X-Treme X-Men: Invasion

Rating:
Summary: Whats Wrong in Comics
Review: Chris Claremont is one of the most influential writers in the history of comics. He turned the X-Men into a massive franchise (an 'X' on a book almost always ensures sales). But he's been around so long without changing that he's now become a cliche. Extreme X-Men is no exception.

The Invasion storyline is beautifully drawn. Larocca is one of the most marketable artists working today. He's action-packed and still able to draw distinctive people and places. He has flow and energy in every panel.

It doesn't make up for the heavy-handed, predictable script, the bad dialogue and the flat characterizations. There are WAY too many word balloons in each panel; they detract from the elegance of Larocca's work and the visual cadence of the book. Claremont doesn't seem to trust the ability of the artist to tell the story, so there are often word balloons stating what the character is doing as they do it (i.e. "I have to blast them with my lighting" as Storm gets ready to blast them with her lightning) or information repeated needlessly throughout the collection.

Claremont is a major creator, cutting edge in his time, and now he's like John Hughes still making teen angst coming-of-age films. Like your father trying to look cool in an old biker jacket, badly moussed hair, and sunglasses straight from a Robert Palmer video.

I find Extreme X-Men to be better suited to people who like big action scenes with little characterization, or Claremont fans. Invasion is right up there. The art is pretty, what you can see of it behind the word balloons. All in all, I'd sooner recommend some of Claremont's earlier work (collected in X-Men Essentials and other formats), or one of Grant Morrison's hardcover X-Men collections.

Rating:
Summary: Whats Wrong in Comics
Review: Chris Claremont is one of the most influential writers in the history of comics. He turned the X-Men into a massive franchise (an 'X' on a book almost always ensures sales). But he's been around so long without changing that he's now become a cliche. Extreme X-Men is no exception.

The Invasion storyline is beautifully drawn. Larocca is one of the most marketable artists working today. He's action-packed and still able to draw distinctive people and places. He has flow and energy in every panel.

It doesn't make up for the heavy-handed, predictable script, the bad dialogue and the flat characterizations. There are WAY too many word balloons in each panel; they detract from the elegance of Larocca's work and the visual cadence of the book. Claremont doesn't seem to trust the ability of the artist to tell the story, so there are often word balloons stating what the character is doing as they do it (i.e. "I have to blast them with my lighting" as Storm gets ready to blast them with her lightning) or information repeated needlessly throughout the collection.

Claremont is a major creator, cutting edge in his time, and now he's like John Hughes still making teen angst coming-of-age films. Like your father trying to look cool in an old biker jacket, badly moussed hair, and sunglasses straight from a Robert Palmer video.

I find Extreme X-Men to be better suited to people who like big action scenes with little characterization, or Claremont fans. Invasion is right up there. The art is pretty, what you can see of it behind the word balloons. All in all, I'd sooner recommend some of Claremont's earlier work (collected in X-Men Essentials and other formats), or one of Grant Morrison's hardcover X-Men collections.

Rating:
Summary: The best yet!
Review: Claremont and Larocca keep the excitement coming, with an invasion by thousands of other-dimensional conquerors. Their leader Khan rules an empire Alexander the Great would be jealous of: he is the absolute monarch of countless dimensions, and our earth is his next target. How can a handful of X-men stop him? You'll have to read the book to find out, but I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Great companion piece for this great graphic novel
Review: I know of a great companion piece in the form of a book entitled "The Adventures of Darkeye: Cyber Hunter" whose odd manner of having log-entries over chapters reads exactly like the script for a graphic novel, even though it is in the science fiction/high-tech and cyberpunk genre along with books like "Cryptonomicon", "Snow Crash", "Prey", and "Altered Carbon". Very fast-paced, incredibly visual, and very exciting due to its action-packed pages.

