COMICS: More 8/25/04

Astonishing X-Men: So Colossus is back. Prompting me to ask the question: he was gone? Seriously, he's been dead? Okay, if you say so.

I'm joking, a little. Don't post a comment telling me when and how Colossus died; I've gleaned as much as I want to know from other blog entries about this issue. But before this week, I honestly did not know he was supposedly dead. Nor would I have cared. I'm not an X-fan by any stretch; I only pick up the books when I'm interested in the writers, such as Whedon, Grant Morrison, or Peter David. This issue highlights why it's so hard for me to care about the X-characters even when good writers are in charge: there's just so... much... crap. All the titles, all the characters, all the stupid, stupid, sub-soap opera quality plots. I'd much prefer a writer to do something new with these damn mutants, rather than resurrecting the dead, or rehashing ancient stories. Even Morrison did it. Jean Grey is the Phoenix again? You know what? FUCK the Phoenix! Jesus Christ! Trying to write a new and interesting Phoenix storyline is like trying to come up with a new and funny chicken-crossing-the-road joke. It can be done, I suppose, theoretically -- but why? Move on, people, move on.

I probably should stop buying this book.

We3: Speaking of Morrison... This book swept me up in a way Morrison's Seaguy totally failed to do. Maybe because it's not quite so relentlessly, mind-scramblingly weird for the sake of being weird. I mean, it's weird, don't get me wrong. But the art by Quitely, gorgeous as always, helped me ease into the story in a way Seaguy's artwork did not, and, though the story is weird, there actually is a story. And it's somewhat coherent!

I don't mean to rip on Morrison so harshly. I like almost everything he's written. I appreciate a comic which is challenging; I don't much care for a comic which I feel is mocking me for not getting it, like I felt Morrison was doing with Seaguy. I look forward to the next issue.

Amazing Spider-Man: I hope Flash Thompson is the father. Does Flash Thompson even still exist in the Spidey universe?

Street Angel: I finally got a back copy of the first issue, and while it wasn't as wildly, inventively, hilariously over-the-top as the second issue, I still enjoyed it a great deal. One of my favorite new comics. Which means it probably won't make it to issue four.

Runaways: I enjoyed the first TPB so much, I went and got the next four-part storyline out of the back issue boxes. I could've waited for another TPB. It was a decent story, kind of fun, but in the end it didn't go much of anywhere, and being broken up into four parts didn't help. The second arc is pretty early for what's basically a placeholder storyline. But hell, now I'm so close to the current issue, I might as well keep on buying the back issues, right? (This is why I'm always broke.)