Anyway, on to the comic review - it's Pixie Strikes Back! part 1 of 4. It's written by Kathryn Immonen (who I've never heard of before), drawn by Sara Pichelli (again, never heard of), coloured by Christina Strain (third times the charm of not having heard of her), and lettered by Dave Sharpe (who I have heard of actually). So yeah...
The story itself is quite confusing, having lept into it half way through it seems. For some reason they're in a high school populated with demons (brilliantly hid I might add ) thinking their not mutants. I think... While Anole and Rockslide continue to antagonize each other and have all the fun and comedy while exploring the inner workings of the female bathrooms. I do like whenever they appear, because they just have a great dynamic, and actually can show off other points if Marvel ever bothered to (like, you know, how the X-Men are actually soldiers and Xavier has just been training them to fight with their powers, which is one of the major reasons I don't like the X-Men). Them and Pixie should be on all X-Teams :D
The third part of the story concerns Megan's mother, who is quite the irritating bitch. She immediately is hostile, and is just, well, to put it mildly: the Damian of the Marvel universe in an adult female body. And she gets violent to, so no defence from me about how she's just a concerned mother. The main story I just don't get at the moment, it'll be explained in latter issues, but right now it's just confusing. Which is a shame, I was looking forward to this one (can anyone guess why?)...
The artwork in this issue is good (quite reminiscent of Skottie Young, who you may or may not be aware that I think is brilliant), and I feel most of the time she gets Pixie dead-on (with none of this classic all women must have a clear outline of boobs at the minimum *cough* whoever drew her a while ago when she was older and taller than she should be), and the colour is mostly good. And they're quite cool casual clothes. Just one minor niggle - what happened to her blue undertop from page 4 onwards? And why does she have some white/blonde streaks in her hair - it does look quite good, but, not her. I was never a fan of having the black in there either, but I suppose it's some form of representation of her lost. You know, subtlety ;) But these are minor niggles...
Anywho, enough rambling from me I suppose. Just one last thing - why does every X-Uniform need yellow on it? And most having those stupid big boots and glove/gauntlet/bracer things... And the current female ones just look stupid as it is...
Oh, and just for the record - well done Marvel on spoiling the fatherhood of Pixie, among other things.
SPOILER
"You can’t pick your parents. And if you could, Pixie certainly wouldn’t have picked Mastermind, the man who turned Jean Grey into the Dark Phoenix. But right now, that’s the least of her problems. A giant demon named Saturnine has been using her Pixie dust to lull her fellow X-Men into submission and it’s worked. Now he’s one step away from all the power he needs to take control of the world. Can the fast-talking Welsh girl with wings possibly stop him?"
I'm meh to Mastermind, so I'm not particularly bothered, and it makes a form of sense regarding her powers. I just don't see why they had to do that. Couldn't she just have the trauma of having her soul partially gone (which I don't really like. It somewhat does symbolise the current age of comics. Nobody is innocent, nobody can ever not have turmoil, nobody can have a happy family. ARGH. Sometimes you just need characters like that without screwing over their entire life. Grumble grumble. I do wonder whose idea this was. I'm betting it was Joe Quasemodo. I know that's not his real name, but sometimes I find high up editors just so infuriating. Grumble grumble)
END SPOILERS
And because I feel like it, I'll also just make a few comments about some of the ads in this issue:
- Super Hero Squad - please, just go away. The Hulk doesn't drive, Iron Man doesn't a fire truck, why is Spider Man driving Optimus Prime? And that's just for starters. ARGH. I hit spinoff toys like this >:(
- X-Men Second Coming - well, Scott's obviously not gonna be the leader, cause he's just an arse who I don't like. Yep, that's my reasoning on that one. Never have liked him, never will. Magneto would be the really controversial choice, and so seems most likely, while Emma is the middle ground viewpoint I suppose, but she's been in the spotlight alot recently, so it would make sense either way for her to have more spotlight or less. But regardless, please, put some clothes on. ARGH
- Fall of the X-Men & Avengers - because we haven't seen the Hulk attack his team-mates before... Repeated plot x 100 = ARGH
- The C2E2 - I hate being in Britain sometimes. I'm missing Alex Ross, Greg Land and Skottie Young, among others. ARGH
- Guardians of the Galaxy - now this looks interesting. Cool pic, and it's written by Dan Abnett. But I won't pick it up, as I don't normally buy Marvel single issues.
Oh, and if anyone could provide me with a concise timeline of the Runaways, that would really help - I've been collecting the collecting editions in various formats, and have got volumes 1-9, and I've really enjoyed em, but there's things missing, like the death of Gert etc... Grumble grumble
So you picked up the Pixie mini, Nagash... Wow am I surprised! ;-) Just so ya know, Kathryn Immonen & Sara Pichelli were the last writer/artist to do the Runaways series. At least I'm positive Kathryn wrote it. I'm less sure about Sara, although I'm pretty sure. Marvel only gave them like 4 issues to save that series before they cancelled it... Grrrrr.
ReplyDeleteAh, I loved the Runaways series! I'd be happy to help, but I have the series in single issues, so I'm not exactly sure where Gert's death is in the trades, but in the singles, she buys it during the second series at around issue 17/18(during the parental guidence storyline). In case you don't know, the Runaways ran through three different series, the first ran about 18 issues, the second ran 30ish and the final one went a measly 14. Hope that helps a little, if not, let me know what else you're looking for, Nagash.
As for the spoilers you posted... Meh. I never cared for that character, and I have no idea why they'd saddle Pixie with such a loser for a father. He's already got like two of three other loser kids, I really don't know why they couldn't give Pixie a better father if they wanted to give her an established old man...
Yeah, go figure. What a real shocker ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, well I haven't got that far yet. Just started reading Terry Moores run (issues 1-6 done). And I see where I missed it. I managed to (somehow) skip a volume...
This one to be precise:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Runaways-Vol-Parental-Guidance-v/dp/0785119523
It's issues 13-18. Could you just double check for me that this isn't the one with Molly in the church with Cloak, and Dagger is in hospital. As the summary of this volume sounds a bit like that... Thanks
Yeah, it just seems so pointless - I mean, come on? And how come Pixie's mother is magic? Surely she would get trained by her and not Doctor Strange then. And why couldn't she do magic before? And why the smeg are her powers so radically different from her siblings?
Gah. It just raises more questions than it answers, they'll be answered unsatisfactorily, and stop doing a Bendis. Gah
Now I know how you feel about the Yost/Kyle X-Men run. Argh...
Ugh, I really didn't like Terry's run. Wait til you get up to the Rock Zombies stuff...
ReplyDeleteNah, the stuff with Cloak and Dagger was the second storyarc of the second series(I'm guessing issues #7-12ish), when the Runaways head to NYC.
I remember that synopsis(the one from the link)and just so you know, that has nothing to do with the main Parental Guidance storyline. I think that's the synopsis for issue #13, which was a solo Molly story. Issues 14-18 dealt with the eventual death of Gert in the Parental Guidance story. Wow, I still really remember my Runaways...
Ha! Yeah, there's nothing worse then when some writer takes one of your favorite characters and just turns them inside out for no adequate reason.
No, I wasn't particularly fond of the one I read. I wasn't that fond of Joss' run either TBH...
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't sound good from the synopsis anyway
Yeah, I just (somehow) managed to miss some issues. Go figure...
Well that's good, right? I mean, there weren't that many issues anyway, so not really that hard.
Cue yells of BENDISSSSSSSS up in the sky ;) or, in this case, IMMONENNNNNNNNN