tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post2406953534764282681..comments2024-03-28T10:18:00.370-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining Excalibur #92Austin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-19057755332600935332020-12-12T09:24:59.638-06:002020-12-12T09:24:59.638-06:00Peter and Kitty had just recently been shown as ma...<br>Peter and Kitty had just recently been shown as married in the <i>AOA</i> timeline, remember, although that’s hardly the kind of potential destiny the <i>DOFP</i> future is and, well, <i>AOA</i> utterly assassinates Peter’s character in the end so never mind...<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-58274239800253990892020-05-18T15:42:08.312-05:002020-05-18T15:42:08.312-05:00Finally got around to reading this one last night....Finally got around to reading this one last night. I forgot how much I disliked it! <br /><br />For the record, I've always assumed it was editorial instruction that brought Colossus into EXCALIBUR. After "Age of Apocalypse", it was pretty clear Marvel wanted him back in regular circulation. Heck, even just before AoA, when you think about it. The final issue of UNCANNY prior to "Legion Quest" focused on Colossus and the Acolytes, then he showed up in four straight months of AoA issues, followed by four straight months of regular issues, between X-MEN 42 - 44 and UNCANNY 325.<br /><br />I'm sure editorial wanted him back on a regular basis, but figured the core X-books would be a bad fit after his recent past. And you can't put him on X-Force since they're living in the mansion right now, which that would make him "core book adjacent". That leaves Gen X, which makes no logical sense, or Exaclibur as his landing spots. And when you consider that Excalibur has Kitty and Nightcrawler, two characters with whom he has a long history but with whom he's barely interacted in several years, it feels like a great idea.<br /><br />I agree that Ellis handles him better going forward, but even knowing that, I really have trouble getting past this issue because it's so out-of-character. Colossus may have been irrational when he left the X-Men, and he may have still been coldly reeling from his family's deaths even after his brain damage was repaired, but that had all passed by this point. UNCANNY 315 and 325, plus the "fall of Avalon" issues between, make it clear that Colossus was more-or-less back to his old self -- or at least, he wasn't acting like an irrational jerk anymore.<br /><br />So to see him come in and use his metal hands and super-strength to beat the ever-loving stuffing out of what, to his perspective, is a normal flesh-and-blood human being, is insane. I tend to agree with the sentiments above that Ellis didn't want Colossus in the series, and this was his brief temper tantrum to get that out of his system before moving along with business as usual.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-54929384119237471772020-05-11T18:46:48.646-05:002020-05-11T18:46:48.646-05:00I'm gonna submit to you all the following:
E...I'm gonna submit to you all the following: <br /><br />Ellis having Colossus beat the living hell out of Wisdom wasn't Ellis crapping all over Colossus, it was Ellis deliberately pointing out how stupid bringing Colossus back by editorial fiat was. "Oh, so you want me to bring back the violent man who turned on his friends? Okay here's what you're letting back onto the team, now let me just sweep it under the carpet and forget about it."<br /><br />I am, admittedly, a bit of a Warren Ellis fanboy, but even at this stage of his career Ellis was a good enough writer to know that there was no real justification to bring Colossus back without addressing the betrayal and reminding the reader that, yeah, this guy turned on the X-Men violently. I will also admit there's a decent chance all Ellis read was X-Men #304 and the Excalibur issue of Fatal Attractions, which certainly support this reading of Colossus being a hot-headed violent man who had betrayed the X-Men and then turned away from him after they helped him. But I can see Ellis going "okay, fine, you want the violent traitor back, you got him."<br /><br />The problem is he pointed Colossus at his self-insert, and while Ellis got better at the self-insert (Wisdom isn't even the worst of them; there's a cop in the Worldengine arc of Thor Ellis wrote that is inexplicably a British cop on loan to the NYPD, whose role is to sit outside the narrative, comment on it, and then get killed by the Enchantress) Wisdom is so obviously a self-insert that we can't care that Colossus beats the hell out of him.<br /><br />That or he really didn't want Colossus back and he just half-assed the issue, which is ALSO very Warren Ellis.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00605826105741513741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-47106229954312879172020-05-11T17:24:48.942-05:002020-05-11T17:24:48.942-05:00The last time he actually thought about her was wh...