Now what I meant with " this kind of post " is one where I basically take a comic completely apart and dismantle it bit by bit. Because that can easily be seen as bashing somebody´s work. Which I don´t do. What I DO is call B.S. when I see it because a. ) I don´t suffer B.S. in comics lightly and b. ) since I don´t get any review copies neither from Marvel Comics nor DC Comics nor any of the other comicbook publishers big or small ( never have and never will ) and have to pay for every comicbook I discuss or write about here from my own pocket I don´t have to sell their propaganda.
Speaking of propaganda, naturally I went online before starting this post to see if there already was a post or video like this out there but it seems that apart from Zoe Tunnel´s review on COMIC BOOK HERALD everybody is singing the praises of Ed Piskor´s retelling of the X - Men history. And when there´s one thing I can´t stand it is when everybody is falling all over themselves in pimping a comicbook that is crap. Plain and simple.
You might ask why I feel the need to write this post when there is already a review about this but Zoe Tunnel only talks about the general problems and not the specifics. And I want to go into detail here. But first what are the general problems ? First up, Ed Piskor is condensing 30 years of already dense continuity into 3 books. Which can be done but not without having the story suffer. And this is the first causality of X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN.
One reason why UNCANNY X - MEN by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum and subsequently Chris Claremont and John Byrne became Marvel Comics best selling book is the story. The exciting super hero adventure, the outer space opera, the grandeur and majesty, the great characters that evolved throughout it, the triumphs and the failures, the big moments that affect the fates of whole galaxies as well as the small, quiet moments that happen between two people in love. That´s what made the X - Men.
And you still have a lot of that in X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN but in order to blaze through 30 years of X - Men history you don´t have time to give the iconic story beats a moment to breathe. What´s even more important is that a great writer still would have found a way to give us the characters we all know and love. Sadly Ed Piskor is not a great writer. If you have read my post about book one of X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN you know I am not diminishing Ed Piskor´s accomplishments. But I also don´t feel the need to cover up his shortcomings as it seems everybody on the internet does.
To say it bluntly, not only does Ed Piskor seem to twist, alter, ignore and change X - Men history and important events at whim thus depriving the story of its greatest appeal he also forsakes every nuance in the heroes personality and turns them into distorted caricatures of themselves. One reason why the X - Men captured the imaginations and hearts of so many comicbook fans worldwide were the storyarcs for the individual characters - especially the strong women which at that time was not as common as it is Today - that went one for decades. Some of the greatest storyarcs are reduced to simple dry plot points the reader is supplied with with not a lot of content. And if I still had hopes that Ed Piskor would treat the DARK PHOENIX SAGA with respect - because that was what he was obviously working through in book one - that all went flying out the window here.
Anyway, before we start I have to say that I am not somebody who goes through comicbooks fine combing them for errors. On the other side these are stories I read again and again so I am pretty familiar with them and I can tell when something is off. So while I won´t address every little error and wrong detail - like the fact that Sunfire didn´t join the team just to meet Jean Grey or that Ed Piskor felt the need to change the flying vehicle Count Nefaria tried to escape in when Thunderbird jumped upon it and ( needlessly ) found a fiery end - I will go through every alteration that I found. Please feel free to write me if there are others I missed.
The first big mistake that caught my attention is this confrontation between Erik the Red who has brainwashed Havok and Polaris and the X - Men. In Ed Piskor´s version the X - men are in their civilian clothes and Cyclops doesn´t put up much of a fight against his brother Polaris. He comes off basically like a whimp ( which is how writers paint him Today ) and stares after the villain saying : " I need to talk to Jean right away. "
Longtime readers know that Cyclops is one of my favorite team members of the X - Men ( at least he was when Chris Claremont was writing the title ) and over the years I have gotten particularly annoyed at how he is often portrayed in cartoons, movies or comicbooks just to make other characters - in particular Wolverine - cooler or more engaging. Don´t get me wrong, I love Wolverine. But in the Scott Summers / Jean Grey love triangle Wolverine was always the third wheel. No matter how much the mainstream comic muggle may " ship " the relationship between Wolverine and Jean Grey Scott Summers was always her man. They were destined for each other and while Wolverine may be fun or good to annoy Scott they both knew that Jean Grey would always end up with Scott Summers.
