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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Comics  |  Topic: Last issue of Rising Stars shipped... 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Last issue of Rising Stars shipped...  (Read 2913 times)
Velorath
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Posts: 8980


on: March 04, 2005, 07:15:52 PM

And after all this time I can't really be bothered to care.  What started out as a great series, drifted into mediocrity and has now finally ended its 24 issue run after countless delays.  Now I'm not much of a fan of JMS these days.  His recent work on Amazing Spider-man which gave us long lost twin children of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin who rapidly aged to adulthood was some pretty bad stuff (which he considers a solely for the fact that people are talking about it).  On top of that I've seen him verbally attack reviewers on message boards, and generally just act like a jackass.  Despite all that, I really wanted to like these last three issues of Rising Stars.  Unfortunately though, they only disappoint.  Those who still care enough to not want to spoil the end might want to stop reading now.







The final issues basically boil down to this:  Ravenshadow becomes President.  Specials completely change the U.S. by halting all military spending (since they can defend the country from any threat), and using the freed up money to improve the country.  Varoius high ranking politicians and military officials decide to take control of things back for normal humans by blowing up a ceremony in which all the specials but Poet were attending.  The energy release from the specials causes everyone on earth to be emotionally linked to each other for 24 hours allowing everyone to better understand each other in a cheesy scene that pretty much amounts to "hey, instead of fighting let's all just make this world a better place guys".  Then the power rushes into Poet who wakes up a week later, climbs into a spaceship he had one of the specials design and flys it to another planet with life on it where it burns up in the atmosphere with Poet inside, and causes a flash over that planet like the one that gave the Specials their powers.

The whole thing seemed rushed and lackluster.  Just blowing up all the Specials at the end of the second to the last issue left little opportunity to actually care that the characters died.  And from people who have already seen the government murder their kind of several occasions, I can't believe that they wouldn't have found out about the plot to kill them, nor that they would all gather in one place like that.  It's like JMS just remembered when he was writing these issues that he had to kill everyone off before the end.  There are a couple of good parts though, including a flashback to the Specials as teenagers a year before they're to be released from government custody which I liked (but then the childhood flashbacks were always my favorite part of the series anyway).

It's a shame to see a series start out so strong and end up like this.  Hopefully Supreme Power won't end up falling into the same trap although I find the pace of that series painfully slow sometimes.  I'll have to go back through and read all the issues to see if the series reads any better as a whole.  Either way though, these issues weren't really worth the wait.
HaemishM
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Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


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Reply #1 on: March 07, 2005, 11:13:12 AM

I have the last three issues, but haven't read the last two. #22 was decent, but it all feels like he's just trying to bring it to a close. He has an ending and has to move all the pieces to that ending, but after so much time away from it, he probably just doesn't feel as close to the characters anymore.

His Spider-Man stuff is decent, though I've only read up to the 50's (haven't even gotten to the new numbering of issue #500 and up), but it has taught me one important thing. As well written as any Spider-Man story is, I just do not like the character. I love the movies, but even in my childhood, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were never characters I connected with as much as say Batman, Daredevil or any of the X-Men.

HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #2 on: March 08, 2005, 07:26:01 AM

I read #23 and #24 last night. It wasn't bad, but it certainly didn't have the same impact that the end of Babylon 5 did on me, or even the season finale of Battlestar Galactica. I really think he had the ending planned out from the beginning, but the long layoff just distanced him too much from the story.

It's a wee bit preachy.

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