tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post428115103225967346..comments2024-03-28T10:18:00.370-05:00Comments on Gentlemen of Leisure: X-amining X-Factor Annual #8Austin Gortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14281239771248780430noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-59330022594189894152022-08-17T11:52:22.273-05:002022-08-17T11:52:22.273-05:00"He is either an ideologue or deliberately ig..."He is either an ideologue or deliberately ignorant."<br /><br />Or just telling it like it is?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-52917439401570323572022-08-17T11:51:52.096-05:002022-08-17T11:51:52.096-05:00Where on earth is there any sexism and racism on t...Where on earth is there any sexism and racism on this site? And why are you so butthurt over this? The truth hurts, I guess. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-50464774116667760192022-06-08T17:32:36.390-05:002022-06-08T17:32:36.390-05:00I wouldn't bother with trying to add logic to ...I wouldn't bother with trying to add logic to the writer's comments. He is either an ideologue or deliberately ignorant.Dan Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07590541657461892628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-3662186750164182182020-01-18T10:28:02.587-06:002020-01-18T10:28:02.587-06:00"Cloot makes a joke about political correctne..."Cloot makes a joke about political correctness being a demonic invention; I'd love to be able to put that under the "Grim 'n' Gritty 90s" heading, but America just elected a president in part because some white people are mad they can't use the N-word, so sadly, ragging on the notion that some names and terms are more racially or sexually loaded/inappropriate than others is still a thing today just as it was in the 90s."<br /><br />Good to know your blog can be added to the pile of smug, tone-deaf leftist blogs that ooze with racism and sexism yet somehow still consider themselves moral because they're racist and sexist against, I don't know, the identity groups that deserve to be targeted by racism and sexism according to leftist dogma? Rewrite the above paragraph so that it sneers about black people instead of white people and see how well it flies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-45268798475554454552017-08-27T08:49:34.127-05:002017-08-27T08:49:34.127-05:00// Evil Val seems far too pleased with receiving a...<br><i>// Evil Val seems far too pleased with receiving an info dump of character backgrounds and stories she should already be familiar with //</i><br /><br />Yeah.<br /><br /><i>// Maybe David was originally going for a switcheroo and this isn't meant to be our Val at all? //</i><br /><br />That had been my assumption ever since we saw Val accosted by a trash monster at the end of #87. Although this story wasn’t written by David, as Jason pointed out, one hopes that the editors would know the direction in which the Val plot was heading well enough to keep her appearance at the hands of another writer on track — not that hoping is really a valid strategy, and of course #92 proves otherwise.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-42808932053859227192017-08-27T08:43:34.175-05:002017-08-27T08:43:34.175-05:00I found the invocation of Mary Jo Kopechne pretty ...<br>I found the invocation of Mary Jo Kopechne pretty weird, but that’s par for the course in PAD’s run on this book.<br /><br /><i>// hence the name Charon //</i><br /><br />And the name <i>Cha</i>rlie <i>Ron</i>alds, via reverse engineering or whatever.<br /><br />While I’m honestly trying to keep a lid on my spelling and grammar corrections, by the way, as a kid who enjoyed reciting Doctor Strange’s spells once upon a time I must note that it’s <i>Satannish</i>, with two <i>n</i>s (thus rhyming with “vanish”) rather than <i>Satanish</i>, with just one (and thus perhaps being read, like Pushpaw gibed, “Satan-ish”).<br /><br /><i>// This marks the payoff to the various Chalker family scenes //</i><br /><br />Hoo boy. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this story making all of that worth it. Sure, I get the potential humor in X-Factor not even knowing their supposed arch-enemies, but this was a giant whiff from where I’m sitting.<br /><br /><i>// Polaris was part of the group searching for the X-Men alongside Forge & Banshee //</i><br /><br />I had no recollection of Sunder being part of the Muir Island team, although I barely have any recollection of Sunder period.<br /><br /><i>// Strong Guy trying to rescue people //</i><br /><br />That last story is the only one in this book I find even close to professionally executed. And it was such a downer I half-expected an ironic left-field turn where the dog he saved is actually a mutant who’s the despondent father’s daughter.<br /><br>Blamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07342343767763035991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-56504667793609884192017-08-12T10:19:22.394-05:002017-08-12T10:19:22.394-05:00Being slightly on the cynical side, I must say, if...Being slightly on the cynical side, I must say, if I was running a private prison conglomerate, I sure would hope (and in the shadows promote) that my opponents would insist on calling my median projected customer an overtly PC "youth in peril" in their communications and see them butt heads with the gang in whose mind "thug" would be more appropriate word while alienating everyone in the middle, so that nothing ever would actually change and I'd continue to rake in profits while Cloot laughs.