Stephanie Kay
Oct 13, 2007, 11:06 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/4images/details.php?image_id=10379"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/covers/marvel/ultxmen77t.jpg" hspace=10 align=left alt="Ultimate X-Men #77"></a>Reviewer: Andrew Jastrzembski, adjastrzem@msn.com
Story Title: Cable: Part 3
Just what the world needs. . . more Cable
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler: Yanick Paquette
Inker: Serge Lapointe
Colorist: Stephane Peru
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Production: Brad Johansen
Assistant Editors: John Barber
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
Okay, I get the idea of that Ultimate X-Men is about taking the classic 616 X-Men and doing a modern spin on them. They have made Colossus gay, Nightcrawler a creepy Christian conservative nutcase, Dazzler a punk just to name a few, but after the last few arcs, I am waiting for something a little more interesting to happen than Kitty getting down with Spiderman.
Then for the big 75th issue special, Marvel gives us Ultimate Cable and Bishop.
Of all the things to re-create in the 616 universe, Robert Kirkman goes for the time traveling characters of Cable and Bishop. Was the Ultimate version of Jubilee that repulsive of an idea? Granted, Kirkman spared everyone a headache by not involving the Summer/Grey family heritage into the Ultimate version of Cable, and thankfully, Cable and Bishop are from the same exact point in the future. This helps keep the Ultimate timeline somewhat clean, but Kirkman is still juggling knives. Time-hopping characters are probably one of the most dangerous, and inconsiderate, things for any writer to do to a serial comic book.
If previous time traveling stories in the 616 Universe have shown to us, it is that once a possible future is introduced, it becomes part of the “past.” Cable’s future is a prime example of this. The bleak future where Apocalypse ruled supreme, which was the time Cable grew up, became the de facto future for the X-men for years, and too many stories revolved around that future. The same argument can also be made for Bishop’s future. In team books such as Ultimate X-Men, there are a lot of different plot threads moving in and out of the book and the absolute last thing that is needed are alternate possible futures. Once storylines become non-linear, confusion is bound to follow. My only hope is that Kirkman does not plan on leaving any of these time travelers lingering around the Ultimate Universe. Again 616 Cable and Bishop have taught us that a time traveling character does have a shelf life. Once that shelf life has expired, the character lacks purpose in the overall continuity and becomes a problem for future writers who then have to think up a way to use them and make them interesting again. It is probably better to kill them off like they did with Nate Grey.
Now there are some decent moments in this issue. The battle scene introduced us to the Ultimate version of Domino, which doesn’t seem to be all that different from the 616 version so far, but it was fun to see her nevertheless. Plus there is some nice foreshadowing and explanation of little goblins that appear around Jean Grey. Maybe that storyline will actually come to fruitarian sometime in the future, but unfortunately these moments are completely overshadowed by the cringe-worthy cliffhanger. It has to the lowest moment of this series. The pages leading up to Professor X’s revelation, you think that he is concerned about all of his students. Nope, he is only concerned with Jean Grey because he loves her. We all know that the Prof has some feelings for her and told her a few issues ago but to make it an official plot device in the comic is just kind of creepy and sad.
The artwork didn’t help this issue either. Yanick Paquette’s work reminded me Stuart Immonen. If you flip through the issue to fast you miss a lot of the little details that Paquette inserts into each scene. The backgrounds are nicely detailed and even the characters bodies are well proportioned and detailed. The problem with Paquette work is his faces. The facial expressions don’t seem to fit the character’s emotions correctly or the face does not match the character. Cyclops looks like a middle age drunk and there are panels where Professor X looks constipated. Furthermore, a lot of the male characters don’t even have eyes. These issues were major distracters from the positive aspects of Paquette’s work.
Maybe I am being a little harsh here. I could live without time traveling stories. They have a tendency to muck up continuity, and even introducing both Ultimate Cable and Bishop is forgivable as long as they disappear at the end of this arc. The sin that is a little harder to forgive is Professor X professing his love for Jean. Hopefully it is dealt with swiftly and then swept under the rug.
