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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2014 16:03:00 GMT -5
While I'm no fan of Morrison's X-Men, I find it hard to argue it's worse than previous 12 years of stories. But that damn art. UGH. That's what happens when a diva writer is a month and a half late with the script and a great artist has to turn out 22 pages of pencils and inks from that script in three days, which is what Marvel often asked Igor Kordey to do. Check out stuff he did like Secret History or even his work on Cable where he had time to actually work on the book and there is a world of difference in the art. His stuff when he has time to do it is very, very good. -M |
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Post by fanboystranger on Nov 27, 2014 23:34:17 GMT -5
That's what happens when a diva writer is a month and a half late with the script and a great artist has to turn out 22 pages of pencils and inks from that script in three days, which is what Marvel often asked Igor Kordey to do. Check out stuff he did like Secret History or even his work on Cable where he had time to actually work on the book and there is a world of difference in the art. His stuff when he has time to do it is very, very good. -M It kinda upsets me that people judge Igor Kordey's work simply on that X-Men arc. The guy's a brilliant artist who was put into an impossible situation. Secret History is a fantastic book, and Kordey's art is a large part of the reason why. Smoke is probably the best espionage comic of the past twenty years. Guys got serious chops.
(Not that I feel anyone's doing that here. Just a general sentiment in a segment of fandom who won't read anything without a superhero in it. Perhaps that's when X-Men truly jumped the shark-- when its fanbase got so insular and critical that they couldn't accept anything that they hadn't already seen in the comic a million times.)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2014 6:49:10 GMT -5
I was referring to Frank Quitely's art on the book.
Didn't he do the art for Morrison's Batman and Robin as well? If so, then I think his Robin is adorable because I think his style suits characters like that better. I just didn't care for his style on the X-Men.
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Post by fanboystranger on Nov 28, 2014 16:01:14 GMT -5
I was referring to Frank Quitely's art on the book. Didn't he do the art for Morrison's Batman and Robin as well? If so, then I think his Robin is adorable because I think his style suits characters like that better. I just didn't care for his style on the X-Men. I can see that. Quitely's style isn't for everyone, and I wasn't all that impressed with his New X-Men, either. To be frank, I wasn't all that impressed with Morrison's run-- it felt like a love letter to Claremont/Byrne with a new coat of paint on old concepts. Certainly better than what had come before and what would follow, but definitely not the dynamic reinvention of the franchise that some people would have you believe it was. (The Invisibles was the best X-book that Morrison wrote.)
Milligan and Allred's X-Force/X-Statix, on the other hand, was that brilliant reinvention of the franchise, but it was too idiosyncratic for a lot of X-fans to latch on to. That was the best X-book in around 25 years.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2014 22:12:15 GMT -5
Quitely grew on me while I was reading All-Star Superman, but at first I called it "Cabbage-Patch Superman." Love it! I like his work on All-Star Superman and Flex Mentallo, but on X-Men it felt wrong. His characters do tend to look like they forgot to put in their dentures. |
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Post by Pól Rua on Nov 28, 2014 23:10:22 GMT -5
"The Golden Age of The X-Men is 12".
I remember enjoying the run up until about the point when Paul Smith and John Romita Jr. were working on it, but eventually, it became obvious that it was all just 'churn'. The X-Men is a soap opera that never ends, and no character ever gets written out because every character is someone's favourite and they can't die.
Or if they do, it doesn't 'take'.
One of the problems with the X-Men in particular (and to a lesser extent, almost all large scale superhero 'universes') is that it's almost impossible for a character to be important or interesting. Because there are SO MANY characters clamouring for attention, each character can get lost in the mix and before too long, everyone's an anonymous extra who steps up, delivers their line and fades back into the background.
By the 90's, the series was so crowded with nonentities and the noise to signal ratio was so high that it was almost unreadable.
Add to that that the team's goals are so nebulous. They're not crimefighters, they're... what? spokespersons? role models? educators? Their mission is to... what? Integrate mutants and the rest of humanity? Be an example of 'good mutants'?
Most of the time they come across as a covert paramilitary goon squad. Hardly the sort of thing to arouse sympathy and compassion in a world that 'fears and hates them'.
Even in a never-ending battle, it's possible to have short term goals. Batman may not be able to eliminate crime, but he can rescue and abducted kid, track down a serial killer, solve a mystery or stop the Joker from poisoning the city reservoir. Superman can save the world from a giant meteor. Spider-Man can corral the Green Goblin. The Fantastic Four can encounter a new race in the Negative Zone and establish peaceful contact.
The X-Men mostly seem to deal with internal squabbles.
Plus, the level of 'mutant hysteria' seems to fluctuate wildly due to narrative necessity.
