tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post9120436136277521707..comments2024-03-22T04:20:11.870-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining X-Men (vol. 2) #8Austin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-80551330139275090142016-09-30T10:35:42.926-05:002016-09-30T10:35:42.926-05:00Speaking of "unraveling the mystery" thi...Speaking of "unraveling the mystery" this issue is also the first time that The X-Men find out Gambit's real name. "We" (the audience) have heard him refered to as "Remy" once before, although I forgot where it occurred.Jon Dubyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11783906806644566810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-34785031980419043932016-09-26T11:13:25.373-05:002016-09-26T11:13:25.373-05:00To be fair to Jim Lee, Rogue had been wearing skim...To be fair to Jim Lee, Rogue had been wearing skimpy outfits when "off duty" for years at this point. Look to UNCANNY 201 and the baseball game drawn by Rick Leonardi as an example -- and she would continue to do for years after under other artists, as well. It really make no sense to me. She's always drawn going out in stuff like cutoffs and tank tops -- there's always a chance that she might <b>accidentally</b> bump into somebody and absorb their memories! You'd think she'd want to avoid even the slightest chance at something like that.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-66961379294071860122016-09-26T10:12:18.747-05:002016-09-26T10:12:18.747-05:00Good point, yes. I didn't think of it like tha...Good point, yes. I didn't think of it like that. All right, I withdraw my complaint. :)<br /><br />Still don't like the "Barrington" thing though.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13298753675007196538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-7521034635031350612016-09-25T14:19:23.768-05:002016-09-25T14:19:23.768-05:00Professor X is so insistent about going on with th...Professor X is so insistent about going on with the picnic that I could only interpret that as strategy on his part, filing away the information to observe Bishop, newcomer Gambit, and even his longtime students with an eye towards Bishop’s would-be future intelligence.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-20264913516026733172016-09-25T14:16:48.222-05:002016-09-25T14:16:48.222-05:00When did Forge and Storm go cold? Was it known to ...<br>When did Forge and Storm go cold? Was it known to have been done editorially to pair her with Bishop? Why does Storm appear not to know anything’s wrong?<br /><br />I realized as Bishop gave his rundown of the X-Men, saying Jubilee’s the last, that the “Shattershot” finale didn’t seem to take Bishop’s future into account — but I guess an out there is that the team in the mansion went by X-Force and they could’ve relocated to Xavier’s in the wake of the X-Men proper’s destruction after the whole traitor deal. <br /><br />Gambit spraying Bishop with energized dirt was a pretty neat idea.<br /><br />I may end up exasperated by or even loathing the Guilds — for sure, I have some questions — but right now I just feel thankful to have any kind of backstory or dimensionality added to Gambit. He was at least as much an unknown quantity as Bishop to the X-Men when he joined up, and even more of one to readers. Wolverine is hardly an appropriate analogy since Professor X recruited him.<br /><br /><i>// so much of what I love about the X-Men, and superhero comics in general, has seeds in this issue //</i><br /><br />Congrats on the personal milestone! All of that stuff is what I love about superhero comics, too, even if our first issues and Golden Ages were different.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-37759305130622084482016-09-25T10:06:59.580-05:002016-09-25T10:06:59.580-05:00A couple of weird things about this book that aren...A couple of weird things about this book that aren't mentioned in the above synopsis (or at least deserve a bit more commentary):<br /><br />1) Bishop tells the team that one of their members will betray them, a person they, on hindsight, know little about (as this very issue indicates). So naturally the X-Men just shrug and continue on with their picnic (which is especially bizarre, considering that this is NOT the reaction the team is going to have during the infamous "Revanche" storyline.) Even by this point, time-displacement conspiracy shenanigans left the X-people ratner jaded.