Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Uncanny X-Men #538 & Generation Hope #8

I'll be finishing last week's new books with the two X-related titles I like the least, Uncanny X-Men and Generation Hope. Since I'm expecting absolutely nothing from these two books, the bar is set really low, meaning maybe I'll wind up pleasantly surprised... Although I wouldn't bet on it...

Uncanny X-Men #538:

Summary: Wolverine and Kruun wind up being too evenly matched so Kruun cheats to win by sticking Wolvie with some darts to mess up his healing factor, before sticking a device on him which causes Wolvie to become nearly weightless. While that's going on, Shadowcat(DAMMIT! I was hoping she was dead!) rushes over to Colossus to try to patch him up. Kruun heads over to them and tries to attack Shadowcat, but it appears Shadowcat is no longer trapped in her intangible form, and can avoid Kruun's attacks. Oh, and she woke up a bunch of X-Men before heading to Colossus. Seeing that the battle was lost, Kruun surrenders, telling the X-Men that he had acted alone and without the knowledge of his people. Shadowcat tells the team that wasn't true, as Kruun's wife knew what he was up to. Not wanting to see any harm come to his woman, Kruun tosses a smoke grenade and rushes inside to find her. Shadowcat beats him and shows Kruun that Kruun's wife had sacrificed her own life to fix Shadowcat with some lame Breakworld magic trick. Kruun is heartbroken, and does the same spell his wife did to Shadowcat to bring his wife back to life. This also allows Kruun to stay alive(somehow...), and the mayor of San Francisco allows the Breakworld refugees to live in a section of San Fran provided they behave themselves. And that is about that.

Thoughts: I'm going to put this right out there so everybody understands where I'm coming from. I HATE Shadowcat. Passionately. She served a purpose in the 80's(I guess...) as the token spunky/incredibly annoying teenage girl that Chris Claremont is obsessed with writing about, but that role has been filled by several other characters over the years. Now she's just sort of around. Doing nothing of note. Why she was brought back is mind-boggling to me, because she's one character who served her purpose YEARS ago, and died an acceptable, heroic “death”. And yet here she is, wasting space. That in a nutshell is how I felt about this issue and this storyline. I hate Shadowcat, I'm not a fan of Colossus the pervert, so I hated this storyline. If you like those characters, chances are you'll enjoy this one. Me? I hated it.

Score: 5 out of 10.Dammit!! Why won't she just die already?!?


Generation Hope #8:

Summary: Lord Summers and Our Savior Hope meet with the X-Men's lawyer to discuss what to do about the Teon situation. The lawyer feels that Teon's parents would win the battle for Teon's custody, but Our Savior Hope refuses to give Teon up without a fight, so Lord Summers decrees that they'd fight for Teon's rights in court. From there, Our Savior Hope FINALLY talks to her team and tells them to pick codenames for themselves, which they all do. After that, Our Savior Hope and her useless followers(what? They don't even get a team name! They're just called Gen Hope! They MUST be useless!) meet up with the lawyer and they all head to court. The court scene is as boring as you'd expect it to be, with Teon's parents arguing why he should be with them(“He's our son!”) and the X-Men's lawyer arguing why he should be with them(“We can help him!”). Finally Teon takes the stand and is suddenly not a complete blithering idiot, and tells the court why he wants to stay with the X-Men. Since that's what Teon wants, the judge rules for the X-Men and this issue ends.

Thoughts: You know, reading this review you'd think I hated this comic, but that's not the case. This actually may have been one of my favorite issues of this series.(although that isn't saying much). The beginning was good, with Our Savior Hope's worthless followers finally picking codenames(Now I can FINALLY call them by name!), but the courtroom scene did NOTHING for me. As a matter of fact, it bored me so much I actually skipped large chunks of it. Then there was the fact that Teon took the stand in his own defense AND was able to speak intelligently... If he could do that in court, why the hell is he always running around saying stupid, unfunny one word dialogue?! I think it's safe to say I am NOT a fan of Kieron Gillen's writing. I've read every issue of this series, as well as all of his work on Uncanny, and I can't point at anything and say I really enjoyed it. I'm still trying to be optimistic with this series, but I don't know...

