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Author Topic: X-men: Endangered Species/Messiah Complex  (Read 45458 times)
Velorath
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on: July 03, 2007, 06:46:05 PM

Well, maybe more of a catch-all topic for recent goings-on in the X-books as there's been some fairly interesting stuff going on lately (and I say this as someone who has never really been a diehard X-men fan or anything).  X-Men #200 in particular was... well, I guess I'd just call it a fun book.  I know they've been hyping it up a bit lately, but at its heart it feels like an old-school superhero stuff, the likes of which we don't get enough of these days.  Carey and Brubaker both seem to be going back to some old X-men concepts (Marauders, Morlocks, Starjammers) rather than try to take the X-men in some "bold, new direction" that will only last as long as it takes for the next creative team to come on board.

I actually think it was a smart idea to tell the Endangered Species story in back-up strips, as it allows the writers to keep doing what they're doing without interruption.  The one-shot was little more than a pointless reminder of the ramifications of House of M (which have largely been ignored as of late in the core titles with 2 out of the 3 X-Men teams having been out in space for a year or so).  The backup strip in #200 though sets up an intersting plot though, with Beast seeking help from people like Mr. Sinister, M.O.D.O.K., Dr. Doom, Zola, and others for help reversing the "No More Mutants" thing, since the combined intellect of Stark, Richards, and Pym haven't been able to come up with any sort of solutions.

As the build-up to the big X-men crossover, I can't really give a shit, but as far as the current stories are going right now, I'm actually enjoying a lot more X-men stuff than usual these days.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2007, 12:09:04 AM by Velorath »
HaemishM
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Reply #1 on: July 04, 2007, 12:47:41 PM

While I've been liking the individual X-Men books lately, they've suffered from a bit of scatterbrain. The core X-Men are gone or in Astonishing, which seems to take place in some pocket universe or something as disconnected as it is from the other books. The teams haven't really felt like teams ever since Carey and Brubaker have taken over, because you just know that all the characters aren't going to stay around. It's felt more like the writers are telling stories with almost interchangeable characters, which isn't what the X-Men should be about. What's really needed is consolidation in my opinion, oh and excise Wolverine from the line altogether since he's part of the New New Avengers and every other fucking book out there. What I really dislike is how the X-Men have seemed to segregate themselves consciously from the rest of the MU and how the characters in the other MU books seem to be fine with putting them in that segregation.

I've never been a fan of the Marauders, personally. I couldn't even identify most of them by sight anymore.

As for Endangered Species, the prologue was so fucking emo it hurt. Why are the X-Men and most of the MU turning into such mopey bitches? The idea of the Beast appealing to the villains I just don't buy, especially Sinister or Doom. I'll wait to reserve judgement, but so far I'm not optimistic.

Velorath
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Reply #2 on: July 04, 2007, 01:01:52 PM

The idea of the Beast appealing to the villains I just don't buy, especially Sinister or Doom. I'll wait to reserve judgement, but so far I'm not optimistic.

The X-men have given villains like Magneto, Sabretooth, Mystique, and Emma Frost multiple chances at redemption.  I can buy them going to villains for scientific advice.
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Reply #3 on: July 05, 2007, 08:06:12 AM

Redemption is one thing. Every time they've worked with a villain, it's been mostly to give the villain a chance to turn it around. Sabretooth, for all the killing he's done, is small-time when in the same room as Sinister or Doom, or hell, even Modok.

The Beast is a Skrull.

Velorath
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Reply #4 on: July 05, 2007, 09:33:09 AM

Redemption is one thing. Every time they've worked with a villain, it's been mostly to give the villain a chance to turn it around.

Which to me is even more naive (especially when Sabretooth hasn't really been looking for redemption most of the time).  I think trading scientific knowledge is on a much lower scale of stupidity than expecting someone to completely change who they are.  Besides that, Sinister's motivations at least make it in his best interests to help out the Beast.
Velorath
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Reply #5 on: August 24, 2007, 09:48:55 AM

So, the end of Astonishing X-men 22...

Too bad that unless this somehow takes place after Messiah Complex it's going to get undone.  Still, I kinda called it.
HaemishM
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Reply #6 on: August 24, 2007, 10:01:24 AM

Bah, fuck me. The rest of X-Men continuity is REALLY fucking Astonishing up. I've no idea where the Astonishing stories are set in relation to the other stories in the MU, so no telling I'm to be emotionally effected by the ending or not.

