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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #134

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Matthew Fluxington

16:08 / 26.08.02

Click here for Ethan Van Sciver's cover.

Solicitation:

NEW X-MEN #134
Grant Morrison (w)/Ethan Van Sciver (p)/Norm Rapmund (i)
In a world without Magneto, will the biggest threat to the X-Men come from… within? Find out when Xavier's dream faces its most unexpected and devastating challenge in the form of Kid Omega!
32 pgs. with ads/FC/Marvel PG......2.25

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:25 / 26.08.02

Ooooh pre-tee cuvver...

16:30 / 26.08.02

I like the flower motif he seems to work into everything...

01:27 / 24.10.02

I'm a little bit confused... is there going to be a NXM #134 now?

Matthew Fluxington

01:49 / 24.10.02

Yes, the next issue is #134. It's being illustrated by Keron Grant. I can see how Marvel's promotion of #135 may make it seem like that's the next one, but it's not.

There's no promo art available for #134 just yet, but that's mostly because in all likelihood, it's still not ready yet. They were forced to get a new penciller for that issue at the last minute because the editors decided to take Ethan off the issue because he was running late.

Matthew Fluxington

00:50 / 14.11.02

The preview is up at PopCultureShock.

The art's not bad, for a fill-in. And it won't look bad when it's in a trade with Frank's issues, either.

Hey, and our pal Quentin Quire is in there!

01:14 / 14.11.02

The Cuckoos look good all grown up.

The Natural Way

08:12 / 14.11.02

Is Kieron one of the regular artists now? He's pretty good.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

10:37 / 14.11.02

Yeah, that cover is great. I'll miss Ethan, really. He's come a loooong way since the epic that was CYBERFROG!

00:19 / 18.11.02

I'm very impressed with Mr. Grant - he offers an apparently Americanised/superheroised version of Quitely (judging by these previews) that I was far from expecting. The first 2 pages, especially, are excellent.

Matthew Fluxington

01:39 / 21.11.02

* I think it's really lame to put a dramatic cover of Phoenix/Jean Grey on an issue in which the character doesn't even appear. It's misleading, and really, hasn't Jean been on enough covers? This issue really should've had the students on the cover, since this was their issue. Why not a cover of a solo Quentin Quire? Or the Cuckoos? I'm sure someone could have worked up a striking cover with the five of them on it, maybe with Emma. It could've been great. Don't get me wrong, Ethan's drawing is nice, but it's just all wrong for this issue.

* Can someone explain to me the "Crazy Now" thing on Quentin's head, and why no one seems to notice it? I'm supremely confused about this - I thought earlier in the issue that Tattoo was expressing her feelings with words on her face (which is kind of lame, but whatever), but then what is the explanation for Quentin doing the same thing?

* The art was extremely shaky, most likely due to it being rushed. The opening two pages were really well illustrated, I think, but it mostly looked like a Mark Bagely/Ultimate Spider-Man pastiche and that's just so wrong for this story. Based on Frank Quitely's version, this just looks like Bagely's Peter Parker standing in for Quire. There's very little resemblence to Quitely's design beyond being a skinny white kid with glasses and a taste for retro-nerd fashion. Why did Keron Grant decide to not draw Quentin's eyes in the scene in which Charles and Henry confront him? That's just laziness and bad panel-to-panel continuity. There's no effect to not drawing the eyes. Weak. It's bad enough he didn't bother with backgrounds and drew most of the scene with tight expressionless close-ups. All in all, this is very amateurish work; with weak panel-to-panel continuity/storytelling, and some very questionable staging and perspective angles.

* I like that Quentin is constantly eating chocolate, it's so Niles Caulder of him.

* I loved the bit about Charles' old water paintings.

05:58 / 21.11.02

Woah, I made it into the New X-Men? Why is that a bad thing?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

09:22 / 21.11.02

Was it "Crazy Now" as in "Who's Crazy Now?" as in, see, I told you everything was fucked and you told me I was crazy. Or maybe he just decided to tell everyone he was nuts. Sounds like a teenaged thing to do. I dug the issue, but like many an issue of Ultimate X-Men (*cough* Kubert, either of them *choke* *cough*) I had to imagine someone else drawing it. Just didn't dig the Maudiera-esque implications. I love the way Grant is writing teenagers with way too much power than a teenager should ever have. I never quite agreed with the Claremontian angsty take. Sure, when you're out in the real world it's difficult and alienating, but the school was never this hot-bed of "How fucking cool am I?" that it should have been. Grant also does a good job of showing how most of the old guard (or, nowawadays, just Scott) still have that attitude.

The Natural Way

10:39 / 21.11.02

Artwise: You see, altho' it IS sub-Bagley, it's not Kordey. So I'm happy. I understood what was going on (even to the point of assuming the explosion on the globe was Genosha), so it worked for me. Note: I just said "it worked", I didn't say it was really good. I agree it had fuck all flow and some of the layouts and staging stank.

Storywise, everything's great - I can't believe we've had to wait this long for a focus on the school, but now it's here: fantastic. Quire's Great; I'm soo pleased we've finally met Jellyboy and his name's Herman; The Cuckoos are fab as normal and, yeah, colouring books....

16:02 / 21.11.02

>>>Can someone explain to me the "Crazy Now" thing on Quentin's head, and why no one seems to notice it?<<<

He's a geeky rebellious teenager doing a geeky rebellious thing. He probably thinks it's badass.

