The X-Axis – 1 August 2010
As Al already explained, we’ve pushed back this weekend’s podcast because he’s buried in sawdust. The current plan is to record it tomorrow evening. We’ll be reviewing the new Scott Pilgrim – but I’ll save my comments on that for the podcast.
Now, reading digests takes up a chunk of my time, and to be honest, it’s a fairly quiet week for major releases. Oh, and I’ve just spent several hours trekking around central Edinburgh trying to find a bookshop that actually had The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith in stock. Very popular book, here in its home town, it turns out.
So… let’s just run down this week’s X-books. Of which there are many.
Franken-Castle #19 – Not normally an X-book, but this is the second part of a crossover with Dark Wolverine. From Daken’s point of view, this is a bit of a filler story while he kills time waiting for his title to be relaunched in September. For the Frankenstein Punisher, on the other hand, it’s the rematch against the bad guy who kicked off this storyline in the first place. So it ought to be kind of significant for him. As it turns out, what we actually get is… uh, an extended fight scene, more or less. And that’s pretty much it. Lots of chasing, lots of fighting, Daken gets impaled on stuff so that they can show off his healing factor… It’s just a fight scene. And it’s a bit one note – Daken’s never really allowed to come across as a much of a threat, which is particularly odd considering that he ought to be the Punisher’s current nemesis, so it’s basically Daken taking a cartoon beating and running away for 20+ pages. Now, if you’re going to do a story where the poor man’s Wolverine fights a Frankenstein version of the Punisher, I have no real problem with that being a big dumb brawl… but there really is only a limited amount of entertainment in watching Daken get chainsawed and hit by trains before even I start rooting for the poor bastard to land a punch. Mind you, Tony Moore’s artwork is gorgeous, and spectacularly over the top, which livens thing up.
Wolverine Origins #50 – It’s over, it’s finally over. Part of me thinks I should re-read the thing and then do a retrospective post… but that would mean re-reading it, and I’m not exactly filled with enthusiasm for the prospect. The main story really ended in issue #48, and this two-part epilogue seems to be mainly an exercise in getting Wolverine to realise that he needs to move on with his life and stop letting himself be defined by what Romulus did to him. Which pretty much sums up the problem with this series. The whole thing is an attempt to resolve a plot thread which was already closed off quite effectively by Larry Hama in the early nineties. We already had a story where he regained his memories and explored his past; we already had a story where he confronted the guys behind the Weapon X Project. And then everyone pretty much stopped talking about it for a decade plus, until this series came along and started trying to re-open the same questions just so that it could close them again.
At one point it looked like the series was going to actively damage the character, by trying to link everything in Wolverine’s past to a single conspiracy theory – and worse yet, one that wasn’t in the slightest bit interesting. It saddles with Wolverine with an arch-enemy, Romulus, who has never shown the faintest sign of being an intriguing character. And while in the past it was possible to do pretty much any story set in Logan’s freelance days, the “controlled by Romulus throughout his life” idea served only to shut down story possibilities which were inconsistent with it.
In reality, it seems likely that the title’s main legacy will be the introduction of Daken, a character who might in fact have a few good stories in him. Other stories that have had occasion to mention Wolverine’s origin seem to have suspiciously little interest in bringing up Romulus, which rather suggests that he may have already been filed under “Bad Idea”. Let’s hope.
A story where Wolverine gets over his feelings of anger at the people who abused him, achieves some measure of revenge, and decides to move on with his life – fundamentally, not a bad idea. Except Larry Hama did it better in the nineties. Wolverine Origins has been a thoroughly unnecessary trudge through old ground, with a lousy central villain, simply in order to come to the conclusion that Wolverine shouldn’t be so hung up on this stuff anyway. Except, until this series started, he wasn’t. Four years of comics just to solve a non-problem badly. Let us not speak of it again.
Wolverine: Weapon X #15 – The concluding part of “Tomorrow Dies Today”, which turns out to be essentially the origin story of a new Deathlok. Jason Aaron’s actually come up with a neat twist on the classic Deathlok story; this time around, the computer is the sympathetic part of his personality, and the human is a raving lunatic. The sentimentality is decidedly tongue-in-cheek, and the whole thing is a bit silly, but there are some clever twists in this issue, and some great action sequences from Ron Garney.