Marvel so needs a new EIC.

Velorath
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Reply #7 on: September 07, 2007, 05:59:32 PM

Aw crap...

HaemishM
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Reply #8 on: September 07, 2007, 06:04:40 PM

Le fuck.


50-50 odds Bishop is a Skrull. Or fucking Cyclops, since they love dicking him over.

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Reply #9 on: September 07, 2007, 07:21:12 PM

That's because no one fucking likes Cyclops. He's a dick.
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Reply #10 on: September 07, 2007, 07:28:52 PM

 Popcorn

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Velorath
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Reply #11 on: September 07, 2007, 09:25:22 PM

Le fuck.


50-50 odds Bishop is a Skrull. Or fucking Cyclops, since they love dicking him over.

Wolverine needs to be a Skrull.  It's the only way he can be in as many books as he's in each month.
Tebonas
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Reply #12 on: September 08, 2007, 11:14:28 AM

Its Team Wolverine. They have a supercomputer to get the timing right so that there is never more than one Wolverine seen in the same time at the same place. Once in a while a body part gets cut off and develops into a whole new being thanks to Wolverines Superregeneration.

Yeah, like thats the most unlikely thing that could happen in the Marvel Universe.
Velorath
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Reply #13 on: September 08, 2007, 11:46:12 AM

Its Team Wolverine. They have a supercomputer to get the timing right so that there is never more than one Wolverine seen in the same time at the same place. Once in a while a body part gets cut off and develops into a whole new being thanks to Wolverines Superregeneration.

Yeah, like thats the most unlikely thing that could happen in the Marvel Universe.

The most unlikely thing that's happened in the Marvel Universe is Cyclops getting women like Jean Grey and Emma Frost.
Velorath
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Reply #14 on: September 13, 2007, 02:08:23 AM



So new Cable and X-Force books on the way.  No writers announced as of yet, but unfortunately the Cable book (which launches in March) will be replacing Cable and Deadpool.  The characters in the above picture for those who can't tell who anyone other than Wolverine is, are X-23. Warpath, and Wolfsbane, with Hephzibah and Caliban also possilby on the team.
HaemishM
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Reply #15 on: September 13, 2007, 08:43:16 AM

Dear fucking God, they just can't stop can they? Wolverine's going to wear a black costume now? And be on ANOTHER GODDAMN TEAM?

Fuck.

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Reply #16 on: September 13, 2007, 09:14:16 AM

He sure gets involved with a lot of groups for being an antisocial loner.

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Velorath
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Reply #17 on: September 14, 2007, 01:05:04 AM

Dear fucking God, they just can't stop can they? Wolverine's going to wear a black costume now? And be on ANOTHER GODDAMN TEAM?

Fuck.

Not just Wolverine, but Wolverine and his female clone.
Nevermore
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Reply #18 on: September 14, 2007, 06:06:05 AM

I know it's been a really long time since I picked up a comic, but when did Wolfsbane turn into a she-Anubis?

Over and out.
HaemishM
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Reply #19 on: September 14, 2007, 08:10:38 AM

A long time ago in X-Factor. She vacillates between that form and human form and wolf form.

Llava
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Reply #20 on: September 17, 2007, 08:58:09 AM

That's a lot of claws for one team.

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HaemishM
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Reply #21 on: September 17, 2007, 09:18:26 AM

They should just fucking call it X-Yiffing with Warpath and be done with it. Fucking tools.

Velorath
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Reply #22 on: October 04, 2007, 12:18:18 AM

The Morlock story in Uncanny wraps up in a rather anticlimatic fashion in this week's issue, and has some minor setup for Messiah Complex, which starts at the end of the month.  Magneto it seems might still have his powers.  The Endangered Species back-up meanwhile firmly establishes that the whole "No More Mutants" thing is magical in nature and is a spell that is affecting reality in seemingly every dimension and timeline.

Not really looking forward to another Magneto story personally.
HaemishM
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Reply #23 on: October 30, 2007, 06:09:29 PM

Finally finished the Endangered Species story in the backups.

