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H.E.R.B.I.E the Post Bot sidekick Joined: 08.25.2006 Posts: 320
The Uncanny X-Men Have A New Home…And A New Printing!
Posted: 08.04.2008 7:43pm
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In true "X" fashion, Marvel's favorite mutants can never catch a break. The latest issue of UNCANNY X-MEN has ushered in the all new "Manifest Destiny" and kicks it off with a bang! Due to overwhelming demand, Marvel is pleased to announce that UNCANNY X-MEN #500 has sold out at Diamond (however may still be available at a retail level) and is going back to print with UNCANNY X-MEN #500 SECOND PRINTING VARIANT. With a cover featuring the interior art of superstar artist Greg Land, this issue is the beginning of a new era in a brand new home—San Francisco! Eisner award winner Ed Brubaker and superstar, Eisner-nominated co-writer Matt Fraction have planted the X-Men deep in the heart of San Francisco and there's no telling what's in store!
The reviews are in and everyone's clamoring for more!
Greg McElhatton of ComicBookResources.com says "UNCANNY X-MEN #500 feels like the X-Men comics I read many years ago…due to the high level of excitement and fun that they've infused into their comic."
Ron Richards of iFanboy.com also exclaims "I fell for the fanboy-ish glee I get from an exciting turn in the lives of Marvel's Merry Mutants."
Daniel Crown IGN.com raves that "Fraction and Brubaker's script has a weird charm to it. They tell the kind of quick-hitting yarn that doesn't exist in the modern world of superhero comics"
Steven Bari Comicsbulletin.com proclaims "Brubaker and Fraction have successfully put these children of the atom face forward with the task of saving themselves from extinction and building a community out of a population smaller than most Midwestern towns. Can they succeed? Who else will stand in their way? It's a great time to be an X-fan!"
Marvel urges retailers to check their orders on UNCANNY X-MEN as well as all other X-titles as excitement builds around "Manifest Destiny" and what the future holds for everyone's favorite group of mutants!
UNCANNY X-MEN #500 SECOND PRINTING VARIANT (MAY088370)
Written by ED BRUBAKER & MATT FRACTION
Penciled and Cover by GREG LAND & TERRY DODSON
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC—8/14/08, On-Sale—9/3/08
To find a comic shop near you, call 1-888-comicbook
Reviewing sites can kiss Marvel and Bruction's backsides all they want, but from the fan message boards, I would say 80% of the readership found this issue to be "disappointing" to "garbage".
And that is the X-Boards here, CBR, ComicVine, and oh my gawd did they rip you guys a new one on scans_daily.
Here is little hint, you don't get to trumpet about the "X-Men's New direction!" or whatever and then write a Silver Age story.
(Which all the people trumpeting Silver Age stories...have any of you actually read them? Read how contrived and trite they are compared to today's comics? Why would anyone aspire to that? Yeah, they're great for 1969, but it's 2008 now!)
Uncanny #500 had so many glaring errors, so much bad writing (characterization, dialog, bad plotting), so much illogical nonsense it was a joke.
We'll skip Greg Land's tracing, which he even used the same figures twice within this issue and made Emma look like a stoned cheerleader from San Dimas and cannot even get Magneto eyes on the same level.
~First of all, IF Magneto and the High Evolutionary are trying to undo the effects of M-Day (and given what Magneto said it certainly sounded like it), why did they need to hide what they were doing? Beast contacted Wyndham in Endangered Species to get help correcting M-Day. Wouldn’t the X-men want to assist them? Or at least stay out of their way?
~Secondly, why would Magneto bother to create this large convoluted situation in order to distract the X-Men? He could have started a ruckus in the middle of sporting event or concert. He could have started ripping up one of the bridges in the middle of rush hour to achieve the same effect. There was simply no need for them to go through all that trouble.
~Especially to use Sentinels, which Magneto would find utterly abhorrent given the Genoshan Massacre. After 16 million dead on Genosha, Magneto using Sentinels to attack mutants would be like Magneto using Hitler to attack Jews. It is simply something he is not going to do, no matter what the circumstances. Had Bruction had Magneto destroy the Sentinels an sight and try to kill the artist and the X-Men stop him, THEN the fight would have made some sense. As it is, it a very forced attempt to fulfill a Silver Age homage/fanwank.
~Forty-five years and “Magneto tactics” still means “Everyone take a turn like a bad martial arts film”? Compare this fight to the X-Men Vs. Magneto fight in Uncanny #113. As someone in my LCBS said, "What was the point of the Danger Room if they are not going to use tactics?"
~The fight was paced horribly. Did we really need an entire page of panel showing Peter getting tossed through a building?
