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