<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Story, Worse Art
Review: I bought this book because I follow all the X titles and I have been very impressed by the direction the others are taking. I thought that X-treme X-men was pretty solid given the involvement of Chris Claremont, who I grew up reading, and the good first two collections.
However the fifth, sixth, and seventh books have been a big disappointment. This book was definitely the worst so far. It is half lame Bloodsport rip-off and half badly developed torture and revenge story. It doesn't help that they chose Storm as the protagonist, in my opinion one of the least interesting members of the X-men. She suffers from the same problem Cyclops does, that being the leader she has to make the right choices rather than the ones with any character or personality. This book seems like some kind of attempt to remedy that lack of depth, but it fails miserably. We are supposed to believe that Storm would go in without the rest of her team initially and then never call them to help once she gets into trouble. Or are we supposed to buy into the concept that she gets off on all the gladiatorial combat. I didn't really understand Storm's motivation in allowing herself to become a part of the Arena. It also didn't help that it was mostly supporting players that got most of the dialog. I also thought it was ridiculous that Storm allowed the Arena to continue at the end of the book. They had setup that the X-treme X-men are becoming mutant police in the previous book, but Storm allows this brutal practice with elements of slavery and torture to continue. This could have been a much better book as a Wolverine or Bishop mini-series, where they are actually investigating the arena.
But by far the worst part of this book was the art. Igor Kordey is by far the worst artist on an X-book. I cant understand why marvel has given him a title from one of its premiere franchises. His work has an unfinished, amateur quality that makes me wonder why I bought the book. I will not be buying anymore. What really annoys me is that Marvel pulls the typical bait and switch of having flashier if not great artist Salvador Larroca do the covers while the pages are full of junk.
Rating: 
Summary: a mediocre mini-series featuring storm
Review: this book collects x-treme x-men #36-39. this story arc was orig going to be a limited series, but they made it part of the core series, prob. to increase sales b/c the story is so mediocre and full of holes. claremont gets bogged down in set-up and doesn't develop the actual story nearly enough. the story is so quick and shallow the only reaction you'll get is "huh? so what?"it's another arena story which claremont has already done in other series, this time featuring storm. storm is a great character, but she doesn't do anything new here. at least we get to see some old favs, like callisto (w/ some great new upgrades), strong guy, and yukio. masque is the main villain. kordey's art isn't his best and his average art is really unremarkable. he does have some nice costume designs, though, and as a bonus this TPB includes some of k's design sketches of costumes and his floorplan for rogue's house (although rogue is barely in this series).
Rating:
Summary: Shocking.
Review: Truly, I was shocked by this story. I didn't have especially high expectations for it, but it was worse than I possibly could've imagined. This may be the worst story that Claremont ever wrote; and that's saying a lot, considering that since his inspired original run on Uncanny, he's written some horrible (really, HORRIBLE) stories.
In this arc, Claremont rehashes a story he's already done over and over again; only this time, it's much worse. Essentially, Storm infiltrates a mutant fighting arena, is beaten physically and mentally by Masque, and then wins control of the arena.
As it is, Masque was a horribly deformed man whose mutant ability allowed him to alter anyone's appearance but his own (the catch-22). Plus, he was killed, around ten years ago. Currently, Masque is a woman, very much alive, and able to do whatever he/she pleases.
And is if it isn't bad enough, Claremont reintroduces Tullamore Voge, a character from possibly his terrible second run on UNCANNY, who had very little potential to begin with.
And the frosting on the cake: it's illustrated by Igor Kordey (don't let Salvador Larroca's covers fool you), who, while slightly better than usual, still does a terrible job on the artwork. The fight scenes, contrived as they are, are made worse by his awkward drawings.
This story is entirely unreadable. I was barely able to skim them. As it is, after the first issue, I let them pile up, and then forced myself to skim them in one sitting. Agonizing, at best.
I ask that you not buy this. Note that Claremont himself admits that this was a poor story.
I never realized that Claremont could drop to this level, though.
<< 1 >>
|
