Newsgroup: it.arti.fumetti
Titolo: [esilarante] Il nuovo direttore del "Comics Journal" (Dirk Deppey) sugli X-Men post-Morrison!

Salve!
Leggete quest'articolo, che merita! (consigliato soprattutto a chi non
regge piu' Claremont). Attenti agli spoilers pero'.
http://www.tcj.com/262/r_reload.html
--
Ciao, 
/\/\oreno

 
http://www.tcj.com/262/r_reload.html
Merita per Joss Whedon, per Claremont sono ovviamente il solito mucchio di
puttanate. (E grazie a dio che c'e' Excalibur per rimediare alle squallide
cagate di Morrison)
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"Well, I figured, what the hell!"

 
http://www.tcj.com/262/r_reload.html
divertente:-D
Non posso che essere d'accordo, soprattutto sul finale:
"If nothing else, "X-Men Reload" answers the question many Morrison fans
have probably contemplated at least once: Should I continue reading any of
this? I suppose you can buy Astonishing X-Men if you're feeling up to it
-- it's really not bad at all -- but otherwise the answer's an emphatic
Hell No."
Anche se pare che lo scrittore che prenderà il posto di Austen sia
Milligan, i suoi uomini X sarebbero irrinunciabili come quelli di
Morrrison, se non di più. Sono curioso di vedere come si accorderanno le
sue storie con questa fantomatica X-Men Reloaded.
In questo caso mi piacerebbe una testata italiana che contenga sia
Astonishing (più per i disegni che per altro, Whedon non lo conosco) che
gli X-Men di Milligan,  ma so che sarà un pio desiderio visto che la
Panini è già riuscita a mettere nella stessa rivista X-Statix e Xtreme
X-Men(o Safe-As-Milk X-Men come dice l'autore dell'articolo :-DDD).
Lobo
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 non regge piu' Claremont)
qualcuno lo posta per favore? ^^;;;
-- 
Gorgon
LaLocandadelleArti.Fantastiche: 
http://digilander.iol.it/itartifantasy
Ouroboros, nel mondo del fantastico: 
http://immaginario.net/ouroboros/
La fantasia al potere!