But it still leaves me with the question I raised last month: in what sense is this a Wolverine story? Wolverine’s in it, yes, but it’s so packed with guest stars that his presence alone doesn’t mean a great deal. Hell, Iron Fist and Spider-Woman are in it. It comes across as some sort of Avengers story which Aaron is running in Wolverine: Weapon X simply because it happens to be the book he’s currently writing.
I suspect the idea is that the new Deathlok is an ironic inversion of Wolverine – he’s an unrepentant murderer who’s been made nicer by an inept attempt to turn him into a brainwashed supersoldier. And that might well be something to hang a Wolverine story on… but since Wolverine himself never really gets involved in any of that, the thematic link is very loose. What we’ve got here is a pretty good origin story for a new Deathlok, but it’s really not a Wolverine story.
Uncanny X-Men #526 – Part one of “The Five Lights”, and I’m relieved to see that the spoilers from Hope’s entry in the Handbook actually only cover this issue. It also turns out that the X-Men did bother checking out who Hope’s parents were – it just didn’t seem to be anyone significant, which is why we haven’t heard about it until now. So, with those concerns out of the way… this is pretty good. We seem to be settling down to a more stable core cast, and Hope’s finally getting to act like a character instead of a plot device for everyone to fight over. Fraction’s take on Hope seems to be driven by the idea that she’s got to deal with the pressure of expectations from people who expect her to save the mutant race – which is something to work with, at least. Whilce Portacio starts his run as the new regular artist, and while it’s occasionally a bit scratchy for my tastes, it gets the job done. Most importantly, though, after several years of the X-Men basically sitting around waiting for something to turn up, we’ve finally got to a point where they seem to have something to achieve again, and the series is all the better for it. Admittedly, the debut of our first new mutant in ages does come across as a bit of an anticlimax – she never really gets the chance to show off much of a personality, and so we’re never really hooked by her. But the good outweighs the bad. The back-up strip is a lead-in to Magneto’s appearance in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, by that book’s creative team. Aside from answering the question of when A:TCC is actually set (roughly now), it also makes a real effort to write Magneto consistently with Fraction’s take, and use his X-Men plots as a springboard for Magneto’s role in A:TCC – always nice to see in a shared universe.
X-Factor Forever #5 – Final issue of the miniseries. This could possibly have stood to lose an issue, since once Apocalypse has explained his grand theory of mutants, there’s not actually much left for the plot to do. (The final issue tries to get round that by raising the stakes and hauling in Genosha out of nowhere, but it unavoidably feels a bit tacked on.) Still, it’s been a fun series, and hopefully Dan Panosian’s highly entertaining artwork hasn’t gone unnoticed. As for the story, the main interest here is seeing Louise Simonson go back to the original core idea of Apocalypse and follow it through to its logical conclusion. As initially conceived, Apocalypse was supposed to be obsessed with the idea of warfare and strife because he thought it would be good for human development. In the mainstream Marvel Universe, he pretty much ended up as a maniac dictator and hypocrite who only paid lip service to his supposed “survival of the fittest” doctrine. In this story, Apocalypse actually means it, and is therefore making a good faith – if highly questionable – effort to avert global catastrophe. Which is a very different take on the character, and the sort of thing that these Forever stories should be good at – allowing writers to see through a storyline that they never got to finish, even though later stories blocked off the original plan.
X-Men Forever 2 #4 – Ah, Masque and the Morlocks. This seems a bit of a deviation from the main story, which in itself isn’t a bad thing – Claremont’s generally quite good at cutting between shorter stories and over-reaching arcs. Mind you, I can’t say I’m particularly thrilled to be revisiting these particular characters; Claremont seems to be going back to the version of Masque we saw in the last couple of years of his original run, where he was a maniac cult leader of the handful of surviving Morlocks. This made for an okay two-parter that played off the body-horror potential of Masque’s powers, but Masque himself was rather one-dimensional, and that’s certainly how he comes across here. Still, there are a couple of effectively creepy moments along the way, and some promising subplot material about whether the cast can trust Mystique (even if a lot of the cast end up being horribly naive in order to advance the argument).