What a lot of wankery, full of sound and fury, signifying fuckall. I mean, it's great that they explained it as being magical in nature, but was that the only point of the story? An attempt to explain the mechanics of a rather large, idiotic deus ex machina? How many pages have been pissed away since the original Avengers Dissassembled story to:

1) Remove the Scarlet Witch
2) Turn Quicksilver into I have no fucking idea what
3) Cut down on the number of mutants

Because that's all that's been achieved. And how long before someone decides to undo it?

Since they started with the Brubaker and Carey runs on the X-Men books, I thought they might be building to something decent. Now, I'm not so sure. There's been way too many big changes with the teams and characters in way too short a time period. Now it seems like they are either going to turn Cyclops into Logan Part Duh or kill him off.

And I can't blame the writers because it really does feel like the whole thing is more of Marvel's typical story by editorial fiat.

stu
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Reply #24 on: October 30, 2007, 06:28:47 PM

If Marvel had any balls, they would cut their monthly output to twenty-four titles for a full year- just put out nothing but top-notch stories. They hype up all this Disassembled nonsense and killing off superfluous mutant characters like it means something, but Marvel is more stagnant than ever. There was a time that I thought Quesada would be the perfect EIC for The House of Ideas, but I guess I was wrong.

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Velorath
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Reply #25 on: October 30, 2007, 06:49:16 PM

Since they started with the Brubaker and Carey runs on the X-Men books, I thought they might be building to something decent. Now, I'm not so sure. There's been way too many big changes with the teams and characters in way too short a time period. Now it seems like they are either going to turn Cyclops into Logan Part Duh or kill him off.

And I can't blame the writers because it really does feel like the whole thing is more of Marvel's typical story by editorial fiat.

I think at first, Brubaker and Carey either really didn't want to deal with any of that Decimation bullshit, or Marvel just had no idea of where they wanted to go with all of it yet, hence why Uncanny was set out in space for a full year and Carey built a team only to tear it completely down in recent issues.  Their most recent arcs give me at least some hope that Messiah Complex will be entertaining (especially with X-Factor seeming to be prominently involved, beyond just token appearences), although I think it will suffer for the editorial decision to use the crossover as a springboard to launch the new X-Force book.

Endangered Species was Marvel's attempt at craming in all the shit they should have made clear since the first issues following House of M.  It wasn't a story, so much as setting the ground rules for the whole No More Mutants thing and what it did and didn't affect, well over a year after they should have, all the while giving us the same "why can't I cure this?" angst from the Beast that we all got sick of back in the days of the Legacy Virus.  It also had some decent nods to past continuity (bringing back the Dark Beast, mentioning Nate Grey, following up on some of Tieri's stuff from his Weapon X book). 
Velorath
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Reply #26 on: October 30, 2007, 07:06:05 PM

If Marvel had any balls, they would cut their monthly output to twenty-four titles for a full year- just put out nothing but top-notch stories. They hype up all this Disassembled nonsense and killing off superfluous mutant characters like it means something, but Marvel is more stagnant than ever. There was a time that I thought Quesada would be the perfect EIC for The House of Ideas, but I guess I was wrong.

God please no.  As much as I hate Bendis' Avengers stuff, crap like that, and House of M sell a lot of copies.  The silver lining is that shit like that makes funding lower selling books like Runaways possible for Marvel.  It's sad, but if Marvel cut down their monthly output to their 24 best written titles, they'd be out of business before that full year was up.  I may not like how Quesada and Bendis have shit all over the Avengers, and brought down the X-Men universe (Quesada did bring us the Morrison X-men stuff though, which was the first time the X-Men had been any good in well over a decade), Reed Richards, and Iron Man while they were at it, but at the same time Quesada has given us stuff from Brian K. Vaughn, Whedon, Brubaker, Ellis, Greg Pak, Ennis, Morrison, Dan Slott, one of the best ongoings Peter David has ever done, a series of Dark Tower minis, the Ultimates, and quite a bit of other good stuff.  Yeah, there's a flood of shit that rivals some of the worst stuff from the 90's, but at the same time they also have large output of some top quality stuff too.  I could name several dozen must-have TPB's from Marvel since Quesada took over.  I can almost live with not being able to enjoy an Avengers or Iron Man book for that.
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Reply #27 on: October 30, 2007, 07:32:09 PM

The first couple years of Quesada's run was awesome. I bought every issue of the Morrison X-Men run. X-Statix was great for a while and the Whedon X-Men was fun too. Other than that, I haven't bothered to buy a Marvel title in more than two years, with the exception of New Avengers #1.