You will see how this trope of making Scott Summers more of a whimp at the expense of other characters - especially Jean Grey - is an ongoing theme in this book. But let´s take a closer look at how things really played out. First off, the X - Men were all in costume when they were fighting Erik the Red and the braiwashed Polaris and Havok. Secondly, it was a much bigger fight and Cyclops fought Havok to a standstill. It was only when they made their getaway that he couldn´t bring himself to shoot his brother in the back - as this would have probably killed him. Also, Storm chided Wolverine for trying to bite Cyclops head off. I wonder why that was taken out since it shows Storm as a strong female and already hints that she may be willing to take more of a leadership role within the team.
You might have noticed that it took me quite some time to upload these 8 pages from X - MEN issue 97 ( they only changed the name of the title to UNCANNY X - MEN much later ) and put them in the right order and position. That is because for some unknown reason blogger felt the need to change its interface and now everything takes up four times as long.
For a time you could switch back to the old interface and if I hadn´t done that constantly I would not have been able to finish up the last posts.
There was an option that you could keep the old interface but it seems blogger has changed its mind about that and has now switched all blogs to the new interface no matter if you want it or not. Once again blogger hits you in the back when you least expect it. But hey, will all the bad things that have happened in 2020 so far this is only another kick in the face.
Speaking of another kick in the face, we have a slew of little changes and omissions in THE PHOENIX SAGA from the point where Jean Grey, Sean Cassidy and Wolverine are kidnapped by the Sentinels up to when the team fights Black Tom and the Juggernaut. But those are too many and of minor importance so we can overlook them. As Ed Piskor overlooked the entire issue 104 of X - MEN in which the team fights Magneto since this doesn´t happen in X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN - SECOND GENESIS. Next we have another change for Ed Piskor´s endgame here : while in the original story Erik the Red tricked Firelord into helping him by attacking Jean Grey in Ed Piskor´s version Firelord is " on loan " to Shi´Ar emperor D´Ken from Galactus ( you can find more original art from these issues in this post ).
Now we are in the John Byrne era and what happens when the X - Men are inside the M´Kraan crystal and this particular scene has be re - written, retconned and layers upon layers added to it over the decades that I won´t count " Jean Grey recreates the universe which takes her seven billion years " as a mistake. In the original version it was more of giving the universe a jump start and it also was more of a group effort. In Ed Piskor´s version it seems almost like Jean Grey does it all by herself.
Ed Piskor skips another entire issue and this time it´s a doozy since this is X - MEN 109, the first appearance of James Hudson a.k.a. Weapon Alpha ( later called Vindicator or Guardian ), the future leader of Alpha Flight .
Besides Storm in a bikini ( which is always a plus ) we get a bit more background info about Wolverine who is practically absent without leave from the canadian government. They sent Weapon Alpha to recapture Weapon X but James Hudson botches the job and we would only learn years later in an issue of ALPHA FLIGHT ( where John Byrne cleverly reused most of his pages for X - MEN 109 ) how he escaped from them.
And here is where we end things for Today. We are only 24 pages in but I have the feeling I´m going to need more than one post to cover the rest of the Chris Claremont / John Byrne X- MEN era . Especially since Ed Piskor skips the entire DAYS OF FUTURE PAST story in X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN.
Before we come to the bonus section of the post I want to go back to X - MEN 109 and the scene with Storm in a bikini. And not for the obvious reasons. I am not sure if the issue was specifically omitted from X - MEN : GRAND DESIGN - SECOND GENESIS because of this scene and its possible contradiction to how Ed Piskor painted Storm. Beyond the obvious part of Storm a.k.a. Ororo Munroe ( let that roll off your tongue three times and then tell me that this doesn´t sound like the name of an afro - american porn star who specializes in deepthroat marathons ) being an incredibly sexy and sensual woman with a banging body when John Byrne draws her - especially when she is wearing a bikini - which Ed Piskor couldn´t pull off if his life depended on it the dialogue in the scene may give us a hint.
