Comic + Fan = ?
So, sometimes, I like to talk about comics!
Take, for example, the latest issue of New Excalibur. Weirdly enough, I've been looking forward to it, in a way. The last few fill-in issues after Chris Claremont's leave of absence due to health conerns have been middling, with stories like Chamber becoming Apocalypse (as is befitting his character arc [?!!?!]) or Juggernaut whining about his villainous past YET AGAIN. But with Chris Claremont's return being relegated to the Exiles (almost exclusively involving alternate realities) and New Excalibur (which takes place in Chris Claremont's England, which may as well be an alternate reality), I feel as if his particular brand of feverish madness, while not being cured, has at least been safely quarantined. Now Claremont can people the Exiles entirely with his most favorite improbable daughters from alternate timelines, and there's no pesky continuity to stand in his way!
And then there was New Excalibur #16! The solicitations triggered almost all of my ironic-appreciation alarms:
"Fallen Friend," Part 1 & 2. Chris Claremont makes his triumphant return to New Excalibur with one of the most personal stories of his career. One of the team's members suddenly succumbs to an all-too-real tragedy. The team must pull together and care for their fallen friend while their own lives fall to pieces.
Turns out? NO.
Here's what happens! New Excalibur display their mighty abilities (AND TALK ABOUT THEM!) whilst saving the world, one British bank robbery at a time. Chatty chatty chat, fighty fighty fight. Then Dazzler gets shot! And killed. For a third time! And then mysteriously heals herself. A third time. Which can only serve to make a character more interesting. Take your time explaining it, Chris Claremont! We're in no hurry! Honest!
So then they go to a hospital and wring their hands about Dazzler getting too into the Death lately and being all flippant about it when Nocturne (Nightcrawler's improbable daughter from an alternate timeline, miraculously not created by Chris Claremont)'s dancing around to her iPod in a hospital ward is interrupted by her falling right over faster than you can say "grrl."
And then, pages later, the doctor utters those tragic words:
"...Nocturne has suffered a stroke."
OMG! The New Excalibur team has fallen through another alternate timeline and stumbled into the world of Chris Claremont's General Hospital fanfic! Cor blimey, guv!
So, yes. Before we get to some largely unnecessary flashback sequences displaying what an undeniably bright and lively young sweetheart is Nocturne and if you argue you are wrong, Chris Claremont's resident alpha female Sage offers this sparkling insight:
"A stroke involes a blockage of one of the blood vessels to the brain. It's more common with age, but actually it can occur any time. The fact she's from an alternate Earth somewhat complicates matters."
...Well, obviously.
So Nocturne thrashes around in her hospital bed trying to speak and out of her mind in terror as Sage, um, sits across the room and watches her impassively? Sage evidently then left the room between panels without a word of encouragement in order to join the rest of the team, directly before the entrance of the doctor, who (in lieu of checking her vitals or asking her how she's doing or whatever) brightly announces that it's a good thing she's awake, 'cause she's got some friends to see her, and baby, they are bringing balloons!
Alas, the comic ends with a tragic note, as contrasting with all her smiling (and in Dazzler's case, well nigh gleeful) friends, her thought bubbles make evident her pain:
'I can think, why can't I talk? Why won't the words come out right? I know these people. The lady's right, they're all my friends, my teammates -- so WHY can't I remember their NAMES?!'
...Wow. Just... wow.
So, the only thoughts this issue left me with was this: 1.) Did Chris Claremont totally have a stroke? and 2.) Is this how Chris Claremont is dealing with his thoughts on mortality, contrasting Dazzler's persistent case of the oops-I'm-dead-whoops-now-I'm-not's with throwing a dart at the New Excalibur dartboard and seeing who's going to have an actual serious honest-to-gosh we're-talking-serious-emotional-weight-here-people brush with death out of nowhere for no reason? For reals?
Man! I cannot WAIT the two weeks for the pulse-pounding conclusion to this all too real tale of tragedy and the human spirit in the face of perseverance and gee, living life and having friends really is super-awesome to the max, isn't it?
On the other hand, his second issue of Exiles is only made up of all the usual Claremontesque tics I've mostly become inured to after all this time. Among the standard offenses:
-Mandatory Psylocke versus Sabretooth battle. HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS, FOLKS!!!!!
-...during which Psylocke refers to him as "Sabes" no less than three times.
-Insistence on using words like "megamorph."
-People embracing for no good reason! Psylocke throws Sabretooth around for like seven pages, and then he up and hugs her and thanks her for the "best flamin' workout I've had in ages!" The hell?! Next thing you know, they're gonna start casually making out after sparring sessions, because that is what people do!
