Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Astonishing X-Men

Page: 1(2)3 4 5 6 7... 8

08:55 / 20.02.04

Nice...back to crap basics. They'll probably go up against Factor 3 and a living island again in the first issue. Expect them to take on Moses Magnum 3 issues later. No new members, just the same tired, lame shit. Look Storm's back or is that White Queen or does it actually even matter. Why do all writers who take over from someone else think by doing exactly the opposite of what their predecessor did they’re going to wow the crowd? “Oh, Cyclops shoots a red beam out of his eyes…mmmm, now I’m going make it blue and everyone will think I’m a genius”. It’s sad really. All that team needs is Colossus and we’d all be magically transported back to the late 70’s, pack your bags kids were all going classic.

P.S. I know. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit…

A beautiful tunnel of ghosts

12:09 / 20.02.04

Kitty Pryde appears to have been drawn after Anna Paquin as Rogue, by that cover image. Unless it's actually Rogue...

13:58 / 20.02.04

Damn! No more "New" costumes. That sucks! Joss Whedon is the perfect guy to write Emma Frost and Kitty Pride into a story --- I mean, I dont know how many people watched Buffy here but off the top of my head, I can think two characters that mirror them:
Cordelia Chase -> Emma Frost
Buffy Summers -> Kitty (much more mature now)

I have hope until proven otherwise, Joss has written enough good stuff to be given the benefit of the doubt (yeah yeah yeah Buffy season 4 and 5 and Alien Ressurection were Bollicks but fuck it, this is a new project for him that he has wanted to write forever).

14:14 / 20.02.04

The body-condom they've got Cyclops wearing = such a bad move. I mean, while I think it's genearally a pretty bad idea to back away from the Frank Quitely designs (which look so great in the right hands and, yes, tie in very nicely with the look the characters have in the movies), there was just something so inherantly right about Cyclops rocking that sort of jacketted look. This just looks... crappy, basically.

Still, Whedon's a good writer, so I'll probably give this book a look over when it comes out, despite my reservations about this image and all it implies...

14:54 / 20.02.04

Is this taking over from New X-Men ? Because it looks bad if it is. I wasn't particularly planning on sticking round after 154 - it's embarassing enough to still be reading this stuff at this late stage, but it seems ok if you stick with the writers, as opposed to the brand - but I figured I might give the new guy a chance. But not if it's like this. You can imagine the pitch - " Yeah, I want to take it back to how it was when I was young, when they all had costumes, when I just used to sit there, alone in my room. They were like my family, those guys. No one else understood me... " I mean bollocks to that. No more nostalgia ! No more Gen X guys weeping into their beards ! Forwards ! Forwards !

15:17 / 20.02.04

Wolverine took the Brown costume from Fang, The Imperial Guard Werewolf, after the yellow one was burnt by the wildfire look alike... he seemed to like it and later adapted the mask...

16:10 / 20.02.04

Apparently, that's actually the Astonishing X-Men 1 cover, not the team shot we've been seeing. The bad thing is the gloves do look consistent with the Wolverine gear in the other cover, but perhaps it's a different uniform. It shouldn't be too long before we get some more info.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

16:20 / 20.02.04

I wouldn't be surprised if we got something that was different to that (first) cover image. But then I wouldn't be surprised if it was exactly the same.

But I do love all the assumptions on what the writing will be like based purely on the costumes! Comics are, after all, for kids.

Actually less bothered than I thought I was. More interested to see what the scripts will actually be like. (and to a certain extent, how this will be explained... cyclops changes the school because he loves spandex? Wants a pervy suit because hes a secret sleazy lover?)

Big Sunny D is right, though, a body condom is nothing but a bad move.

18:09 / 20.02.04

I don't care it's Cassaday, everything in the group pic looks wrong and very ugly. I know "wrong" is a strong word reminiscent of fanboyishness, but I can hear the sound of a thousand geeks ejaculating because the "spandex is back". after NXM 154, I'll have a glance at it just to check it out but I'll be probably out.

Wheddon is too overrated as a writer. if anything the Ultimate version has some sort of future with Singer and his buddies stepping on. but what about those X-Statix, eh?

18:14 / 20.02.04

I can hear the sound of a thousand geeks ejaculating because the "spandex is back".

Just for fun, I read through the relevant thread at Xfan. Surprisingly enough, the majority opinion seems to be coming down anti-spandex, particularly for Wolverine.

