Look I know I said I would go between Marvel, DC, and Indie stuff but I really shouldn't say I'll do this next on my blog because it always ends badly. I'm just going to talk about what I feel like talking about and yes that will end up including indie stuff. I have thanks to the pandemic a lot of time on my hands. I mean I usually do have a lot of time on my hands for other reasons I don't really want to get into. I wanted too read this story finally for two reasons. One a comicsgate dope who actually reads comics (and is angry at pretty much every new X-Men comic that comes out but still buys them because he's sad like that) And yes get used to the fact that I will probably continue to sass comicsgate jerks on my stupid blog. It will happen until comicsgate is gone. Second reason is that out of the 17 years or so of Chris Claremont on the X-Men, this was the LAST story I had to read.
For whatever reason I just never owned these issues. Well not all nine of them. I think I had some of the issues somewhere. I don't even know what ones I have anymore as I got rid of some comics recently. Sad thing is I'll probably buy them back again anyway. Anyway uh.. I'm glad I waited because I uh, didn't like this story very much. This story involves the X-Men team, The New Mutants getting kidnapped by Genosha and it turns out Cameron Hodge is working with them! Oh man! I actually like Cameron Hodge, he's incredibly evil and loves it. He's an incredible bigot who ends up getting grosser and grosser looking every time he's come back to terrorize the X-Men because a demon gave him the power to never die. Yes, comics books are weird.
Anyway there's really two big points with this story that makes it not great. One is besides Jim Lee and maybe the guy named Guang Yap, the art is really bad in this story. Rob Liefeld draws some of the ugliest shit you can imagine, I mean uglier than most of his shit. It's some of the ugliest stuff he's ever drawn. Like that Captain America piece ugly. I won't pick on Liefeld too much because I really feel these guys were other than Jim Lee rushed. Jon Bognadove who did some great art works on X-Factor and hoo boy it's not very nice, and I like the guy. I like that guy a lot actually. So the art seems to be really rushed in those sections. Here's another big point, I think this story ends up being way too long. It should have been just about the X-Men and the New Mutants and not been 9 damn chapters. 5, maybe 6 chapters at most. Hell I thought the recent X-Men story X Of Swords which was twice as long as this one didn't feel like a slog to get through. I really think that with better art and a tighter story this would have been pretty good and a good way for Chris Claremont to go out on (I think he leaves in about 10 issues from now in the middle of a story too)
FINAL VERDICT: I think I will continue on this X-Men thing, but I'm not making it a promise. I think I will talk about the Grant Morrison stuff which I've heard many good things about, and some bad.
This storyline happened right before I got into comics (xecutioners song was the first major crossovet I read). I too have never read it but knowing the plot, it basically feels like a retread of every Genosha plot, which feels like, but I don't know if it is, an allegory for South Africa. I just can't get excited about it. And they killed Warlock because I guess so, which is fine but also inexcusable because it opened up the door for "Douglock" to debut. Which was a seriously bad, out of ideas character. I can't talk about the art but what more is there to say about Rob Liefeld. This story just exists and that's all there is to say.
ReplyDeleteI liked the first Genosha story and there is some meat on the bone for this story but MAN the art and the over stuffing of it ruins the story.
ReplyDeleteIt was a sign of things to come.
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