-Oh, yeah, and the word "flamin'." Has Sabretooth referred to any lady as a "frail" yet?
-Blink fighting ninjas while saying aloud: "The more of these creeps I flatten... the more keep coming! But I'm the only chance Spidey has!"
-Sue Storm as the latest stock scheming scantily-clad Claremont lady villain: "Mmm, you three will be particularly delicious specimens for mind-rape! I do rather think I'll enjoy myself!" (Paraphrasing, but not by much.) Because, as we all know by now, nobody can come close to defeating the X-Men except mind-controlled X-Men.
-Shoving in some obligatory moralization, culminating in Sabretooth stumbling into "Maybe great power equals great responsibility?"
So, yeah, again, nothing wholly unexpected.
Oh, but wait, I read good comics sometimes, too!
I'm utterly looking forward to Grant Morrison's prose Batman comic centering on the Joker, opening with the phrase "There's something about clowns at a funeral and it's hard to say if it's sad or funny." I had to put it down right then, my mind was already blown by sheer force of awesome. The second issue of Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts made up for the fairly mediocre opening issue by actually having things happen. And lots of Moonstone, Moonstone, Moonstone!, because Warren Ellis knows me and knows what I want. Likewise, the final issue of Nextwave... it's a rare comic to get me to laugh aloud, but this one pulled it off. Brilliantly nonsensical! I will miss it. Rockslide is fast becoming the best part of New X-Men by far, and Astonishing...
...oh, Astonshing. Paul O'Brien said some hurtful things at www.thexaxis.com: "Marvel have quietly rescheduled the following two issues [of Astonishing X-Men] for 2 May and 4 July, so the book is drifting way off schedule again. But really, who still cares about Astonishing X-Men anyway?"
I'm trying, Paul! Okay?! Joss Whedon still has a lot of credit in the bank with me, but in the face of all these naysayers, I'm trying! That said, I liked this issue. Lots of things actually happened, and it is, as always, very pretty, and there were los of charming character moments and sparkling dialogue, but with the abominable delays and pacing problems... well, it isn't going out of its way to make it easy for me.:( Also, why must what Joss Whedon has to say about the X-Men have to devolve into a @#$%ing space opera? Can't all that just stay over in Uncanny X-Men's Shi'ar Saga part 15 of 32 for those that like that sort of thing? I whimper.
...So, um, hey! Does anybody else care about comics?
Take, for example, the latest issue of New Excalibur. Weirdly enough, I've been looking forward to it, in a way. The last few fill-in issues after Chris Claremont's leave of absence due to health conerns have been middling, with stories like Chamber becoming Apocalypse (as is befitting his character arc [?!!?!]) or Juggernaut whining about his villainous past YET AGAIN. But with Chris Claremont's return being relegated to the Exiles (almost exclusively involving alternate realities) and New Excalibur (which takes place in Chris Claremont's England, which may as well be an alternate reality), I feel as if his particular brand of feverish madness, while not being cured, has at least been safely quarantined. Now Claremont can people the Exiles entirely with his most favorite improbable daughters from alternate timelines, and there's no pesky continuity to stand in his way!
And then there was New Excalibur #16! The solicitations triggered almost all of my ironic-appreciation alarms:
"Fallen Friend," Part 1 & 2. Chris Claremont makes his triumphant return to New Excalibur with one of the most personal stories of his career. One of the team's members suddenly succumbs to an all-too-real tragedy. The team must pull together and care for their fallen friend while their own lives fall to pieces.
Turns out? NO.
Here's what happens! New Excalibur display their mighty abilities (AND TALK ABOUT THEM!) whilst saving the world, one British bank robbery at a time. Chatty chatty chat, fighty fighty fight. Then Dazzler gets shot! And killed. For a third time! And then mysteriously heals herself. A third time. Which can only serve to make a character more interesting. Take your time explaining it, Chris Claremont! We're in no hurry! Honest!
So then they go to a hospital and wring their hands about Dazzler getting too into the Death lately and being all flippant about it when Nocturne (Nightcrawler's improbable daughter from an alternate timeline, miraculously not created by Chris Claremont)'s dancing around to her iPod in a hospital ward is interrupted by her falling right over faster than you can say "grrl."
And then, pages later, the doctor utters those tragic words:
"...Nocturne has suffered a stroke."
OMG! The New Excalibur team has fallen through another alternate timeline and stumbled into the world of Chris Claremont's General Hospital fanfic! Cor blimey, guv!
So, yes. Before we get to some largely unnecessary flashback sequences displaying what an undeniably bright and lively young sweetheart is Nocturne and if you argue you are wrong, Chris Claremont's resident alpha female Sage offers this sparkling insight:
"A stroke involes a blockage of one of the blood vessels to the brain. It's more common with age, but actually it can occur any time. The fact she's from an alternate Earth somewhat complicates matters."
