Nightscrawlers

I think the callbacks are more of a reload thing, since it's sort of a starting over point what with the new writer and all, and paying homage to old stuff and giving a nod to the old fans, as well as sort of summarizing what this new version of the book's going to be about. Hence why I forgive lack of coherent storyline until about halfway through the arc. I'm just waiting until the next arc to see how this new run pans out.

:mags
Well... the fury hasn't been used for a while..right? In comics... the economic reality is that you HAVE to feature a character prominently in an issue every so often to retain trademark, registration and copyright rights. the character must be shown... it's defining look or visuals... it's logos , powers and name featured as a major factor in at least one publication! It is a fact of trademarking and such.
Now, if the character was up for either trademark or registration or copyright renewal... not having been used for the prescribed amount of time...and you want to KEEP the trademarks, powers, logos, appearance, general discription, etc, dt,... you HAVE to use it in print! ... or you lose it. It is up for grabs by someone else. that's the rule!

So some characters ... like the Fury... who haven't been used for years, if not decades, are probably up for renewal. For all we know, the image inducer and it's functions are in the same bucket. So, it is not just a tip of the hat to the past... but an economic/copyright thing that must be addressed. This is why you see, every once in a while, a character that seems outta left field. It is the company renewing it's rights to this character and his concepts. Now they can go another fifteen years or nineteen...I forget... it's some number like that... without using it again, but still retain the printing rights to the character. If any artist or writer wants to use it in the interim, of course, then it updates the trademarks, etc, to THAT date. You only have soo long between appearances to NOT use a character before you lose it.

LOL ... and EVERY writer has his or her quirks of writing. Every artist has their quirks of drawing or inking or coloring. It is part of their subconscious... and finds it's way into their writing or art style... sometimes even defining it to some degree. Artists have favorite shortcuts and sometimes regular mistakes. Gene Colan had a problem with the size of his character's feet... Dave often has a problem with the size of hands. Sal Buscema had a definative "mouth" that he used as an artistic shortcut and was so distinctive...even after a couple of decades... that you could identify his art by it!!! Gil Kane had this "nose"thing...and Kane afficinadoes will know what I mean...LOL... Jim Lee makes his men humongously beefy and his women with impossibly flexible spines...LOL... which other artists find sexy and over do the back porch look into contortions that are not only impossible but ludicrous. Writers have the same things they do over and over... catch phrases they use and reuse. They are like artistic glitches. ..or even signatures! Every writer has themn. Writers, contrary to the expectations of some fans, are not godlike. They are human.
When Dave was writing the Futurians, a very canny editor, Al Milgrom, was editing that graphic novel. All very wisely pointed out to Dave that all his characters spoke the same! The same wisecracking, flippant way that Blackmane... Dave's alter ego in that group... spoke. hDave, who is a storyteller par excellance, wasn't even aware of it! But Al was right. so Dave, with a wiser approach, redid some of his dialogue to give the different characters a different 'voice". It was just a little observation by a very astute editor. But it made Dave take notice of a quirk in his style. He corrected it and each of the futurians gained his or her own voice.

but when you are writing or drawing you DO fall into little glitches, trademark styles or trademark sayings or phrases. It's human nature....it's part of you and your style. Not something to nitpick about... everyone has their stylistic glitches.

I, for one, loved the callbacks. They are "in things" to the older fans, who will remember them fondly and smile. Newer readers haven't seen the whimsy... so why not? A little whimsy never hurt anyyone... and after such heavy themes the last couple of years in the X books, a little whimsy and nostalgia is a welcome break from sex, violence and horror.
Comics are supposed to be fun... escapist literature. Sure, they can be written as high drama and even tragedy. But they should contain elements of comedy and melodrama and even farce...if they are good. And, while comedy isn't Claremont's strong point, the rest share the stage in great diversity in his writing. and once in a while nostalgia and whimsy creep in.
I loved it! and yes, Alan Davis likes Nighty and does him just about the best, short of Dave himself!
Paty
:mags

