New Comic Day Thoughts
Nov. 25th, 2010 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6So, yesterday I did go out to get the one comic I continue to buy...
New Mutants #19. Which, oddly, is described as "The Fall of the New Mutants Conclusion" on the cover, but ends with a "To Be Continued" with nothing particularly concluded. I guess the arc was extended and nobody thought to inform the cover team.
Anyway, the issue was another generally good continuation of the plotline. However, I think it's also a perfect time to discuss another comic I considered buying regularly but ultimately decided not to. Generation Hope. I read the introduction to the characters in Uncanny, and I read the first issue. My problem? These are (more or less) the first new mutants to debut since M-Day.
AND THEY'RE SO %#%#!%ing DULL, conceptually wise, that it ticks me off and makes me lose interest. Now, I read an interview where the creators said they were trying to echo some of the classic X-Men powers, but with a twist in each one. Some of the twists have been revealed, some haven't. This is an idea that has some merit when mutants are all over the place, or when it's one at a time, but again, not when it's the first mutants we've seen in years. I'll describe the team in more detail under the cut, with spoilers, possibly for ones issues that haven't come out yet (although those'll probably be more speculative spoilers).
Laurie: Canadian university student, over-achiever. History uninteresting at this point.
Power: Flight. Obvious mutation. The 'twist' is probably that her form is geared towards her flight, so that she's super aerodynamic and can pull off mid-air turns, etc. There may be more to it, but as it stands, she's not even as interesting a 'flight' power as Cannonball.
Gabriel: Mexican teenager.
Power: Super-speed. He actually has an semi-interesting twist (although not all that original, I don't believe I've seen it used in mutants) in that using his super speed ages him (although at first it wasn't entirely clear if that was true of every time he uses his speed, or if only the wild, destructive, non-stop manifestation of his powers before Hope cured him left him older, I suspect that 'constantly aging' would be his gimmick). I think the main problem is you have to specifically define it, how much use of superspeed causes him to age how much, and stick with it. As it is, all the time he was 'on' before Hope found him apparently aged him 2 years, which, if held to, suggests to me the aging effect won't even be prominent enough to be interesting, it'll just keep him from frivolously using his powers (though he does seem to waste it in GH1, using it to hang around Hope while not actually doing anything)
Idie Okonkwo: Nigerian girl, religious, worries that she may be a monster. Probably, so far, the most interesting CHARACTER/background in the bunch, some echoes of early Rahne.
Power: Fire and Ice. The interview I mentioned suggested she actually moves around temperature rather than generating fire and ice, so that she generates fire in one place and generates ice in another to compensate. I'll actually give this one power a full thumbs up. Makes her unique and a little interesting, even if she's of a standard type (the energy projector).
Teon: Guy from Miami. No personality to speak of because since becoming a mutant he pretty much has three instincts: fight, mate, and eat.
Powers: Feral mutant. Yes, he's another boring Sabretooth/Wolverine/Wild Child type, except more animalistic than any of them. If there's a twist to him and his abilities, it had better be DAMN good. Right now I can't think of anything
Kenji: Japanese Artist. Possible villain, looking like some kind of reality/body alteration or maybe 'making art come alive' power. Too soon to tell, and if he is a villain (as I suspect, since if you're going to create a bunch of new mutant heroes you have to add a villain to help compensate for all the villainous mutants lost in M-Day), it doesn't really matter, because he won't be why I'm reading the book.
and of course, Hope herself, of course, is a messiah-figure with so far vague and undefined powers that may well be "do anything any mutant can do". Well, that's always an interest-killer for me. And of course, she jump-starts new mutants so their developing powers don't kill them and everyone else raging out of control, even though there's no reason their powers should always be doing that unless that's how mutants are going to be from now on which is a development I loathe.
So out of 5 or 6 characters in the book, we've got one character, Idie, that actually really interests me both in powers and history and personality. The problem is... given the lack of creativity shown in every other area of the team makes me not want to invest anything in her, either. I still MIGHT start picking up the book, if it becomes clear that the 5 lights are only the first of MANY new mutants, and this is the book where they'll be starting to appear most often, but otherwise, it's a pass for me.
Why do I mention all this when I was talking about New Mutants? Because the current arc in NM is about mutant babies who were kidnapped to and raised in Limbo, Illyana's hell-dimension (and it all ties in quite nicely with Inferno, back in the day). I am probably 10 times more interested in the mutants in this comic than I am the ones in GH. And they're mostly screwed up quasi-psychotic antagonists because of how they were raised. But their powers are innovative, and at least their histories give me something cool to start with, and some of them have really cool visuals (I think I most like the Chamber-esque guy who's powers blew his face off. It was replaced with a power-channelling device, but he can't see or hear at all). If the arc somehow ended with some of them being reformed and getting their own book, and Generation Hope's cast was all killed in a tragic baseball accident, I would be extremely pleased with that trade-off.
Anyway new topic, since I went to the comic store, I also went on the circuit of bookstores, both new and used. I lucked out and managed to get:
Pirate Sun, by Karl Schroeder (book 3 of Virga)
Mainspring, by Jay Lake (Steampunk, or more accurately, Clockpunk, based on the premise that the Solar-system itself is literally a clockwork mechanism, and a quest to rewind the mainspring of the earth so it keeps spinning).
and
The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi (sequel to Old Man's War).
