Arnab tells me that March 17 is a big day for comics, so I figured I'd better focus on getting these reviews out of the way sooner rather than later. Final Fantasy XIII has been slowing me down.Marvel:
Cable #24 (****)
I give this issue four stars not because it was great, but because I would tell my fellow comic book readers to read this issue and no others, as it sums up in one issue all the ridiculous water-treading of the last four or five months of Cable. Some think Hope is the savior of Mutantkind so Cable takes her into the future to keep her safe. Bishop disagrees so he tries to kill her. Wrap up the chase with a four page montage and we're set. Everything after Messiah War could quite frankly have been a one-shot if you ask me, and if it were, it would look like Cable 24. I'm very glad this ended, as I've been waiting for Second Coming for months now. Is Hope really what they've been, err, hoping she would be? Now we get to find out.
Dark X-Men (**)
What? One of the most powerful telepaths in the world was overwhelmed by the Green Goblin? Are you kidding me? Here are my issues:
- I don't buy that Mimic and Omega's powers would work like that in the mindscape, especially if Nate doesn't want them too.
- I don't think Osborn would be any kind of match for Nathaniel Grey.
- I'm still not entirely sure what happened. So Green Goblin was created by Osborn's psyche because Norman is terribly insecure and wanted attention? And because he's getting attention now, the Goblin decided to help keep Norman where he is?
- I think this five issue series was such a waste of potential. Both X-Man's and the Dark X-Men. You have the Dark Avengers barely holding it together since they are all basically evil people, and while I think it's been a little prolonged, it's fascinating to watch Osborn try to hold this mess together. But the Dark X-Men are just all damaged, and I don't see why anyone would even think they would function as a team. That last panel where Nate was basically like "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" is exactly how I feel. Somewhere along the way we lost the reason that these people are a team, and I think that is a huge waste of storytelling potential. I remember reading that Mimic joined the team because he saw it as his chance to be a hero, but I didn't see any of that in this series, which is a shame as it's the reason I was so excited for it to begin with. And don't even get me started on how Nate was underused and clearly only there to draw in old school X-fans. He had best show up in Second Coming, otherwise I'm going to be supremely annoyed they brought him back at all.
I thoroughly enjoyed Cable, both the series as a whole but more specifically this issue. I thought the series started off great but sort of plateaued for a while with the repeated Bishop after the two of them. I did enjoy Hope falling in love, or whatever it is those two kids felt for each other. All I'm saying is that if Marvel wanted to get me to wish for someone's death, the past 10 or so issues did it.
ReplyDeleteThis issue was probably the best in the last 5 or 6, maybe 7 or 8. It's like Nathan says, for the first time they've got the upper hand, and boy does he use it will. And while I don't think Bishop is dead, unfortunately, I'm hoping he'll be taking a long hiatus.
I thought that the last three pages of Dark X-Men #5 were better than the rest of the entire series put together. In fact the Dark X-Men series should have been a five page one shot. The first two pages being a memory collage of what occurred in issues 1-5 and the last three pages, the last three pages of this issue. Everything else was a complete waste of my life.
Re: Cable - I didn't particularly care for her falling in love, but I did enjoy the story at first. My main complaint is that it was dragged out, and you could FEEL it. I liked this issue a great deal, because I thought the story was much tighter than the rest. The others, it was "Oh, more running. There's something new." I too am done with Bishop for a long time.
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