The List #40

Before we begin, apologies again for the my delayed and brief posts for this past month, I've probably already mentioned that it's due to my college workload at the moment and yeah, it's still going strong right now. Also, maybe it's just me, but this month's releases were overall bland and I found myself without much to say on half of my regular titles. Anyway, all of this will probably be resolved very soon, so please just bear with me.

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #3
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Kaare Andrews
Despite the good omen of this issue's fabulous cover, this issue had little of the joy, laughter, and fun of previous issues to offer this time around. Basically the events of the issue were this: Captain Crocodile who popped in at the end of the last issue attempted to explain his motivation for wanting to kill the babies as they sometimes blow up. Then there was a hunt for a guy on the run named James Jasper clone or something who has to do with the Warpies business (Not sure the significance and I refuse to read Excalibur to find out). He was killed and then this leads to an opening of a Ghost Box with tons of soldiers from another dimension coming though.

Overall, it was underwhelming as Captain Crocodile and the silent hunt for James Jasper ate up a lot of page time. There was a moment of pure joy where Emma was given her due respect though [which can be viewed here], and of course this thrilled me to no end as it's always a good day when my Queen is treated like the Queen she is. Speaking of her being an absolute queen, unfortunately there was only one moment this issue where she was funny and it was really just commentary on her odd way of patching into other people's brains last issue. Still, Emma goodness is Emma goodness:

Conclusion: I'm sad to say this issue was a disappointment as it was an issue I had heavy anticipation for and also, Astonishing is one of the few titles where I can see Emma written correctly (as you will see emphasized when we get to Uncanny).

Gotham City Sirens #16
Writer: Peter Calloway
Artist: Andres Guinaldo
This arc begins fresh without the absolute bore that is Tony Bedard's writing. It's difficult to judge whether or not this writer will work this series as the results of this issue were mixed: The cast's personalities are still being flatly written with everyone's dialogue sounding mediocre and like the discount store version of how they usually speak. However, a big plus of this issue was the special guest appearances of other Gotham City Sirens such as Zatanna, Talia Al Ghul, and Oracle which is a big plus considering this is supposed to be a female-centered series.

On the other hand, the big conflict of this arc has to do with Selina's connection with Bruce Wayne and villains discovering his secret identity. Definitely a minus to have an arc rotating around a man attached to one of these characters, even though it's been the focus of most of the arcs so far, because it just seems to present this idea that these female characters have no stories of their own without the men in their lives.

The artist, who's been with us since at least last arc but I've yet to really comment on, is also a subject of mixed results as he's absolutely terrible, but he also seems to produce hilarious results as can be seen here with Selina:

Either Selina's been secretly working to be a body builder or this guy has difficulty drawing outside of male physiques.

Also did Dick Grayson get thrown in some sort of aging machine in order to be an adequate replacement for Batman? Because this guy's take on Dick is absolutely scary. Like I think he's using former Batman Adam West as a reference. And I mean the Adam West of now.

Conclusion: While I'm thrilled for GCS to finally have a new writer, I can't say he's doing anything that different from the last one. However, there are a couple spots that I found to be encouraging so there may be hope for this series yet.

Uncanny X-Men #528
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Whilce Portacio
Fraction needs to stop writing Emma Frost. For some reason he thinks he can, so he spent half the issue focusing on her and her new plan to kill Sebastian Shaw so no one ever finds out she's keeping him prisoner and all this just sounds like fucking grasping for storylines. More importantly, it's further ruining her character because obviously he's still writing her with the most fucked-up dialogue I've ever read.

Also, I'm so done with these new kids' storylines. It's the same thing every issue: There's conflict with the new power, X-Men arrive to help but they can't do much, and in the end it's only Hope who helps them and for some idiotic reason they agree to go with the X-Strangers. In the end, here's Storm's breasts to sum up how I feel about this issue.

I'll grow up someday.

X-Men Legacy #240
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Clay Mann
Despite this being one of the best X-men series as well as a currently serving up a great arc with the much-anticipated return of the Children of the Vault, I find myself having little to actually say about it. It's through no fault of this book that I find myself in this position, hopefully if you read you can see why, but I just couldn't find any point in particular this issue that I found noteworthy on its own.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book as one of the strongest X-Books of the past year and also this specific arc as its got the charming work of Clay Mann with Carey providing a great story and using a unique cast of X-Men that really works for this arc.




X-Men Vs. Vampires #1
Writers + Artists: [Find Out Here]
X-Vignette mini-series tend to be a hit or miss with me with the miss being the general leaning. This one so far seems to be fine despite it being part of the horrible vampire-polooza bullshit. Here's a quick rundown of what was went down in this one:

Husk shows her loyalty to her BFF Jubes and goes out hunting for information about where she is. When she encounters vampires we get a show of how badass she is as she shakes off a vampire bites by just husking, turns into a wooden form with tons of stakes, isn't phased by being set on fire, and barely reacts to getting chopped in half with an axe. Why isn't she on a team again?

The next story is a Dazzler story where we get the whole "We're people too!" vampire story. Which would be fine if that was even close to the main focus of this vampire event. Instead, it's a story in a vignette series which means a whimper in the terrible roar of this event. Not only do I not care, but True Blood's already got this covered and does it so much better.

Following that is what seems to be a Rogue story where she meets a vampire who believes she's the reincarnated form of his past lover due to her spirit seeming the same. Instead it turns out to be none other than No-Girl possessing Rogue. At first she's torn about this as he promises her love and a body, but in the end she just kills him. Also, Ernst appears and is fabulous in appearance, but fails to sound like her creepy self (is it really that had to write a creepy voice? Seriously?). Basically a mediocre story involving two great characters.

And the last story is a Magneto one which I didn't even bother to read. I'm sorry, I don't care if this turns out to be the greatest vignette story ever, I'm so fucking sick of Magneto right now I just want Logan to decapitate him this frigging instant. And now for the news:

• This double-panel from Namor: The First Douchebag #2 served to tick me off. I'd take it less seriously had Emma reacted as if this was sarcasm or denial, but it seems she thinks him serious. To this I say: Really, Namor? You're the pathetic stalker here, bud. Remember [this]?
• Apologies for my lack of inclusion of Avengers Academy #4, but it was fucking dull due to spotlighting Mettle as well as having to no suspense considering A. Osborn wouldn't bite it in a junior book B. We already saw the end result of this issue in Thunderbolts.
  
• The results of our last poll reveal Wolverine and Rahne's Hellspawn in a tie for most likely to be declared Omega-level which is exactly as it should be. Narcissistic asshat Cypher followed in second and Fantomex came in a far behind third. Qwerty and Sage tied for fourth which is too bad because I was rooting for Claremont's super-pet. Oh and Longshot didn't get a single vote, so how's that for lucky? Thanks everyone for voting and don't forget to vote on the new multiple choice question where you choose who gets kicked out of X-Factor. And by multiple choice I mean you can pick as many members as you want. Hell, kick out the whole team if you want.