qualcuno lo posta per favore? ^^;;;
Voila':
------------  
X-Men Reload: Remember When...?
Scattershots by Dirk Deppey
All artwork Š2004 Marvel Characters, Inc.
(The following is presented as a companion to the inaugural, two-part
installment of Dirk Deppey's column of commentary, ĄJournalista! [TCJ
#262 & #263]).
The end of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men marked the final stage of
an experiment first begun at the behest of Marvel executives Bill Jemas
and Joe Quesada some four years ago, an attempt to make the company's
flagship line more attractive to newer readers. Morrison in particular
performed some amazing transformations upon the X-Men: abandoning the
traditional Spandex superhero costumes, outing Professor Xavier as
mentor of X-Men (and his school as their headquarters), providing said
school with a full 200+ member student body, and generally giving the
series a new, more science-fiction-oriented emphasis.
Morrison significantly changed the world in which the X-Men operated as
well. He destroyed the island nation of mutants known as Genosha,
seemingly killing off arch-enemy Magneto in the process, only to later
reveal that Magneto had been hiding among the X-Men in disguise as Xorn,
a mutant with a star for a head and the ability to heal with a touch.
Once revealed, Magneto proceeded to destroy first the Xavier Academy,
then all of Manhattan, before being thwarted by the X-Men and (after
killing off Jean Grey again) unambiguously killed by Wolverine. After a
final riff on the ever-popular "Days of Future Past" motif, Professor X
leaves the school, and Scott Summers and Emma Frost decide to soldier on
as headmasters in his absence. If the Internet buzz is any indication,
Morrison's run on New X-Men seemed to have attracted a significant
number of readers who ordinarily wouldn't be caught dead reading an
X-book. I should note that I was one of them.
Alas, we weren't enough to hold Marvel's interest, and the new market
for X-Men comics and graphic novels apparently never arrived, which
means it's time to hit the reboot button and return things to the way
they were. Given the changes Morrison made, it's actually something of a
significant task, but never mind that -- having decided to dance with
those that brung 'em, Marvel is currently dolling itself up to be the
very spitting image of the girl its audience first fell in love with as
teenagers. Nostalgia is the name of the game, here: The primary Direct
Market readership is between 25 and 35 years of age, and is looking for
the same junkie thrill they first experienced as teenagers reading
comics. Now that Marvel has finally decided which side of the fence it
needs to be on, the company is clearly bound and determined to give the
readership what it wants. The end result is "X-Men Reload," a marketing
campaign centered around the Big Reboot.
Are any of the resulting books any good? How high is the nostalgia
factor, anyway? To answer these questions, I spent a small chunk of Gary
Groth and Kim Thompson's money on the first two months or so of the
post-Morrison X-titles. Work, circumstances and the need to maintain my
own sanity kept me from buying and reading beyond that, but I think what
I've read is sufficient to provide a proper snapshot of Marvel's
post-experiment editorial philosophy. (Okay, there's one exception to
that assertion, the new X-Force series by Fabian Niceiza and Rob
Liefeld. Fantagraphics just doesn't pay me enough to endure that kind of
pain.) So what does the post-Morrison X-Men family look like? Let's
start with the books published immediately after Morrison's departure,
but before the start of the big "Reload" campaign....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New X-Men #155-156
Writer: Chuck Austen
Artists: Salvador Larroca & Danny Miki
Nostalgia level: 6 out of 10
 Notable mainly for not being awful. Before finally walking away from
the House That Jack Built muttering inane clichés about "artistic
expression" or some such, writer and cartoonist Chuck Austen had been
pilloried by fans for being one of Marvel's worst writers. It's not an
unjustified reputation, either. Austen's comics are noteworthy for their
embarrassing plot holes and ridiculous contrivances, the cataloging of
which has forced online critic Paul O'Brien to dizzying new heights of
creativity. This two-issue story, however, has the very modest goal of
placing a capstone upon former writer Grant Morrison's run of the
series, and perhaps due to the limited mandate, Austen manages to
observe the first law of the Hippocratic Oath and do no harm.
Well, almost no harm. Remember in the previous issue, when Scott Summers
agreed to Emma Frost's proposal to reopen Xavier's school? Apparently
Austen saw the art for the last few pages before they were lettered,
since in the subsequent arc Summers decided he doesn't want to reopen
the school after all. In these two issues, Austen throws a bunch of
events at the uptight mutant to convince him to change his mind and stay
on -- if I told you it ended with Summers holding a dead mutant child,
would you hold the last paragraph's opening sentence against me? For all
that, it's really not bad as such things go, but you have to forget that
the entire point of the arc was pointless to begin with to really give
Austen credit for writing it. The art is pedestrian and serviceable to
the task at hand.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X-Treme X-Men #46
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Igor Kordey, Greg Adams, Norm Rapmund and Andrew Pepoy
Nostalgia level: 10 out of 10
 As I noted above, the principal purpose of the "X-Men Reload"
initiative is nostalgia, and this final issue of of X-Treme X-Men offers
the promised experience in spades. For the past few years, Claremont has
served as something of a safety-valve for Marvel's experiments in X-Men
rejuvenation: Regardless of how convinced many diehard fans became that
Grant Morrison and Chuck Austen were doing unwholesome things to their
favorite storytelling environment, X-Treme X-Men was always there to
provide them with their daily sustenance. The basic set-up of the series
-- that Storm and her compatriots disliked the way X-Mansion had changed
in recent times, and had consequently run off to do things The Way They
Were Supposed To Be Done -- was geared to stroke precisely the most
conservative elements of the fanbase. Of all the various permutations of
recent X-books, this series was always the most deceptively named: I
suppose Safe-As-Milk X-Men probably wouldn't have gone down well with
the readers, but it certainly would have been more honest.
This issue's minimal story involves Claremont's band of anti-Morrison
refugees returning to New York to assist in the clean-up after Magneto
essentially destroys Manhattan. Despite the seeming momentousness of
such an activity, it takes all of six pages, leaving plenty of time for
us to wallow in this issue's real purpose: hangin' out with the X-Men as
they sit around and chat. The occasional plot-point is resolved --
Gambit lost his powers some time back, so two other characters get
together and restore them with a process that they seemingly could've