X-Men Legacy #238 – Two new X-Men storylines in a week, and two strong issues. That’s a positive sign for the post-Second Coming era. With the crossover complete, Legacy goes back to its core format of Rogue trying to mentor the younger characters. Many of those background characters have been around for years, but remain more or less blank slates that leave Mike Carey free to write whatever he pleases. This story focusses on Indra, whose personality has never got much beyond identifying his religion as Jainism. Since Jainism places great stress on non-violence, there are obviously issues here with his involvement in the X-Men. Of course, this isn’t just an issue of people arguing about ethics; there’s also a cosmic graffiti artist who seems to have escaped from a Spanish-influenced dystopia. This is exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for from a book about Rogue and the kids. Oh, and nice art from Clay Mann – a fairly traditional superhero artist in terms of style, but his characters’ acting is coming along very well.
What?… No review for World War Hulks: Wolverine vs Cap? 😉
Thank gawd the dreadful “Wolverine: Origins” series is finished. Now I won’t have to pick up a Daniel Way comic ever again and with a bit of luck won’t come across the Daken character in any of the other books I get.
I thought UXM was a pretty good story, but I found Portacio’s art a bit distracting (the hair on most of the women, for instance).
When you talk about 50 issues/four years, you forget about the lead-in arc in the main Wolverine series (the ones with the plain logo they moved over to Origins when it launched – in mid-story, yet). Plus the Dark Wolverine tie-ins.
thanks for the post, paul, once again!
i didnt like uncanny as much as you did, though. it felt like a typical fraction issue to me: good ideas, but frustrating execution. that suicide scene was clunky as hell, and the art is terrible, particularly the facial expressions. i hope portacio doesnt stick around for too long.
legacy was rock-solid, though. exactly the kind of story i want to read.
So have you only read the most recent Scott Pilgrim, Paul, or did you read the rest of it beforehand? I seem to recall an earlier podcast, around the time the first trailer was released, where you expressed some resistance to going anywhere near the books.
I’m having a hard time anyone believes Uncanny is good. The dialogue is just awful. It’s pretty amazing Marvel thinks the atrocious art merits a $3.99 price tag. Sorry to be a negative nancy. Ick.
Legacy on the other hand, was quite entertaining.
Are these Spanish-influenced dystopian people supposed to be the Children of the Vault again? Last time they all had really obvious Spanish codenames and again you have Luz (light in english) and Martillo (hammer) plus the Sentinal’s at the end would line up with where they wound up at the end of the Supernova’s arc.
It comes across as some sort of Avengers story which Aaron is running in Wolverine: Weapon X simply because it happens to be the book he’s currently writing.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Straczynski wrote the best/only good New Avengers story during his Amazing Spider-Man run.
As initially conceived, Apocalypse was supposed to be obsessed with the idea of warfare and strife because he thought it would be good for human development.
One wonders what kind of thing Grant Morrison would have done with this version of Apocalypse, as it would have fit in nicely with some of the ideas he was playing with during his run.
I was rather confused at the backup strip in UXM 526. If we’re sending Magneto off to meet the Young Avengers over in A:TCC after the events of Second Coming, what is going on with Steve Rogers as Captain America, etc., in the main story? I applaud the effort, and it’s a good way to bring readers to A:TCC, but it definitely feels like someone on the editing side hasn’t quite thought through the continuity of the idea. Plus, over in the main story, we find that Matt Fraction still can’t quite write anything more that cookie cutter dialogue, despite his good intentions for the characters.
I have to agree with earlier posters that launching the new directions for both Uncanny and Legacy in the same week really highlights the stark contrasts in the quality of writing that goes into both books.
I’ve long found Portacio’s art awful, and while it looks better in XL than I recall it being, there are still some really odd moments. The scene where Hope mentions her dead father and the woman she’s talking to appears to have a huge grin on her face being the primary one.
None of the reviews of Heinberg’s UXM #526 story that I’ve read goes over Magneto’s dialogue re the twins in any detail. That’s understandable, since the dialogue is an exposition break (or bomb). Someone who’s read CHILDREN’S CRUSADE #1 might consider the dialogue redundant. The dialogue deserves examination, though, because what Magneto says doesn’t make sense.
Cyclops tells Magneto, “Wanda’s sons weren’t real. They were magical constructs –”
Magneto replies, ”They were considerably more than that. They had thoughts and feelings. They had souls.
“Wanda may have used magic to give them life, but even the Scarlet Witch can’t create a human soul. And when those souls were set free, what if they found their way into the bodies of Wiccan and Speed?”
In CC #1, Heinberg had Wiccan address criticism of the exposition in YOUNG AVENGERS #11 thru dialogue, but here, Heinberg just summarizes the original exposition. Magneto doesn’t know what he’s talking about; he’s just a mouthpiece for Heinberg, as Vision II was previously.
