What’s Covered?
Excalibur Volume 3 # 1 - 10, District X # 1 - 6, X-Men: The End (All 3 Volumes)
Roster Watch
My Connections and Creators
I'm going to combine my coverage into 3 parts.
I'll start by talking about Excalibur Volume 3. Guess what? I'm going to start by complaining about the editorial staff. Remember how I was complaining during the last blog about how dumb it was that they called the series New X-Men Volume 2 instead of just going with Academy X...or even New Mutants? Yea, they did it again. Once again they are just assigning random stories to popular series titles whether they have anything to do with them or not.
Ok, now let's actually talk about the story. If it was good, I probably wouldn't be negative...but it's not. They probably went with Excalibur because if they marketed it on "Xavier is randomly living in Genosha with a secretly alive Magneto and fighting alongside new, random mutants," I probably wouldn't have picked it up. But that's what it is. Nothing makes sense. Why isn't Xavier with his X-Men? Why does he care so much about what's happening in Genosha? How was Magneto's death ret-conned so quickly? Why does Claremont think Callisto (or Jean) with slimy apendages is cool? This series may be relegated to skimming status soon.
One more point to bring up. With the introduction of Magneto in Excalibur V3, Claremont has completely ret-conned Planet X. Now, if you read my coverage of Planet X, then you know I was furious about how Morrison ruined Magneto. It was a travesty. I totally understand why Claremont would want to retcon Magneto. I get it, I really do. Magneto might be Claremont's Magnum Opus (no pun intended). However, Planet X ended in December of 2003. Exc V3 # 1 came out in May of 2004. 5 months. Magneto stayed dead for 5 months. His actions were undone almost immediately. Did we really need Magneto back this quickly, just so that we could tell an Xavier story with C list characters about re-building Genosha!?
There's also District X by David Hines. These are smaller scales stories starring Bishop in District X, which is a fictitious part of New York City populated primarily by mutants. A few of these stories have been pretty good, some have fallen short. The one negative of my X-Men journey is that I sometimes don't have patience for these lower impact stories. I'm going through every X-Men comic ever to help me better understand Krakoa (when I get there), but every little story like this slows me down. Krakoa is actually ending, so maybe I should just relax.
The final series I'm covering is X-Men: The End. This is Chris Claremont's attempt at showing what could happen at the end of X-Men storytelling. The final stories for all of your favorite X-Men characters. I originally intended to skip this, however I read the first one out of curiosity and it was slightly interesting. Then the next one was even more interesting. I eventually got hooked and will even say it ended up being a fun ride. I'm going to cover this series a little differently. Instead of recapping each issue, I'm just going to go straight to my overall thoughts about the series.
Synopsis
Excalibur V3 # 1 - 4 (Besties in Genosha)
Writer - Chris Claremont
Pencils - Aaron Lopresti
Excalibur vol. 3 #1 5/19/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Xavier in Genosha struggling, trying to move Magneto’s body
Spoiler! Not Magneto's body!
Talking to the ghost of Moira
Unus and other mutants are ready to challenge
Really? Unus? Of all the villains in the X-Men's Rogue's gallery, we go with Unus. Ok.
X finds young mutants
Wicked -creates ghosts
She's got a cool design and power set, but it's starting to get to the point where every time a new mutant is introduced I'm disappointed we're not spending more time with some other mutants. And I'm not talking about fucking Iceman or Warren Worthington III. Bring back Magik or give me some Dani, Domino, Quentin Quire, Warpath, Tempo, or Lifeguard. I would even take some Maggot.
Freak show - transforms into giant beast and eats Unus
Mags shows up.
Excalibur vol. 3 #2 6/23/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Looks like they are retconning Planet X
I bitched about this earlier.
X and Mags have a long chat
Callisto (and her tentacles) show up
Bruh. These tentacles aren't cool.