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Velorath
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Reply #28 on: October 30, 2007, 07:48:48 PM

The first couple years of Quesada's run was awesome. I bought every issue of the Morrison X-Men run. X-Statix was great for a while and the Whedon X-Men was fun too. Other than that, I haven't bothered to buy a Marvel title in more than two years, with the exception of New Avengers #1.

As far as Marvel stuff goes, I read Captain America, Runaways, Thunderbolts, and X-Factor every month (and New Avengers, but only because it usually gives me something to bitch about).  I keep an eye on Brubaker and Carey's X-Men, and Pak's Hulk among other stuff but I don't consistently read them every month.
stu
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Reply #29 on: October 30, 2007, 07:57:00 PM

Marvel is a great company, but I don't think I should have to stare at 50 junk titles for every issue of Runaways. Maybe it just comes down to their editors being incompetent, like with that Wolvie story you mentioned- the one where he has to fight Death.

Also, I think I read a long time ago that part of their strategy is to flood shelves with titles so that DC doesn't gain the perception of market dominance.

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Velorath
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Reply #30 on: October 30, 2007, 08:18:53 PM

Marvel is a great company, but I don't think I should have to stare at 50 junk titles for every issue of Runaways. Maybe it just comes down to their editors being incompetent, like with that Wolvie story you mentioned- the one where he has to fight Death.

Also, I think I read a long time ago that part of their strategy is to flood shelves with titles so that DC doesn't gain the perception of market dominance.

You don't have to stare at 50 junk titles.  You can either pretend they don't exist, or get some measure of enjoyment out of mocking them.  I'm not so sure if it's their strategy to flood shelves with their titles now, but it was one of their strategies back in the 90's, and at one point had close to, if not more than 100 titles coming out every month.  I think it was less to compete with DC (who at least sell stongly enough to get their books on the shelves regardless) as it was an attempt to force smaller publishers like Image, Dark Horse, Valiant, and the Indies off the shelves.
Llava
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Reply #31 on: October 30, 2007, 11:20:25 PM

Velo- Don't know if you have, but you should check out Immortal Iron Fist. First couple issues were okay, not great, but as it's gone on it's getting better and better. Along with Thunderbolts and a couple other books, it's one of the ones I really look forward to.

That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Velorath
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Reply #32 on: October 30, 2007, 11:24:07 PM

Velo- Don't know if you have, but you should check out Immortal Iron Fist. First couple issues were okay, not great, but as it's gone on it's getting better and better. Along with Thunderbolts and a couple other books, it's one of the ones I really look forward to.

I read the first two issues of Iron Fist.  It was a little slow paced so I figured on checking out again later if it didn't get canceled, but as of yet I haven't gone back to it.  I really liked the art style though.
HaemishM
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Reply #33 on: October 31, 2007, 12:30:48 PM

The Iron Fist stuff is worth checking out. It got better after the first few issues. Thunderbolts I'm pretty torn on. I like Ellis, but it's tied so closely with the abortion that has resulted from Civil War, it's hard to read.

Velorath
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Reply #34 on: November 01, 2007, 02:05:25 AM

The Iron Fist stuff is worth checking out. It got better after the first few issues. Thunderbolts I'm pretty torn on. I like Ellis, but it's tied so closely with the abortion that has resulted from Civil War, it's hard to read.

It's an odd book, in that Songbird and Chen Lu are really the only characters worth rooting for (although I think Norman Osborne is well written).  The highlight of the book so far has probably been American Eagle beating the shit out of Bullseye.  It also helps that Deodato does some great art, especially with the fight scenes (although his work in the most recent issue looked a little rushed).

Back on topic, the Messiah Complex One-Shot which gives us the basic set-up here.  With 12 more parts to go in the story (it runs through 3 months of X-men, Uncanny, New X-men, and X-Factor) I fully expect the story to get stretched past the breaking point if the entire crossover follows the plot thread set up in this book.  Brubaker get's the characterization of the X-Men down as solidly as usual though, and Marc Silverstri provides the art for this one-shot.
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