Storm : " The sun feels so good. It reminds me of home. Gods. I wish I didn´t have to wear these absurd scraps of cloth. "
Colossus : " You remember what happened when you went ... uh, swimming in the mansion pool ? "
Storm : " I remember, my friend. I will never understand. It is only for the Professor´s sake that I endure this strange land´s strange taboos. "
Now longtime followers of the blog know from my semi - annual Traci Bingham ( or like I like to call her Traci Banghim ) cult siren posts that I always hoped to see Storm go naked - or at least wear a tiny bikini like in the Savage Land saga ( which´ll come up in one of our next installments ).
Especially when ultimate sex goddess Halle Berry a.k.a. the sexiest woman on the planet got the role in the X - MEN movies I didn´t give up hope.
As any X - Men fan worth his salt knows Storm and Wolverine always had a sexual relationship in the comics even if it was not shown explicitly. They had good chemistry and there was a period when they were co - leaders.
Which made sense because as a former pickpocket Storm could think outside of the box and with his military background Wolverine knew all about military tactics, guerilla warfare and counterstrikes. So you know there were some heated debriefing sessions going on between those two and they had some sweaty special midnight olympics in the danger room.
One thing about the marriage between Storm and Black Panther that I really liked was her reaction to their divorce after the events of A VS X.
Or better said her reaction to his reaction. What I didn´t like was that Marvel Comics felt the need to come up with a mini series retroactively rewriting Storm and T´Challa´s joined backstory when they already had an established history together. And part of that history was even drawn by John Byrne, the original artist of UNCANNY X - MEN. But I guess Marvel didn´t want to risk having their readers go through old issues to learn more about these two characters and it was a quick way to make money.
Anyway, it seems that T´Challa was well aware of what happened between Storm and Wolverine at the Westchester Mansion because we have this exchange between him and Storm in WOLVERINE & THE X - MEN 24 :
T´Challa : " Are you ... seeing anyone ? "
Storm : " Please ... let´s not do this just yet ... "
T´Challa : " I cannot apologize for who I am, Ororo. Our marriage may have been annulled, but you will always be in my heart. You will always be my queen. "
Storm : " Checkmate. You have to stop letting me win, T´Challa. "
T´Challa : " On one condition. I wish you well in your new endeavors, wherever and with whomever they may take you. Just promise me one thing ... "
Storm : " T´Challa ... " T´Challa : " Not him. Anyone but him. "
So what does Storm as a strong and independent woman do as soon as the Black Panther hangs up ? Right, she goes directly to Wolverine to do what her ex - husband told her not to do. Dance the horizontal limbo with him.
Just to work out some issues she still has with T´Challa and I bet Logan didn´t mind being on the receiving end of Storm´s sexual frustrations.
Boy, Wolverine really gets the most nookie - inside the X - Men roster or in the Marvel superhero community in general - and it´s not without reason that all the ladies say about him : " He is the best at what he does but what he does isn´t very nice. " They should make a comicbook about his sexual adventures in the Marvel universe and they could call it DIRTY OLD MAN LOGAN. I bet he banged Storm´s brains out six ways to Sunday.
Longtime readers know that Halle Berry is one of my all time wet sex fantasies so not only does she appear in my Justice League of America movie casting she had even four solo posts . But of course it was only a question of time before I added some new ones so last year I wrote four more : the first one about Halle Berry in her best movies , the second one on Halle Berry´s comic book movies , part three about my dream comic book movie casting with Halle Berry and the unexpected bonus round .
Halle Berry did a remarkable sexy dance ( not a striptease as she didn´t take her clothes off ) in The Last Boy Scout , teased us in Catwoman and finally delivered in Password : Swordfish and completely redeemed herself in Monster´s Ball where she milked Thornton´s rock hard Billy Bob totally dry in front of the entire crew. Which nobody really got to see since they censored it more than three times - about which I wrote a special post .
