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Underground > Comic Books >

X-Men #166

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Matthew Fluxington

00:35 / 30.12.04

Peter Milligan's run on X-Men begins next week with X-Men #166. Previews are available here and here. There's not a lot to go on just yet, but the artwork looks very good and the tone is sort of interesting - kind of a bleak sci-fi thing, it reminds me of the first Alien film.

01:14 / 30.12.04

It's either they got Sal a more dedicated inker, or Sal himself feels like he's got a story worth working on. It's DOES look great, and everybody looks a hell of lot more solid.

Matthew Fluxington

01:20 / 30.12.04

I think that Salvador is happy to finally be working on a decent script after dealing with the worst that Claremont and Austen could throw at him for a few years.

This is what he says on Comicon:

I think that I’m trying to fit my style to the cinematic history that Peter is writing. In fact I see the plot like a film, but just in panels as a cross (at least in this first issue) between aliens and the Resident Evil game. Even when the whole history shows something very different. In the artistic part, Aron Lusen, Danny Miki and myself, are trying to show the readers the dramatism of this history using the color palettes appropriate to the history.

I encourage the readers, just to take a look at our job. I think that is much cooler than what we did in the past - at least we’re trying to match the great history. I don’t know if you will like or not, but I’m really pleased about this job, and that is an unusual thing.

Matthew Fluxington

01:22 / 30.12.04

Ha, I think that they probably got that interview with Salvador over the telephone, and they transcribed "story" as "history" because of his Spanish accent.

ONLY NICE THINGS

01:35 / 30.12.04

I wish comic writers would actually *read* the stuff they quote for titles. I have a lot of respect for Milligan, but this kind of slapdashery might suggest he is phoning it in...

01:38 / 30.12.04

Thanks for posting this, flux - I'll have to check out the preview. Glad to hear the art looks more solid.

02:33 / 30.12.04

wow, Boby's kind of a dickhead. "oh, look! dead poseur! what a lame dead guy!"

Haus, would you be inclined to elaborate further on your complaint?

Matthew Fluxington

02:44 / 30.12.04

Yes, Haus, please do elaborate.

I think that Bobby acting like a callous dick is pretty right-on in terms of characterization.

04:40 / 30.12.04

"Golgatha? Whats that?"

"Well, dear reader, lets take a quick dip into the gospels of the christ..."

Jesus.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:36 / 30.12.04

Hmmm? Oh, it's "what rough beast", not "what dark beast", unless he is actually talking about Dark Beast, in which case I want to go home right now.

Oh God, he is, isn't he? You can't make Dark Beast work. Nobody has ever made Dark Beast work.

I liked "Butterfly whatserface", although it would have been better if an actual X-Men character had been used (unless of course this is a character from established continuity I have missed, which would fit in nicely). I'll certainly be buying it, despite the art really not being my thing...

Matthew Fluxington

11:25 / 30.12.04

No Dark Beast. That character is over in Excalibur for no apparent reason.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

11:28 / 30.12.04

Sal is friends with Claremont, Flux.

YOUR DISS = MISSED

Matthew Fluxington

11:31 / 30.12.04

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that he isn't happy to do something a bit different. I don't think that it's any accident that he produced dense, formless art for dense, formless stories.

15:01 / 30.12.04

Hard to get a feeling for this from the brief preview. I feel like it could be hit or miss...but at the very least, worlds better than Austen. Even if Milligan is channeling his VENOM VS. CARNAGE! writer persona... (yikes)

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

20:04 / 30.12.04

Not that I'm giving Claremont any props, y'understand. Did you see the Xmas issue (#165)? Fucking horrible.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

20:26 / 30.12.04

I just got one of those cheap Marvel subs (not the meat kind) and the first issue to arrive is that abortion of a comic, the XMas issue. I showed it to a mate of mine who used to read X-Men during the Inferno days and sighed... "nothing really changes, does it?"

19:02 / 02.01.05

The preview wasn't great - if this is a building story then these four pages haven't done enough to get me interested, which is a shame as Milligan is my favourite writer. Agree with above post, the what's Golgotha thing was lame, smacked of PM writting for the lowest common denominator, rather than presuming that some people will get it, some won't - like that terrible moment in Tomorrow Never Dies, when someone mentions that Bond is using his GPS, and some idiot extra pops up to explain what GPS stands for, brrrrrr.

00:52 / 03.01.05

Sadly, this doesn't actually start next week -- it's not on Diamond's list of stuff shipping on January 5th. On the 12th, hopefully?

http://www.diamondcomics.com/shipping.asp

Keith, like a scientist

02:22 / 03.01.05

Could someone refresh my memory on Dark Beast? Cause I sort of doubt Milligan misquoted Yeats, so he probably is doing something with this character...

There are vast tracts of X story that I couldn't bring myself to read...I think Dark Beast probably was in one of those.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:22 / 03.01.05

Sometime in the mid 90s Legion travelled back in time to kill Magneto, deciding he was to blame for mutants not coexisting peacefully with man. Unfortunately he accidentally killed Xavier instead. Apocalypse took over the world, Magneto formed the X-Men to fight him. Henry McCoy joined Apocalypses team and had lots of evil gene-splicing fun. When, four months later the status quo was restored certain elements from the Age of Apocalypse universe survived, such as the utterly pointless Nate Grey and Dark Beast, who was retconned as the creator of the Morlocks. He replaced Beast for a while for a load of stories that most people who give a damn judge to be totally crap.

