C3G Comic Book Club READING Period till 7/21

[Soundwarp SG-1]

I was pretty tempted to give up part way through, but then the terrorists win.

[Scapemage]

I have to admit I didn't start. Quite a few things happened in the time period, some reading related, and with the site down it slipped me. I did funnily enough see the paperback book in the store today, but didn't pick it up.

[MrNobody]

I'm actually surprised you guys didn't dig it, because I thought it was pretty alright.

I really enjoyed that the plotlines were a bit weirder than the usual X-Men fare I've read before. Also I loved the art on some of the more fantastical stuff, but wasn't feeling the normal humans as much. And dear lord do I hate those accents Claremont feels the need to put on half the characters. Like Rahne is supposed to be Scottish, not brain-damaged.

There was also just some weird production stuff that took me out of the book. Just little things like page layouts that didn't flow intuitively and shots where it was hard to tell what was going on. I really think that's my thoughts on the whole thing; it was a solid/enjoyable story that felt weighed down by some weird choices/mistakes in the editing/technical side of things.

READING NOTES

Spoiler Alert!

ISSUE #1
-Is there literally a bear that’s a demon? Lol, didn’t think it would be that on the nose.
-Is this Rachel Summers? Red hair, from the future?
-This “will my teammates turn evil” arc reminds me of Avengers Academy. That’s always a good thing.
-Had a bit of a hard time telling the two characters apart in the Warlock segment.
-Why are these thought dialogue boxes changing color? Mildly aggravating.
-This art is awesome. That bear splash page is great.
-Okay maybe that future girl is actually Wolfsbane, not Rachel. Makes sense.

ISSUE #2
-Sunspot, with the amazing power to make hospital doors unopenable!
-I’d never seen Binary’s hair like that before. It’s hilarious.
-The accents are annoying.

ISSUE #3
-That funky little map is cool

ISSUE #4
-Ah yes, Michael Jackson and Tom Selleck
-It cracks me up that when hearing about a wolf, this girl’s first instinct is to say “Hey, like in ElfQuest?”

ANNUAL
-I used to love annuals as a kid. The story was hardly ever related to the real book, meaning you could buy an annual and just have a fun self-contained story without having to worry about prior backstory. Now, reading through a trade, I almost dread seeing an annual for the exact same reasons. It’s just a random story you have to read before you can get back to the “real” one.
-The mirror panel with Dani and Stevie is cool
-Sam is 16. How old is Lila?
-So Dani and Rahne are soulmates now, huh?

ISSUE #5
-No notes here

ISSUE #6
-Really amazed at how many big name characters this one trade is introducing. Warlock, Lila Cheney, and Selene are all recognizable to me, even if I’m not a huge X-Men fan.
-Have all the female members hit on Cannonball at this point?

ISSUE #7
-Gotta love when you have to deal with another book’s baggage, and add Cloak to the list of annoying speech patterns. Still, I like those characters enough.

DESIGN THOUGHTS

Spoiler Alert!

-The 3 New Mutants we already have (Mirage, Magma, and Wolfsbane) are pretty disparate in terms of class and persona, so I don’t think there’s much of a way to make hard NM-specific synergy work. But what about soft mechanical synergy that works well together, and pairing them with a mutant leader like Xavier?
-Magma’s obvious thing is her ability to place lava tiles. What if one of the NMs (I’m peggin Cannonball for this one) could knock enemies around a bit and potentially into the lava?
-Wolfsbane can move in pretty fast and do damage, but at a chance of wounding herself. Maybe a NM can have an effect that triggers when an ally is in “danger”, either from proximity to an enemy or from wounds?
Mirage is a long-range sniper that can also lock down enemies and remove OMs. Can’t think of anything here.
-Honestly pairing them with a strong leader like Prof X might be enough, no other synergies needed.

[Soundwarp SG-1]

I'll write up something more thoughtful later, but my big complaint was that it just felt like the book was spinning its wheels without really accomplishing much of anything or having any objective. Like we just kinda bounced from one random encounter to another without giving me much reason to care about any of it. IDK, maybe that's how superhero ongoings usually are, I don't read many, but it wasn't something I digged.

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by Soundwarp SG-1

I'll write up something more thoughtful later, but my big complaint was that it just felt like the book was spinning its wheels without really accomplishing much of anything or having any objective. Like we just kinda bounced from one random encounter to another without giving me much reason to care about any of it. IDK, maybe that's how superhero ongoings usually are, I don't read many, but it wasn't something I digged.

Yeah, I think that's just a matter of it being an old-school superhero mag. I feel like the progression was mixed. They introduced certain elements really well and then either forgot about them (Warlock and his father) or just kept bringing them up without progression (Magik's armor) which was frustrating. But they moved a lot of background stuff forward fairly well. I liked the bits with the Hellfire Club and Magneto, and I enjoyed seeing references to Lila start popping up once she was introduced. That long-form soap operatic style of storytelling is just (by design) kind of unsatisfying to drop in on for a few issues. I guess I'm just kind of conditioned not to notice it at this point.

[quozl]

Don't blame the age. 1984 TMNT moved things along much better than this. (I almost fell into a coma reading this!)

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by quozl

Don't blame the age. 1984 TMNT moved things along much better than this. (I almost fell into a coma reading this!)

Yeah I guess it would be more fair to say it's because it's an old-school Claremont superhero mag. I've not read a huge amount of his stuff, but most of it I have is like this. A fairly standard adventure takes place, with maybe one or two callouts to ongoing story elements every issue. It's a drip feed of info to keep kids spending their money on X-books every month. Something with more indy sensibilities like TMNT is just going to be different. (and probably better, but I can't say)

[johnny139]

I mostly forgot but... I already borrowed it from Hoopla, so this weekend I should have my review. I usually like Claremont's purple prose so I'm looking forward to it.

[LordVenoc]

Sorry about thinga being delayed here. There was interest in trying a round via voting instead of just a person pick. I had a few old nominations I'll put up, but people can feel free to toss in any other nomination by this evening.

[LordVenoc]

Sorry for the gap here!

Nominated books:

Justice League Dark Vol 1 (New 52 Era)
Swamp Thing: Protector of the Green
Plastic Man

Feel free to cast your votes. I'll give it till Wednesday morning for the voting (or till all who seem to have ever chimed in on the thread vote, whichever comes first).

[MrNobody]

I thought I had mentioned my suggestions and you had agreed to put them on the list. Sorry, that’s why I didn’t explicitly mention them.

I’m going to warn against JLD Vol. 1. It’s just a bit of a mess, very N52. From what I can tell the book improved greatly once Milligan left (and I say that as a Milligan fan) but then those issues pick up on threads started by Milligan.

[LordVenoc]

Originally Posted by MrNobody

I thought I had mentioned my suggestions and you had agreed to put them on the list. Sorry, that’s why I didn’t explicitly mention them.

I’m going to warn against JLD Vol. 1. It’s just a bit of a mess, very N52. From what I can tell the book improved greatly once Milligan left (and I say that as a Milligan fan) but then those issues pick up on threads started by Milligan.

If you remind me of those, I can put them on. I must've forgotten.