Rating:
Summary: The best yet!
Review: I've always enjoyed Claremont's writing and Larroca's art seems pretty godo to me. Though I do believe that the exploding breasts have gone a bit too far.
As stated above this is an Invasion themed storyline, originally 7 issues. Now there have been points where I found teh piecemeal that the stories go through, an issue a month, exhausting. But for this poarticular storyline, I foudn it rushed. This could've been a full year's worth of stories. Though I do credit Claremont with taking his time to develop this story, there was a lot more to be mined here. Part of the problem seems to be Larroca's art is so dynamic and full that it tends to take up several pages showing a vareity of things. While this is great to look at, it happers story development because issues run from only 18-22 pages.
The best part of this story is how Claremont touches on a Storm of old. Through other writers, she's been hurling lightning bolts and gusts of winds but here Khan's heiroom attacks her and she uses her minimal powers and her skills with a knife to beat them all. That was impressive. Equally impressive was Sage who watches Storm be attacked by the traitorous Viper and does nothing.........Claremont leaves this point unclear. Did Sage theorize that Storm would do better on the inside of Khan's organization or is there something more sinister at work? Gambit trapped as an energy conduit for the transport system for the invasion to materialize was very well handled and teh appearance of Vargas, showing up at the wrong time to pick a fight was good as well.
Lifeguard and Slipstream while getting their first real exposure are given short shrift afterwards. Lifeguard maturing into a Shiar warrior and Slipstream using his powers for the first time is completing with all of these other storylines. Thunderbird doesn't get much to do here other than be the resident back up blaster, and teh same for Bishop. I'm not sayign that Claremont doesn't like them, I'm just saying that even Rogue gets jumpstarted by Sage and develops further. Are Bishop and Thunderbird at their character development limit? I also like to see a writer develop power stunts for characters that uses their abilities in new and interesting ways. Thunderbird can fly and fire plasma bolts and Bishop redirects energy through guns (still a questionable visual for me--------he's always with a HUGE gun and an angry black man grimace, just because he's an ex-soldier doens't mean that this has to be his constant way of appearing. It would be interesting to seeing a subtle Bishop.)
More issues, the two that follow this trade paperback being a wrap up of Vargas and an emergency medical/life after death/vist from the New X-Men wasn't as necessary immediately after such a great storyline.
Even Khan gets shorted by his demise being off-scene, which means he's still alive. And the fact that there needed to be some real scenes of what it would take to stop a multitude of worlds from taking over another. There were stories to be mined here of a couple of the X-Men on one of the good enslaved worlds and a bad one. Also more on the Madripoor resistance and Viper. Red Lotus gets bounced and forgotten by Shaitan and then Shaitan in Storm guise gets beaten and kidnapped by Vargas. Anyoen who's read the other issues knows that Vargas and Storm spar with swords in one of Destiny's Diaries, also Lifeguards metamorphosis promises Shiar trip and the shot from the Diaries looks like Kitty Pryde will be back in the X-Men but under the hands of Claremont which is sensational. She does make an appearance a couple of issues later and the Mekanix limited series is written by Claremont.
What I can say is that Claremont excels at such huge storyline arches. Unfortunately because attention spans can be so limited. While I wouldn't have minded this being 9 issues and then the abyssmal Xtreme Xpose issues as a break to give Larroca time to catch up, I did really enjoy Claremont and though I see how Larroca's art can dominate over story time and outlines, I do love his work too. A couple of double-sized issues would've given more time to this impressive story.
My complaints?
The X-Men get sucked in to the whole thing a little too easily----Storm's Ruby, Shaitan attacks--BAM! Invasion. But there was no preamble to this coming about. Shaitan maybe attacking them a couple of times before for no clear reason would've been a good lead in. Viper having attacked Storm and organizing Madripoor was good but she needed to be more involved throughout the story, rather than just a minor evil, it would've been nice to see her be in the thick of it and how her tactics might be necessary to win a war. Also a few Madripoor victims and characters from the Wolverine series and development of the island would've been cool.
I give it 4 stars because the art nudged out the story, when a bit more economy could've made this a classic along the lines of the Dark Phoenix saga. Unfortunately death is big here as a cliffhanging monumental issue. That would've been cool. What about if time passed differently in Khan's realm? And Storm had a child? That would've been quite the development. I hate HUGE stories where afterwards other than bruises the main characters haven't changed in any hugely significant way. Sure Rogue's powers are out of whack now but they'll be back or perhaps there will be a truly adventurous twist and she'll have to absorb new powers from now on. It was also a nice development to at the end of this issue give her control over absorbign powers, it's been tooooooooooooo long in the coming.