Score: 6 out of 10.Sure, this makes about as much sense as anything else in this series...

12 comments:

  1. how the hell is collosuss a pervert?
    kitty is well above leagal age now

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  2. Agreed, but the key word there is "now"...

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  3. Okay, the Lights finally get nicknames and you decide NOT to tell us their nicknames? That's a tease if I've ever heard it!

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  4. yeah I may not be outright hostile to Colossus ( love the cartoons versions though , he's a pretty nice dude in there & no perversion) but I also ask WTF were they thinking with the Kitty romance (I mean jeesh at least his brother Mikhail was hooking with legal aged women..)
    & to think my boy Gambit is maligned, he's maybe a ladies man but I always felt that Remy was a bit healthier than douchelops or Colossus.

    I will admit that I understand by how certain writers worship her (like Magneto) and make her this uber-perfect, expert-at-everything Mary Sue character. She used to be this young sassy girl who was a bit of a brainy nerd, but was shy and insecure about her own appeal as a girl. I loved it how she kept comparing herself to Rachel (my reason for reading that book along with Nightcrawler & Pete Wisdom) back in the Exaclibur days. She was flawed. Relatable.

    By now she's
    -a genius
    -as good a fighter as wolverine!!
    -In Whedon's X-Men (this shit is overrated!!) it was almost all about her
    -In Forever turning into invicible Wolverine girl

    So yeah I also despise her that way
    (Jubilee was a far better & believable character with human flaws & an admirable optimism!Many tragedies harmed her but she always fought back with colorful plasma & a smile on her face)

    fucking Hope still exists? thank you for reminding me I have no respect for Hope Summers, Marvel. Wish Bishop would end it then kill her and douchelops because two of the greatest mutants to come out of the 90's careers are destroyed just for another plot device resurrection that achieved shit. Fuck that We lost the epic potential that Cable can have as an A-lister for that crap!

    Saidi

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  5. HA! Yeah Cole, perhaps I should have given out the nicknames... I just couldn't find a spot in the review to do it. Let's see, we've got Velocidad(for the time controlling kid), Primal(for Teon), Zero(for the obligatory evil Japanese kid), I don't think the blue girl chose a name, and the African girl picked a name that I'm blanking on... It'll come to me... Probably next month!

    I'd say that I agree with nearly everything you had to say there, Saidi. Kitty went from this new, insecure X-Man, to PERFECT Kitty who could do no wrong, and could beat anybody ever. I really hate that character. And yes, Jubilee is MILLIONS of times better than Kitty! Kitty SHOULD have died at the end of Whedon's run(which I agree with you again on, sucked!), but no, Gillen and/or Fraction had to have her come back for some reason, so she can hang around and serve no purpose. And what they did to Bishop? Unforgivable!

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  6. And to think -- they killed Nightcrawler for the sake of making sure Hope would survive and oh yeah, to sell more comics in the last year's X-men saga. No wonder Wolverine despises her. Although, in defense of Hope, I am interested to see just what "link" she has to the Phoenix Force and before anyone starts in on that -- I remain ever-loyal to Jean Grey whom I miss and would definitely enjoy reading about over Emma ZZzzzz Frost any day of the week. Of course, it all goes back to the way in which comic book companies continue to "murder then resurrect" characters. Dead is dead -- at least in the real world.

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  7. Yeah, I don't get the logic behind killing Nightcrawler off but bringing back characters like Colossus and Shadowcat, who are way more boring/one-dimensional, at least in my opinion...