The reader is supposed to accept the assertions that Wanda captured and transformed souls, but even if one were to accept that, how does he go from having captured souls in imaginary bodies to those constructs being children of anybody? There’s a logic gap in Heinberg’s material that he can’t bridge.
There is no logic gap in the original maxiseries, Wanda used magic to transform her own eggs; the result was a biologically normal pregnancy, with the twins presumably having the souls that any offspring would have.
Since none of Heinberg’s assertions can be corroborated, or even supported through reasoning (a side note: the twins were still sleeping in cribs when Byrne got rid of them in AVENGERS WEST COAST), the result is a crippled premise that makes Heinberg and Brevoort look like people who would flunk Philosophy 100. Heinberg might impress people with his skillful dialogue and character bits, but readers who are satisfied with that have to be asked, “How much better would the stories be if they had actual plots?” Readers might never get an answer.
As for the main story: I’m amazed at how intent Fraction, et al., are on recycling ‘70s and ‘80s material. Since UXM and AXM are the only mutant titles I buy, I missed most of “Second Coming.” I’m assuming the working rationale is that the Phoenix Force was capable all along of countering Wanda’s spell, and for whatever reason, waited until recently to do it.
SRS
I really enjoyed “X-Factor Forever” although the last issue felt very rushed and suffered from a case of “show, don’t tell”. It has certainly been a better exercise in revisiting nostalgia than “X-Men Forever”. I think Louise Simonson did a great job of finding those characters’ voices circa 1990 and writing a good story that followed up on a lot of what was going on in “X-Factor” in those days.
Young Avengers already explained that their were some costume errors, and it’d all make sense in the end. Creator side, the reasons the costumes are so out of sync is because the story was started ages ago so the book could come out on time. On one hand, I applaud that (look at Astonishing), but on the other, Marvel probably should have told Allan and co. what state each character would be in. The only other reason I can think of is that Capt’s costume wasn’t designed yet because he wore like 4 different things after he returned just before SIEGE.
Uncanny X-men was typical Fraction fare and having that Young Avengers backup highlighted what was wrong with Fraction’s dialogue and Portacio’s art. That suicide scene was the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in UXM in awhile. I only really got this issue for the backup and the Kitty news. I’m still wondering why no one got Reed to check Kitty out again.
You know, I probably should be used to it, but it really bothers me that Hope and Cyclops are on good terms. Hope had a legitimate reason to be angsty around Scott, and now it’s all gone. With her being OK with him now, it pretty much wipes clean every source of repent that Cyclops needed to go through thanks to his actions leading up to Second Coming and through it. With no one left to make Scott go through a bit of hell, it looks like we’ll have to wait longer for him to redeem himself. *sigh*
“Thank gawd the dreadful “Wolverine: Origins” series is finished. Now I won’t have to pick up a Daniel Way comic ever again”
Uh, was someone forcing you to pick it up?
In the review, you mentioned that the back-up was by Young Avengers’ regular creative team, but the artist was actually Olivier Coipel, not Jim Cheung (who is presumably busy with Children’s Crusade), and it looked great.
Also, I’m pretty sure the characters introduced in X-Men Legacy are related to the Children of the Vault. Powered humans who used Spanish words and have Spanish names and live somewhere that’s outside Earth but it tethered to it appearing in a Mike Carey book… Gotta be.
“This is not necessarily a bad thing. Straczynski wrote the best/only good New Avengers story during his Amazing Spider-Man run.”
C’mon. I sincerely doubt Straczynski ever wrote the best anything story.
“I’m assuming the working rationale is that the Phoenix Force was capable all along of countering Wanda’s spell, and for whatever reason, waited until recently to do it.”
I don’t think that’s it. For one, it was previously trapped in the diamond hearts of the Stepford Cuckoos (plus Rachel Grey and what’s-his-name’s sword, both in space all through this thing), and actually fled from them to arrive in Hope, who we know to be a mutant. So Hope herself, and her powers (whatever they are precisely), are obviously relevant, and are probably the reason the phoenix force chose her.
“Marvel probably should have told Allan and co. what state each character would be in. The only other reason I can think of is that Capt’s costume wasn’t designed yet because he wore like 4 different things after he returned just before SIEGE.”
I read that they hadn’t decided whether or not Steve Rogers would be in this costume back when they started this series. No big deal.
