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New X-Men Vol. 1: E is for Extinction

New X-Men Vol. 1: E is for Extinction

List Price: $12.95
Your Price: $12.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Were pages missing?
Review: There's a big difference between allowing the reader some room for interpretation and sloppy storytelling. Although Frank Quitely's artwork is often remarkable, it can't redeem Grant Morrison's writing ineptitudes. Honestly, I lost count of the times I had to check to see if pages were missing before I finally realized that this book is just awkward and confusing. The story jumps from page to page and, believe it or not, from panel to panel, leaving huge story, character, AND plot holes in-between. This is what it takes to be nominated for an Eisner Award? Honestly, if this is "brilliant" storytelling then I guess I'm the brilliant one because I filled in all the blanks left by Morrison's overly broad strokes and truly weak dialogue. If I wanted to do that, I would have written my own X-Men story. Avoid this graphic "novel" like the plague.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: let the morrison reign of terror end
Review: These stories are awful. What he is doing with the character is sacrilege to fans. I am eagerly awaitng the end of Grant Morrison's run. He does not know how to write these characters and the storylines are ridiculous. Professor X's stillborn disemodied baby sister is the villan, and he killed her in the womb! Wolverine's leather jacket and no shirt look would be great for the cover of "Bear."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: let the morrison reign of terror end
Review: These stories are awful. What he is doing with the character is sacrilege to fans. I am eagerly awaitng the end of Grant Morrison's run. He does not know how to write these characters and the storylines are ridiculous. Professor X's stillborn disemodied baby sister is the villan, and he killed her in the womb! Wolverine's leather jacket and no shirt look would be great for the cover of "Bear."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: New look for the X-Men
Review: This book represents the recent changing of the gaurd on the 'X-Men' title. Not only did a new creative team take over, but elements of the book changed as well. Gone is the old brightly coloured, spandex wearing superhero look. Now the X-Men are clad in black leather outfits, a new attitude for a new era. Also, the characters are portrayed far more realistically, no more over-proportioned bodies. And the story is quite good too, setting off a chain of events in the book that are still being felt. A good TPB to pick up for fans.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: well done
Review: This is a really well done book. I've been away from the comics for some time now, so I'm not sure what's been going on, but it is easy to pick this volume up and be back into it just that easy. They have a great new look and I love the uniforms. It's all very well written and the art is great as well. They keep you interested in the story.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: grant is a god
Review: this is some of the best x-men ever written. it ranks up among the dark phoenix saga. this was a complete change in style & i was very afraid at first, but it is marvelous. don't be intimidated by the new format. read this!!!!!! quitely's art gets progressively better throught the book & morrison is possibly the best writer in the industry right now! the story was different, the villain was new & creative (& a real witch! [with a b]) the characterization is excellent, & after reading this, you absolutely *must* get the 'imperial' tpb to see how everything gets wrapped up!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: E Is For Extinction - review
Review: This review is for 'E Is For Extinction' TPB written by Grant Morisson. ....

Style 10.0
Artwork 7.0
Writing 7
Packaging 2.0 (Read last paragraph)
Paper Quality - Glossy - 10.0

This is a collection of 5 NEW X-MEN comics (4 reg. and one annual) with no extras. ....

The new costume style is great, I adore Beast's new look and I enjoy Quitely and Yu's work, Sciver doesn't have much to offer. The art is good but very uneven.

You might enjoy this book if you can't get enough stories about people dying in comics, or evil twins, or boring relationships... falling apart. Being an old fan of his JLA work, I was really shocked that Morisson is doing this sort of work currently. I would be embarrassed of this. Still, Marvel (Quesada and Jemas) touts on the back that he "is the *most* innovative thinker of the 'current comic-book renaissance'." ...Right... The only thing this has going for it is the art and the new costumes, is this the new standard? Is this in competition with Claremont's best work? I can't imagine anyone thinks so.

I spent 23+ dollars Canadian and did not receive one complete, fleshed-out idea for that amount. It began with me not knowing WTF was happening and ended that way as well, alternating stories and ideas and never finishing one of them. What a brilliant idea for a TPB! Makes me want to buy another! No, seriously, I'll be sure to remember that the next time I think to buy another 'Nu Marvel' TPB.

Basically, many mutants on Genosha die and Prof is taken over by his evil sis, who's angry at mutants .... for ... some reason. It tiptoes over a Cyke and Jean's troubled relationship like anyone cares, and following a dumb plotline from the movie, Logan kisses her. Then of course, it's ignored immediately. I guess I'm supposed to be entertained. This is just go-nowhere comics at their worst.