used at any time, choosing to wait until now for no other reason than
that It's Time To Reload -- but this is really a just a distraction from
the issue-length chance to bask in the glow of our collective youthful
diversions.
For the most part, this issue does its job amiably enough, but you can't
have a Claremont book without the Claremontisms. Case in point: Storm
has apparently been to Japan, and according to her teammates is now once
again letting her freak flag fly. Let's, for the moment, ignore that the
writer is recycling this painfully old and well-worn plot point. Even
so, I gotta tell you -- for a woman who grew up a thief in Africa, Storm
has some of the most boosh-wah-zee character conflicts imaginable. The
first time Claremont pulled this stunt, it basically amounted to the
character getting a mohawk and wearing lots of leather. I had friends
who dressed in similar fashion, once upon a time, and every last one of
them was an imagination-starved, middle-class joiner who naďvely assumed
that dolling himself up as a punk-rocker was the gateway to a
fascinating new personality. It's the sort of empty gesture that leads
people to suspect television as being the culprit, and more often than
not they're absolutely correct. Storm hasn't even gone that far this
time, leading me to wonder exactly what all the fuss is about. Is she
secretly knocking over liquor stores or something? My suspicion is that
it all amounts to either enjoying more wild sex, or feeling mildly less
guilty about the wild sex she currently enjoys.
All in all, it feels like Claremont's just going through the motions
here, and why not? He's been writing X-Men comics for some 25 years now,
and at this point has a ready arsenal of tried-and-true storytelling
tropes that can be plugged into the pages as circumstance requires. More
to the point, there's no reason for him to do anything else: The fans
want their classic X-Men, and Claremont is in a unique position to
deliver the goods. Chris Claremont is "classic X-Men." One of these
days, advances in artificial intelligence will lead to the existence of
a proper Chris Claremont Storytelling Generator, and then fans will be
able to sit hang out with their imaginary best friends, Kitty and Storm
and Gambit and Rogue and all the others, well into their dotage -- safe
in the womb-like security of an environment as consistent as their
favorite meal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Mutants #13
Writers: Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir
Artists: Khary Randolph and Rich Perotta
Nostalgia level: 9 of 10
The cover shows the surviving, original New Mutants together again, and
the story delivers what the cover promises: an opportunity to watch our
heroes hang out together and go on one last adventure before splitting
up to their various Reload assignments. Like X-Treme X-Men #46, it does
the job in satisfactory fashion -- DeFilippis and Weir have a solid
handle on what makes these characters work together, are saddled with
none of Chris Claremont's many defects as a writer, and the result is
pleasant enough. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call the
characterization three-dimensional, but then neither the plot nor the
mood to which the story aspires really requires more than what is
provided. The art is cartoony and expressive; this isn't reflected on
the cover, but it could be worse. Of all the books under review here, I
suspect that this issue's creators would be the least offended if I
refered to their work as a satisfactory children's comic. I've grown out
of this sort of thing, but I'd heartily recommend it to anyone who
hasn't yet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uncanny X-Men #442-443
Writer: Chuck Austen
Artists: Salvador Larroca and Danny Miki
Nostalgia factor: 5 of 10
 Now this is what I call a crappy comic-book story. Let me tell you what
happens in these two issues, for the express purpose of helping you
resist any urge you may have to buy them yourself.
Nick Fury -- drawn by Larroca and Miki to resemble a petulant college
dude with a bad haircut and an eyepatch -- flies Professor Xavier and
Wolverine back to the ruins of Genosha so Magneto can be buried. He's
none too happy with the assignment, and abandons them on the island as
soon as they arrive. Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, the X-Men are
cleaning up some of the more picturesque wreckage left behind by
Magneto. Back to Genosha: Professor X begins to eulogize Magneto, before
Wolverine interrupts him to note the obvious moral disconnect involved
in such a speech: "The man just murdered -- in cold blood -- hundreds of
innocent people," Wolverine says.
Wolverine kicks Magneto's coffin over. This summons some of Magneto's
disciples among the Genoshan survivors, who decide that now's as good a
time as any to pick a fight. Meanwhile, back at the Avenger's curiously
pristine Manhattan mansion, Polaris, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch
all agree that being Magneto's kids is a real bummer. Back to Genosha:
Wolverine kicks his allotted amount of ass for the issue and then, to
emphasize his point, climbs a Sentinel refashioned into a likeness of
Magneto and --
Okay, a brief pause, here. The Sentinel in question is the lifeless husk
of one of the machines that destroyed Genosha in the first arc of New
X-Men, comparable in size to the Statue of Liberty -- maybe a little
bigger. Following that arc, a group of X-Men returned to Genosha and
discovered that Magneto's henchman The Toad and a few of his buddies are
reshaping said Sentinel's face to resemble their allegedly fallen leader
as a memorial. This part is important: The X-Men confront the Toadies
inside the head of the Sentinel, for it is big enough for two good-sized
groups of people to stare each other down and still have room for
dramatic staging.
Back to the story at hand. Wolverine sticks his claws into the outer
housing of the Sentinel-turned-Magneto statue, and slides down the
front... cutting the Sentinel in half and causing it to collapse. Think
about that. Wolverine's claws are no longer than the length of his
forearms, since that's where they're housed when retracted. (Okay, there
are panels where Larroca draws 'em to be longer than Wolverine's arms
altogether, which must make bending the elbow a real bitch, but work
with me here.) By making one cut down the big robot's length, no deeper
than its outer shell, Wolverine causes an object big enough to pick a
fight within to completely collapse, literally splitting in two as he
slides down its body. From this, we can conclude that it's no wonder the
X-Men were able to defeat the Sentinels time and time again -- they were
constructed exclusively from the eggshells of inbred, anemic
hummingbirds. Putting an exclamation point on his actions, Wolverine
strikes a dramatic, crouching pose for the benefit of his observers when
he hits the ground, the mark of a true tough guy.
Now, you'd think that this physics-bending display of destruction would
be enough to cow all concerned into silence, but no, Toad responds by
wrapping his mutant tongue around Wolverine's neck. Wolverine cuts it
off, and is about to slice the renegade mutant in half like a