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‘Buy this Ultimate X-Men online now from X-WORLD and save!’ ( http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=50&cat=ULTIMATE+X%2DMEN)
Story Title: Cable: Part 3
Just what the world needs. . . more Cable
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Penciler: Yanick Paquette
Inker: Serge Lapointe
Colorist: Stephane Peru
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Production: Brad Johansen
Assistant Editors: John Barber
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (www.marvel.com)
Okay, I get the idea of that Ultimate X-Men is about taking the classic 616 X-Men and doing a modern spin on them. They have made Colossus gay, Nightcrawler a creepy Christian conservative nutcase, Dazzler a punk just to name a few, but after the last few arcs, I am waiting for something a little more interesting to happen than Kitty getting down with Spiderman.
Then for the big 75th issue special, Marvel gives us Ultimate Cable and Bishop.
Of all the things to re-create in the 616 universe, Robert Kirkman goes for the time traveling characters of Cable and Bishop. Was the Ultimate version of Jubilee that repulsive of an idea? Granted, Kirkman spared everyone a headache by not involving the Summer/Grey family heritage into the Ultimate version of Cable, and thankfully, Cable and Bishop are from the same exact point in the future. This helps keep the Ultimate timeline somewhat clean, but Kirkman is still juggling knives. Time-hopping characters are probably one of the most dangerous, and inconsiderate, things for any writer to do to a serial comic book.
If previous time traveling stories in the 616 Universe have shown to us, it is that once a possible future is introduced, it becomes part of the “past.” Cable’s future is a prime example of this. The bleak future where Apocalypse ruled supreme, which was the time Cable grew up, became the de facto future for the X-men for years, and too many stories revolved around that future. The same argument can also be made for Bishop’s future. In team books such as Ultimate X-Men, there are a lot of different plot threads moving in and out of the book and the absolute last thing that is needed are alternate possible futures. Once storylines become non-linear, confusion is bound to follow. My only hope is that Kirkman does not plan on leaving any of these time travelers lingering around the Ultimate Universe. Again 616 Cable and Bishop have taught us that a time traveling character does have a shelf life. Once that shelf life has expired, the character lacks purpose in the overall continuity and becomes a problem for future writers who then have to think up a way to use them and make them interesting again. It is probably better to kill them off like they did with Nate Grey.
Now there are some decent moments in this issue. The battle scene introduced us to the Ultimate version of Domino, which doesn’t seem to be all that different from the 616 version so far, but it was fun to see her nevertheless. Plus there is some nice foreshadowing and explanation of little goblins that appear around Jean Grey. Maybe that storyline will actually come to fruitarian sometime in the future, but unfortunately these moments are completely overshadowed by the cringe-worthy cliffhanger. It has to the lowest moment of this series. The pages leading up to Professor X’s revelation, you think that he is concerned about all of his students. Nope, he is only concerned with Jean Grey because he loves her. We all know that the Prof has some feelings for her and told her a few issues ago but to make it an official plot device in the comic is just kind of creepy and sad.
The artwork didn’t help this issue either. Yanick Paquette’s work reminded me Stuart Immonen. If you flip through the issue to fast you miss a lot of the little details that Paquette inserts into each scene. The backgrounds are nicely detailed and even the characters bodies are well proportioned and detailed. The problem with Paquette work is his faces. The facial expressions don’t seem to fit the character’s emotions correctly or the face does not match the character. Cyclops looks like a middle age drunk and there are panels where Professor X looks constipated. Furthermore, a lot of the male characters don’t even have eyes. These issues were major distracters from the positive aspects of Paquette’s work.
Maybe I am being a little harsh here. I could live without time traveling stories. They have a tendency to muck up continuity, and even introducing both Ultimate Cable and Bishop is forgivable as long as they disappear at the end of this arc. The sin that is a little harder to forgive is Professor X professing his love for Jean. Hopefully it is dealt with swiftly and then swept under the rug.
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpghttp://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xfull.jpghttp://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xnone.jpghttp://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xnone.jpghttp://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/xnone.jpg
‘Buy this Ultimate X-Men online now from X-WORLD and save!’ ( http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=50&cat=ULTIMATE+X%2DMEN)