Anyway, I guess the joke's on me and I'm out [$]... I could've owned a DVD with an actual good original story, great visuals, and extra features for less! This is Marvel the corporation, best of luck. Also, the packaging is atrocious, it's one of those bindings that don't allow you to even view all of the art and is difficult to hold, but it is printed on fine glossy paper. The book closes shut if you remove your hand and it's an extremely awkward way to read a comic, unhelpful, at least the cover is more durable. If they used magazine format by now we wouldn't have to pay gold for these stories and they could sell them in convenience stores and malls and artists wouldn't have a *monthly* deadline to miss and their art wouldn't have to be scaled down or take up an entire page.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I was very satisfied
Review: Though I usually read hardcore sci-fi or cyberpunk books, such as "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Broken Angels", "Altered Carbon", "Childhood's End", "Neuromancer", "Cryptonomicon", "Cyber Hunter", and so forth, I still love graphic novels, especially when they are about such wonderfully rounded and believable characters, which have lasted for decades, as the X-Men. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Combined
Review: Though this review is for New XMen, I have to say that Uncanny and Extreme average overall into my rating of 4 stars. I know there's been a lot of hullabaloo about Morrison's work on New X-Men---new directions, excitement, blah blah. However I'm not so sure much has changed so radically. By measuring change I mean if Morrison didn't write anymore issues would there be a vast change in the X-Men. Ok, Emma Frost as a member is fun and a good twist, however I think that the creation of new characters and the wholesale tossing out of others (like the New Mutants, who're comign back in yet another series to run 50-100 issues and be cancelled along the lines of New Mutants, Generation X and X-Force) rather than integrating them eventually into the team. I think this is the main deficit of teh XMen. Characters created that are likeable, taht are durable, eventually can't be changed in any significant way.
Prof. X having a twin sister who is wholesale evil was nice, though from the first panel Cassandra appeared in, I knew who and what she was. Maybe I've been reading comics too long to be surprised too deeply..........
There was a HUGE, I mean HUGE storyline buildup to Cassandra stealing the Prof.'s body and returning with the Shiar to wax the Xmen out. And teh fight was.........ehhhhh....not that scary. I mean everyone pretty much stayed status quo. Morrison is twisting but not changing. At least in Xtreme, Psylocke is dead, dead, dead. Jean is having Phoenix trips again, Beats is upset because he's hideous, Wolverine is all violence talk and menace and Emma is a nice bit of relief as someone who's been there, done that. Cyclops, easily teh most boring person at a party is purposefully written as stiff, which is interesting and his affair with Emma, another interesting point but will he and Jean divorce over this? ...
My measure of a great writer is that when you look back on the 20-50 issues they've done is it an entirely new playing field? Is anything of consequence changing?
Ok, the school is out and officially a mutant academy, which has possibilities but in many ways over the years it has been outted, just not as crowded. A lot of teh X-Men's main stable of enemies are either gone, dead or well........X-Men. So it makes you wonder what a real threat is going to be. This book dialogue wise and visually is sometimes good, even great and the overall plottin gof a maturing X-Men being more present in the world is interesting but I don't feel a sense of danger, a sense of forboding. I mean my big question is when a threat arrives, honestly, does anyone reading this book feel like someone might not survive? That Cyclops and Phoenix will break up? That Beast really might be gay? There are playful twists, stunts, but not true change going on.
Cassandra, a serious threat was defeated too easily, and by easily, I mean there was very little collateral damage that we got to see. Supposedly she rendered tne Shiar empire to rubble, that should've been part of what the readers SEE not just were told. Good writing shows you not just tells you. Essentially compressing Cassandra into a mental file inside of a metamorph was unique but somehow too easy. Then again, I have to wonder why Emma, Phoenix and Prof. X together couldn't fight her? Morrison is a good writer, I agree and I'm sure a lot of the things he's done have been uphill battles, unfortunately the XMen are stuck in their own quaqmire of history and static characterizations. It would have been really interesting to see this new Cyclops who had been part of Apocalypse. That theme was explored for two minutes but not truly cracked open.
Also is it just me or has anyone ever considered that these young people are the Prof's puppets? Wouldn't someone so telepathically formidable leak his desires to those around him? That would be an excellent area to be explored.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The series that made me quit superhero comics
Review: To be fair, I was already losing interest in the superhero genre when Grant Morrison began his run on New X-Men. Mr. Morrison has an excellent (and no doubt well-deserved) reputation as a comic book writer; not having read any of his other work, I can't judge. But what went on in the pages of New X-Men turned me off the book completely. More hate and fear from a world the X-Men are trying to protect? More stories of mutants on the verge of annihilation? More kick-you-in-the-head plot twists out of left field? Enough! Wizard magazine recently reported that Mr. Morrison's run is going to end with a glimpse-into-the-future storyline. Do we really need another look at a possible future that won't take place for another 150 years? Who cares? There are only so many places you can go with the premise of the X-Men, and most of them have already been visited.

Mr. Morrison does deserve credit. He tried to reinvigorate an established franchise, and perhaps some will say he succeeded brilliantly. Judging from most of the reviews that seems to be the general consensus. Personally I couldn't buy his stories. At the beginning of his run we're introduced to Cassandra Nova, a powerful mutant who turns out to be Prof X's twin sister; a person so twisted and evil that Charles kills her in the womb before she's even born. She comes back years later to get revenge on her brother. Who can blame her? He also scripted the dissolution of Jean and Scott Summers' marriage. Some might call those great plot lines. I disagree.

Maybe I didn't care for the direction the book was taking and that turned me off. I believe it had more to do with having been spoiled by CrossGen comics. CrossGen publishes titles that have nothing to do with the played out superhero genre. Fantasy, sci-fi, political intrigue, sword and sorcery, horror, mystery....so many choices. The big difference between CrossGen and other publishers is that CrossGen's stories are not told in 3-4 issue 'arcs', but rather in one continuous narrative that allows for rich, satisfying character development and plot detail.

If you're still interested in storylines involving world destruction, resurrected and re-resurrected super-vilains, and the superheroes who thwart them, then by all means this is the book for you. If you desire a richer tapestry start reading titles by CrossGen or Vertigo.


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