...Well, obviously.
So Nocturne thrashes around in her hospital bed trying to speak and out of her mind in terror as Sage, um, sits across the room and watches her impassively? Sage evidently then left the room between panels without a word of encouragement in order to join the rest of the team, directly before the entrance of the doctor, who (in lieu of checking her vitals or asking her how she's doing or whatever) brightly announces that it's a good thing she's awake, 'cause she's got some friends to see her, and baby, they are bringing balloons!
Alas, the comic ends with a tragic note, as contrasting with all her smiling (and in Dazzler's case, well nigh gleeful) friends, her thought bubbles make evident her pain:
'I can think, why can't I talk? Why won't the words come out right? I know these people. The lady's right, they're all my friends, my teammates -- so WHY can't I remember their NAMES?!'
...Wow. Just... wow.
So, the only thoughts this issue left me with was this: 1.) Did Chris Claremont totally have a stroke? and 2.) Is this how Chris Claremont is dealing with his thoughts on mortality, contrasting Dazzler's persistent case of the oops-I'm-dead-whoops-now-I'm-not's with throwing a dart at the New Excalibur dartboard and seeing who's going to have an actual serious honest-to-gosh we're-talking-serious-emotional-weight-here-people brush with death out of nowhere for no reason? For reals?
Man! I cannot WAIT the two weeks for the pulse-pounding conclusion to this all too real tale of tragedy and the human spirit in the face of perseverance and gee, living life and having friends really is super-awesome to the max, isn't it?
On the other hand, his second issue of Exiles is only made up of all the usual Claremontesque tics I've mostly become inured to after all this time. Among the standard offenses:
-Mandatory Psylocke versus Sabretooth battle. HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS, FOLKS!!!!!
-...during which Psylocke refers to him as "Sabes" no less than three times.
-Insistence on using words like "megamorph."
-People embracing for no good reason! Psylocke throws Sabretooth around for like seven pages, and then he up and hugs her and thanks her for the "best flamin' workout I've had in ages!" The hell?! Next thing you know, they're gonna start casually making out after sparring sessions, because that is what people do!
-Oh, yeah, and the word "flamin'." Has Sabretooth referred to any lady as a "frail" yet?
-Blink fighting ninjas while saying aloud: "The more of these creeps I flatten... the more keep coming! But I'm the only chance Spidey has!"
-Sue Storm as the latest stock scheming scantily-clad Claremont lady villain: "Mmm, you three will be particularly delicious specimens for mind-rape! I do rather think I'll enjoy myself!" (Paraphrasing, but not by much.) Because, as we all know by now, nobody can come close to defeating the X-Men except mind-controlled X-Men.
-Shoving in some obligatory moralization, culminating in Sabretooth stumbling into "Maybe great power equals great responsibility?"
So, yeah, again, nothing wholly unexpected.
Oh, but wait, I read good comics sometimes, too!
I'm utterly looking forward to Grant Morrison's prose Batman comic centering on the Joker, opening with the phrase "There's something about clowns at a funeral and it's hard to say if it's sad or funny." I had to put it down right then, my mind was already blown by sheer force of awesome. The second issue of Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts made up for the fairly mediocre opening issue by actually having things happen. And lots of Moonstone, Moonstone, Moonstone!, because Warren Ellis knows me and knows what I want. Likewise, the final issue of Nextwave... it's a rare comic to get me to laugh aloud, but this one pulled it off. Brilliantly nonsensical! I will miss it. Rockslide is fast becoming the best part of New X-Men by far, and Astonishing...
...oh, Astonshing. Paul O'Brien said some hurtful things at www.thexaxis.com: "Marvel have quietly rescheduled the following two issues [of Astonishing X-Men] for 2 May and 4 July, so the book is drifting way off schedule again. But really, who still cares about Astonishing X-Men anyway?"
I'm trying, Paul! Okay?! Joss Whedon still has a lot of credit in the bank with me, but in the face of all these naysayers, I'm trying! That said, I liked this issue. Lots of things actually happened, and it is, as always, very pretty, and there were los of charming character moments and sparkling dialogue, but with the abominable delays and pacing problems... well, it isn't going out of its way to make it easy for me.:( Also, why must what Joss Whedon has to say about the X-Men have to devolve into a @#$%ing space opera? Can't all that just stay over in Uncanny X-Men's Shi'ar Saga part 15 of 32 for those that like that sort of thing? I whimper.
...So, um, hey! Does anybody else care about comics?