forty-foot-deep giant robot when Polaris intercedes -- apparently, she
can travel from Manhattan to the South Pacific in a matter of minutes --
and offers to play "devil's advocate" on Magneto's behalf. End of
chapter one, and I suppose being Magneto's daughter isn't that big a
bummer, after all.
Uncanny X-Men #443 picks up where we left off last issue, with various
Genoshians bowing down before Polaris, providing an opportunity for some
subtle cameltoe action in a worm's-eye-view panel. Denying that she is
their new queen, Polaris namechecks the Stockholm Effect to explain the
Genoshans' subservience to Magneto for the benefit of Professor Xavier
and Wolverine, and all in all spends some five pages defending Magneto
by pointing out that humans built the Sentinels, and therefore deserved
what they got in Manhattan despite the nagging fact that it was actually
Xavier's mutant-ish twin sister that actually launched the attack that
destroyed Genosha. Xavier replies with a three-page speech that genocide
is always wrong, prompting Polaris to threaten to kill Xavier. When he
offers up no resistance, she gives in and uses her magnetic powers to
rebuild the Sentinel that Wolverine destroyed, this time giving it both
Xavier's head and Magneto's now-angelic, unmasked head. Satisfying
denoument now achieved, everybody walks away, leaving Xavier to make a
wistful bon mot to Magneto's corpse. The end.
It took two full issues to tell this blitheringly stupid story. If you
actually bought both of them for any purpose other than mocking Chuck
Austen in public, please take a moment from you busy schedule, find a
felt-tipped marker, and write "SUCKER" on your forehead in big block
letters. The people around you need to be warned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Astonishing X-Men #1-2
Writer: Joss Whedon
Artist: John Cassaday
Nostalgia factor: 7 of 10
 Having dispensed with the immediate post-Morrison books, let's move on
to the products of the actual Reload campaign. Marvel had something of a
minor problem in replacing Morrison, though it probably wasn't keeping
the editors awake at night worrying about it: After all, you could
basically say that Chuck Austen's entire run on Uncanny X-Men was
devoted to proving once and for all that you could throw a typewriter
and a few sheets of paper at a trained monkey, illustrate the results,
and the hardcore X-fans would still eat it up and ask for more. Oh,
they'd whine and moan on message boards from time to time, but the
consistency with which they'd nonetheless drop money on each new issue
made their cries of alleged anguish ring more than a little hollow. That
said, Morrison's contribution to the series was imaginative enough that
unless the company snagged at least one, genuine A-list writer at the
line, the rebooted line was going to look and feel pretty lackluster. No
matter what they did to the rest of the mutant books, one of them had to
be interesting enough to make the inevitable comparisons to what had
come before seem at least somewhat favorable.
In the end Marvel chose writer Joss Whedon, creator of the cult-hit
television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for the job. As these two
issues demonstrate, it was an inspired choice.
The storytelling is "decompressed," as superhero fans unfamiliar with
manga or Cerebus refer to extended moment-to-moment comics storytelling,
so summing up the contents of these first two installments is fairly
easy. Kitty Pryde returns to X-mansion to join Cyclops' new team of
mutants. The next morning, Wolverine picks a fight with Cyclops over his
relationship with Emma Frost. The rest of the team drags them to the
Danger Room to chill out -- it's here that Cyclops proposes a return to
superhero costumes. Later that night, a superpowered villain and
assorted henchmen interrupt a high-society gathering and take the
participants hostage, prompting the X-Men to suit up and fly to
Manhattan to intercede by force. While they're doing this, a respected
scientist named Dr. Kavita Rao, holds a press conference in which she
announces that she's found the cure to the genetic strain that causes
mutations in human beings. Upon completion of their rescue mission, the
X-Men learn of this, and return to X-mansion to deal with how this news
affects the student body. There's a minor confrontation between Emma
Frost and Kitty Pryde. Later that night, Hank McCoy breaks into Dr.
Rao's laboratory ... and asks her if the formula really works.
Laid out like that, it doesn't sound like enough to fill out two whole
issues, does it? Nonetheless it works, and this is largely due to
Whedon's very capable handling of characterization, mood and pacing in
the service of a simple, well-told story. The character interactions in
particular are the major attraction of Whedon's writing: they read with
a smooth naturalism that recalls dialogue between actual people, using
mannerisms and thoughtfully-assigned motivations to create an engaging
rapport both between the characters and with the reader. Astonishing
X-Men has what the rappers call flow, and it plays no small part in
leaving the reader genuinely curious as to what happens on the next
page.
The contrast with Grant Morrison's first two issues of New X-Men are
instructive. Morrison's run started out with a bang, shifting quickly
back and forth between scenes and tossing out wild ideas and restless
novelty like they were confetti. Rereading Morrison's first story arc,
I'm impressed with just how seldom it stood still. Whedon, by contrast,
shuffles in like a college student returning home for summer vacation --
after a brief opening teaser for the story to come, his reintroduction
of Kitty Pryde to X-mansion feels like a superhero version of The Big
Chill, with our heroine wandering the halls and fondly remembering her
previous life as a superhero, before joining her teammates in X-Menland
for a student orientation.
(In fact, Whedon's usage of this character deserves special note. I've
heard it mentioned -- I forget the source of the quote -- that Kitty
Pryde was many a fanboy's "first girlfriend," and the skills that Whedon
developed while writing female characters for Buffy get put to good use
in reintroducing her as such here. She's simultaneously sure of herself
and unsure what she's doing with a superhero fighting team, unusually
calm and collected for a twentysomething woman yet still occasionally
betraying the winsome nature of an earnest, Midwestern teenage girl. I
strongly suspect that she'll play a major role in any fanbase the series
gathers.)
Where Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon meet is in their reverence for the
source material: Like New X-Men, an obvious love for the environment
first established by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and John Byrne exudes
from the pages of the Whedonized version of the series. The comparison
ends there, but Whedon manages not to look the smaller for it. Wisely
sidestepping the futuristic pop-culture snap that Morrison injected into
the longrunning mutant soap opera -- an act one suspects he probably
couldn't have matched -- Whedon instead wanders amiably amongst the