New Mutants #19. Which, oddly, is described as "The Fall of the New Mutants Conclusion" on the cover, but ends with a "To Be Continued" with nothing particularly concluded. I guess the arc was extended and nobody thought to inform the cover team.
Anyway, the issue was another generally good continuation of the plotline. However, I think it's also a perfect time to discuss another comic I considered buying regularly but ultimately decided not to. Generation Hope. I read the introduction to the characters in Uncanny, and I read the first issue. My problem? These are (more or less) the first new mutants to debut since M-Day.
AND THEY'RE SO %#%#!%ing DULL, conceptually wise, that it ticks me off and makes me lose interest. Now, I read an interview where the creators said they were trying to echo some of the classic X-Men powers, but with a twist in each one. Some of the twists have been revealed, some haven't. This is an idea that has some merit when mutants are all over the place, or when it's one at a time, but again, not when it's the first mutants we've seen in years. I'll describe the team in more detail under the cut, with spoilers, possibly for ones issues that haven't come out yet (although those'll probably be more speculative spoilers).
Laurie: Canadian university student, over-achiever. History uninteresting at this point.
Power: Flight. Obvious mutation. The 'twist' is probably that her form is geared towards her flight, so that she's super aerodynamic and can pull off mid-air turns, etc. There may be more to it, but as it stands, she's not even as interesting a 'flight' power as Cannonball.
Gabriel: Mexican teenager.
Power: Super-speed. He actually has an semi-interesting twist (although not all that original, I don't believe I've seen it used in mutants) in that using his super speed ages him (although at first it wasn't entirely clear if that was true of every time he uses his speed, or if only the wild, destructive, non-stop manifestation of his powers before Hope cured him left him older, I suspect that 'constantly aging' would be his gimmick). I think the main problem is you have to specifically define it, how much use of superspeed causes him to age how much, and stick with it. As it is, all the time he was 'on' before Hope found him apparently aged him 2 years, which, if held to, suggests to me the aging effect won't even be prominent enough to be interesting, it'll just keep him from frivolously using his powers (though he does seem to waste it in GH1, using it to hang around Hope while not actually doing anything)
Idie Okonkwo: Nigerian girl, religious, worries that she may be a monster. Probably, so far, the most interesting CHARACTER/background in the bunch, some echoes of early Rahne.
Power: Fire and Ice. The interview I mentioned suggested she actually moves around temperature rather than generating fire and ice, so that she generates fire in one place and generates ice in another to compensate. I'll actually give this one power a full thumbs up. Makes her unique and a little interesting, even if she's of a standard type (the energy projector).
Teon: Guy from Miami. No personality to speak of because since becoming a mutant he pretty much has three instincts: fight, mate, and eat.
Powers: Feral mutant. Yes, he's another boring Sabretooth/Wolverine/Wild Child type, except more animalistic than any of them. If there's a twist to him and his abilities, it had better be DAMN good. Right now I can't think of anything
Kenji: Japanese Artist. Possible villain, looking like some kind of reality/body alteration or maybe 'making art come alive' power. Too soon to tell, and if he is a villain (as I suspect, since if you're going to create a bunch of new mutant heroes you have to add a villain to help compensate for all the villainous mutants lost in M-Day), it doesn't really matter, because he won't be why I'm reading the book.
and of course, Hope herself, of course, is a messiah-figure with so far vague and undefined powers that may well be "do anything any mutant can do". Well, that's always an interest-killer for me. And of course, she jump-starts new mutants so their developing powers don't kill them and everyone else raging out of control, even though there's no reason their powers should always be doing that unless that's how mutants are going to be from now on which is a development I loathe.
So out of 5 or 6 characters in the book, we've got one character, Idie, that actually really interests me both in powers and history and personality. The problem is... given the lack of creativity shown in every other area of the team makes me not want to invest anything in her, either. I still MIGHT start picking up the book, if it becomes clear that the 5 lights are only the first of MANY new mutants, and this is the book where they'll be starting to appear most often, but otherwise, it's a pass for me.
Why do I mention all this when I was talking about New Mutants? Because the current arc in NM is about mutant babies who were kidnapped to and raised in Limbo, Illyana's hell-dimension (and it all ties in quite nicely with Inferno, back in the day). I am probably 10 times more interested in the mutants in this comic than I am the ones in GH. And they're mostly screwed up quasi-psychotic antagonists because of how they were raised. But their powers are innovative, and at least their histories give me something cool to start with, and some of them have really cool visuals (I think I most like the Chamber-esque guy who's powers blew his face off. It was replaced with a power-channelling device, but he can't see or hear at all). If the arc somehow ended with some of them being reformed and getting their own book, and Generation Hope's cast was all killed in a tragic baseball accident, I would be extremely pleased with that trade-off.
Anyway new topic, since I went to the comic store, I also went on the circuit of bookstores, both new and used. I lucked out and managed to get:
Pirate Sun, by Karl Schroeder (book 3 of Virga)
Mainspring, by Jay Lake (Steampunk, or more accurately, Clockpunk, based on the premise that the Solar-system itself is literally a clockwork mechanism, and a quest to rewind the mainspring of the earth so it keeps spinning).
and
The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi (sequel to Old Man's War).