Freak show spits out Unus
X seeing visions of Moira
One of Unus’s followers, Hub (a black woman) and teleporter, is conversing with a spy, Hack (an Asian man/boy)
Excalibur vol. 3 #3 7/28/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
X sees a vision of an attacking Omega Sentinel
Hub and Hack teleport on a plane with a strong mutant named Purge
They meet Ishola (from Mekanix) and Karima (from X-Men re-born)
They crash the plane
Excalibur vol. 3 #4 8/25/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Unus’s crew vs the Magistrate’s
Shola saves Freakshow, Callisto, and Wicked
X and Mags save Karima
New Team
Xavier, Mags, Callisto, Wicked, Freakshow, Karima, Shola
Look at this lineup! Take my money!
Excalibur V3 # 5 - 10 (Pirates in Genosha)
Writer - Chris Claremont
Pencils - Aaron Lopresti
Excalibur vol. 3 #5 9/22/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
There’s explosions at several X-Corps at once. X astral projects himself to the locations
Sabra, Monet, Neal (Thunderbird), Lifeguard come (from X-Corp) to help
Ha! I did say I wanted to see Monet and Lifeguard. (I literally forgot that they showed up in this comic).
Neal challenges X for fleeing to Genosha and keeping secrets
I'm glad someone challenged him on this. Might as well be the character everyone hates already. Ha!
X and Callisto think Sinister and Scalphunter could be responsible
Maybe? I could go for a good Sinister story. Marauders back again. Sounds cool.
Trolls attack the Genosha team, leave them powerless
Nope, we have trolls. Call off the Sinister watch, people. We have trolls. And next issue, generic pirates. Take my money!
Excalibur vol. 3 #6 10/27/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Pirate scavengers are inspecting the team
Callisto has a wet dream about colossus!
Ok, this was special. Thanks for not letting us forget that Piotr was banging Callisto when she was temporarily hot, and then dumped her immediately after returning to normal.
Unus and Dark Beast behind shit
Dark Beast? Really, Claremont? Of all the characters who have been introduced since you left, you want to play with Dark Beast. What's next, a Sugar Man resurgence?
Excalibur vol. 3 #7 11/24/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Karima and Dark Beast hitting it off
This was just odd and I guarantee nothing comes of it. Isn't Karima one of the primary protagonists in the Krokoa era? Interested to see her go evil. Maybe she goes evil after shacking up with evil Dark Beast?
Avengers are attacked, Magneto makes a wormhole and gets Wanda.
Two things. First, I read Avengers Disassembled but I'm waiting until we get closer to House of M before covering it. Second, Magneto making wormhole's to travel just seems like overkill for one of the most powerful mutants. Let's cut that out.
Xavier tells Callisto they need to be ready in case Mags goes bad
Oh, ok. So that's happening next. Got it.
Shola tells Karima that they should be worried about Mags since he’s powerful enough to make a wormhole
Mags might be evil again
Excalibur vol. 3 #8 12/22/2004 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
Magneto and the team are re-building Genosha
Trying to get Unus and his gang to help
X frees Dark Beast and the Magistrates if they promise to help re-build the country
This sounds like a wise plan. Seriously, why is this comic being published? Did people really buy these issues?
Excalibur vol. 3 #9 2/2/2005 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
We get a flashback to Magnetos life
He sits by the bedside with a hurt Wanda
Demanding Xavier
Shola and Freakshow clear out the rubble to make room for arable land
This is how I want to spend my free time. Reading comics where two mutants I care nothing about clear out rubble and make farmable land.
Some monster kills the magistrates and brutally attacks Dark Beast
Excalibur vol. 3 #10 2/23/2005 Chris Claremont Aaron Lopresti
The fucking Sugarman was in the sewers
Lol! Ok, I knew the Sugarman was coming when I made that comment earlier. But seriously? I don't understand why any writer thinks "Hey, I know. Let's go out of our way to use this villain who has a tongue coming out of his head for a body."
His friend bites off half of Calisto’s appendages
Now bite off the other half and we'll be on the right track. Why am I being so negative!?