Rating:
Summary: Good work, well rendered.
Review: I've always enjoyed Claremont's writing and Larroca's art seems pretty godo to me. Though I do believe that the exploding breasts have gone a bit too far.
As stated above this is an Invasion themed storyline, originally 7 issues. Now there have been points where I found teh piecemeal that the stories go through, an issue a month, exhausting. But for this poarticular storyline, I foudn it rushed. This could've been a full year's worth of stories. Though I do credit Claremont with taking his time to develop this story, there was a lot more to be mined here. Part of the problem seems to be Larroca's art is so dynamic and full that it tends to take up several pages showing a vareity of things. While this is great to look at, it happers story development because issues run from only 18-22 pages.
The best part of this story is how Claremont touches on a Storm of old. Through other writers, she's been hurling lightning bolts and gusts of winds but here Khan's heiroom attacks her and she uses her minimal powers and her skills with a knife to beat them all. That was impressive. Equally impressive was Sage who watches Storm be attacked by the traitorous Viper and does nothing.........Claremont leaves this point unclear. Did Sage theorize that Storm would do better on the inside of Khan's organization or is there something more sinister at work? Gambit trapped as an energy conduit for the transport system for the invasion to materialize was very well handled and teh appearance of Vargas, showing up at the wrong time to pick a fight was good as well.
Lifeguard and Slipstream while getting their first real exposure are given short shrift afterwards. Lifeguard maturing into a Shiar warrior and Slipstream using his powers for the first time is completing with all of these other storylines. Thunderbird doesn't get much to do here other than be the resident back up blaster, and teh same for Bishop. I'm not sayign that Claremont doesn't like them, I'm just saying that even Rogue gets jumpstarted by Sage and develops further. Are Bishop and Thunderbird at their character development limit? I also like to see a writer develop power stunts for characters that uses their abilities in new and interesting ways. Thunderbird can fly and fire plasma bolts and Bishop redirects energy through guns (still a questionable visual for me--------he's always with a HUGE gun and an angry black man grimace, just because he's an ex-soldier doens't mean that this has to be his constant way of appearing. It would be interesting to seeing a subtle Bishop.)
More issues, the two that follow this trade paperback being a wrap up of Vargas and an emergency medical/life after death/vist from the New X-Men wasn't as necessary immediately after such a great storyline.
Even Khan gets shorted by his demise being off-scene, which means he's still alive. And the fact that there needed to be some real scenes of what it would take to stop a multitude of worlds from taking over another. There were stories to be mined here of a couple of the X-Men on one of the good enslaved worlds and a bad one. Also more on the Madripoor resistance and Viper. Red Lotus gets bounced and forgotten by Shaitan and then Shaitan in Storm guise gets beaten and kidnapped by Vargas. Anyoen who's read the other issues knows that Vargas and Storm spar with swords in one of Destiny's Diaries, also Lifeguards metamorphosis promises Shiar trip and the shot from the Diaries looks like Kitty Pryde will be back in the X-Men but under the hands of Claremont which is sensational. She does make an appearance a couple of issues later and the Mekanix limited series is written by Claremont.
What I can say is that Claremont excels at such huge storyline arches. Unfortunately because attention spans can be so limited. While I wouldn't have minded this being 9 issues and then the abyssmal Xtreme Xpose issues as a break to give Larroca time to catch up, I did really enjoy Claremont and though I see how Larroca's art can dominate over story time and outlines, I do love his work too. A couple of double-sized issues would've given more time to this impressive story.
My complaints?
The X-Men get sucked in to the whole thing a little too easily----Storm's Ruby, Shaitan attacks--BAM! Invasion. But there was no preamble to this coming about. Shaitan maybe attacking them a couple of times before for no clear reason would've been a good lead in. Viper having attacked Storm and organizing Madripoor was good but she needed to be more involved throughout the story, rather than just a minor evil, it would've been nice to see her be in the thick of it and how her tactics might be necessary to win a war. Also a few Madripoor victims and characters from the Wolverine series and development of the island would've been cool.
I give it 4 stars because the art nudged out the story, when a bit more economy could've made this a classic along the lines of the Dark Phoenix saga. Unfortunately death is big here as a cliffhanging monumental issue. That would've been cool. What about if time passed differently in Khan's realm? And Storm had a child? That would've been quite the development. I hate HUGE stories where afterwards other than bruises the main characters haven't changed in any hugely significant way. Sure Rogue's powers are out of whack now but they'll be back or perhaps there will be a truly adventurous twist and she'll have to absorb new powers from now on. It was also a nice development to at the end of this issue give her control over absorbign powers, it's been tooooooooooooo long in the coming.

