X-Men Legacy #260.1:
What Happened: This issue opens with the N'Garai portal near X-Mansion cracking open and a mess of N'Garai slipping out, intent on world domination or other evil, demonic plans. Rachel Grey and Rogue(who had borrowed Rachel's powers) telepathically sense the demons as they approach, and send the students inside to have class as normal, since the job of Rogue's team was to allow the students to have the most normal lives possible. Gambit, Rogue, Frenzy and Rachel(Cannonball offers his assistance but Rogue sends him back inside so as to not alarm the students) wind up defeating the N'Garai, and Rachel and Frenzy do their best to block the portal up until Dr. Strange or some other magic type could come by to seal the portal off for good. With that taken care of, Gambit and Frenzy head out to get some drinks, and after some flirting, the two embrace in a passionate kiss.
Thoughts: Ooo, there was A LOT of good in this one!! First off, Cannonball and Husk actually mentioned poor, dead Jay! Jay's death, probably more than any of the Academy X kids bugged me the most for two reasons... The first was because of how asinine his death was explained... His healing factor was in his wings... GTFO!! Secondly, Jay had major connections in the X-books being a Guthrie and all. Sam and Paige have BOTH served on the X-Men, as well as being members of the New Mutants, X-Force, X-Corp, Generation X, and probably others. In other words, fairly or unfairly, Jay's death should have been WAY bigger than it ended up being. Basically everybody, including Sam and Paige, just shrugged their shoulders and continued on with whatever X-business they had on their plates at the time. So it's nice to FINALLY see SOMEBODY show that Jay's death DID hurt the Guthrie clan, as we saw in the scene between Sam and Paige here. Leave it to Christos Gage to, in his first issue on an X-book, bring up something that should have been brought up years ago! Besides my obvious love for the Guthrie clan, this entire issues was well done! I've never been a big fan of Rogue, and never brought her as a leader, but here? Her leadership abilities just seemed right. She had an air of leadership around her that I'd never picked up on before. Another character I've always been down on was Rachel Grey/Summers, mainly due to Chris Claremont and his bizarre fixation on her. But even SHE was written well here! She wasn't at the center of every page(as she often was when Claremont used her), and she wasn't as whiny/annoying as I've seen her written before. It's not all roses and sunshine though, as I don't get why Frenzy is in this book. She's one character I've never liked, from her early days as an X-Factor villain through her time as an Acolyte. She's a villain. If anything she belongs with Lord Summers and the rest of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Her addition here is perplexing. I guess Gage is going to use her as a love interest for Gambit, but I don't know, if he wanted to keep Rogue and Gambit apart, I'd have preferred using any number of other mutants. Whew, I sure had lots to say about this one, but I couldn't help it, I'm excited! I mean THIS comic pretty much gave me everything that I complained Wolverine and the X-Men WASN'T giving me! This was a great first issue for Gage, and if he can keep it up, I'd expect this to become my favorite X-title in a few month's time.
Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.
It's about time SOMEBODY explored the Cannonball/Husk/Guthrie aspect of the X-books since Jay's idiotic death...
why are Idiots Allowed on the Internet
ReplyDeletei just read someone post this about Childrens Crusaide
"No, because no one gives a shit about CC
horrible dialogue
horrible pacing
horrible stars
horrible plot"
and on the same page people where saying how people already hate wanda but crusaide has made it worse!
and im like WTF how did it make her more hateable shes back to normal and completly sane and shes offering to restore the powers of the mutants she took.
sure she was gonna marry doom but that was before she got her memory back.
i just dont know man people are freaking strange
Eh, what can ya do. Some people just have bizarre opinions. Most of the time when you read something like that it's a matter of somebody already making their mind up prior to even reading it. The "horrible stars" line pretty much tells you that. That person already hated either the YA or Wanda, and as such, was going to hate the mini-series... No matter WHAT! All I'll say is that I beg to differ on everything said there and move on. :P
ReplyDeleteJay's dead, huh? He was actually a Chuck Austen creation, and I never read much of him outside of those issues. So someone else actually made something decent out of him?
ReplyDelete(Side note: Mike Carey was REALLY able to top how bad "She Lies With Angels" was? Wow...)
...Oh men, I'm just reading New Mutants/New X-Men/Academy X and didn't realized that this Jay was THAT Jay, I'm sad now... When I should stop reading to avoid his death? Or others pointless death?
ReplyDelete@Aliendw700 you should probably stop reading the moment all that M-Day stuff happens from that point on with all the dying in single issues it feels like something Yost would write.