LOL! I know what you mean. Writers and artists develop a style or flavour and some of them are so distinctive that you only have to see that one signiture give away to know that it's thier work. Claremont has a great sense of humour, that most people seem to miss, but comedy in a comic book is really hard to pull off without it becoming over the top or camp to the nines. I LOVED how Nighty used his tail and the terrain , as well as his powers against Sage. Forgive me for being a diehard Claremontier, but I am so happy to have him writing my fave blue guy again. I'm dismayed that my rotten health didn't let me make this con season, I was looking forward to running CC down and thanking him profusely for writing such great stories

I AM looking forward to seeing how Sage exacts her revenge on Fury...and will Kurt ever learn to trust her? PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE Marvel, let Chris keep writing

Originally posted by Paty
:mags
Well... the fury hasn't been used for a while..right? In comics... the economic reality is that you HAVE to feature a character prominently in an issue every so often to retain trademark, registration and copyright rights. the character must be shown... it's defining look or visuals... it's logos , powers and name featured as a major factor in at least one publication! It is a fact of trademarking and such.
Now, if the character was up for either trademark or registration or copyright renewal... not having been used for the prescribed amount of time...and you want to KEEP the trademarks, powers, logos, appearance, general discription, etc, dt,... you HAVE to use it in print! ... or you lose it. It is up for grabs by someone else. that's the rule!

But from what I understand, they DIDN'T keep the powers intact, or even close. Not that fanboys arguing back history would stand up in court, I suppose. Taking it that way, though, who would ever want to use The Fury? Easy enough to create a similar character, if you really need one.

:mags
Maybe Alan Davis just wanted to use his character. Artists and writers DO that, ya know.
Corporate Marvel wouldn't necessarily know all the ins and outs of the character. they have people keeping tabs on the copyrights and trademarks who will send word down to editorial to use this or that character to renew copyrights and trademarks. they don't know or care about the character... they just know the trademarks are up for renewal. and once Marvel gloms onto a trademark name, image or character... it doesn't matter if it is the dorkiest character in the world. It is THEIRS!
The Fury is a rather cool name. I am not sure it fits this particular dodo...but it's not my call. Marvel would want to keep the trademarked name, if nothing else. And you can change the powers and characterizations of the characters... it just expands their general discription.
As Jean Grey became Phoenix, it is very possible that the powers, colstmes and logos were merely added to the Jean Grey, Marvel Girl, trademark file. or possibly not.... they may have created a new file and added the jean Grey stuff to it. Rachel is now calling herself Marvel Girl. so some changes will have to be updated in the files on Rachel and jean. But Marvel still controls the trademarks to those names...even if the character changes...you see? Characters change costumes all the time and when they do, Marvel trademarks every one of them. They probably had kinniptions when Kitty Pryde was playing with the shi'ar costume machine...cuz every one of those costumes went into the file. I remember having to send them to the trademark people...cuz they might wanna use them in the future. LOL Actually, they may have let those lapse, but maybe not...if they are in the file and the character is used on a consistant basis, then the character's file and all it's likenesses and logos are constantly updated. So Shadowcat...in all her incarnations... is current with trademarks...no matter what she wants to wear or call herself...if it is in the file, it is protected by trademark, registered trademark or copyright. Trademark is the least of the protections and is the little tm you see everywhere. Registered trademarks provide a much higher legal protection but cost more to maintain..you do it on your more valued properties and logos. It is the R in a circle.
Copyrights are the most protection and usually run a line of copy with date and who is copyrighting the image, logo or text. It will look like this: Copyright by Marvel Entertainment Inc. C...in a circle... 2004. ... or shorthand C...in a circle... 2004 by MEI. The copyright line for a story and everything in the story is in the indicia... that block of type that gives office of publication info in every book...somewhere. It used to be on the first page... or thesplash if it was a double sized splash on page two and three. it is usually found on the page that has the writing and art and editorial credits...You will see tm s and Rs everywhere on logos and images... like on t shirts and beach towls and such...
the damn things are all over the place! It got so tedious putting those things on everything that I did a satirical piece for the Comic Reader many years ago. I called it The Vision of Lovliness tm. It was a female version of the Vision and pointed out all the stupidities of female costuming...trademarking and copyrighting everything! It was a piece of absurdity... and I got called upstairs and reamed out for it...untill I yelled at the President "IT'S A JOKE, STUPID!!!" "If we don't have a sense of humor about ourselves we aren't gonna last long!" They looked dumfounded and told me to go away and not to do it again. I told them I would do it any goddamn time I pleased...that was what freedom of speech was about. Did they want to take me to court and explain their denying me my constitutional rights? I was up for it! They would pay me a LOT of money and look stupid into the bargain! Cuz I would sue their asses off! Try me! I hadn't hurt Marvel... I had made people out there smile at a staff person having a sense of humor and irony.
I am not sure they believed me... but they didn't fire me...sooooo...LOL If I can find it, I shall scan it send it to dave and he can post it to Nightscrawlers.
I have the feeling that marvel has become so uptight and hidebound that something like that... innocuous fun... would get me definately fired in today's market. But back then we had a sense of proportion... and whimsy.