FOR THE ROLE HALLE MILKED MARC FORSTER´S MONSTER BALLS DRY
And to think that one of the best sex scenes in film history almost didn´t happen. The director Marc Forster originally didn´t cast Halle Berry in the female lead role because he thought she was too beautiful and while he knew the natural born blow up sex doll could easily deliver some Last Boy Scout type strip action and had already bared her boobs in Password : Swordfish he didn´t think she would be willing to do explicit sex scenes.
Thankfully Halle´s manager secretly slipped her the script and Halle got in contact with the director and had several talks and long, private meetings with him. We do not know exactly to which kind of depraved hardcore midnight sex olympics Halle Berry subjected Marc Forster to during the meetings to convince him that she had the necessary skills to believably portray a prostitute. But she must have dicktamed him six ways to Sunday to wear him down and let all of her nymphomanic urges out because after the third weekend long ejaculation sex marathon Halle Berry got the role.
And according to one of her ex - lovers this is her second nature : Halle Berry is a kinky sex freak. She used me as her boy toy. She deepthroated me for hours to give me a giant erection and then rode relentlessly on my rock hard member in a dentist´s chair with her huge breasts pounding against me until she had multiple orgasms. Sounds like my kind of woman.
In the bedroom I take control because looks are not enough to make a fella stay faithful : you must bang his brains out. You have to be a friend, be independent , be a lady and shy but you need to be a total sex freak in the bed and milk his dick - make him squirt until he´s completely dry.
Getting all the pictures to stay in the right place is the dickens with the new blogger interface so I´m going to skip the whole celebrity birthdays thing. You may not believe it but I have a life too and the only reason why I started this post is that I had stomach cramps and wasn´t going to get any sleep no matter what I did. Anyway, because of that I didn´t go shopping Today, it´s high time that I took out the trash and I also should hit the shower again. Plus somebody else in my family just passed away so I have to brace myself for that. In any case this will be a good post for X - MEN MONTH as I still need a few posts between all the Hugh Hefner posts.
Speaking of people who are no longer with us, as blog regulars know I am a big fan of Jim Varney and Ernest Goes To Jail is his greatest performance.
One thing I really miss with the whole lockdown is traveling, not only to come back home and gorge on the best of spanish tebeos, television or peliculas but for the experience of traveling itself. I don´t know why but when you are on a journey you eat different food and have new ideas.
One of Wolverine´s first sparring partners was the incredible Hulk, the alter ego of Bruce Banner who was more than aptly portrayed on tv by the late Bill Bixby. I know that is has been a few months since his anniversary but I don´t want to wait with posting this until next year or I get to write another HULK post since I don´t know if I will be still around at that time.
I also found an episode of Love America Style with Bill Bixby a day ago.
I still have a lot of Jenny Babas videos I haven´t posted yet but since this post is all about the X - Men and Storm here is a video with brabusting afro american aphrodite Ayona who could easily play Storm in an X - Men movie or fill out ( pun intended ) the lead role in a Russ Meyer movie.
Speaking of the topic of this post, Wolverine also squared off against Alpha Flight in the famous 80s cartoon show. Daimn, I got such a hankering to watch this now but I blew my chance to buy the complete series when it was at amazon at a reasonable price. Let that be a lesson to you all : it´s easier to learn from your mistakes than to live with your regrets.
X - MEN 109 was not the only time when Marvel´s merry band of mutants threw down with Canada´s first line of defense and it will come up in future posts. But for all those who don´t want to wait until the next installment or want to know which comics to check out here is a brief history of the X - Men and Alpha Flight during the Chris Claremont run.
As always here is a virtual panel to help you through those long boring hours during the lockdown and this time it´s the Lucifer cast. Sorry, no Tom Ellis but don´t worry, I have more than enough videos with him.
With our last video I wanted to go old school and post something I was actually listening to during my vacations in Spain, reading my first glimpses of the new incarnation of the X - Men in those issues by Ediciones Surco.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best
What´s a Magneto ?
No comments:
Post a Comment