Friday, May 21, 2010

X-Men Legacy #236 Review

X-Men Legacy #236
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Greg Land
This issue is about a sphere. A sphere that from aerial view just looks like a hot pink bouncy ball over San Fransisco. More on that in a bit because it's the subject of the entire issue so we can spare a few to talk about something else.

So Cable and Hope eat up a significant amount of page time belly-aching on whether or not they are going to leave by jumping forward in time, or stay. Shockingly, they choose to stay which means nothing changed and all that page time was used up for nothing!

Anyway, so the sphere is placed over the San Fransisco area, and the X-Men try to break through it and that sort of thing. It turns out that none of the X-Men can break out of it, and that even Namor can get through it by trying to dig under it. So they're screwed there.

I actually named this file "Hurricane Betsy" because she looks so mighty and fabulous here.
Back with Bastion, he has a moment of enlightenment about his own existence and goals. He begins to realize his only purpose is to be a villain to the mutant race. Too bad he didn't also realize that his only purpose is to serve as the main villain in a predictable crossover, but y'know, baby steps. At least we have a villain who's thinking about what he's going to do after he retires.

Back with the science team, they made it out of the exploding oil rig, unfortunately, and also go over why they can't break through the bubble. Then something unexpected shows up, prompting Dr. Rao to make that face in the panel on the left. I'm sorry, but when I see that face all I can think of is Margaret Cho going, "OH GURRRRRLLLL!!"

The source of this reaction is the Avengers, who are appearing everywhere this week for publicity. What attention whores. Heh, anyway, I do share the same surprise with Dr. Rao because it seems the team remembered that SPIDER-WOMAN IS A MEMBER. Hopefully I'm not the only one that picked up on the fact that most of the Avengers #1 promotional covers neglected to include the only woman on the team. As if she's not already token female of the group, now she's omitted from most of the covers? Anyway, they show up, and it turns out even Thor's mighty hammer can not break the bubble. Or at least not so far.

Returning to the X-Men, a team is assembled to go take care of San Fran, but they change plans halfway due to the discovery of a smaller white sphere on the bridge. While this is going on, Archangel is carrying Betsy. Even though she can fly, and is a STRONG telekinetic. It's odd.

Speaking of Betsy, this issue her role got expanded which I'm glad to see since it seems she's had three lines since this crossover began. This issue she seems to be doing her old role of providing information to the leader like she did in the Aussie days. Which I love of course, thanks Carey. (OH and Cyclops' cheesy fucking jet pack that everyone made a stir about last year is back.)

When the team finally gets to the white bubble it turns out it's a portal for NIMRODS! Intense considering teams of X-Men have had trouble dealing with just one. And it seems this time is no different because check out the preview [Here], this next issue is going to be intense. I'm already haunted by the panel of Hellion. Anyway, so there's that next week AND the Dazzler one-shot plus Thunderbolts #144. AND most importantly, X-Men Origins: Emma Frost.

In other news, hope you all enjoy the change in layout as well as the new banner starring my idol, Emma Frost. I find it fits much better with this blog than the previous, goth-y layout.

Lastly, for those of you who agree with my rants about how poorly women tend to be treated in comics, there's an amazing article [Here] on Jezebel that discusses how people try to defend it (and these are reason I've definitely heard) and what's wrong with their arguments.

5 comments:

X-23 said...

The preview of Emma's one-shot made me SO angry. It's unbelievable. Oh my god I'm afraid the world will see it. No one will ever think good of her after THAT. Haters are already having a fcking field day.

Mr. Hellfire said...

The worst part is she doesn't have her "voice". Like seriously, Morrison and Whedon's Emma had a VERY clear voice, and I know this is an Origins issue, but come on, you don't just develop a way of talking overnight.

I'm probably going to dedicate an entire post to dissecting how she was done wrong in that issue.

X-23 said...

TOTALLY looking forward to your dissecting this crap. I know what they all say - you can't judge a book by it's stupid 7-pages-preview, but OH MY, I lost all hope. I think I'm gonna ask Santa to give me back my beloved bitchy "Hush now. Kill away"-Emma I so much enjoyed when Morrison and Whedon were writing her. I hate it when I get upset over fictional characters. =)

GPROA said...

That Jezebel article was great, huh?

(Is that header new? I like it!)

Mr. Hellfire said...

@X-23, I feel the same way, but I'm so irritated that my favorite fictional character in the world is so easily written wrong. Like how hard is it to write her? I seriously could rewrite all the dialogue in thepast year that she's had and make it actually sound like her without changing that actions. I've really thought about this and it wouldn't take that much effort. So if it won't take effort for me, why is it so hard for writers to get it straight?

@hasoon Oh yeah, especially because I've heard all those arguments used against me in one post, and I responded well, but not as great as the article. So now I have this link that I can just be like, "Uh, wrong, *link*," with. And I just love Jezebel all over, I read there every day. And thanks about the header!