Matthew Fluxington

20:08 / 20.02.04

I can't begin to understand how they are going to write them back into costumes. That one line with Wolverine talking about suddenly not having to look like an idiot in broad daylight really sticks out - if we're going to be continuity nuts about this (and let's face it, most X-Men fans are), the switch back to superhero outfits is horribly out of character.

Scott wearing a superhero outfit isn't so much out of character, though.

21:33 / 20.02.04

Yeah, it's totally not out of character for Scott to wear the spandex - but something about that particular look (meaning the Quitely version) really worked for me. This is at least in part probably just me super-imposing how great Quitely's depiction of body language is and how well I feel that Morrison has written the character onto Cyclops' Morrison-era look, but hey...

21:37 / 20.02.04

But yeah, that's a good point Matthew - the swicth back to uniform really will feel horribly clunky, won't it?

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

21:44 / 20.02.04

I hope they explain it really badly, like;

"Oh no, with the mansion destroyed, all our uniforms are gone!"

"But wait, we kept these slightly different prototype uniforms in storage!"

That or they come back from "Silvestri" era art and forget they ever had updated. Arf.

21:46 / 20.02.04

Ugh - me type good! Read the above as "...switch back to spandex...".

And Suedehead, I really hope you're right about this, because that would be totally awesome in its stupidity!

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

22:14 / 20.02.04

1) That's a horrible fucking cover. Nice photoshop filter, dickheads! I suspect we'll see both as variants.

2) Costume change smacks of editorial interference.

3) Not looking forward to this at all.

Matthew Fluxington

23:28 / 20.02.04

Yeah, if they are going to do this, they should totally go with Suede's scenario. 13 issues later when a new writer comes on, hopefully they'll be back to decent uniforms, and Logan can talk about how great it is to not have to wear lemon yellow leotards AGAIN.

00:19 / 21.02.04

Or perhaps the costumes are evidence of the X-Men's awareness of thier role as mutant spokespeople in international media. Becoming superheroes was Xavier's original idea to co-opt fear into awe, maybe Scott sees the value in it?

Weapon Plus was making the SuperSentinels a tv show, why wouldn't they do the same?

I know it's lame, but maybe the dialogue will have them all bitching about how they all hate wearing spandex, but do it anyway for the cameras...

01:14 / 21.02.04

"But I do love all the assumptions on what the writing will be like based purely on the costumes! Comics are, after all, for kids."

Sorry, man. I work in a comic store and I'm hard-pressed to find anyone under 18 really reading any of this stuff anymore. It's being geared towards an older (notice I didn't use the word "mature") audience (well normally). Kids come to my store for Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Teen Titans, and Justice League (and not the regular comics but the ones based on the cartoon). Alot of the comic books dont contain stuff to hold the kid's interest just the spin off TV shows and movies do. Sorry that was a rant.

06:17 / 21.02.04

Well perhaps it's all just a sinister plot, the costumes as a red herring, that type of thing. I wasn't going to have anything to do with this, but I'm now so annoyed I guess I'll have to do really, just to see how J wedon tries to justify this ( cough, snarl, sounds of ripping up carpet, ) bleedin' travesty. Y'know, perhaps this response was in some sense ANTICIPATED...

00:26 / 22.02.04

Against this tide, I'll state my unfashionable minority position again:

(1) As much as I loved the Quitely uniforms, they symbolised Xavier's X-Corp smugness and conformity.

(2) Despite them being actually fairly cool in execution, Morrison's market-based reasoning behind the uniforms was a quaint and manifestly out of touch "let's be hip to where the kids are at", which I always found a bit sad -- in contrast, the movie uniforms grew nicely out of the material acknowledgement that lurid spandex simply wouldn't work in a live action film.

(3) As much as I hated the old costumes, they represented a level of aesthetic excess and variegation that Morrison had sadly erased from the main cast of his run until the current arc, in which the X-Men have returned as a motley crew of weirdos, bits of the old Wolverine costume on a ridiculous Billy Ray Cyrus body, etc.

(4) Joss Whedon has always made much out of the ridiculous fact that his first series was called (for fuck's sake) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Give him and Cassaday the benefit of the doubt. Ridiculous costumes have always been part of the superhero genre, and if Whedon and Cassaday are working with spandex, then I'm sure they can make something interesting out of it. I'm not so sure about the other X-titles, which is a worry.

