Northstar in UXM #530

[suzene]

There are some unlettered preview pages for UXM #530 up in Kieron Gillen's X-Position interview. (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=29442)

Looks like Northstar and Dazzler are still doing the besties thing. It was cute at first, but could we please see these characters interact with other people now and again?

[MistressMerr]

I'll take it, if only because I love them both and judging by the way everyone else gets treated, the alternative is no panel time for either of them. :/ And ugh, more Land artwork.

[suzene]

I'll take it, if only because I love them both and judging by the way everyone else gets treated, the alternative is no panel time for either of them. :/ And ugh, more Land artwork.

True, and at least the pages seem to suggest that they're going to get to kick some butt again this issue.

[rplass]

HFS!!! is Collective Man using the Sinanju attack in that page? Awesome.

Sinanju is the fictional and highly spiritual fighting style from the Destroyer series (also a Marvel comic back in the day), and the way he's holding his forefinger and middle finger together into a point is the classic hand position for the Sinanju attack. Heh Awesome.

[suzene]

Lettered preview is up. (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=7046)

On the plus side, it does look like Northstar is going to get some spotlight this arc. On the downside, I kinda wanna smack Dazzer right now...that expression is just wrong for the moment.

[Phil]

There's another page with Northstar on that features him next to.... yet again.... Dazzler's butt.

[Le Messor]

Suzene - you describe Whilce Portacio's art for the last several issues. It got him (from me) the nickname 'Dr. Teeth'... but that preview doesn't look like his art.

Phil - that's the team-up! Northstar and... Dazzler's butt!

- Le Messor
"I am a giant ear, waiting for your songs of niceness."
~ Fran Katzenjammer

[cmdrkoenig67]

As Mistress Merr said above...This is (ugh) Greg Land's art. I sometimes wonder if the man can draw anything that doesn't look like it was traced, but I've seen some of his art that looked very different from this...More like freehand pin-up style illustration. It seems he can't do a regular series without tracing figures and faces.

Dana

[Ahab]

I mentioned this in another thread, but why do Northstar and Dazzler need

S

P

O

I

L

E

R





S

P

A

C

E


Storm to show up to help them be a better X-team? The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
It reminded me of how Lobdell used to write Alpha when they showed up in other X-books as guest appearances.

[Phil]

At least it's being done to Dazzler and not just Northstar.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I mentioned this in another thread, but why do Northstar and Dazzler need

S

P

O

I

L

E

R





S

P

A

C

E


Storm to show up to help them be a better X-team? The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
It reminded me of how Lobdell used to write Alpha when they showed up in other X-books as guest appearances.

Right...We all know Northstar can fly and possesses superhuman speed and a fair degree of durability, Dazzler can convert any sound into light energy (and even heat) allowing her to blind opponents or even focus the light into lasers that can cut the hell out of stuff. They both have had a fair amount of hand-to-hand combat training too...Do they not feel confident enough in their own abilities that they have to call Storm? I'm sure she'll be all take-chargey too when she shows up...Bossy B- Uh...Beauty queen....Yeah...I was going to say beauty queen...really.

Don't get me wrong...I really liked Storm (in the past), but since she's gotten married to T'Challa and become a queen...She seems to be entirely too full of herself in the recent appearances I've seen.

Dana

[suzene]

Dazzler and Northstar don't call Storm -- Angel decides that JP, Dazzler, him and Pixie will be the new X-Men for the duration, and Storm shows up at the end to sign on.

As for Greg Land's art, look at Anole in the preview and you'll see what happens when he's assigned a character that he can't trace from a still reference. Hideous. Call me bitter, but I think that his presence on a flagship book is an insult to artists who actually know how to reference properly.

[Le Messor]

It's been a long time, I think, since Marvel's flagship book has had their best creative teams.
Does that seem right to you?

- Le Messor
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."
~ Beatles

[MistressMerr]

It's been a long time, I think, since Marvel's flagship book has had their best creative teams.
Does that seem right to you?
Honestly, I don't even want the best anymore. At this point, mild competence would be a refreshing change of pace.

[Le Messor]

Honestly, I don't even want the best anymore. At this point, mild competence would be a refreshing change of pace.

Now, now, you can't be too demanding!

Honestly, though, and in their defence, I do believe the creative teams I've been seeing on UXM are mildly competent. They just all insist on making alienating choices - so much so, I suspect it's more executive meddling than artistic choice.

'cept the teeth thing.

- Le Messor
"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right: Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong."
~ Abraham Lincoln"

[MistressMerr]

Now, now, you can't be too demanding!

Honestly, though, and in their defence, I do believe the creative teams I've been seeing on UXM are mildly competent. They just all insist on making alienating choices - so much so, I suspect it's more executive meddling than artistic choice.

'cept the teeth thing.

Eeeeh, I see very, very few redeeming qualities in anything Fraction or Land have done on the title, I wouldn't apply the competence label to any part of their run. Whilce Portacio, on the other hand (Dr. Teeth as it were) is actually a really great artist, but he's had a lot of health problems that have affected the quality of his work, so while I really don't like his stuff on UXM, it's definitely not as grating as Land's traced porn stars or Fraction's ridiculous out-of-character dialogue. As for Fraction's new co-writer Gillen, I have liked the other stuff of his that I've read, so time will tell to see if the writing improves any.

[Le Messor]

Fraction has had some good ideas for stories. Whilce's work, for all his health problems (I didn't know about them, btw), has been decent - he knows what a human being looks like, unlike some comic artists I've never learned the name of. He has reasonably detailed and good backgrounds. The teeth thing is the only problem I have with it - unfortunately, it's a really big, distracting one. Characters who're supposed to be happy are creeping me out.
Land's habit is even creepier (that, I did know about).
The colourists have a lot of technique, and are good at special effects, but the dingy colours and lack of light and too much orange / earth tones make it next to impossible for me to engage emotionally with the comics.

Thing is, I don't know how much of Fraction's OOC dialogue, or the colouring (which has been across all comics for roughly ten? years) is the artists or the editors.

So I will call them all mildly competent.
The term there is 'damning with faint praise'. I'm not giving them more than that.

- Le Messor
"She told me you weren't fit to sleep with pigs, but I defended you. I told her you were fit to sleep with pigs."
~ old joke

[Phil]

I prefer Fraction's run to Claremont's recent, and Austen's....

[Le Messor]

Whilce Portacio's art for the last several issues. It got him (from me) the nickname 'Dr. Teeth'...

I've now read the issue, and I think I've been to harsh on Whilce Portacio. If changing the artist didn't get rid of the teeth problem (though it did lessen it a bit), I now have to believe it comes from Editorial.

- Le Messor
"I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no socks."

[Le Messor]

I mentioned this in another thread, but why do Northstar and Dazzler need

S

P

O

I

L

E

R





S

P

A

C

E


Storm to show up to help them be a better X-team? The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.

What really annoyed me about that is that they treated it like a shocking reveal.
Fresh from her latest appearance last issue, and the issue before that, and the one before that, it's...
...
STORM!

- Le Messor
"Calculon's back!"
~ Futurama character, five seconds after learning Calculon was gone.