<br /><br />2)Rogue's schtick (as she's bound to reaveal only a billion times) is that because of her powers, "Ah cain't touch nobody." She's very paranoid about the and often wears full bodysuits. So of course this issue has her dressing for a Katy Perry video while drapping all over Gambit. I guess Jim Lee thought Psylocke wasn't providing enough fanservice so characterization be damned...Jon Dubyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11783906806644566810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-6719393826853036292016-09-24T09:40:30.431-05:002016-09-24T09:40:30.431-05:00Thieves' and Assassins' Guild sound like s...Thieves' and Assassins' Guild sound like something that was directly lifted from a work of some other genre and just glued on top of the Gambit character, with an unhealthy dose of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> on top of that. When Gambit appeared the world was wide open for him to have the coolest backstory ever, and what we then got was ... this. And once they opened the room for "Oh, Romeo", it soon came "Oh, Remy" forevermore, hijacking Rogue for the shenanigans.<br /><br />Let me state I do not find it in my heart to actually oppose this direction for her, as I understand she was the no 1 candidate for identifying with for the female readership, but it's a hard direction to stomach when you've got to know her as a Claremont woman.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-4988654935583755142016-09-23T11:51:29.435-05:002016-09-23T11:51:29.435-05:00Couldn't Jubilee have still been the last X-Ma...Couldn't Jubilee have still been the last X-Man even if others joined after her? There would be nothing to prevent later members from dying or leaving, while Jubilee stuck it out (which is the route Tom DeFalco went in his MC2 universe, where Jubilee became the "Xavier" figure to the X-People).Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-6255232287491381052016-09-23T11:49:09.594-05:002016-09-23T11:49:09.594-05:00My best guess on this would be that, even if they ...My best guess on this would be that, even if they had ruled out Gambit and Bishop, the X-editors still probably wanted the traitor to be a "name" -- especially after the amount of time the plot had been left dangling.<br /><br />Making Xavier the traitor may have been questionable given how it really didn't fit with Jean's recording, but it was certainly a genuine surprise at the time, plus there was precedent for it with his dark side having manifested itself in the past. I actually thought the way they tied "Onslaught" into "Fatal Attactions" was pretty clever, too.<br /><br />That said, I really like your idea about using Gateway! He would've fit Jean's original message, plus Scott Lobdell reintroduced him to the cast in GENERATION X somewhere between this point and "Onslaught", so it would not have been out of left field, either.<br /><br />And -- even though if Gateway had been the traitor it would have changed his story drastically and this probably never would happened -- as I recall, years later Chris Claremont revealed Bishop to be Gateway's great grandson. That would add a pretty nifty extra wrinkle to the whole thing.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-81043850670572292272016-09-23T11:47:42.542-05:002016-09-23T11:47:42.542-05:00That Psylocke bit is really odd. Sort of reminisc...That Psylocke bit is really odd. Sort of reminiscent of her sort-of-flirtation with Colossus, back in the Australian days. But man, her character is just so one-note by this point. Jim Lee was intent on selling her as the team sexpot, I guess. Not that she was ever my favorite character, but she never really got her due. Claremont had teased some interesting stuff with her before she was turned into a ninja. From that point, just nothing interesting at all. I feel it's too bad there are probably people out there whose only knowledge of Psylocke is as a ninja.John Fnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-63213733274746719772016-09-23T00:26:42.710-05:002016-09-23T00:26:42.710-05:00I am back! Forgot about the blog and the X-Men fo...I am back! Forgot about the blog and the X-Men for a while, but thought I would pop in for a look. Glad to see you are still chugging away Teebore, or Austin now (classy!).<br /><br />Regarding this issue, I like it. As you so eloquently put, it combines a lot of what we love about the X-Men (character moments, relationships, setup and a bit of action) in a almost Clarmontian manner. <br /><br />Bishop is quickly played out, but the "Traitor" storyline had me hooked as a kid... for like a few months, until it was kind of dropped and forgotten about. It could have been so good, especially if they tied into a new Days of Future Past/Present type story. Instead, we get assaulted with Onslaught. <br /><br />I know the romance is a bit bad now looking back, especially due to the later issues, but these first few with the Gambit/Rogue flirtation were great as a young pre-pubescent boy. I guess not much has changed, because I still enjoy them. <br /><br />They play well off each other, and it seems they both are willing to bend a little bit to be together, even though later nefarious twists will make it seem like Gambit was the one to want Rogue to do all the bending.