mcdonald@smu.UUCP (11/02/84)
X-Men 190 should have been an annual. It's got all the earmarks: Too many guest stars. An event/background unusual or interesting enough to "justify" a special issue, which is introduced in a great hurry to make room for the plot and hide (if they're lucky) the holes. Awkward characterizations, caused by the above two and worsened by the changes in appearances. At least some of the stars must be written and drawn by people who don't do them regularly, and even those done by experts don't have room to be themselves, much less introduce themselves to readers who bought it for the guest stars. Almost every panel is claustrophobic with too many people, too much unclear exposition. No book with this many crossover characters can possibly be well done, but it would have helped a lot to start off more slowly; give us a little chance to see some of the results before handing us that hard lump of exposition. The only bit of characterization that hit any chord at all was Captain America's patriotic speech -- and I don't even usually like that! McD