Rating:
Summary: Claremont and Larroca deliver...again
Review: This is the third collection of X-treme X-men. This on chronicles the tam as they battle the Inter-Dimensional invader Khan. The plot is a throw-back to Claremont's glory days back in the eighties, a little weirder than a lot of the more contemporary plots. This story-arc sees Sage, formerly Tessa of the Hellfire club, using her 'jump-starting' on the mutations of Claremont's girl, Rogue, and latent mutant Davis Cameron. But the really cool part of this is the multi-path story-telling. And these paths fit together in a really cohesive way, unlike a lot of other attempts by lesser writers. Gambit is used by Khan as a conduit by which to keep his dimensional portal open, Rogue tries to free him, with Vargas, who killed Psylock a while back. Storm is taken captive by Khan, to be his queen. Sage, Bishop, Thunderbird, and newcomer Lifguard infiltrate Khan's flag-ship to rescue her. Slipstream, a.k.a. Davis Cameron, attempts to aid Rogue, with disasterous consequences. This is one of those really daring kinds of stories that attemps to balance fighting, character-based sub-plots, and event-oriented plotting. This is diffacult to balance because if you get too much fighting, you lose your plot's focus. If you have too much character-based sub-plotting (i.e. romances, personnal striggles, etc.) it feels sappy. And if there's too much event-oriented activity, it gets boring. But Claremont has years of experience, and tons of genius at work for him. The actual plot is equally daring because this sort super-villian attempting to genocide, take over the world thing has been done so many times (most noticably with the many plots with Apocalypse done during the 90s) that it is really easy to be cliche. But, even though Claremont invented almost every cliche to this kind of story, this story manages to dodge almost all of them. There are no significant cross-overs (with cameos by Iron Man, Captain America, and The Thing), there's a lot of banter but it's very realistic (given that most of it's between a dimension jumping, blue skinned Emporer and a platinum blond, black woman who can summon rain at will). There's also a cameo by The Mystery Men, from Chris Carter's X-files, as three of Khan's computer technicians. Quite simply, this is some of the most calculated and well-orchestrated comic book writing out there.

Rating:
Summary: Claremont in High Gear
Review: With this second volume, Claremont brings the "Destiny" storyline first set up in Volume 1 to a close. The X-treme Team faces an invasion from another dimension and deals with the villain from the first book, Vargas. Salvador Larroca's uninked artwork is far better and clearer here than even in the first book. This book is recommended for readers who enjoy Claremont's characterisation as that's the real draw of this storyline. Rogue and Storm are the real stars here - and if you're a fan of either of those X-women, you better get this volume!

Finally, for those who complain about Claremont's expositional writing or seemingly "direction-less" writing, check out this volume to see how much planning and thought goes into his comics. I've always felt that Nu-Marvel is sorely lacking in the kind of grand, Shakespearean style of writing that Marvel used to be known for. Check out any Jim Shooter, Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, etc. writings to see what I mean. Claremont brings that back in spades here. His wordy, expositional style works perfectly with a story like that.