Paty
:mags

I saw the Chronicles of Riddick once, and those unsubtle lable names from that movie just stick in my head. Whenever I hear "The Fury" I think of Vin Diesel (his character is a Furian- get it?! CREATIVE!). The Fury doesn't hold much fear for me. I just keep thinking that under all that outfit, it's just Vin Diesel under there. Throwing off awkward one-liners. Yelling at Bishop that he "lives for this shit".

:mags
Haw...haw...haw...
I am not a big Vin diesel fan...but I can imagine. No ever said that Marvel ...or any other comic book company... HAD to do good stuff with a great name! The Fury conjures up in my mind a whole lot more interesting visuals and powers than this yoyo manifests...but it is still possibly a matter of copyright and trademark protection... something Marvel is BIGGGGG on...LOL Storyetlling and character deliniation or desecration don't seem tomatter... just maintain those copyrights at all costs! They don't seem to realize sometimes, that if they allow any tom dick or grant to murderize their characters, they aren't gonna be worth copyrighting.

Paty
:mags

Anyone see the October solicits? Looks like X-23 is going to appear in Uncanny.

Originally posted by Nightcrawler ZERO
Anyone see the October solicits? Looks like X-23 is going to appear in Uncanny.

Yeah...the Marvel Previews pretty much confirms it...

Well UMX #447 has been out a whole week and no one has said much about it yet. I'm curious to see what everyone's opinion was.

I really liked CC and AD's first return story arc. The questions about how the X-Men could defeat something as invincible as the Fury were answered in what I considered to be a plausible manner (for a comic book lol) [spoiler] They didn’t need to destroy Fury to defeat it. In this case, imprisoning it solves the problem and also allows for the character’s reuse sometime in the future. I loved the teamwork, it’s what makes the X-Men formidable. They are more than the sum of their individual talents, something that Claremont was always good at portraying. Although, what Brian's brother ( I think his name is Jamie) was doing in the middle of the whole thing I can't even venture a guess at. I also liked Wolverine taking Rachel under his wing (shades of Kitty and Jubilee) [/spoiler]

I cannot wait, personally, for the return of Jamie Braddock to the scene and for the guest appearances of Brian and Meggan:meggan:

I just got around to reading 447 today and I have to say I didn't enjoy it very much. I was going to jump off this title with reload 'cause neither Claremont or Davis excited me that much but I thought I should give two such industry legends a chance to wow me. They didn't, I'm gone.

There wasn't much that was very wrong with the last four issues but also I didn't feel like there was anything amazing either. Each issue felt like a 5 or 6 out of 10 to me.