District X # 1 - 6
Writer - David Hine
Pencils - David Yardin, Lan Medina, and Mike Perkins
District X #1 5/12/2004 David Hine David Yardin
A cool story about two police officers, one of them is dick, and they run into a husband who has been chaining up his wife. She is a mutant who can control people with her words. She got one of the cops to go crazy and shoot the husband then shoot her then shoot his self
Bishop shows up
District X #2 6/9/2004 David Hine David Yardin
Bishop and Ortega deal with a mutant who hatches creatures from his skin
Crime bosses fight over a mutant kid who secretes toad juice to get ppl high
Ortega is married to a mutant.
District X #3 7/14/2004 David Hine David Yardin
“Bishop? He’s kind of macho, but he’s okay. You’d like him.”
Good characterization
“ this is no joke Izzy. There’s a question of public perception. Being a mutant is like being black. You can be a black checkout clerk, or the black heavyweight champion in the world… But first thing you are is black.”
A human woman starts peeling out spores at a club
District X #4 8/11/2004 David Hine Lan Medina
Bishop is at the spore ladies crime scene
A mystery man in a top hat keeps showing up. Phasing through walls
Top hat man reverts the toad boy to a normal human
The mom was staying high on her son
Top hat man thinks he has the power of a God. He can manipulate any molecular structure
District X #5 9/8/2004 David Hine David Yardin
19 kids OD on Toad juice
Two mobsters go to war
Mr M (top hat guy) fights Bishop and Ortega
Ortegas son shoots his daughter with his dad’s gun
District X #6 10/13/2004 David Hine Mike Perkins
Mr M saves her life.
Mr M decides he’s a destroyer and sets out to destroy the city but Bishop and Ortega stop him.
X-Men: The End
Writer - Chris Claremont
Pencils - Sean Chen
As mentioned earlier, I'm not going to go through the full plot. Instead, I made little notes about interesting things that happened throughout. What's fascinating about this is that we get to see how Claremont assumed in his head how things would end. This isn't the real ending, but we get to see what he had in the back of his mind about where characters would go, and when it comes to the X-Men, that might be the closes thing to a real end that we ever get.
The first thing that I must talk about is Cyclops apologizing out loud to Maddy (and she happens to hear him). When it comes to covering/blogging about the Claremont run, Claremont's outright anger at what happened to Cyclops is something I'll never forget. Here, Scott basically admits that what he did to her was wrong and that he still cares about her. It's really interesting timing too to be reading this at the same time that X-Men '97 came out.
The next thing I need to discuss is Kitty running for Mayor of Chicago, and then eventually becoming President. I love Kitty and you just know that Claremont had something special in mind for her. I loved the part where Scott tells her that they can handle the saving world, because her running for office is even more important. That was touching.
Jean comes back to life and has sex with Logan in his mind. Scott is married to Emma and is happy with a few kids. I find this pretty interesting. First, I doubt that Claremont always assumed Scott would marry Emma, but it was clear that he wanted him to marry someone other than Jean, leave the X-Men, and be happy. I'd be really curious to hear whether Claremont always intended Jean to end up with Logan or if he just did that since Scott was taken.
Speaking of Claremontisms, Storm is a quadripilegic and Logan is with her taking care of her. First, this is sweet. Second, it's fitting. Claremont always had these two as not so secret friend with benefits. Were they destined to be together? Are they just close friends? A little more? That's still unclear, but what is clear is that Wolverine loves Storm in some way and is more loyal to her than anyone else on the planet.
Rogue and Gambit being married with kids seemed like the boring thing. I'm glad it happened, but it was lazy. I didn't really care for Gambit betraying the family and becoming the secret son of Mr. Sinister.
Other shipping. Bishop married Deathbird. Sam married Lila. Beast married Cecilia Reyes. This is all pretty cute. Not much more to say about them, however Kitty and Rachel are pretttttttttty close.
Also, a bunch of people die, but since it "doesn't count," I don't think I need to get too deep into it.
コメント