09:58 / 03.01.05

Save for one single scene in an issue of X-Men Unlimited when Dark Beast was driving through the American countryside (I think he was visiting Hank's parents or something) in a jeep. He's really pissed off ("Someone has to die"- reads the caption) and driving at high speeds. He takes out a small axe as he approachs some bloke he's never met before. "Somebody always has to die." says the caption as he slices the stranger's head in two and drives off.

It was better than I made it sound.

10:41 / 05.01.05

Have you actually read Venom v. Carnage, Finder?

I like it, m'self.

11:44 / 05.01.05

Is it really good?

12:02 / 05.01.05

yeah cummon duncan, you keep dropping hints about how cool that book is. give us a full rundown of the story so far and tell us why we want it.

18:22 / 19.01.05

So I just picked this up and I'm actually really, really disappointed with it. I'm sure plenty of people are going to disagree, but I found it to be really disjointed and not at all moody.

SPOILER SPACE

LA LA LA

DON'T SCROLL DOWN

The "Shortly..." and "Afterwards..." time cuts were really clumsy and awful, as were all the random incidents where nameless characters with no distingushing features just showed up unheralded and were dispatched a few panels later. The color palette wasn't creepy, it was just dull. I did like the way Emma hijacked Rogue (that dialogue we all found so cheesy is a lot more plausible if Emma's the one thinking it), but Rogue herself was completely lacking in personality -- none of the characters read on the page as being particularly unique, with the possible exception of Bobby who Milligan seems to have nailed. I'm not a big fan of Larocca to start with, the baroque elements of his art always kind of ruin it for me, he seems more concerned with drawing strands of hair twisting and curling in the wind than he does with anything else. I'll reread this a few more times but under my current budget crunch it's doubtful I'll even pick up the second issue unless the preview pages look hot.

That said, Milligan really impressed me with the new issue of HUMAN TARGET, which I'd thought was totally slipping off his priorities list after the last few by-the-numbers issues, so I've still got a big place in my heart for him.

09:09 / 20.01.05

Blah.

I had forgotten this book was going to star the horrid x-men characters, Gambit and Rogue.

I really don't care about this one but will buy the first arc.

13:32 / 20.01.05

too bad - - most online reviews I read said this was pretty weak, also. Anyone else here give it a go?

14:01 / 20.01.05

i did. it was... i don't know yet.

with his first issue of X-Force, Milligan came on like gangbusters, but by comparison here he's being all cautious-like, so it's hard to say what his ultimate impact is going to be. it's also understandable why so many people were disappointed with it - it's not bad, but it doesn't scream "I'M HERE!" which is what people were looking forward to, i think.

the scene with Rogue regressing through Butterfly's memories back to the womb, until she's rescued by Emma, was beautifully done, and i think it may be a good indicator of the kind of tone Milligan's going to strike here.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:18 / 20.01.05

Yeah, not a show stopper but you can't beat a fetus in a Rogue costume. It was a bit clumsy at times, especially Alex's half-handed, "Hey, no killing or, you know, I'll get stern." I didn't remember Lorna being that openly psychopathic.

But I'm in for the long haul. I read some of those reviews. 1/10? Quoth the GOB: COME ON.

14:35 / 20.01.05

I didn't remember Lorna being that openly psychopathic.

i think he's trying to stay in continuity with the end of Austen's run, where, apparently, she went totally homicidally batshit.

Matthew Fluxington

16:25 / 20.01.05

Haven't been to a comic store so I haven't read this yet, but Diz is right - Lorna was pretty much completely insane through the Austen run (though in fairness, this was kickstarted by Morrison in NXM and her fucked up history as written by Claremont), and it was never resolved, so Peter has to work through that.

23:24 / 20.01.05

Fetus-Rogue was a really beautiful image, I'll admit, but I don't think Larocca sold the snap back into crazy action from that.

And I read Lorna's freakout as being Something In The Building influencing all the X-Men, which also explains Havok's less-than-wholehearted denunciation of her actions. I'd be really, really angry if there *wasn't* something like that operating here, because come on, this is the X-Men we're talking about -- they're pretty nice folks, really. Bobby would have FREAKED OUT if one of his teammates killed somebody. Maybe Gambit could roll with it, but. I know Austen wrote Polaris really, really badly, but this is just a step too far IMHO.

03:22 / 21.01.05

Milligan is, quite simply, never quite this bad. I smell the foul stench of editorial interference (demanding him to do this and include that or what have you). It was a very sparse issue, and felt incomplete. Milligan's auteur voice seemed muffled. This week's Human Target however was top-notch!

Is he really a good fit for the x-universe anyway? Can he get away with the same level of play that Morrison injected? Is he doing this just for the money? And how will he write Wolverine? I liked his wolverine/doop x-over way back when, and I hope to see a return of that characterization. It was good to see Emma take such an active role this issue too. At any rate, he's better than Claremont (who is only tainting his classic run by churning out such horrible stories - know when to say goodbye, man!). Goodbye.

The Natural Way

10:38 / 21.01.05

It was fucking poo. Boring. Annoying. Dull. Shit transitions. Static art - with a sort of GCSE art vibe to the faces. This is not, not, not what a first issue should be. Urrgh.

Sorry Pete.

11:05 / 21.01.05

Exactly what Pappuce said. Bloody awful - especially those transitions.

C'mon Milligan, you're better than this shit.

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