Alan Davis' art was serviceable, it conveyed the story ok and the characters looked pretty good but there feels like something is missing. It's not like I don't enjoy the style, I like artists that have obviously followed in Davis' footsteps like Bryan Hitch and Trevor Hairsine but I think they're doing it better than Davis right now and they have an energy to their work that Davis doesn't.

As for the writing, I don't feel like the Fury was very well explained nor did it come off as particularly frightening. However, perhaps the internet is to blame for this. I read a bunch of stuff on the 'net about Alan Moores work on the character and about how terrifying and unstoppable it was, so I was expecting something major. But it ended up feeling like a pretty typically, boring superhero battle. Admittedly, parts of the battle had that excellent trademark Claremont teamwork where the team members powers mesh perfectly and they come at the enemy in glorious waves of destruction and you're reminded of how cool it would be to have those powers and be a part of that team.

Unfortunately I'm too cynical (I prefer realistic, but most people seem to not agree with that assessment ) to go in for all this care bear power-up, love and family will conquer all cr...err...stuff. It just seems way to saccharine and unbelievable, parts of it felt way too much like an after-school special. Then there is Sage, who is an interesting character that I would like to learn more about but I wish Claremont would stop trying to shove her down the readers throats. I think it's like he is trying very hard to make her into an instant legend (just as important, powerful, and popular as the other X-Men) and it feels extremely forced and unnatural. I get it she's super duper but couldn't we come to that conclusion on our own without having to be told by the author.

Anyway, this is were I jump off, hope the rest of you continue to enjoy this book and that Claremont’s other two books continue to be as entertaining (X-Men: The end and Excalibur are very good) as they have been so far.

Originally posted by Jeremys Iron
As for the writing, I don't feel like the Fury was very well explained nor did it come off as particularly frightening. However, perhaps the internet is to blame for this.

I think Claremont is to blame for it. If you don't know anything about the Fury, the arc is confusing - it's not clear who and what the villain is, or why he's after our heroes. Moore's Captain Britain stories have been collected in a TPB which is well worth reading.

I loved Davis's art on Excalibur. He did the Captain Britain stories with Moore - it's some of his earlier work, but it's already distinctive and, you called it, energetic.

Part of the satisfaction of the original Fury story was that the way in which he was defeated was tied up with how the Fury came to be, and what he'd done since then. This Fury shows up and starts fighting for no particular reason, and then we get the tiredest comics plot of them all: heroes attack villain one at a time and fail; heroes work as a team and succeed.

I don't expect or want Claremont to do a cover version of the Moore story, but I also expected more than this. More motivation, more interest, more fun.

spoilerific post about


[spoiler]Jaimie Braddock. When he appeared, I thought that it would mean that the X-men were not really fighting the Fury so much as they were in one of Jaimie's manipulative dreamscapes/make-believe games. The rest of the issue didn't go that way, though, but it was the first thing i thought of. It's good to see him again, looking just as scarily demented as always. (there's something about the way he holds his head...)[/spoiler]

Originally posted by scheherazade
spoilerific post about


[spoiler]Jaimie Braddock. When he appeared, I thought that it would mean that the X-men were not really fighting the Fury so much as they were in one of Jaimie's manipulative dreamscapes/make-believe games. The rest of the issue didn't go that way, though, but it was the first thing i thought of. It's good to see him again, looking just as scarily demented as always. (there's something about the way he holds his head...)[/spoiler]

I haven't seen the book yet but I've read about it on this and other boards...and that's exactly what I thought too...I'm sure that particular person's a little ticked at the former Excalibur members...[spoiler]now Jamie can go for the vengence thing and Claremont can bring back Betsy (like he's been promising/threatenong) to take him out again...[/spoiler]

I'm of two minds about this episode.....

First of all, I will always stand in awe of Davis' artwork. I like his style that much. It's always good to see his stuff, and it can make even a truly shitty piece of plot look more halfway acceptable. Not that I think this is a truly shitty piece of plot, but I do follow the general consensus that this wasn't the best ever done.