~Characters (Storm, Cannonball) literally showed up to beat on Magneto and disappear. Were not in the issue before, weren't in the issue afterward. Especially Sam taking out Magneto out of nowhere like a Kentucky Duex Ex Machina.
~Nightcrawler, longstanding member of the X-Men is present...and speaks all of five words.
~The dialog is horrendous. Just stilted and overblown and...ugh!
~Then there was the X-Men wondering how a guy who controls electromagnetism turns on a giant robot. (Hel-loooo!)
~And hasn’t Storm learned by now that throwing lightning at someone who controls ELECTROmagnetism is simply handing him a weapon?
~The end of the fight was very anti-climactic.
~Then there is the incongruity between what Cannonball did and what Magneto said to the High Evolutionary about the suit making him feel “more powerful than he ever had been before”. And he’s taken out by Cannonball? Just by blasting into him? Are you kidding? Magneto’s shields have stopped blows from Thor and the She-Hulk, at once! He has stopped ceramic missiles that were fired at his back while fighting off the X-Men. We’re talking about a guy who was held the planetary EM field together while he was fighting a younger version of himself. That has raised piece of the ocean’s crust to create small islands. That has started playing around with space-time. He’s been a lot more powerful than he showed in this issue. So either the suit did not make him measure up to his previous power levels and Magneto was...being nice about or something, or what happened makes no sense.
~“You find a way to fake out losing your powers? We’ll find a way to stop you from ever doing it again.” Uhm…no Scott, Magneto is faking having his powers. If he is relying on a suit he really did lose them. (I won’t even touch the screamingly out of character and unnecessary “Suck it”.)
~Speaking of which, I guess we are all supposed to forget that "Still a mutant" thing from the end of Extremists? Right?
~Then there was Emma, who is now more powerful than Xavier has ever been.
~Scott calling all mutants to gather in one place...where they can be wiped out....again. "Yes! Look at us setting up the old paradigm with a new backdrop!"
~Not to mention Bruction missing the irony of Cyclops playing "hero" to Magneto's "villain" now that Scott is wandering into Magneto's moral grey area with X-Force.
~And there is the matter of Magneto's characterization, which unless the character stopped to smoke an 8-ball on the way to San Fransisco, makes absolutely no sense. Not only what he was doing, but his rabid factionalism. Heck, even in Fatal Attractions, Magneto offered the X-Men a place on Avalon. Compare the Magneto of X-Men: Legacy to this guy. %#$? What you can compare the character to is the Magneto of Eve of Destruction (which was Lobdell writing a Silver Age Magneto in the stupidest X-Fight he ever wrote). Compare the Eve of Destruction Magneto to this guy...and it is like nothing has happened in the intervening period.
Only 8 years of the character being at the center of major universe altering and character altering events. The Genoshan Massacre, House of M/M-Day. 8 years of the character being written in a much more subdued and introspective manner. (Not to mention 30 years of character development that you definitely cannot reset the clock back to 1972 on. One would think, given the reaction to Morrison's attempt to make Magneto Silver Age again and the immediate retcon thereof, writers and editors would have learned that by now.)
And after MARVEL put the character at the center of these events, MARVEL, or at least Bruction, seems to want to completely ignore their emotional impact on the character.
And why would anyone want to write a Silver Age Magneto to begin with? It wasn't until Clarmeont made the character three dimensional and morally ambiguous that he shot into popularity. Being a "Poor Man's Dr. Doom" (which is how writers used to describe the Silver Age Magneto) is not what made this character be voted the "9th Greatest comic book character" on lists compiled by both Wizard and Empire Magazines. So why they heck would anyone in Marvel want to throw that away?
I have collected Uncanny X-men for 24 years.
After all the difficulties in being an X-Fan through the 2000's, after being disappointed by Brubaker again and again, this issue made me quit. I canceled my subscription and until I hear there is a new writing team and the quality of the title has improved, I am not buying it again.
So you all go and declare "Mission Accomplished" all you want. We're not fooled.
Last edited by KiplingKat on 08.05.2008 12:48pm; edited 1 time in total
aimerzz4 superhero Joined: 08.25.2006 Posts: 4109
Posted: 08.05.2008 4:16am
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@KiplingKat: Seconded!!
Quote:
We'll skip Greg Land's tracing, which he even used the same figures twice within this issue and made Emma look like a stoned cheerleader from San Dimas and cannot even get Magneto eyes on the same level.
And reviewing sites? %#$? They always give good reviews. If you actually want unbiased, honest reviews, then read individual blogs. _________________ EmmaFrostFiles.com | MagnetoWasRight.com | Get FireFox