collected memories of an army of longtime fans, concentrating on emblems
and tropes that have worked for decades and making them shine with the
skill of a master children's novelist. Even the reintroduction of the
costumes, an edict handed down from on high, feels right when presented
in the warm and fuzzy atmosphere of longtime familiarity, and the
bullshit explanation for same that Whedon puts in Cyclops' mouth be
damned. Also, the captions are kept to an absolute minimum, which is a
welcome antidote to anyone reading the current Chris Claremont version
of the series.
John Cassaday's art and Laura Martin's coloring complete the circuit,
adding a nuanced realism that gives weight and depth to the sense of
passable reality. It won't be any revelation to any Planetary reader, of
course, but one can almost imagine the average Marvel zombie's eyeballs
popping with the turn of every page.
Astonishing X-Men reads like good escapist television, which one would
imagine was rather the point of hiring Joss Whedon in the first place.
It's not New X-Men -- there's nothing really new about any of this --
but if any of the Reloaded X-books manages to appeal to the people who
only started reading due to Grant Morrison, it'll be this one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uncanny X-Men #444-446
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Alan Davis and Mark Farmer
Nostalgia factor: 9 of 10
 One of the better, albeit arbitrary, edicts from the former Bill Jemas
regime involved a de-emphasis on captions and thought-balloons. I
haven't read enough Marvel comics over the last three years to tell you
how strictly this was enforced, so I can't speak to what extent it
actually resulted in better comics, but it seems like a reasonable
assumption to me. Robbed of the two most convenient forms of omniscient
narration and expository monologue, your average funnybook writer would,
it stands to reason, be forced to place more of a given story's
functional plot into things that the characters actually do and say,
resulting in more fidelity to the old visual-storytelling maxim, "Show,
don't tell."
Exhibit A for the prosecution: Chris Claremont. It may or may not be
interesting to note that Claremont's writing was one of the things that
had actually driven me away from comics for several years, back when I
was a teenager. It's not just that his habit of having characters sum up
entire story arcs in their dialogue, issue after issue, got old fast.
It's not just that he seems to think that the principal use of thought
balloons is to have each character sum up their various character flaws
and struggles with all the dull recitation of a psychiatrist in a 1950s
B-movie. It's not just that unless they were carefully written in a
given character's voice, I could never read caption boxes without
hearing them spoken aloud by
radio-personality-turned-Untouchables-narrator Walter Winchell. It's not
just that Claremont has the annoying habit of recycling the same
character subplots every fifty issues or so. It's not just that once I
discovered the diaries of Anaďs Nin, I realized how hilariously inept
Claremont was at writing romantic subplots. It's not just that the more
fantastic elements in Claremont's stories were better executed by the
science-fiction authors and film directors from whom he had stolen them.
No, it's all of the above, and more. Much more. If it weren't for Alan
Moore's prose in Saga of the Swamp Thing, I'd probably never have read
another comic book in my lifetime.
Don't get me wrong: If you're fourteen years old and susceptable to the
combination of high adventure and turgid soap opera in which Claremont
excels, his X-Men stories are almost guaranteed to be your cup of tea,
at least until you discover dating, adult responsibilities and better
writing. The fact remains, however, that there are distinct limits to
Chris Claremont's abilities as a writer, and a sustained exposure to his
work, month after month after month, will eventually rub your nose in
them.
And rub your nose in them he does here. The story opens on an X-Men
baseball game, with Mirage and Karma acting cute in that treacly
Claremont way, and Emma Frost serving as the Grant Morrison stand-in for
Claremont's gleeful come-uppance. (Anyone looking to Claremont's Frost
for the delicious, Machiavellian bitch-goddess previously served up in
New X-Men will be sorely disappointed - here she has all the personality
of Cruella DeVille slumming in an episode of Scooby Doo.) We cut briefly
to Sage channel-surfing through the Mansion's various security cameras,
which allows a brief summary of subplots, before settling in on a Danger
Room sequence that Claremont has written 7,436 times before.
Then it's mission time! We're treated to a group of "Weaponeers,"
generic Arab villains in Ming the Merciless costumes, as they menace a
small African village just long enough to establish them as bad guys
before a group of X-Men show up to dole out the asskicking. Elsewhere,
Wolverine and Nightcrawler are dispatched to protect a group of
teenagers from a young, confused mutant not totally in control of his
powers, which all ends in tragedy and melodramatic handwringing thanks
to a one-dimensional law-enforcement bigot. The scene then cuts to Sage
channel-surfing the resulting media fiasco -- the one new and
interesting storytelling device in Claremont's bag of tricks. Night
falls, and Storm and Nightcrawler have a chaste romantic moment where
back-stories and character motivations are rehashed in declarative
sentences -- a far older, less interesting storytelling device from said
bag. Meanwhile, in England...
I suppose I could go on, but why bother? If you went through an X-Men
phase during your teenage years, it's all going to seem like déjŕ vu to
you anyway. With Grant Morrison gone and his changes in the series
ordered rolled back by management, Claremont has effectively now been
redeemed as the One True Visionary of Marvel mutants. With no need to
stare over his shoulder and worry about the new kid coming up behind
him, there's also no need to stay on his toes and sweat the details --
not that he ever really did to begin with, but here there's not even the
slightest iota of pretense that we're going to get anything other than
the same contrivances Claremont's been serving up for a quarter of a
century. If you've read any 25-issue run of X-Men he's ever written,
you've already read this story before cracking open the covers.
Then there are the captions. Please read the following from #446:
"Storm's electromagnetic pulse crippled the cyborg nanites infecting
Sage, and the cyber-glasses from which they were created... but Sage can
feel them adapting. She has but a moment to act. And only this one
chance."
Now re-read that in a Walter Winchell voice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X-Men #157-158
Writer: Chuck Austen
Artists: Salvador Larroca and Danny Miki
Nostalgia factor: 7 of 10
Armed with Rogue, Gambit, and a group of B-list mutants, Chuck Austen
proves that the machine is easily assembled from spare parts in these
two thoroughly perfunctory issues. The opening sequence provides your
Minimum Daily Requirement of X-Men soap opera and subplot maintenance,