<i> The last time he actually thought about her was when he penciled her and the other X-Men, before asking his sister to teleport him to them, just as Fall of the Mutants began.</i><br /><br />For what it's worth, their past together was referenced/alluded to during "Fatal Attractions" and the run-up to all that. Particularly in EXCALIBUR #71, when Kitty specifically played on their romantic past together (and implied continued feelings for one another) to get him to Muir Island, then told him she'd "wait for him" when he decided to leave with the Acolytes again after getting his brain fixed. Given that (relatively) romantic sentiment was the last thing she said to him before this issue, it's understandably Colossus would be upset when he shows up at the spot where the girl who told him she'd wait for him was meant to be waiting for him, only to find her making out with some other dude (not "beat a man you don't know to a bloody pulp" upset, but still). <br /><br /><i>The only plausible explanation is that he was just a character pet from the writer.</i><br /><br />Oh yeah, Wisdom is 100% a writer-insert character for Ellis. He's certainly not the only writer who does it, but Ellis in particular has a habit of giving himself a "this is the author commenting on the narrative from inside it" type character in most of the stuff he writes. Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-35605437838282625412020-05-11T17:19:40.154-05:002020-05-11T17:19:40.154-05:00I could see that. I have a hard time imagining Ell...I could see that. I have a hard time imagining Ellis saying "hey, can I use Colossus in my book?" Though he does handle him pretty well after this, so he can't have been too chuffed about being saddled with him, if that's the case (I wonder similar things about Wolfsbane - who he doesn't do nearly as much with - a character who I have a hard time imagining Ellis even knew existed before someone said "hey, you're gonna have Wolfsbane in your book now". But who knows?).Austin Gortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-27547186780662269582020-05-09T13:31:52.017-05:002020-05-09T13:31:52.017-05:00Colossus having romantic feelings for Shadowcat ma...Colossus having romantic feelings for Shadowcat makes no sense at all. The last time he actually thought about her was when he penciled her and the other X-Men, before asking his sister to teleport him to them, just as Fall of the Mutants began. This is ANCIENT history at this point. At no moment did Colossus ever thought about her during the Outback era or when he was a member of the Gold team. We could easily argue that he didn’t even care about her since the very first Secret Wars. Can anyone forget the beautifully drawn reaction of Kitty to the breakup in that issue in which Colossus fought Juggernaut in a pub? They tried to make amends (of sort) in UXM 197, when they fought together a fake Dr. Doom, but that was it. In conclusion, his reaction to Kitty kissing another man still causes in me the same feeling I had when I read this issue when it came what: “this makes no sense.”<br /><br />Having said that, Colossus’ defection to join the acolytes never made any sense as well, and I think everyone at Marvel realized this as well. And they did nothing of meaningful with that defection. There’s not a single story or event that anyone remembers which could prove a point to Colossus joining a clearly insane and murderous Magneto because his daughter had died of a disease. Or because his parents were (unnecessarily) murdered just before (and no one among the X-Men cared or reacted to it). Colossus should have just jumped from the pages and attacked Marvel’s X-office people instead.<br /><br />Lastly, I never ever cared about Pete Wisdom. Never understood why the character was there, and why he suddenly got such an importance in the book. He didn’t earned it. The only plausible explanation is that he was just a character pet from the writer.Licínio Mirandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12545823888354348526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-34677457802246882402020-05-09T01:57:11.576-05:002020-05-09T01:57:11.576-05:00There was talk that Ellis initially didn't wan...There was talk that Ellis initially didn't want Colossus to begin with, and that editorial made that decision. I could see this as Ellis throwing a temper tantrum of sorts, like, fine, I'll have him join the team, but let me piss all over his character first...<br /><br />Because we couldn't just have Colossus show up, react awkwardly but rationally to seeing Kitty with Gary-Sue Wisdom, and then having a conversation with Kitty later where she chooses to stay with Gary-Sue and not start up again with Peter. No, Peter has to go batshit crazy and assault someone instead, all the better to prop up Gary-Sue. <br /><br />I could be wrong, but that was how I felt at the time, and still do. At least Ellis does a decent job with Peter going forward after this, but still. wwk5dnoreply@blogger.com