ReplyDeleteActually Jay first popped up in ROM annual #2(I think... It was something strange like that) and even starred in one of the later What If's during the 90's(I think between issues 90 and 100), Marc. But yeah, Austen was definitely the one who ran with the character. But those early Jay/Joshua pre-Austen appearances did set the stage by making him a musician, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlien, Anonymous hit it right on the head. ONCE M-Day happens and Yost takes over, STOP reading that series!!! Seriously, don't even read the FIRST Yost/Kyle written issue!! Yost just starts killing characters that had been around from the beginning of New Mutants, and, if you are enjoying those characters, those Yost issues are REALLY painful to read... Just read the House of M stuff and then stop... Trust me, you'll be much happier that way!
Frenzy is a byproduct of the Age of X storyline. Her time there has messed with her head. She pretty much went with Rogue because she still has issues being around Cyclops after the end of Age of X.
ReplyDeleteAnd, it is in bad taste to move the bodies because they are off-message.
ReplyDeleteAh, I skipped the AOX storyline(obviously) so I still only know Frenzy as the villain from the old X-Factor issues and an Acolyte. But still, since Lord Summers has all of the other super-villains, she just seems like the perfect fit on his side!
ReplyDelete"And, it is in bad taste to move the bodies because they are off-message." Do you mean to move the bodies off of school grounds? Most of the dead kids weren't buried at the school, were they? I really don't remember what happened to most of them because I had become so disgusted after they were all killed off... And I definitely wouldn't imagine shipping corpses in to bury. But would a nice memorial on the school grounds hurt anybody? Some plaques and the like?
@x-man75 dude dont you remember when like in the first issue after M-Day when the reign of the purifiers as the only villains to mutantdom began when they blew up that bus full of former mutant students? they buried all the bodies at the school.
ReplyDeleteI seriously blocked all of that from my mind! I was so disgusted after all of those kids got killed off that I started skimming that series before I finally had enough and dropped it all together. Ugh, just thinking back to it annoys me... What a waste of potential...
ReplyDeleteIn AOX Frenzy was in a relationship with Cyclops. When it ended they still had all their previous memories so it is weird being around Cyclops since they had a long relationship that ended in a second.
ReplyDeleteNot to blaspheme, but CC hasn't been all that the past few issues. I'm staying to the end because of the art and Mags+Doom (2/3 of my UMVC3 team, woot!). I am a member of the Wanda haters club (stupid power, and more stupid still that she got upgraded to god status). Her marrying Doom would be the best thing to happen to her!
ReplyDeleteBy the same token, Carey's run wasn't that bad IMO. He was at his best when his book was focused on Prof X and during the Age of X crossover. When he focused on Rogue, the book kinda went to shit. Rogue, like Gambit, IMO are best cast as supporting characters - both are somewhat shallow to be leads, though I think Gambit with his sordid past is a better candidate.
Having Gage on this book makes it interesting, but I will be hard-pressed to add this to my weekly reading. The character list is too blah for my tastes but I will follow here to see if any arcs catch my eye. You changed my mind more than once on this blog X (I ended up buying that Wolverine Chinatown story after all!), lets see you do it again :)
FWIW, as a Kentuckian, I can't stand the Guthries. Cannonball is a decent character, but his story went awry when they decided to come up with the concept of "eternals," and you can keep his inbreed mutant family!
Wow, I definitely wouldn't imagine Cyclops and Frenzy together, Jermox. She just seems so different to the other women Scott has been in long term relationships with.
ReplyDeleteAh, see, as a fan of Wanda's and the YA's, I've been thoroughly enjoying every single issue of Crusade, except for the last, which just felt really rushed, TRobb. But yeah, if you really hate a character, that's bound to bring your enjoyment of a series way down... That's why I can't stand anything Our Lord and Savior Hope shows up in. I just hate her passionately, and even if the comic she is in has a good story, I won't be able to really enjoy it. And we def have a difference of opinion with Carey's work on Legacy. It started off pretty bad, what with adding Mystique and Sabretooth to the team so they could turn on the X-Men for the 500th time, the Prof stuff WASN'T that bad, but it was wrapped together with that terrible Mr/Ms Sinister and Shaw stuff. Then yeah, Rogue and Danger came along and that's about when I left.
Honestly, if Gage wasn't writing this series, there's a good chance I wouldn't be picking it up. Except for Cannonball and Husk, I can't say I'm high on any of the members of this team. Team-wise this is definitely the weakest, from a fan popularity standpoint, team of X-Men as I've seen in quite some time. But I'm confident that Gage can make something out of this motley crew. I've always been a big fan of the Guthrie clan. I like the Guthries because every few years you could easily pull one of them away from the homefront and put them on an X-Men-in-training team! It was just a mess of ready made mutants with a bond to the X-Men due to Sam. As for the Eternals... Yeah, I've got nothing... I'm not surprised at all THAT was written out!
Wow, I had no idea about Jay's existence pre-Austen. That's actually pretty interesting. Speaking of ROM, though, Marvel really needs to get back the rights to that series.
ReplyDelete