Wolverine and the X.Men

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Stocky Boy
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Wolverine and the X.Men

Post by Stocky Boy »

I remember I time I thought this was shameless exploitation of Wolverine for commercial value, to have his name plastered in front of an X book. Now, I think, why the fuck not, as long as you can get it to work. To Aaron's credit, he's writing an enjoyable book and interestingly it's quite a different tone to all other X books that have come before it. It's rather outlandish and over the top. Some books like to set up a world where other than minor examples of superhero powers, the world could be the one we live in. This book goes fully in the other direction and embraces the carnage. The school for example makes no subtle attempt at looking regular with the giant ice sculpting, future looking buildings as well as a floating building, a Krokoa living on the grounds/ is the ground and let's not forget the the school itself is a giant danger room. It's not a safe environment from within it's own walls and everyone's a little too accepting of this that it's clear that the tone of this book is a huge contrast to anything else. It's a bit like a children's cartoon and as long as you can accept this, it's really enjoyable. It did take me a while to accept that this is the direction of tone we have to accept here. But, once accepted, it's by and large been very enjoyable.

Now...

WOLVERINE AND THE X.MEN #26

This issue is the second part of the Dog, Wovlerine's brother story set in the Savage Land.
The basic story is that a group of the students have been flown to the Savage Land by Headmaster Logan for some 'teaching'. Running parallel to this, unfortunately and unbeknownst to everyone is that Wolverine's step brother from that poor Origin story is here to teach baby brother James a lesson.
We discover in this issue that older brother Dog is armed with an array of weaponry from the future due to the discovery of an item that Aaron introduced in his fun mini series, which I believe was called something like, Astonishing Spiderman and Wolverine.

Not sure what to make of this story so far. It's fun. I'm enjoying it, but I need to be fully sold on re-introducing a character from a poopy story. I'm not there yet.
Plus, I thought Dog was fucking Sabretooth. I can't remember Origin!

Let's hope no one plans on dragging anything from the Jeph Loeb or Daniel Way Wolverine runs into X.Men continuity!

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Tragic Angelus
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Post by Tragic Angelus »

If I recall from Origin, Dog was hinted at being Sabertooth, but was revealed it wasn't him, but rather Logan's older Half-Brother.

As for this book, I must say, at first it was the most enjoyable X-Men title, showcasing both Teaching Staff and students in a wonderful way. Yes, it was hilariously hooky and outlandish, but I accepted that because, well, let's be honest: We're reading a comic book. These things can't always be 100% realistic. I do wish the school was a bit more normal (not every room being a Danger Room, no floating buildings or ice buildings) but I like what we have in this book.

That being said, and I've mentioned this elsewhere, as soon as All-New & Uncanny relaunched, this book took a backseat in a large way. The Frankenstein story was less than entertaining, and the whole staff seems to have been removed from this book. It's now more like Wolverine & the Students. Quentin Quire is clearly the 2nd character of the title, and yet I don't mind that. I like what Aaron's done with him. But this book hasn't been as enjoyable lately.

The Dog storyline wasn't bad, but again I feel like this is no longer a very important X-Men title. It's now the 3rd out of the 5 out there for me. I hope it comes back and is more entertaining in the next arc or so.

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Mr Wallstreet
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Post by Mr Wallstreet »

It took me a long time to accept that this book is more outlandish than the other titles. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is all around "hokier" than its counterparts and I'm still not entirely sold on that idea.

This title was built on the foundation of the Schism between Logan & Scott, in that, Logan wanted to protect children from being placed on the front lines of war - and the best way to do that would be to take one of them into outer space for some inter-dimensional gambling? To me it doesn't fit with the seriousness of the tone that created this title/storyline

I'm not saying comics can't be fun but this seems to be written as more of a throwback to some of the more Superman titles of the 40s and 50s where every month Jimmy was getting some new Super power and Lois was dreaming up some scheme to trap Superman into marriage.

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Mr Wallstreet
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Post by Mr Wallstreet »

I'm still not sold on the direction of the title

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Stocky Boy
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Post by Stocky Boy »

Ed, does "Teaching Staff" get capitalised due to professional bias? ;)

What could be a potential, future weirdness is if people drop WatXM because of this new editorial restraint. From a publishing perspective, it could look like people don't enjoy an Aaron X.Men book, when it would be more true to say they don't enjoy an editorially restrained Aaron book.

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Tragic Angelus
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Post by Tragic Angelus »

It absolutely does :D

That would be interesting. I was skeptical of Aaron taking over X-Men before Schism, having not read any of his work before and him not having really written the X-Men themselves before. But Schism was fantastic, and W&TX was fantastic up until Marvel NOW!, so I would hate to see him leave the X-Men. I would prefer that editorial simply let him do what he wants again, if that is indeed the case.

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XIII
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Post by XIII »

I'm rather enjoying the Dog/Savage Land storyline. Definitely a step up from the Frankenstein arc.
Ramon Perez is quite an artist too!

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Stocky Boy
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Post by Stocky Boy »

WOLVERINE AND THE X.MEN #29
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Ramon Perez


Has Perez been the penciller for the Savage Land / Dog arc? If so, I could go either way with the art. I quite liked this issue though.

This issue is a break issue. It advertises the notion that in fifteen years time, everything is still okay. Clearly there have been changes, but looks like progress has been made and mutants are likely accepted more than they previously were, but I may be reading a bit too much into the multiple Jean Grey Schools.

I guess the main goal of this issue was the set-up intrigue of all the future issues' threats. Future Wolverine rattles off the names of future enemies that we haven't heard off plus the Hellfire one.
This issue also gives Wolverine a reason to want to save his brother rather than just incarcerate or kill him. There's also good character moments with Wolverine and Beast, which works quite well.

So, given what was in this issue, was this issue intended as an advertisement to everyone from Aaron saying, "this book will still have interesting things in it, despite Bendis getting editorial mandate!"?

Incidently, I'm not convinced that Wolverine fifteen years older would look thirty years older let alone fifteen years older. If he's over 100 years old now, I'm not sure where this ageing spurt comes from in the next fifteen years.

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Tragic Angelus
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Post by Tragic Angelus »

Yeah this definitely felt like a "Look what is coming, our book is still really important even though Bendis isn't writing this one!" kind of issue. I actually liked it compared to the Savage Land arc, which I felt dragged on a bit too much.

Some of the dropped hints were interesting, such as older Logan wishing he could warn everyone about certain things, but most notably wanting to warn people about "Jean" which makes me think either Bendis asked for that to be added or it's just Aaron having fun. It seems to tie in to Jean being trigger happy to use her telepathic powers to change everyone's mind when she doesn't like their opinion but who knows what it could be.

I agree on the aged Wolverine look. Could be that something happens that triggers him to start aging (possibly the upcoming Wolverine arc in his solo book that hints at him losing his powers?) and has been corrected but he still appears to have aged. Hard to tell.

Overall a good issue, and I'm hopeful this Hellfire Saga arc will put this book back on track. It definitely has been suffering as of late and I'd like to see it come back as a strong book.

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XIII
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Post by XIII »

I think it is still really enjoyable. I'm thinking Aaron has made up for the loss of the teachers by making the kids even more entertaining.

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