with guest-appearances by a smattering of A-listers to keep the fans
interested. The mission which follows features your Minimum Daily
Requirement of witty banter and superhero slugfests. The bit about the
school bulletin board was mildly amusing. I'm mildly perplexed as to why
Cerebra suddenly became the version of Cerebro from the film series, but
whatever.
I suppose I should dump on somebody-or-other for the central reason for
this story's existence: the return of Xorn, revealed not to be Magneto
after all. The problem is, there's a certain inevitability to the whole
affair. Someone on high at Marvel wanted a popular character to return,
and Austen & Co. were charged with making it so. It's idiotic, to be
sure, but the Hidden Hand of the Marketplace lurks behind the situation,
and it's difficult to argue with the logic, here. The fans want their
Perfect Moment, and Marvel wants its licensable properties to do the job
as well as possible. Welcome to work-for-hire and the world of commerce.
Anyone complaining about how much this new turn of events betrays the
imaginative work that had come before simply doesn't understand the game
being played here. Also, they're to smart to be reading these comics,
and should probably stop now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New X-Men: Academy X #1-2
Writers: Nunzio DeFillipis & Christina Weir
Artists: Randy Green & Rick Ketcham
Nostalgia factor: 7 of 10
 I'm not sure that I have a lot to say here that didn't already get said
in my New Mutants review. The story is competently told from the vantage
point of a group of teenagers. If you were a fan of Claremont's original
New Mutants series and aren't expecting too much, you should be able to
while away a few minutes on these comics without feeling too cheated.
Danger room sequence? Check. Kids learning to control their powers?
Check? Rivalry with Emma Frost's Hellions? Check. It isn't a
particularly thrilling or imaginative story, but it gets the job done,
and sets up the series to follow with adequate skill. It doesn't insult
your intelligence, but neither does it tickle your imagination. Meet the
new New Mutants, same as the old New Mutants. Grading on a curve, I'd
give it a C+.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excalibur #1-2
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artists: Aaron Lopresti & Greg Adams
Nostalgia factor: 5 of 10
We turn now to the most unnecessary of Marvel's "Reload" series. Let me
get straight to the point. Excalibur is a mess, its only purpose being
the dirty work of undoing the most far-reaching of Morrison's changes to
the X-Men cosmology: the destruction of Genosha and the death of
Magneto. As established above, I'm not exactly Chris Claremont's biggest
fan, but even so I can't help but wonder if he didn't get the Marvel
writer's version of latrine duty on this one.
It certainly smells like latrine duty. Bundled under a thoroughly
misleading cover depicting all the major X-characters -- all but two of
whom don't appear in this issue -- the first issue picks up right after
the end of Uncanny X-Men #443, with Charles Xavier sitting in the
Genoshan ruins and staring at "Magneto's coffin." An inner monologue
begins and promptly refuses to shut the fuck up, as Xavier laments at
endless length the calamity around him. He begins fiddling with the
coffin, revealing that it holds a number of supplies in addition to a
dead body. Xavier puts on more martial-looking clothing, as well as a
gun which disappears after a few panels. Equally inexplicable is a shot
of the giant Sentinel rebuilt by Polaris, which now depicts Magneto
wearing his helmet. From this, we may assume that the average Marvel
editor's job involves lots of liquid lunches. (Okay, after TCJ #262, I
have no moral right to crack such jokes -- but you certainly have the
right to laugh.)
An imaginary Moira MacTaggert materializes for no other reason than to
provide accompaniment to the endless bloviation, as Xavier begins
carting the coffin across the landscape. It's a duet for two, in the key
of bullshit! When two groups of mutants lazily enter the scene -- one
friendly, the other antagonistic -- the temptation to shout hallelujah
is almost irresistable. There is a fight, which really serves no purpose
other than to mark time between the solliloquies and dialogues, but
since there's mildly less verbiage on the page during this sequence, I'm
all for it, and sorry to see it go once it ends and the mutants all go
home for the night.
Then Magneto appears. More conversation ensues as we move on to issue
#2, but what we all really want to know is this: How did he survive
being beheaded by Wolverine? Magneto's answer is par for the course in
this series, running along the lines of, "Well, I woke up one morning
and I wasn't dead." Also, the Magneto who destroyed Manhattan was an
imposter, a fact that Xavier swears he knew all along despite showing
all evidence of having been bamboozled when it all took place in
Morrison's New X-Men. This is brilliant storytelling in the mighty
Marvel manner, true believers! I mean, seriously, why not just have
Magneto say, "Well gee, Charles, Avi Arad needed me alive for the action
figures and movie sequels, so here I am," and be done with it? It has
more plausibility within the story itself, and the added bonus of
actually being true.
I have now become completely demoralized. Everyone involved with this
shambling mound of a story deserves eyeball acne. The kind with lots of
pus.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should probably note that there were other titles involved with "X-Men
Reload," including Starjammers, Exiles, Alpha Flight, District X, Emma
Frost, Weapon X, Mystique, Rogue, Official Handbook of the Marvel
Universe: X-Men 2004, a "director's cut" of Astonishing X-Men #1 and --
really, have I mentioned how completely demoralized I've become? There's
just no way I'm even reading all of that, let alone reviewing it. This
isn't a "new editorial direction," it's a marketing opportunity, an
experiment to see just how much money it can milk off of fans while
simultaneously declaring Grant Morrison an unperson as quickly as
possible. I shouldn't complain about this, as it's not the first time
Marvel's gushed forth with a fountain of X-crap, but then it's one thing
to lament the foolishness of this sort of thing from a distance, and
quite another to swim a couple of laps in its murky depths.
It also doesn't make sense from one book to the next. Characters change
radically in temperament from one book to the next, writers commenting
on one another's work sometimes don't know what took place there, and
just how many clones of Wolverine are running around in these titles,
anyway? I could probably kill a paragraph or two making headless-chicken
metaphors, but the more pertinent thing to do is to ask where the hell
the editors have been throughout all this nonsense.
If nothing else, "X-Men Reload" answers the question many Morrison fans
have probably contemplated at least once: Should I continue reading any
of this? I suppose you can buy Astonishing X-Men if you're feeling up to
it -- it's really not bad at all -- but otherwise the answer's an
emphatic Hell No.
Ciao!
Gray Mouser

