I love this book, and the creative team has been exemplary since it's inception. But . . I do have a few issues. But first . . let me fill you in on this issue. Last issue, when the X-Men were trying to save Abigail, Emma thought she saw Laurie, one of her old Hellions, on the pier. But then this giant organic Sentinel seemed to expand from her diminutive frame. And that's not the worst of it. As they're fighting it this issue, it shoots some missiles out of it's fingers that turn out to be Brood. Long story short, the X-Men give it a smack down, kill the Brood and end up taking the body back to their San-Francisco compound to examine. That's when Abigail reveals to them that she's been trying to keep a lid on things, but . . there's several factions out in the real world that are preying upon the weakened state of the mutant population. And, the part she's really been trying not to admit is that they've been using her lover, Henry's own theoretical work to accomplish their tasks. It seems that they've hacked into his computer and are using his own designs to dig up dead mutants and turn them into weapons to use against their own kind. I think that's a very original concept and a great idea to wrap this story around. Warren Ellis is brilliant, and Phil Jimenez' artwork really gives this book a fantastic look and feel. All of that is wonderful. I've said it before . . I love the X-Men. No . . my problem comes with the placement of the book. Or rather the placement of the stories. It's never really been defined as to how this book fits into the regular Marvel Universe. I mean . . at times it seems like the stories are pretty congruous with Uncanny or Legacy. But then, as in this story-arc, things just don't line up right. If this is in the regular Marvel Universe, it obviously happens before the current state of events in Nation-X. Actually, this would had to have taken place before the whole Utopia story-line. But none of that is ever explained. It's like we're following the same time-line, but . . it's just slightly skewed. But, again . . that's never been explained, or even put out there. So between X-Men Forever and GeNext that puts us up to 4 or 5 alternative X-Men universes here? Or are they all connected in some way that we just don't know yet? Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but . . these are the questions that are running through my head as I'm reading this book. So I have to put them out there. Now . . the other thing that's bothering me . . all these variant covers. Or actually I guess the best term is . . Retailer Incentive Covers. 1:10, 1:15, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 . . . is it ever going to stop? If you are a regular comic-shop customer you've probably seen the 1:10 or 1:25 covers, but . . you're rarely going to even see the others. Unless . . you look on E-Bay. If you're familiar with E-Bay you know that everything is out there. So I'm perusing the other day and I come across the 1:100 sketch variant for Astonishing #31. It had a couple of days left and I wanted to see what it went for, so I put in a bid for $20. I forgot, and a couple of days later when I went to check I found out I had won the book. So then I did some more tooling around and I ended up getting the 1:25 cover of the same book for $4. Don't get me wrong . . I'm thrilled to death to get the book. Especially for the price. But, at the same time it makes me realize how over-inflated this whole market really is. And if that's the case then the people really getting screwed are the consumers . . you and me. Right now #32 has a 1:15 variant that has the Super-Hero Squad on the cover. You can easily find a dozen of them on E-Bay for $3 to $6. And, I'm not ragging on E-Bay. I love E-Bay. It's easily helped me double the size of my collection in the last 10 years. But . . as I said, the consumers are getting screwed by being tantalized by the over-priced books at the shops. And the shop owners are just doing their jobs . . trying to make money like the rest of us. So then, I guess, it comes back to the comic-book companies. Like I've said before, it's great that these variant covers are out there . . that there's something that's actually collectible available. But . . most of us have to give up something else in order to get them. That's not helping any of the other books, or the genre in general. I know . . it's all part of the capitalist system, and it's inevitable. But . . that doesn't mean I have to like it. And I don't.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Astonishing X-Men #32 - Marvel
I love this book, and the creative team has been exemplary since it's inception. But . . I do have a few issues. But first . . let me fill you in on this issue. Last issue, when the X-Men were trying to save Abigail, Emma thought she saw Laurie, one of her old Hellions, on the pier. But then this giant organic Sentinel seemed to expand from her diminutive frame. And that's not the worst of it. As they're fighting it this issue, it shoots some missiles out of it's fingers that turn out to be Brood. Long story short, the X-Men give it a smack down, kill the Brood and end up taking the body back to their San-Francisco compound to examine. That's when Abigail reveals to them that she's been trying to keep a lid on things, but . . there's several factions out in the real world that are preying upon the weakened state of the mutant population. And, the part she's really been trying not to admit is that they've been using her lover, Henry's own theoretical work to accomplish their tasks. It seems that they've hacked into his computer and are using his own designs to dig up dead mutants and turn them into weapons to use against their own kind. I think that's a very original concept and a great idea to wrap this story around. Warren Ellis is brilliant, and Phil Jimenez' artwork really gives this book a fantastic look and feel. All of that is wonderful. I've said it before . . I love the X-Men. No . . my problem comes with the placement of the book. Or rather the placement of the stories. It's never really been defined as to how this book fits into the regular Marvel Universe. I mean . . at times it seems like the stories are pretty congruous with Uncanny or Legacy. But then, as in this story-arc, things just don't line up right. If this is in the regular Marvel Universe, it obviously happens before the current state of events in Nation-X. Actually, this would had to have taken place before the whole Utopia story-line. But none of that is ever explained. It's like we're following the same time-line, but . . it's just slightly skewed. But, again . . that's never been explained, or even put out there. So between X-Men Forever and GeNext that puts us up to 4 or 5 alternative X-Men universes here? Or are they all connected in some way that we just don't know yet? Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but . . these are the questions that are running through my head as I'm reading this book. So I have to put them out there. Now . . the other thing that's bothering me . . all these variant covers. Or actually I guess the best term is . . Retailer Incentive Covers. 1:10, 1:15, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 . . . is it ever going to stop? If you are a regular comic-shop customer you've probably seen the 1:10 or 1:25 covers, but . . you're rarely going to even see the others. Unless . . you look on E-Bay. If you're familiar with E-Bay you know that everything is out there. So I'm perusing the other day and I come across the 1:100 sketch variant for Astonishing #31. It had a couple of days left and I wanted to see what it went for, so I put in a bid for $20. I forgot, and a couple of days later when I went to check I found out I had won the book. So then I did some more tooling around and I ended up getting the 1:25 cover of the same book for $4. Don't get me wrong . . I'm thrilled to death to get the book. Especially for the price. But, at the same time it makes me realize how over-inflated this whole market really is. And if that's the case then the people really getting screwed are the consumers . . you and me. Right now #32 has a 1:15 variant that has the Super-Hero Squad on the cover. You can easily find a dozen of them on E-Bay for $3 to $6. And, I'm not ragging on E-Bay. I love E-Bay. It's easily helped me double the size of my collection in the last 10 years. But . . as I said, the consumers are getting screwed by being tantalized by the over-priced books at the shops. And the shop owners are just doing their jobs . . trying to make money like the rest of us. So then, I guess, it comes back to the comic-book companies. Like I've said before, it's great that these variant covers are out there . . that there's something that's actually collectible available. But . . most of us have to give up something else in order to get them. That's not helping any of the other books, or the genre in general. I know . . it's all part of the capitalist system, and it's inevitable. But . . that doesn't mean I have to like it. And I don't.
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