on the confusing side. Just - most flashback scenes are cool.
Ironman: Doomquest and Legacy of Doom are wonderfully hilarious and fun stories.
I also liked the Doom miniseries (2000) and its contingent F4 issues (by Claremont - I didn't know Claremont had done a F4 run!!) also loads of fun.
I also tries reading Spider-Woman: Origin and Spider-woman: Agent of SWORD which I found both pretty boring. The Bendis idiosyncrasies were getting on my nerve, I guess, and on their own do not sell me on the character (I guess if I had already liked her, I could have enjoyed them much more).
comments at the original post on Dreamwidth
Ah yes, first, Alan Davies' run on Excalibur wrapped up. It was cute, it had some great Nightcrawler and Rachel moments and Phoenix lore that would be utterly ignored in future crossover events, but it was also high on a wacky, and to be perfectly honest, I retain, at most, a very fuzzy memories of it. Oh, and suddenly Brian wasn't an ass anymore. I guess there was that.
I actually read the first handful issues of Lobdell's run too. Because, that other arc he wrote, with Doom, that was actually good. But then he tried to be grimdark, with Excalibur, and well, that didn't work out so much.
Judging by the fact he wasn't awful on X-Factor either; I think that's an on going issue with Lobell. He's good when he allows himself to be fun and light, but if he tries to be serious, he this subtlety problem in which that he has none. 'Tis very sad. So yeah.
Which brings us to Fatal Attractions. The thing is, it isn't awful. By which I mean there's a bunch of good scenes in it. All the stuff with Kitty, for one. Quite a few with Storm. Some of the scenes of pathos in general - around Illyana's death - are pretty good for all that they are awfully forced and "subtle". And there's even some interesting things with Xavier's characterisation and his discussion with Magneto - except most of it didn't make sense in the end -- but between that and a few other things, I do actually rather like Lobdell's Xavier. At least when he isn't trying too hard to be edgy and nineties. And the summary of Magneto's backstory is actually pretty damn good which makes the absolute breakdown in characterisation later on all the more baffling and frustrating.
The story structurally is quite weak because both in terms of actions following from actions and from the characters acting out their motivation, it makes no damn sense. Stuff just happen because the writers thought it'd be cool for them, I guess? The overall result is a handful of gems amid a confused mess of crap. Sad.
Bloodties is at least better structurally; although it of course also suffers from the SUBTLETY problem, and apparently decided that after going through the troubles of showcasing Pietro and Crystal all along and bringing them in the centre of it, they were now going to stop allowing them any agency and let everyone else resolve the story. I dunno.
Anyway, to answer Yo!'s liveblogging '90's question; I have actually for some time done something similar to that on tumblr; and since I have recently fixed a tag problem I've had; I can now even link you right away to those stuff: http://demoiselledefortune.tumblr.co.../reading-x-men. If you want to see me flail a lot about Magneto & relatives, that's the place!
Moving on!
Black Widow: the Things they say about her suffer from the same problems as Homecoming except worse.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin also suffers from similar problems except it's also not as good a story and rather on the confusing side. Just - most flashback scenes are cool.
Ironman: Doomquest and Legacy of Doom are wonderfully hilarious and fun stories.
I also liked the Doom miniseries (2000) and its contingent F4 issues (by Claremont - I didn't know Claremont had done a F4 run!!) also loads of fun.
I also tries reading Spider-Woman: Origin and Spider-woman: Agent of SWORD which I found both pretty boring. The Bendis idiosyncrasies were getting on my nerve, I guess, and on their own do not sell me on the character (I guess if I had already liked her, I could have enjoyed them much more).
comments at the original post on Dreamwidth