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-18466063082682604262017-08-12T09:41:46.736-05:002017-08-12T09:41:46.736-05:00And to emphasize, the power and peril of term usag...And to emphasize, the power and peril of term usage cuts both ways obviously, and it's also just as much aggravation when the other guys choose to speak as "job creators" of someone who after hefty tax cuts fail to actually create any jobs except maybe in offshore banking.<br /><br />It's obviously common courtesy to not use derogatory names, of which Austin gives an extreme example, but at *some point* it crosses over from common courtesy to more politically inclined terminology, and people may have different (politically informed) views on where exactly that point is. I would guess "person of color", or "POC", is at this point more politically correct term than a de facto generally accepted correct one.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-64820221570701323262017-08-12T06:17:22.357-05:002017-08-12T06:17:22.357-05:00Cloot makes a joke about political correctness bei...<i>Cloot makes a joke about political correctness being a demonic invention; I'd love to be able to put that under the "Grim 'n' Gritty 90s" heading, but America just elected a president in part because some white people are mad they can't use the N-word, so sadly, ragging on the notion that some names and terms are more racially or sexually loaded/inappropriate than others is still a thing today just as it was in the 90s.</i><br /><br />Because it's wholly appropriate to play devil's advocate here, (because of Cloot you know, and not anyone else): the election in question may have gone how it went also because of the term usage on various folks is, especially nowadays, such a pointed issue. When a person is factually in breach of what is the legally set law (so, 'illegal'), the relentless insistence by the proponents of more lenient policies on using a politically correct euphemism of that kind of persons is only going to serve to heat things up with the opponents of such policies to a breaking point.<br /><br />So good job, Cloot, I guess.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-67498647629794393742017-08-12T04:30:04.790-05:002017-08-12T04:30:04.790-05:00In DKR it's the distressing news from TV that ...In DKR it's the distressing news from TV that pushed middle-aged Bruce Wayne to re-assume the mantle of Batman. "The sign came to him -- as it does to so many -- on television", PAD tells us, when Charlie goes out to summon Cloot. It's hard to not think that mentions of Charlie knowing that the time has come and the first page "storm wouldn't be there for years" (to refer to the storm that coincides with Batman's return) also are somewhat subdued references to DKR.<br /><br />In Batman I believe it was a point of note that the mugger was a random representative of criminality, which superstitious, cowardly lot Bruce Wayne then chooses to fight. Here, the mugger is Random, a representative of mutantdom. If you think Random had no business showing up here, just remember it's a PAD book.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-51297124823477787722017-08-12T04:11:02.976-05:002017-08-12T04:11:02.976-05:00On the references side: Charlie gets the idea of b...On the references side: Charlie gets the idea of black magics in the hospital where some folks are trying to contact the spirit of Mary Jo Kopechne. She was a school teacher who died in a car accident in 1969 when US Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and then failed to report the incident. Kennedy's connections to the mighty & influential are thought to have helped him to evade the legal consequences, and Charlie here upon seeing Carosella in his official state X-Factor outfit may have thought that so has happened with Carosella and the X-Factor.<br /><br />It's probably coincidental, but beyond the usual "you can always tell where they have been" wreckage, Guido's studio partner Polaris has specifically been seen leading a mutant terrorist attack on a San Francisco hospital and around the city, is probably somewhat recognizable with her green-haired mutant mistress of magnetism thing, and has not gone through a trial or (I believe) any on-panel exculpation for it.Teemunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-6815304905185510932017-08-12T00:59:03.698-05:002017-08-12T00:59:03.698-05:00"Evil Val seems far too pleased with receivin..."Evil Val seems far too pleased with receiving an info dump of character backgrounds and stories she should already be familiar with (and peripherally participated in). Maybe David was originally going for a switcheroo and this isn't meant to be our Val at all?"<br /><br />David didn't write that one.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13298753675007196538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-60462231473332994072017-08-12T00:57:40.498-05:002017-08-12T00:57:40.498-05:00" though it's unclear if that was based o..." though it's unclear if that was based off whatever he was planning here, or just a coincidence of a writer returning to an underdeveloped but still intriguing idea twenty years later."