Think of the kid in St Swithin's Day doing the same thing. "Neurotic Teenage Outsider" or whatever it was.

Yeah, the art was a letdown this issue but it's no longer a surprise. Do remember though that he was an eleventh hour replacement and likely only had a couple of weeks at the most to do it all. Whenever I'm really pushed for time I resort to close-ups too...

16:06 / 21.11.02

And of course there's Reynard w/ her 'Fuck U' at the end of Invis vol 3 #2.

Matthew Fluxington

16:07 / 21.11.02

So he drew it on his head, with a Sharpie?

Then why does it look exactly like the thing with Tattoo? It's confusing.

18:39 / 21.11.02

After thinking about it some, I like that Jean is on the cover but doesn't appear in the issue. She's certainly in people's thoughts (she's mentioned twice, Scott and Hank discuss her, Scott expresses his concern about what she's becoming, Hank's line about her being an 'Omega 12 level mutant' and so forth). It's a nice slow buildup to the big nasty Dark Phoenix story that's coming up.

18:57 / 21.11.02

Yeah I liked Jean on the Cover... reminded me of InvisiblesV3#6 with Mr6 only on the cover...

and yeah, her pressance was certainly Felt:

Crazy Now:
Initially I thought Tatoo dropped that on his head after what he did to Slick... assuming it eventually wore off...

Later it occured to me that maybe that was just something the Proffessor could see as he was talking with him. Sort of a visualisation of how Charles "sees" people... particularly mentally unstable people.
Along those lines it seemed to make sence that they would offer to place him "under observation" in hopes that this budding Crazyness could be resolved as a side effect to this secondary Mutation.

Loved that designer dude who's name i can't recall...
"smells delecious"

The whole Chat between Henry & Scott was great... "a late Summer Frost"

and that newspaper clipping... Xcellent!!!

19:12 / 21.11.02

>>>So he drew it on his head, with a Sharpie?<<<

I'm quite certain this is what it's supposed to be.

19:42 / 21.11.02

Knowing Morrison's fondness for glam-rock stompers, it's probably a reference to Slade's seminal 'Mama, We're All Crazy Now'.

22:41 / 21.11.02

I'm quite certain this is what it's supposed to be.

I'm still not sure... and still prefer the reading of it as a sort of foreshadowing...

no worries though

The Natural Way

08:08 / 22.11.02

Well, it's certainmly foreshadowing and yr certainly a creative little spunk, but I'm going with the sharpie. Why would Tatto take revenge? She thinks Spike's a "loser" now. And, anyway, there's no evidence she can dump her "tattoos" on other people. The Charles thing...hmmm...I don't think Charles's brain would put it quite like that, do you?

No, it's a statement, there to indicate Quire's rapid descent into FUCKING PISSED OFF TEENAGER. It makes more sense. And, as other's have pointed out, appears to be part of a head-scarring theme that runs throughout Morrison's stuff.

yawn - thing's buddy

11:31 / 22.11.02

really enjoyed this.

nice and soapy does it.

tatoo idea nice and sim to solomon in statix.

but more focused.

not much of a power tho

The Natural Way

11:44 / 22.11.02

Yeah, it was really good.

"Homo Sapien all look the same to me...it's all save this...save that.."

Fucking brilliant.

and the campy "big, primitive humans" line was great.

12:55 / 22.11.02

Am I the only one who thinks the black and white image from the "old" newspaper with the mutant with the Romulan haircut is an image from an old 1950s sci-fi book or something like that? It sure looks like it.

The Natural Way

13:02 / 22.11.02

It's an oooold comics reference, as far as I'm aware, but who knows where the inspiration for its original incarnation came from.

14:03 / 22.11.02

It's from X-Men #14, by Lee and Kirby. Doctor Bolivar Trask appears in the media spreading the word of the "mutant menace," and the Daily Bugle runs an artist's interpretation of what the world could look like once mutantkind takes over and subjects humans to their cruel dominion.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:51 / 22.11.02

and leigh bowery was the inspiration for the murdered mutant.

I hate leigh bowery.

I'd have killed that fuckin mutant too.

15:14 / 22.11.02

I'm not exactly clear on what happened to Jumbo Carnation - the thugs at the beginning seem to be just wrestling with him and then leg it once his skin starts turning into teflon, but the dialogue later says he was torched in some way. Does the drug inhaler have anything to do with it? Beast says the inhaler was found ON Jumbo, not on the ground nearby, which suggests to me that he was taking the drug himself and not forced to by the thugs.

I don't get it.

15:47 / 22.11.02

I got the impression that one of the thugs stuffed something in JC's mouth. Maybe they overdosed him w/ whatever was in the inhaler? Whatever happened it wasn't all that clear.

17:16 / 22.11.02

Thanks, Cameron!

Who's Leigh Bowery?

20:31 / 22.11.02

And, as other's have pointed out, appears to be part of a head-scarring theme that runs throughout Morrison's stuff.

really? this must have been a theme I've totally missed... can you spell out an instance or 2?

23:02 / 22.11.02

Er, we already have...St. Swithin's Day and Invisibles 3:2 both feature a rebellious kid with writing on their forehead.

23:35 / 22.11.02

..oh... Yeah... urm, I see...

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