“You know, I probably should be used to it, but it really bothers me that Hope and Cyclops are on good terms. Hope had a legitimate reason to be angsty around Scott, and now it’s all gone.”
Well, when she was awful to Scott it was because she was upset about losing Cable. During the Second Coming epilogue, she gives a speech at his funeral that suggests he died as he’d have wanted to (and presumably understood that Cable did what he wanted to or had to do, not what Cyclops made him do). In other words, I think she stopped blaming Scott for Cable’s death, and as a result has no reason to hate him anymore.
@ Michael Aronson
As I understand it, the premise of The X-Axis is that Paul reviews ALL the X-Books. So no one was holding a gun to his head or anything, but when an awful X-Series is published, he has to choose between reading the terrible book and abandoning the premise of the project he’s been doing for ages. I imagine that, in the case of a miniseries, it’s probably just an annoyance, but you can see where, for an ongoing, it would become something of an ordeal.
I mean, heck, if you’re over the age of 18 or so, there’s probably no one physically FORCING you to go to staff meetings at work, watch the latest rom-com with your lady friend, or spend time with your extended family; that doesn’t mean you can’t say “Thank god THAT’S over” when you’re done.
“As I understand it, the premise of The X-Axis is that Paul reviews ALL the X-Books.”
No, the person who wrote that comment was Paul C, not “Paul” aka Paul O’Brien.
What?… No review for World War Hulks: Wolverine vs Cap?
You scoff, but the WWHs: Spidey vs Thor was surprisingly good! And I say this as a Spider-Man completist, who has no idea what World War Hulks is about. Honestly, I might have skipped it, but I saw the writer was Kieron Gillen, so I thought it had a chance of being good, as ludicrous as the premise sounded. (The Wolverine vs Cap one is written by Paul Tobin, so it has a chance of being good too.)
Say Paul, unrelated, but are your old reviews archived anywhere now that X-Axis is defunct?
Since Paul O’Brien is a reviewer (and a well-regarded one at that), I expect him – and even want him – to pick up books he knows will be crappy, because he has such a way with words. I would gladly still buy him dinner for that one Shakespearian review of one issue of Austen’s Uncanny X-Men.
Hold on, why did World War Hulks make Spider-man fight Thor?
Writers might vary in how they depict the Phoenix Force (PF) in stories, but the PF has repeatedly been described as one of the fundamental forces in the universe, and something that the universe couldn’t exist in its current form without. As such, it dispenses its energy to particular hosts as it chooses and can’t be confined to any host, singly or in combination. If Hope is channeling the PF, it’s because the PF decided to make its energy available to her, comparable to a saint performing miracles because God has given her the ability to do so. That doesn’t make her a host of God.
SRS
I understand that it chose her. I’m not sure how the “hot of God” distinction is important.
“why did World War Hulks make Spider-Man fight Thor?”
Cooties.
Applied Hulk-Cooties hulkmogrified a bunch of people, some of whom were thunder-gods and arachnosapient-Americans, leaving them physically swollen but psychically scoured.
WWK:HOH:SMvs.T #1 was pretty good. Reduced to primal urges, Spider-Man goes sightseeing, while Thor throws his weight about. But with reasons!
Also, HULKLOPS.
They missed a trick, not having Giant-Rulk and The She-Wasp-Hulk-Type-Hulk.
//\Oo/\\
Jesus, Uncanny was terrible, as awful as it’s been in years. The art was wretched, there’s nothing at stake in the plot (The X-Men race across the planet to find the first new mutant in years and then… camp out across the street from her apartment for several hours, complaining aloud that they find this situation anticlimactic! Hope goes to Alaska to uncover her mysterious past and discovers that… her grandmother is awfully friendly!), the implication that new mutants will now have to be “activated” by Hope leaves me groaning, and I swear to god those catty little character-introductory-captions are getting more and more obnoxious with every passing issue. Paul optimistically says that the book seems to be settling down to a more stable core cast, but I’ve no idea what that core cast might be, since the cast this issue seems to have been the cast of last issue plus Hope.
The problems I’m starting to see with this comic – and the problems with the X-books in general – are looking too big, too ingrained and too structural for a single story like Second Coming to have fixed. I don’t know what can turn these books around, but I don’t think Fraction and company have it.