    As for Hope, I wouldn't mind her if they a) cut out the whole, "She's our Savior!!!" stuff, and b) came out and stated that she has NO connection to the Phoenix Force and/or Jean Grey. If Jean(probably my favorite female X character) would come back, I'd probably less hostile towards Hope, who Marvel seems to be trying to push as Jean 2.0. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised Jean has stayed dead for as long as she has!

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  8. I agree re: Jean's lengthy death/hiatus. Perhaps they're waiting for some HUGE X-men storyline to develop; which I feel will come in another 1-3 yrs probably. Schism! is next -- which I think has to do with Sentinels again and perhaps a mutant with a grudge or so I read online somewhere recently. It also pits Cyclops against Wolverine. Hmm...might be interesting. I could go on and speak my mind about the recent "Oh let's have Magneto be ONE of us again" speeches but that would simply X-haust me tonight. LOL.

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  9. I thought for sure the introduction of Hope was going to be the vehicle Marvel used to bring Jean back, but that wasn't it... I never thought they'd actually create a new red-headed female character instead of just bring Jean back... You know, like many fans wanted!

    Yeah, it sounds like Schism is going to split the X-Men in half or something like that, with half the team continuing to live like crazy hermits, while the other half... doesn't I guess. I've got to say though, you have all of these X-characters that have real leadership potential(I mean Prof. X is RIGHT THERE!) and yet Wolverine is the guy tabbed to go against Cyclops. That seems a bit odd to me.

    As for Mags, be my guest! One of the MANY things that's been bugging me about recent X-events is the sudden forgiveness Mags has achieved... Well, that and his ever changing origin...

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  10. Magneto. Once upon a time he was - at least in my mind - the greatest villain in Marvel Comics. Second only to Doctor Doom who is SO underused these days. Of course, Doom was once a part of the FF I think?

    But back to Erik, Magnes, Magneto, whatever he wants to call himself these days -- you're right, they've changed his origin several times in recent years. Pick one, dammit! Leave it be. Uggh.

    So here he is joining the X-men -- which is not the first time; I remember when he was the Mentor for the New Mutants for a brief time. But now he's side by side with the X-men. Have all of the mutants forgotten, rather suddenly, ALL the evil this man did to the mutants and humankind as well? Has Logan forgotten how Mags pulled all his adamantium from his body leaving him on the edge of life/death? How many mutants has he himself killed or maimed over the years?

    Oh and let's not forget that his own daughter, Scarlet Witch, who I do enjoy in the new series, eradicated all but a 100 or so mutants from the face of the earth. Asteroid M. Eric the Red. The list goes on and on with his past indiscretions against human and mutantkind but hey, let's make him ONE of us again! Yeah, and let's him become romantically involved with Rogue.

    ARRGGHH!!! NOOOO!!! Make it stop, Marvel!

    Okay, I think I'm done for now.

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  11. *Misprint alert* I meant to type "Magnus" and not Magnes. My bad.

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  12. HA! You basically echoed my thoughts completely! Thank you! Was there a time when Mags could have been on the X-Men? Yeah, around Secret Wars II when he was the New Mutants mentor/leader of the X-Men(and rocking that "M" tanktop...), he hadn't done TOO many horrible things yet... Sure, he tried to take over the world two or three times, and tried to kill the X-Men every now and then, but hey, everybody makes mistakes, why not give him a chance, right? But it didn't work out! And then he just kept doing worse things! The Wolvie/adamantium tearing episode is the first one I usually think of, but earlier on in that very issue(X-Men #25), he sent out an electro-magnetic pulse that killed all electricity all over the planet! He caused planes to crash, cut power to hospitals, you'd have to think on that ONE day he killed thousands!! And now he's an X-Man again?! AND the US government is okay with the worst mutant terrorist in HISTORY living RIGHT off it's shores?! REALLY?!? Ugh... Yeah, sometimes it feels good to unleash a good rant about Mags... That guy should be trying to murder ANYBODY on Utopia standing in the way of what he's always wanted, complete mutant leadership... Not singing kumbaya with Prof X and Rogue!

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