tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post3642030984841588697..comments2024-03-28T10:18:00.370-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining Generation X #17Austin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-3638550900359301602021-04-01T13:10:10.174-05:002021-04-01T13:10:10.174-05:00I’ll take your word for it that there’s a mystery ...I’ll take your word for it that there’s a mystery regarding Skin’s past being dangled but it seems obvious on the page — and it feels like the X-Cutioner (ugh) is rather ignorant not to have considered — that Angelo Torres wasn’t killed by Skin because Angelo Torres <i>is</i> Skin. The only question to me is why Skin doesn’t opt to volunteer that fact; while his privacy and whatever metaphorical headaches might result from such knowledge are valid enough reasons, he’s also fighting for his life here. Nothing more is apparent to me but, hey, over in <i>X-Force</i> we’re being teased that Shatterstar might actually be a guy from 20th-century Earth, so whatever.Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-43142257099015468622021-02-24T10:10:47.265-06:002021-02-24T10:10:47.265-06:00I've always wondered if this issue partially i...I've always wondered if this issue partially inspired Marvel's "Flashback Month" (coming in another year or so), what with the Stan Lee caricature and all. My recollection is that Stan introduced some (or all?) of the Flashback issues.<br /><br />Also, I believe Bachalo's Stan caricature was recycled when Stan's Soapbox returned to the Bullpen Bulletins page sometime after "Onslaught".<br /><br />Anyway -- Skin was never a favorite of mine. I liked him well enough, but my favorite Gen Xers were Jubilee, Synch, and M, with the rest trailing behind, and Skin was somewhere near the back. He was a utility player and he was funny, but that was about it. So I don't think this issue impressed me all that much. Re-reading it last night, I still find it basically okay, but no big deal.<br /><br />I got a nice laugh out of Skin confirming Chamber doesn't need to breathe and then dumping him underwater for the entire issue, though.<br /><br />Lastly, I need to call out Lobdell on the credits here. If you look back at any Silver Age comic, whenever Stan used nicknames, their placement always matched. You never saw "Stan 'The Man' Lee" and "'Jazzy' Johnny Romita" together. It would either be "Stan 'The Man' Lee' and "John 'Ring-a-Ding' Romita" or "'Smilin'' Stan Lee and 'Jazzy Johnny Romita", for example. <br /><br />So by giving everyone nicknames in front of their first names here, except for Stan, who get the nickname between his first and last names, Lobdell goes against the established formula and, to me at least, it just looks "off". (I'm sure there were probably occasional exceptions in the Silver Age, but that's the way I remember it being fairly consistently on everything Stan wrote.)Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580725636327122073noreply@blogger.com