I have to say I liked the FrankenCastle book a lot more than Paul seems to have. Basically, yes, it was an issue-long fight-scene with the Punisher playing Bugs Bunny to Daken’s Daffy Duck – but considering just how loathsome a character Daken is, it was really cool to see him get the shit kicked out of him for 22 pages or so.
I didn’t feel a bit of sympathy for him because, even if there have been a few good Daken stories told, he’s still an unapologetic shit heel who’s been cruising for a bruising since his introduction. And it is just kind of awesome that the Punisher gets to be the person to do it. It took Norman Osborne, the Hood and all of H.A.M.M.E.R. half a year to wear down the Punisher to the point where Daken could even lay a claw on him, and now that Frank is back on the offensive he’s running roughshod over the little punk.
C’mon. I sincerely doubt Straczynski ever wrote the best anything story.
Well, I admit that given that the competition was Bendis, it’s not much of an achievement, but JMS did do a pretty good New Avengers arc. He may have gone off the boil now, but he did do some good work at Marvel back in the day.
@Michael Aronson
Not force, no, but my cousin is a big Wolverine fan and an even bigger Steve Dillon fan so he asked me to pick up Origins for him. Once Dillon left after 25 issues he just told me to keep picking it up for him.
The best part of the book was when he paid me back the money, even though it led to some awkward conversations where he would ask what I thought and after a pause I would usually reply along the lines of “Ummm…I really enjoyed the art”.
Perspective and anatomy have always been elusive things for Whilce Portacio, which is what leads me to believe that Portacio meant for Scott to be embracing Emma affectionately by the shoulders on page 6 of Uncanny, and not helping himself to a hefty handful of her left boob, as the artwork itself clearly shows.
Although I guess that would definitely add another dimension to Emma’s advice to “Carry on there Summers…keep yourself occupied.”
Heck, the guy is king of his own island, and as Mel Brooks and Tom Petty both pointed out, it’s good to be king.
Oh Paul, http://www.thexaxis.com seems to have disappeared.
The solicit for Legacy 241 explicitly states they’re the Children of the Vault.
I’ve only seen the preview pages of Whilce Portacio’s Uncanny (I’m reading it in trades) but it’s not that bad. Reminds me of Salvador Larroca before he got all photo-referencey and drowned in waxy colours. And it’s certainly a step-up from Greg Land.
Heh, I think Paul just needs to make a post about the X-axis so people can stop bringing it up, and he can stop re-explaining what happened in the comments section. 😛
I actually think Whilce Portacio is worse than Greg Land. Land’s work has been a little better of late, and I honestly kind of hate Poratcio’s pencils. Really awful.
I haven’t read the latest Uncanny with Portacio on art, but his pencils have been dodgy for quite a long time. I quite liked his early Marvel stuff (X-Factor – some Celestial thing that Claremont wrote, IIRC), but maybe the inker was helping out a lot with that, because most everything I’ve seen since then has been quite scratchy, with weird hair, expressions, and anatomy.
I also prefer Land to Portacio. For all his faults, at least he can be bothered with useful backgrounds.
Using last issue as a comparison piece, yes, I have to agree Land and Dodson were superior. Just look at this scan and tell me it looks good or is easily discernible in what is going on:
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/1921/hopef.jpg
This issue featured the worse portrayal of Hope, aesthetically, I’ve seen thus far.
Crikey, that art is terrible. That’s from a modern Marvel comic? Yikes.
Hmm, ok, I’ll concede a bit on that. That page is pretty awful.
That first panel is Invisible Human Centipede.
(I don’t think it’s that bad, but it’s three pictures, not one page of comics.)
//\Oo/\\
@Michael Aronson
My mistake. I remembered that Paul (O’Brien) said something similar in his review (looking back now, it was “It’s over, it’s finally over.”) and conflated that with the comment you were actually quoting. Sorry.
ZZZ, no problem.
Paul C, fair enough. I find it depressing to hear of those obsessive collectors who will buy books they know they’re not enjoying. I assumed you were one of them (although you’re definitely an enabler =P).
Ha, I’m not all bad!
A few months back I leant him the single issues of “Criminal” & “Incognito” and he enjoyed them so much he went out and bought the trades. Then last time he called down he left me with a few trades of “100 Bullets” & “The Walking Dead”.
His enjoyment of “Origins” sure was perplexing though.
I really didn’t like Scott Pilgrim.
I, also, have never liked Scott Pilgrim. O’Malley skeptics of the world, unite!