(5) I take it that you all HATED Milligan and Allred's campy retro costumes when they took over X-Force, and wrote all that dubious, heterotastic mail. I'm joking, but seriously, if we follow through the logic of "wearing stuf that doesn't make you feel like an idiot when you walk down the street", where do we get?

(6) There is a way to write the reversion to costumes: "Xavier's X-Corp sucked. We became the equivalent of men in suits, and we failed to avert a fucking human-mutant war, which is what the X-Men were supposed to be all about. Those jackets lulled us into such a false sense of security that our oldest genocidal enemy paraded around in one of them, right under our fucking noses. Those dudes in the Mumbai office had the right idea -- the world needs the freakish difference and excess of superheroes, not the stifling conformity of stylish corporations. Break out the spandex, kids!" Or something.

01:27 / 22.02.04

The only Cyclops costume I ever really liked was this one, which he wore for about 3 issues just before Morrison took over.

Of course, that was also the last time he had a sense of humor...

01:31 / 22.02.04

no, the Morrison uniforms made they look civil servants, trashmen or folks from Red Cross; it suited a lot the humanitarian direction the X-Corp had. and let's face it, the concept was the best thing one could come up with to make the book fit in today's social culture [regarding how organized mutants would act in our world]. so the concept was made much more instersting. they've done previuously in the movie anyway [even before Morrison's change, as someone cleverly pointed out]. Ultimate X-Men also went this way, at least for a while.

so, yeah, they look ridiculous. at least in that cover. damn Morrison for making me have this kind of online conversation again. or better yet: damn Wheddon and whover editor came up with this.

01:34 / 22.02.04

oh, and Allred/Milligan's X-Force look is cool. the colourful costumes have all to do with the ridiculous poppy/campy feel they want the book to have, so...

01:47 / 22.02.04

That's just it, Vortex: that humanitarianism was the worst kind of smugness -- remember Xavier's reverse-brainwashing of the hijacker on the plane? Just the kind of Red Cross I'd want to unleash on the world to Save it from Terrorism! {pukes} I think it's pretty clear from the narrative that this whole approach FAILED.

02:09 / 22.02.04

You can see where I'm going with the sad fanboy reaction to Allred thing, but I admit that my comparison doesn't exactly hold water -- Cassaday is far more lyrical than Allred's popism. But that's the thing with Buffy, too: it went beyond clever-clever pop pastiche because it actually believed in its own soap-operatics on a certain level, which I'm not entirely convinced that X-Statix has been able to do since its name change and Edie's death (which also kinda explains why it's been a bit boring/bland over the last year). This is the kind of thing that the correct, dialectical application of Whedon-spandex methodology might be able to fruitfully bring.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:38 / 22.02.04

The only problem I had was that Morrison made them look like the Red Cross and then, after the Genosha thing, never had them do Red Cross things, so in that sense only going back to the costumes makes a certain sense. But as someone who was never going to get sucked back in, I'm disappointed that not only did the X-Editorial not take Morrison's redefinition of what the X is about (at least for the teams operating out of the mansion), but that it would seem that the writers who have taken on the books after Morrison don't like the X-Corp idea either.

And jebni, the terrorism thing wasn't anything to do with what X-Corps was about, that was Xavier quite keen on not being killed. Again, another storyline that Morrison didn't pursue, preferring the Riot at Xaviers instead. X-Corps was supposed to be about doing what could be done to ensure mutants around the world were not harmed by humans, which sounds a lot more helpful than asking someone to make the effort to hike from all over the world to upstate New York, if they even knew that the X-Men existed and were based there.

12:18 / 22.02.04

It's got nothing to do with whether terrorism was part of the X-Corp brief -- I think Xavier's approach to the hijackers typifies the whole smug, Xavier-knows-benevolently-best approach, which includes moulding "his" X-Men into the Friendly Face of Mutanthood. And it's not that Morrison failed to pursue the X-Corp thing, and got distracted by the antics of Riot At Xavier's; rather, it seems fairly obvious to me that the stuff that happens during Riot At Xavier's is the direct, dramatic answer to that false sense of security. It doesn't so much matter whose side you're on, if any (although it should be obvious that I think Xavier is, uh, "a dick", as Whedon's Wolverine would put it); that just the way the narrative is.

12:19 / 22.02.04

"But I do love all the assumptions on what the writing will be like based purely on the costumes! Comics are, after all, for kids."

I don't so much love it as feel vaguely repulsed by it. - and not because I think comics should or should not be for kids, its more the level of fanaticism that it denotes. To put it another way...

