Call For Reviews: X-Men Forever Annual
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Hey you! Reader! Want to be a part of the GREATEST COMIC BOOK AND GEEK COMMUNITY on the web?! Well, they're not accepting new members, but we'll take anyone here, so why not sign up for a free acount? It's fast and it's easy, like your mom! Sign up today! Membership spots are limited!*
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This was an okay, not a big X-Men fan so that is saying a lot. I did really enjoy the art though and I thought the coloring was great. I guess this is a story which takes place prior to where the book currently is which is weird considering this whole series takes place in the past or whatever. Anyways it is the story of the beginning of Jean and Logan's secret romance and ninjas! My main complaint is Claremont's over usage of thought bubbles having to spell out every little detail of the plot but it still reads okay I guess. It was about as good as the last X-Men Forever book we reviewed, in the end it is just not my thing but that could be more of a me refusing to get involved in anything X-Men oriented. I would write more but I didn't love this enough to gush and I didn't hate it enough to tear it apart. STORY - 5.5 ART - 8.5 OVERALL - 7 |
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![]() So I'll get a review of that up later this week-end. I also found a copy of Kill Shakespeare, so I'll do that one too. |
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That's the first part of the Mutant Massacre storyline, IIRC. Quite the jumping-on point, though (and I know I'll get howls of protest about this) Claremont was already past his prime at this point. |
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I've never read this period of X-Men, I've got a massive gap from when Byrne left to X-Men #1 with Jim Lee. |
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You missed a few good runs then: The Claremont/ Paul Smith run is great as is Claremont/ Romita JR. I *think* the issue you got was the last of the two of them. Then Claremont/ Silvestri. |
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I think the book was pretty good (if over-wordy, of course) until about #200, and then it started to go downhill a bit. By the time the team were in Australia and all the Bend Sinister nonsense happened it was pretty much unreadable. |
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There were some good character bits here, but it there were like 3 different 'Mutant Equality' speeches, 2 too many. Magneto as head of the X-Men is stupid though. |
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Claremont's characters are incapable of shutting up. |
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I got that hardcover in my read pile... I figured anything where mutants get massacred has to be a good thing. |
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![]() I look at this cover and what really fascinates me is the physical evolution of Rogue. As the years went on she actually got younger and prettier. When she first appeared and even in this cover (years later) she always struck me as much older than most of the other X-Men and not very attractive. Thank God Remy came along and was able to soften her up... and deage her. |
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Story - Much like the 'All-New, All-Different' X-Men were brought together by Krakoa, the living island, a natural disaster has effected this week's Review Group for me. The Icelandic Volcano has meant that there are no comics in the UK this week, and therefore no X-Men Forever. So instead I've decided to review another Claremont X-Men, any Claremont X-Men really, I wasn't bothered which, so I just chose this one based on the cover. It's a bad-ass cover for sure, but unfortunately this is kind of an average issue, really just a breather, setting up future stories, in particular, the famous 'Mutant Massacre'. This issue mainly features a series of character moments, you have the mysterious Marauders hunting down some Morlocks, setting up the crossover, you've got Dazzler being bitchy, Rogue hunting for Phoenix II, Magneto being offered membership of the Hellfire Club, Shadowcat and Colossus rescuing Nightcrawler and Storm and Wolverine working out some leadership issues. Because I hadn't read the previous issue (which was the X-Men Vs Hellfire Club and Nimrod, say what you want about older comics, but they do exposition the hell out of you), a lot of this character stuff was lost on me, I was just confused about why Magneto was leading the team, and how there could be an X-Men book with only one page of Wolverine. I did like how the original X-Factor kind of hovered around the book, with most of the characters thinking that they were Mutant hunters and not actually the original X-Men. Claremont's writing was mixed here, there are some of his usual quirks and problems, over long dialogue, clunky descriptions of character's powers, and I counted at least 2 passioned mutant equality speeches. But there were also more subtle moments, and even some humour, 'don't you dare fight in here -- This is Bloomingdales!'. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it had me chuckling. Overall, this was an odd issue, I enjoyed it on the whole, partly out of... not nostalgia, because I wasn't born when the issue came out, but from that nice feeling you get from reading an old comic, transported back to another time and place, I was in the 80s, I was experiencing the X-Men in their pomp, and Claremont in his, it was interesting to visit this period I've read about and know about, but never actually read. Part of that even comes from the ads, the pimping of the New Universe, Gumby, all that stuff, glorious. But really, it was an issue in which nothing much happened, and there were some bad moments. Maybe I should have picked a different issue. Art - The art here comes from John Romita Jnr, one of the best Marvel artists of all time, but this is 80s JRjr, and he's not quite at the level he's reached today yet, part of that may be due to the old-fashioned colouring, it makes his art look flat, even compared to the cover, it looks washed-out. I did also notice that at this time (1986) his art isn't as distinctive as it is now, you can still clearly see it's him, but it's smoother, and actually more reminiscent of his dad's work. Best Line - 'Gentlemen! Gentlemen!! Don't you dare fight in here -- This is Bloomingdales!!!' 7/10 |
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