Monday, October 10, 2011

X-Man #20 (Oct. 1996)

The next Retro-Review was a no-brainer for me... I mean if I was going to review random back issues I own, I HAD to review an issue of X-Man! I mean how couldn't I?! He's my all-time favorite comic book character, and I think I only have one other X-Man comic book reviewed on this blog. So yeah, this was an easy choice. Unfortunately, as much as I love Nate Grey, I have to admit, his comic usually sucked... I haven't read the X-Man series in over 5 years so I actually don't recall a thing about this particular issue, so here's hoping this was one of the rare good X-Men comics!

X-Man #20:

Summary: Nate's occasional partner/love interest, Threnody, has gotten herself captured(kind of) by the Abomination and it's up to Nate to rescue her. It seems that the Abomination is living in the sewers of Manhattan where he protects a group of downtrodden individuals(The Forgotten), one of whom was Thren when her mutant powers first manifested. This time though, Thren isn't interested in staying with the Abomination and his ilk and intends to leave, which is fine by the Abomination, since the last time Thren stayed with the Forgotten she accidentally killed two of their number with her powers. Nate manages to telepathically track Thren to the Forgotten's lair, which infuriates the Abomination since he figures Thren had led Nate there to defeat him... Even though the Abomination brought Thren to his base practically against her will... Nate manages to knock the Forgotten out of his way and pins the Abomination to the wall with his telekinesis. Nate is basically ready to leave when the Abomination breaks free and attacks Nate, beating him into a bloody pulp... Or so it seems... In actuality, Nate, not wanting to fight Abomination if he didn't have to, simply made Abomination believe that he had battered Nate. Abomination and his lackeys leave, smug by what they thought had happened, and Nate takes Thren back to the surface.

Thoughts: Ugh... This was truly a terrible comic. First things first, Terry Kavanagh's dialogue is brutally bad. Secondly, the story didn't make ANY sense! Basically Thren is taken into the sewers by the Abomination, who tells her she can take what she needs and then can leave. Nate arrives and the Abomination and his Forgotten attack, but are easily brushed aside. Instead of simply leaving with Thren(which was what ALL parties wanted in the first place!), Nate goes into Abomination's mind to learn about Thren's initial stay with the Forgotten. Abomination then gets free, and instead of leaving(AGAIN!), Nate lets Abomination believe that he defeated Nate and that Thren had run away... Um, why bother with the duplicity when Nate could have easily flown away with Thren? This entire issue just didn't make sense and really didn't lead to anything, which pretty much sums up Kavanagh's entire run on this series. To this day I still wonder what could have been if a talented writer had been given a shot writing this series as opposed to YEARS of Kavanagh's listless storytelling...

Score: 4 1/2 out of 10.The best thing about this issue was how easily Nate took care of the Abomination, thus proving that yes, Nate DOES rule!

3 comments:

  1. aw man for a second there i thought this was something current. i guess this face off between Nate and the Abomination is a classic case of mind over muscle. but i remember what you told me about that writer that blows.
    that's what made Hybrid such a formidable adversary for Nate is that he's got the best of both worlds. but Nate was the more cunning adversary and found Hybrid's Achilles heel as it were.
    but speaking of bad ass moments with our favorite heroes i've got one too on my Sunday posting on the ROM blog check it out when you have a free moment. i show every body why ROM is a bad ass motherf___ker even when he's deprived of his near indestructible powerful ass armor. plus i wrote a commentary about toy based comic books that most anyone might find interesting.

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  2. Nah, there's no new X-Man series... Yet. But hey, I can still dream! I'd have been better served to have pulled and reviewed the issue with Hybrid, because it was WAY better than this one. And I shall definitely head over and see what you put up, Dave. I have a few reviews to finish off tonight to post for tomorrow, but then I'm in the clear until Wednesday so I can start making the rounds.

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  3. i hear ya! i have three blogs which consist of a lot of digital art i make for the sake of being more original. it's pretty time consuming i'm actually going on a hiatus as far as new postings go as of this Sunday.

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