ddern@bbncca.ARPA (Daniel Dern) (11/06/85)
If I can't be on the SPC jury that tries Shooter, I at least want to be in the
audience. The lead-up was sort of OK -- given the outright offensiveness of
the whole business, that is.
Bringing Jean back was not fair, first of all. We grieved for her; Scott & Co.
grieved for her; the plot moved on. We even had our imaginary "What if Jean
had lived?" tale, if memory serves. Enough. Life has moved on.
*** SPOILERS COMING ***
However, X-FACTOR has almost nothing to do with Jean, per se, except that if
you're going to bring back the original X-men, she was part of the gang. For
this we fried half the Defenders? Give me a break. The entire development is
so yucka, continuing an already-overdone anti-mutant hysteria theme, that I can
hardly wait for issue 2 to come out, so I can ignore it. Why are mutants bad,
but other superheroes OK?
The entire business with Scott sucks. I can't believe he wouldn't have told
Maddy. I can't see why the 'old gang' was called in, but not Prof Xavier,
Maggy, Wolvie, et. al. Why do they all accept this is the real Jean? We've
had enough other clones, imposters, fakes, etc by now (Gwen Stacey among them).
The whole "new charter" strikes me as dumb. More clever ploys, big planes, and
cosmic missions on earth. Soon we're going to have roomfuls of rescued
mutants, waiting for their own spin-off comics.
Once again, we're charging off on Heavy Missions, ignoring personal reality of
pain, confrontation, and growth -- those parts about the later X-men we came to
want. "Ya-hoo, it's the old gang together again, and we can make it work."
Give me a break.
*** END SPOILER ***
** BEGIN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OTHER STUFF ***
The recent X-Men/New Mutants cross-overs, following on the heels of the Alpha
Flight/X-Men cross-over, by contrast, were SUPERB!!. Get Them! Arthur Adams
is Hot Hot Hot. I had stopped following the X-Babies, pretty much, but this
was a tour de force. Incredible plots, art, dialogue, concepts, by-play; plot
in 2 king-sized issues that we're used to seeing doled out over 2 years. Some
of the scenes just tear your heart apart. And cosmic stuff, too.
In theory, it might have helped to have been following THOR for the past year
or so, but I survived without it and made sense of the continuity. I did go
back and buy the X-Men/Alpha Flight Crossover series (2 issues), which did
help.
And the new Daredevil sequence looks like it's going to rival or even out-do
the Electra story. It isn't going to be a pleasant one to watch, but this is
good art rather than cheap editorial manipulation. Waiting for the second ish
with baited breath.
The current Green Lantern 3-issue plot, as 3+ lanterns rush to avert the
Crisis, has some intense moments as well.
Personally, I think :
(1) Sensor Girl is really Jean Grey. The match of telepathy makes it
obvious; the "new" Jean in X-Factor is a telekinetic -- humph!
(2) Perhaps the new Jean is the spirit of Supergirl. Or Eve Warlock.
Or one of Impossible Man's girlfriends.
We've been losing too many of our old friends lately, and I'm not convinced
it's worth it. Why doesn't the Beyonder take on somebody his own size, like
the anti-monitor, or AT&T?
--
Daniel Dern
("Machina Sapiens Pro Avia")
ARPA: ddern@bbn.arpa
USENET (I think): ...!decvax!bbncca!ddern
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