 rimediare alle squallide cagate di Morrison)
sinceramente... ho letto i primi due numeri di excalibur e dire che
mi son cadute le braccia e' semplicemente eufemistico 
-- 
Gorgon

 Voila':
grazie
e dopo aver letto tutto il papiro (e gli albi in questione) posso
dire che... ha ragione da vendere ^^;;;; 
(a parte il fatto che osanna in maniera fastidiosa e IMO poco
equilibrata l'operato altalenante di morrison) 
-- 
Gorgon
... e da oggi "Trippy New Economy": caccia via le bambine povere dalla 
stanza!

mi son cadute le braccia e' semplicemente eufemistico 
Ah, sei riuscito ad arrivare al numero 2? :)
-- 
S E K T O R  A L P H A  5.0 - 
http://www.sektoralpha.it
Illustrazioni e foto by Michele Amadesi 
e-mail: 
shintet...@yahoo.it
  (rimuovere GOD)  

 
http://www.tcj.com/262/r_reload.html
va bene claremont...ma non ti sembra che esalti un po' troppo anche la
seconda metà del ciclo Morrison che è partita da "mediocre" ed è arrivata
a "indecente"?


equilibrata l'operato altalenante di morrison) 
Lo osanna rispetto agli altri autori-x: quando non viene paragonato a
Claremont, tartassano anche lui...  :-)
(Consiglio la lettura, per esempio, delle stroncature di "Arkham Asylum"
e "The Mistery Play". "The Filth" invece ha avuto una recensione
positiva...)