I can hear the sound of a thousand geeks ejaculating because the "spandex is back."

And I can hear an equal number of geeks writing about why spandex is bad, and then another tribe talking about the precedents established by various costumes in various iterations of the x-men in the past...on and on for several pages on the basis of one or two pieces of promo art.

18:49 / 22.02.04

(1) As much as I loved the Quitely uniforms, they symbolised Xavier's X-Corp smugness and conformity.

(2) Despite them being actually fairly cool in execution, Morrison's market-based reasoning behind the uniforms was a quaint and manifestly out of touch "let's be hip to where the kids are at", which I always found a bit sad -- in contrast, the movie uniforms grew nicely out of the material acknowledgement that lurid spandex simply wouldn't work in a live action film.

But, I think that Grant's desire to make the X-Men sexy (not so much in the sexual sense, but in the cool sense) was one of the things that made his run work so well. It is a bit naive to think that teens really dress like this, or seeing them in that gear will instantly make them buy the book. But, from my perspective at least, the uniforms were very cool, and if that X jacket was sold, I'd seriously consider picking one up.

I don't think the movie uniforms work anywhere near as well as the Quitely gear, and after watching X2, I was think that those uniforms were so drab compared to really cool Quitely stuff. Admittedly, both are much better than the classic blue and yellow look.

And just in general, I think of Grant's runs as sort of taking an open source concept, and telling a standalone story on it. While I haven't read the end of NXM yet, I see it as similar to Animal Man, in that his run is the beginning and end of this version of the X-Men, and no more is really needed.

I'll read the Whedon run becuase I love his other work, but I'm more looking for him to approach the franchise in the same way Grant did, taking the character archetypes and developing them to suit his stories. I'm not looking for a direct continuation of Morrison's run.

And that's the reason that the spandex doesn't bother me that much. Grant's group wouldn't wear it, but these aren't neccesarily Grant's X-Men, they're just the archetypal characters, seen through a different lens.

19:30 / 22.02.04

>>>It is a bit naive to think that teens really dress like this, or seeing them in that gear will instantly make them buy the book. But, from my perspective at least, the uniforms were very cool<<<

Trendiness aside, I think the Quitely uniforms seem more in character - I can buy Superman in his strongman garb, I can believe that Bruce Wayne would put on the batsuit. Hell, even Spider-Man, The Flash, et al, their silly costumes all seem to work for those characters. But I simply cannot accept that a guy like Wolverine - supposedly a tough-as-nails, hard drinking, knife-wielding violent brute - would ever, EVER step into that ludicrous primary-coloured get-up with the fins all over it. For me, it doesn't work and just looks stupid and entirely at odds with the character - even as a kid that costume turned me off. I remember seeing the Art Adams cover for the Heroes For Hope charity book - one of my earliest exposures to the X-Men - and thinking that the costumes looked ridiculous. "Wouldn't those fins on his boots make him trip?" I thought the Quitely designs were perfect on a conceptual level - 21st century modernity but still very much in the vein of Kirby's original uniforms.

I like John Cassaday's artwork very much, and Joss Whedon wrote one of the best scripts I've ever illustrated, so I don't have any problem with either of them, and they may very well tell some wonderful stories together, but unfortunately on a purely aesthetic level my enthusiasm has dwindled almost to nothing.

I'm too old for superhero comics anyway.

Matthew Fluxington

20:00 / 22.02.04

I like everything Jebni is saying here, but I'm with Cameron on this. I wish that they'd just have the costumes on some characters, and let it be an invidual thing. Wolverine shouldn't be wearing that outfit, but Cyclops probably should. Emma's so flamboyant and never wore an x-uniform, so it makes sense for her to have a crazy costume. Beast maybe gets really hot under those clothes, so fine, have him be naked sometimes. If it were up to me, they'd ditch the uniforms, but not embrace superhero spandex. I'd just like the clothes each character wears to make sense.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

20:53 / 22.02.04

Wolverine should only wear denim and/or leather (jackets!). His only uniform should be a vest. Maybe he can have an x-vest.

Scott is actually a superhero.

Matthew Fluxington

21:18 / 22.02.04

Cyclops is my favorite superhero.

22:14 / 22.02.04

explain to me how it's possible, even if the character wanted to go back to a costume, that Scott would want the PENIS costume??? That full body leotard thing looks like SHIAT.

Page: 1(2)3 4 5 6 7... 8