[spoiler]One big long battle sequence, with only a couple "breather" pages: that's what this was. It was impressive, and the concept of creating an "earth-based singularity" was... unique, to say the least. Considering all the build-up we've had for the past three episodes, I was willing to accept one long battle sequence as a comic.

In fact, one the most "forced" things for me was that short bit of character development on the plane with Logan and Rachel. The dialogue made me cock my head with confusion. I understand that we have to explain that all over again for new readers, but "gem Jean's" long-winded exposition wasn't the problem here. The problem is that Rachel knows *exactly* what the crystal is, and whose soul is in it. Why is she asking "Mom?" as if she's suddenly surprised that this is happening at all? That little one-word statement makes it sound like she was blindsided by the very idea of having a "talking gem". There are much better ways of saying she's surprised that the gem has spontaneously activated, but not surprised at its contents. A little thing, I know, but it was enough of a dissonance that my belief suspension faltered.

And Logan's speech... um... okay, that one was real forced to me. I have no idea why it just came out of him like that. I could see it coming out of Kurt, maybe, but not out of Logan. Jeremy mentioned the word "saccharine", and that just about explains how that moment felt to me. Saccharine, forced, and a victim of inexplicable timing. Logan is going off to battle, he knows he may or may not get back, and he does this every damn week, if not every day. It's a routine for him. Why the "be all you can be" speech, as if he's suddenly afraid he won't return and tell her all about it?

As an aside, my, how Rachel's character has evolved since we first saw her in the 80s! Our first view of her in Days of Future Past was all right, if abbreviated: she only got so much development, considering all the carnage around her. But when they brought her into the Xmen full time a few years later, she was trembling, whiny, and emotionally unstable to the point of being an uber-powerful, unsympathetic, tragic past, "Mary-Sue-ish" twit. With her reappearance in Excalibur, running from Mojo's WarWolves, she matured into that complex, tough character we knew she had to be to survive her life after being a hound. Thankfully, Davis is continuing with that vision of her.

I agree with Bunny on the whole "Fury Fight" thing. A war machine shows up, starts battling for no apparent reason, and gets taken down by intricate teamwork. That's fine for the lead point of a long story arc, when you intend to slowly ramp up the power, the backstory, and tension as the plot thickens. But this "lead point" seems to be on the same power scale as Galactus, which means there's no place to go but down. And this "lead point" already has an established, complex backstory, which we aren't privy to if we didn't read the previous series. (And I didn't.) Everything else seems anticlimactic, and this climax wasn't all that fulfilling, either. It was a great battle sequence, but because of these things, it left me unsatisfied. (Okay, make with the sex jokes. You know you wanna.....) [/spoiler]

Speaking of A. Davis...
have you guys seen the piece from 450 that they showed in Chicago?

AWESOME!
Kurt, doing what he does best...
http://www.newsarama.com/WW_Chicago_04/ ... XM4502.jpg

OH MY GOD YES!!!:love I LOVE THAT!!!!:love

Totally AWSOME!!!!!

*swoons dead away*


Edited to add:

OMG, I only just realized that this is not a Davis sketch of Kurt from Excalibur #16.

It's from an upcoming issue. Swashbuckling Kurt is back with a vengeance!!

*dances madly around the room before passing out*

The whole next issue, #448, is available online here...http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/ ... /index.htm

All I could think was..."You gotta be kidding me? AGAIN!?"

My cliche sense is tingling. *ducks* "If only it were that easy!" Whoa, that one almost got me!

Why is Brian being written like such a pretentious turd? I mean, I know he's never been much of a charmer but he's just acting so formal and... wrong. Has he always been like that? He seems wrong. Maybe this is what he's like when he's not wasted.

"I'll die now please." "Certainly." Ouch!! Right in the eye! Even worse, it's obvious the entire reason she [spoiler]fell down the stairs[/spoiler] was to let Claremont use that immensely clever line.

re: page 10 Thanks for the explanation. I've always wondered about that, and missed all previous explanations.