Like I say, 'churn'. The whole thing seems to be dedicated primarily to keeping itself running.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 28, 2014 23:51:33 GMT -5
One of the problems with the X-Men in particular (and to a lesser extent, almost all large scale superhero 'universes') is that it's almost impossible for a character to be important or interesting. Because there are SO MANY characters clamouring for attention, each character can get lost in the mix and before too long, everyone's an anonymous extra who steps up, delivers their line and fades back into the background. By the 90's, the series was so crowded with nonentities and the noise to signal ratio was so high that it was almost unreadable. Excellent point. And even the characters that matter get frozen in the depiction they're best loved for, no longer able to evolve. This got particularly frustrating with Wolverine, a character for whom personal growth was integral to his personality (at least as of the first mini series). Once Claremont lost control of him, he just became your generic tortured anti-hero with a self-control problem. It was quite tedious. I've always wondered what the X-Men would do if they actually stopped an evil mutant. In the early issues, Prof. X would mind-wipe them without a second thought, but I think Claremont saw the ethical problem with that so, afterward, the X-Men just never caught the bad guys, because what would they do with them if they did? I remember that filler story by Bill Mantlo where they capture Warhawk and turn him over to the police. I mean, two beat cops just perp walk the guy out in handcuffs after he just went head to head with Colossus. Well, that pretty much describes any Marvel or DC property. |
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Post by fanboystranger on Nov 29, 2014 0:21:56 GMT -5
Which is why I said that the X-franchise jumped the shark when X-fandom couldn't accept anything new. I think it's 1991, but there's a lot of good arguments for 1986. In my opinion, and this is going to be controversial, those people who felt the X-franchise peaked in 1986 found better comics to read, but those in 1991 couldn't quite find their way. After that, same old stories....
Unless we're talking Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix... but most regular x-fans don't. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 29, 2014 1:45:16 GMT -5
Which is why I said that the X-franchise jumped the shark when X-fandom couldn't accept anything new. I think it's 1991, but there's a lot of good arguments for 1986. In my opinion, and this is going to be controversial, those people who felt the X-franchise peaked in 1986 found better comics to read, but those in 1991 couldn't quite find their way. After that, same old stories....
Unless we're talking Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix... but most regular x-fans don't. Well, PAD's X-Factor too. |
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Post by fanboystranger on Nov 29, 2014 1:54:47 GMT -5
Which is why I said that the X-franchise jumped the shark when X-fandom couldn't accept anything new. I think it's 1991, but there's a lot of good arguments for 1986. In my opinion, and this is going to be controversial, those people who felt the X-franchise peaked in 1986 found better comics to read, but those in 1991 couldn't quite find their way. After that, same old stories....
Unless we're talking Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix... but most regular x-fans don't. Well, PAD's X-Factor too. True, I guess. Not really doing anything new as far as the concept, but a great book, nonetheless. I think PAD just grasped on to the third and fourth stringers, realized that they were so marginal that he could develop them, and didn't really have to deal with a lot of fallout. Other than FanboyStranger, who really cares about Guido? |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 29, 2014 2:20:54 GMT -5
Well, PAD's X-Factor too. True, I guess. Not really doing anything new as far as the concept, but a great book, It was pretty different from the original concept. If anything, it was more an updating of Freedom Force, an antagonist for the original X-Factor line-up. PAD himself said that he was assigned which characters to use, but I agree that he was able to see their potential far better than another writer might have been able to. Though I, myself never had much interest in the rest of the team, I could never understand why Jamie Madrox went overlooked for as long as he did. A lot of folks don't realize he pre-dated the All-New, All-Different X-Men, yet spent pretty much all that time lounging around on Muir Island until the X-Factor reboot. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 2:57:44 GMT -5
That's what happens when a diva writer is a month and a half late with the script and a great artist has to turn out 22 pages of pencils and inks from that script in three days, which is what Marvel often asked Igor Kordey to do. Check out stuff he did like Secret History or even his work on Cable where he had time to actually work on the book and there is a world of difference in the art. His stuff when he has time to do it is very, very good. -M It kinda upsets me that people judge Igor Kordey's work simply on that X-Men arc. The guy's a brilliant artist who was put into an impossible situation. Secret History is a fantastic book, and Kordey's art is a large part of the reason why. Smoke is probably the best espionage comic of the past twenty years. Guys got serious chops.
(Not that I feel anyone's doing that here. Just a general sentiment in a segment of fandom who won't read anything without a superhero in it. Perhaps that's when X-Men truly jumped the shark-- when its fanbase got so insular and critical that they couldn't accept anything that they hadn't already seen in the comic a million times.)
One of the reasons I don't like monthly comics. |
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Post by earl on Nov 29, 2014 3:29:06 GMT -5
Peter David is one of those comic writers that seems to have worked in super hero comics largely working on the peripheral titles. I'd say John Ostrander and Jeff Parker are a couple more writers that seemed to have had a similar work trajectory, writing good super hero comics with more secondary characters.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 3:38:35 GMT -5
Peter David is one of those comic writers that seems to have worked in super hero comics largely working on the peripheral titles. I'd say John Ostrander and Jeff Parker are a couple more writers that seemed to have had a similar work trajectory, writing good super hero comics with more secondary characters. Except, well his body of work on Spider-Man and the Hulk, hardly peripheral characters to the Marvel Universe, and Aquaman who is one of the big 7 at DC... -M |
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Post by earl on Nov 29, 2014 4:07:28 GMT -5
Even with Spider-man, he usually wrote Peter Parker or one of the side titles, not Amazing Spider-man. Aquaman to me is more of a peripheral comic, but from what I understand David's run on the title is a good one. I don't doubt that one bit.
I was really meaning more having a chance to actually write the Avengers or X-men, the big steering wheels. I'd think he would be a good writer for the Fantastic Four, as it is the original "family" super hero title and to an extent his X-Factor is that kind of book. I think David could have done great things with Batman or especially Superman or JLA. There might be a story out there with those characters, but Peter David was never the regular writer on those titles.
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