<br /><br />At this point in the mythology, I take the good where I could/can get it. Uncanny was basically unreadable during this time. X-Men was decent through the first 8 issues or so, but was about to go through a mess of horrible, uninteresting garbage that is surprising due to the amount of good/cool characters they had and simmering plots that could have been leveraged. They briefly snap out of it for X-Cutioners Song, then Uncanny becomes better for a while till the Phalanx Covenant. At that time, I lost interest :(Zephyrnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-59812734892761493162016-09-22T18:47:09.778-05:002016-09-22T18:47:09.778-05:00One thing I've never understood about the X-tr...One thing I've never understood about the X-traitor- when they realized it couldn't be Bishop or Gambit because they were too popular, why couldn't they just have it be Gateway? Jean said the traitor was "one of our own" and they never should have trusted him because they knew so little about him. And Gateway knew Maddie had been turned into the Goblin Queen and didn't warn the X-Men. Making Gateway the X-traitor would have been the easiest way to resolve both danglers instead of the contortions used to make the traitor Xavier.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-45524251453709969632016-09-22T15:16:57.767-05:002016-09-22T15:16:57.767-05:00I never cared much for this issue, and always chal...I never cared much for this issue, and always chalked up my indifference to the all-too-common Claremont aping by the X-writers of this period. But reading this review, I went back and changed my mind. The writing still isn't great, and it's way too focused on the "hot" characters of the day, but it's serviceable and a nice change from the non-stop fighting of the past several months. <br /><br />Looking now, I think this is around the time I stopped being really wowed by Jim Lee's art. Lee has tremendous talent, but his time on (Adjectiveless) X-Men, and the immense creative power that came with it, really brought out the worst in his pin-up tendencies. There are so many characters in deliberate poses, you'd think their picnic was also a photo shoot for their annual school calendar. Come to think of it, didn't they release a swimsuit issue around this time? (seriously. No, seriously.) <br /><br />By the time he got to WildCATS, his pages looked less like sequential art and more like speculative movie posters. Bobnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-75807966908747394092016-09-22T15:05:44.097-05:002016-09-22T15:05:44.097-05:00Writers who tackle the X-pocalypse are like people...Writers who tackle the X-pocalypse are like people who are obsessed with the Christian Apocalypse. They all act like it's right around the corner, even though neither will ever actually happen. Bobnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-30268653723081199512016-09-22T13:23:05.283-05:002016-09-22T13:23:05.283-05:00Also: Jubilee is the "last X-Man"? Yike...Also: Jubilee is the "last X-Man"? Yikes, what were they thinking? New X-Men join the team like every other month. Was the "great betrayal" scheduled to happen next Tuesday or something?Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13298753675007196538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-32922013231331420242016-09-22T13:21:06.410-05:002016-09-22T13:21:06.410-05:00Is this the one where the X-computer spits out the...Is this the one where the X-computer spits out the word "Barrington"?<br /><br />That always seemed dumb to me. What did Logan do, google "Wolverine's mysterious past" and that was the only hit he got? It's just hard to conceive of a scenario in which a computer is used to hack files and then a single word gets spit out, with literally no context.<br /><br />We still have Orz on letters! He must have stuck it out until Jim Lee's final issue, yah?Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13298753675007196538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-54432210344599703182016-09-22T11:53:37.980-05:002016-09-22T11:53:37.980-05:00I didn't read this one until years after the f...I didn't read this one until years after the fact, but I mostly like it. As I've noted before, Bishop was one of my favorite X-Men of the nineties, so I like the spotlight on him here. I also enjoy the rivalry between him and Gambit, which eventually evolves into an unlikely "buddy" duo by the time of "Onslaught" and the reveal of the real X-traitor.<br /><br />I've never quite understood why everyone hates the Thieves' and Assassins' Guilds so much. They aren't my favorite aspects of the X-mythos -- or even of Gambit's mythos -- but I don't see anything particularly awful about them either. To me, they've always just sort of existed without eliciting any strong feelings in either direction (and I actually like a lot of Gambit's backstory as later fleshed out by Lobdell and Nicieza, with his brother and Sabretooth and all that).Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.com