I can't go on. I already know what's doing to happen: [spoiler]The X-Men are going to use teamwork to win![/spoiler]

Originally posted by Entropy
Speaking of A. Davis...
have you guys seen the piece from 450 that they showed in Chicago?

AWESOME!
Kurt, doing what he does best...
http://www.newsarama.com/WW_Chicago_04/ ... XM4502.jpg

You can check out the full two page sketch of #450 at Darick Robertsons site.

Originally posted by CurlyyHairGirl
You can check out the full two page sketch of #450 at Darick Robertsons site.

Or you can check out a four page, full-colour preview at PopCultureShock...

Though...the final panel on page four's a bit of a surprise...I can see what they were talking about in the letters page about a complicated love-life...

Finally picked this issue up. Not happy.

[spoiler] Half the problem is the cognative dissonance/continuity hiccup in the first page. We left with the house in shambles, and suddenly it's back again. Which would be okay if the Xmen... idunno... left for coffee and came back after a minute or two. As is, it seems they were just standing there, the world shifted wildly around them, the house suddenly was rebuilt from scratch, and Meggan and Brian teleported in on the front steps.

Having Jamie there looks like a cop-out for shoddy writing. "Hey, we don't have to worry about continuity, because it's Jamie's reality warping! Yeah! That's it!" And the last time I looked, Jamie couldn't affect someone's mind, so why is everyone so willing to believe what's in front of their eyes when they've been hit with illusions enough time to make them doubt everything about this set-up? I guess this is why they edited Logan out of the scene: he'd be able to smell a set-up instantly and recognize Viper's scent. Why is it only Rachel who's even slightly suspicious? Did everyone's innate common sense just suddenly get drained away from them?

I'm detecting a "filler" episode..... [/spoiler]

Murderworld. *sigh* Nandi, I'm with you 100%. AGAIN?

The only time I ever liked Murderworld was when Davis did it in eeeeearly Excalibur, and that's because he did it for yucks as much as anything else. I find that I have to suspend my disbelief for Murderworld so much that it's not fun in anything but a surreal Monty Python-esque sketch.

I mean, come on! How much money does it cost to run that frikkin' place? Maintenance? Power? Engineers who hapilly sign that "under pain of death" Non Disclosure Agreement? It takes the GNP of several countries to keep that thing going! I know that deathtraps are the stuff of life in comics, but Arcade's creation has always struck me as a Ruth-Goldberg plot device that no self respecting James Bond villian would touch with a ten foot pole. If you have the resources to keep that thing afloat, you can probably find much more efficient ways to kill of heroes. Biological weapons, nuclear weapons... [spoiler] Hell, those Goddamn nanites that Viper so offhandedly referred to could make the world into a living hell for everyone! Why is she wasting them in this way? I guess because it's in the script.... [/spoiler]

This amount of unreality makes tension difficult to maintain. Why should I care that much about the heroes? After all: if one of them seems to die, they'll probably turn out to be a robot. In fact, it's practically guaranteed.

As an aside, you have to wonder why bionic limbs are so relatively rare in a universe with Murderworld in it. With all these flawless androids running around, we should be able to equip every amputee with a full set of functional limbs, easy. In fact... why doesn't someone take that hypertechnological android breakthrough and start replacing world heads of state with them? Hackneyed as the idea may be, I find that story more intriguing than Murderworld itself....

For me, this run by the dream-team Claremont/Davis is just perfect !
It's a sequel to the first issues of Excalibur (around 1990), and a well done one.
Brian, Meggan, Jamie, Courtney Ross, Murderworld,...
All the things I liked 10 years ago are back with a vengeance, and I just love the soap touch -something Claremont lost years ago !
So yeah, Kurt falls for Storm or Rachel... Why not ?? If Cyke can be with Emma Frost, everything is possible !
Soap, soap !

Too bad Austen is leaving the X-mansion.
Between Uncanny, X-Men and Darick's Nightcrawler, I was quite happy this month !!
:):)