<br /><br />***Definitely no coincidence. 'The "Hell on Earth" War' was a story PAD was teasing with some regularity in the Hulk series. It was a slow burn (so to speak), but the Hell motif recurred three times in Hulk (and then once in this annual), and it was clearly all tied to the same intended payoff. The final bit before PAD's first Hulk ended was an alternate-future Rick Jones in Hulk #467 (published in 1998, PAD's last issue of Hulk for a long time) referring to the event by name for the first time.<br /><br />I stopped following PAD after that, so I don't know if he teased it anymore before at last paying it off when he returned to X-Factor so many years later, but it was definitely no coincidence. Just a very very prolonged final payoff. Personally I was disappointed to learn that when he finally did it, he made it an X-Factor story rather than a Hulk story. Ah well.<br /><br />"Rahne is seen reading a book called Howling Mad (which she says should be turned into a movie); it is a book written by Peter David, published in 1989."<br /><br />*** And it's about a werewolf, hence Rahne's enjoyment. (Also I believe it had been optioned around this time, but then went nowhere, so there's probably a bit of ruefulness in PAD's joke here. Or maybe just good-natured making fun of himself.)<br /><br />Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13298753675007196538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-63696260957105382012017-08-11T16:13:40.945-05:002017-08-11T16:13:40.945-05:00He's not Satan, he just shares some qualities ...He's not Satan, he just shares some qualities with him; Satanesque or Satanish, if you will.<br />-PushpawAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-70095800728821903462017-08-11T15:50:25.346-05:002017-08-11T15:50:25.346-05:00My response to this being the place where the Chal...My response to this being the place where the Chalker thing paid off was disappointment, mainly because I didn't want it to have a pay off! <br /><br />My hope with the Chalkers thing was that PAD was poking fun at the long stewing subplots of the Claremont era, and that the Chalkers would be like that: a long stewing subplot that simply never resolved as a commentary on Claremont's dropped plots. <br /><br />I suspect I'm the only one who thought that, mind you.Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00605826105741513741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-29256179736433134622017-08-11T14:09:58.390-05:002017-08-11T14:09:58.390-05:00Ooof, yeah. You really have to question if this is...Ooof, yeah. You really have to question if this is the direction PAD was heading for the long-awaited Chalker payoff. The whole thing comes off as morbidly funny/borderline mean-spirited. That was probably always going to be the case, Charon or no, so it's hard to imagine any version of this story being worth the time and panels invested in the Chalkers.<br /><br />Personal example of giving the continuity more credit than it deserves: I recognized the killer as Random and assumed that must fit with his M.O., not realizing he'd just been introduced as a character. Furthermore, this must be some vitally important revelation about his backstory!<br /><br />Agreed on the demonic elements really being at odds with the premise and tone of this book. And yet, it is is a theme PAD seems fond of revisiting.<br /><br />That gag of Jamie's powers manifesting at birth stuck with me for years. I can't remember if it was officially confirmed by the much later story casting Jamie as a something-other-than-mutant, but I like to think it's legit.<br /><br />Evil Val seems far too pleased with receiving an info dump of character backgrounds and stories she should already be familiar with (and peripherally participated in). Maybe David was originally going for a switcheroo and this isn't meant to be our Val at all?cyke68https://www.blogger.com/profile/16863809928504935104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7266470995513648978.post-73898906492997829732017-08-11T12:28:19.998-05:002017-08-11T12:28:19.998-05:00Charon ultimately comes out pretty generically, wi...<i>Charon ultimately comes out pretty generically, with his hatred of mutants motivated by a twisted take on Batman's origin being the most interesting thing about him</i><br /><br />Nothing could be more interesting because <i>the Batman origin twist is awesome</i>.<br /><br />They at Marvel obviously took the emergence of BATMAN (1989) bad-ly, and it's beautiful show of impotent rage that the Batman film referred in the book at this era would have been the Adam West one with whole different approach to the character, and at the same time it is absolutely beautiful snide reference to that THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS book which was kind of big deal when coming to the early 90's and which also was the Batman story that introduced to Batman's origin the bit that the film the Wayne's were coming from would have been THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940).Teemunoreply@blogger.com