 recensione positiva...)
appena trovo il tempo mi mettero' a frugare qua e la' nel sito...
-- 
Gorgon

 Ah, sei riuscito ad arrivare al numero 2? :)
1. tanto lo leggo a scrocco da un amico (come praticamente la
maggiorparte della roba della marvel da un bel po' di tempo a questa
parte), quindi mi sento meno colpevole ^_^ 
2. in treno ho un bel po' di tempo per leggere ^^
3. ero curioso di vedere come giustificava il ritorno del tizio che
si vedeva nell'ultima tavola del primo numero ;_;
-- 
Gorgon
Oh no, madre. Anche quando siamo solissimi i Sette sono sempre con noi.
Ho visto Disperazione negli occhi dei ratti. Sogno viene quando le ombre
sono piu' fonde, e a volte lo segue Delirio. Spesso ho sentito Desiderio
scendere qui, nel buio, col solo conforto di me stesso; ma e' stata 
Morte che ho corteggiato, e ho desiderato fosse mia. E poi e' giunto 
Distruzione a ricordarmi che e' da ciechi che si attraversano meglio i 
labirinti. Sono arrivato cosi' al giardino di Destino.

 conosco) 
nei primi 2 numeri se l'e' cavata decisamente bene (al contrario di
cassaday); risultano in particolare decisamente "ispirati" i dialoghi
e decisamente intrigante la "trovata" buttata li' alla fine del
primo numero... potenzialmente pestilenziale quella alla fine del 
secondo (vedremo come chiudera' il cliffhanger)
-- 
Gorgon


http://www.tcj.com/262/r_reload.html
I ritorni sono degni de... Il Ragno (di Ortolani).
Useranno anche qui i "prodotti" per giustificare tutto quanto?
Mi spiego: Xavier ha "prodotto" Bafynhtug r Pnffnaqen Abin. 
Dato che Magneto e' spesso al livello di Xavier, perche' non potrebbe
a sua volta aver prodotto "Rivy Zntahf", "Kbea", e, tra un po', anche
"yr pvadhr trzryyr" Dhv Dhb Dhn Dhr r D ? :PPPP
Oppure v shghev Zntahf r Kbea fnenaab frzcer y'bcren qryy'vapbafpvb qv
Xavier, yn phv abfgnytvn qv Kbea r qry irppuvb Revp fgn pernaqb
dhrfg'vasynmvbar qv qbccvbav. Dopotutto, non abbiamo ancora mica visto
la mutazione secondaria di Xavier...
Bye
S. 

 la mutazione secondaria di Xavier...
credo che il suo secondo potere consista nel perdere e nel
riacquisire l'uso delle gambe in concomitanza con la perdita
e il ritorno della vista di sirio il dragone ^^;
-- 
Gorgon


scripsit:

E' una possibilita' che avevo considerato, ma a naso mi pare un potere
mistico, non mutante... Va bene che talvolta non c'e' troppa
differenza... Bisogna vedere cosa ne pensano Morrison e Claremont. 
Sara' la prossima saga cosmica? 
(Morrison + Claremont = Morrisont. O Moremont? Suona sinistro...)
Bye
S. 

 (Morrison + Claremont = Morrisont. O Moremont? Suona sinistro...)
Facciamo Maremont? Suona vacanziero...  ^__^
bai
M
-- 
Il linguaggio e' un labirinto di strade. Vieni da una parte e ti sai
orientare; giungi allo stesso punto da un'altra parte, e non ti
raccapezzi piu'.       (L. Wittgenstein, Ricerche filosofiche - 203)
mailto: mgiovannini chiocciolina racine punto ra punto it

 positiva...)
    Hai sottomano i link? La cosa mi interessa e te ne sarei grato. :)
p.s. Per il resto sono abbastanza d'accordo con il recensore anche se mi
pare che sia stato fin troppo buono con New Mutants...
-- 
    Nicola "nez" D'Agostino
  <!-- 
nezge...@geocities.com
 --remove/togli "getitout" -->

Facciamo Maremont? Suona vacanziero...  ^__^
Io pero', fossi l'editore, mi sentirei un po' a disagio se dovessi
promettere Maremont ai lettori.. :-)
Ciao!
Gray Mouser

promettere Maremont ai lettori.. :-)
Ma profumeresti di porcini e gamberetti. ;-))
Jolan Tru
-- 
Filippo "Hytok" Simone - L'oracolo sampdoriano di Sunnydale
La Casa degli Elfi 
http://www.freewebtown.com/lacasadeglielfi/
Commissione Voyager 
http://www.voyageritalia.com/
http://ildominio.altervista.org/
 
http://www.ussexcalibur.it/

    Hai sottomano i link? La cosa mi interessa e te ne sarei grato. :)
Il Comics Jounal e' una rivista cartacea, mica tutto e' sul sito...
COMPRATELO!   :-)
