Humberto RamosReviews

1224

967

Had no idea Incoming #1 had 80 freaking pages of story in it! Definitely made up for the "technically only 3 issues for $20" issue of this collection. Overall a good primer for Empyre, especially as I haven't followed much of anything outside of the X-books since Secret Wars. Though I'll admit I didn't read through all of the Handbook entries at the end....

This was fun! A new paradigm setup. Storm is a great leader. Team is great, though I could do without Old Man Logan, but such is life.

The saddest volume of Runaways. Why did Xavin have to do that? It's been years since I first read this and I still cry like a baby over Xavin's sacrifice. If I could have one consolidation from the new run of comics for Runaways it would be that Xavin somehow comes back to right wrongs and fix her marriage to Karolina.

Summer 2021 (July);

I totally spaced and meant to send these through in July. This was more of my Time!Displaced Baby Jean Read while I was waiting between my computer keyboard being out and the ownership of my new computer that I could actually type on. This collection of 4 was okay, but the Time!Displaced X-Men were more side pieces in my opinion in these than really the focus of them.

It’s been a while since I spent some time with the Runaways, so I felt a little lost at first. Once I got a ways in, I could follow OK, but I’m still going to have to go look up why a few characters are missing in this volume. And I could swear Chase already worked for that horrible radio guy in a different arc.
That aside, it was a fun to be back with the gang. I especially loved Molly and Clara’s scenes together and Clara’s rejection of “Tower of Flower” as her superhero name.
I wasn’t too thrilled with the artwork in the action scenes. It was really hard to sort out what was happening. The characters looked OK to me, I guess, but the boys’ pants looked really huge, like bizarrely huge. I don’t know what was up with that, but I’m old, so maybe it is not for me to know.
I’m looking forward to checking out the Rainbow Rowell books in the series.

UPDATE: I think I solved the mystery of my confusion about Chase—I’ve read this before, and probably vols. 10 and 11 too, and just never logged them them on Goodreads.
Never mind, world.

First Spiderman I've liked in a while. Probably since Civil War.

Couple of my favorite artists on these (Bachalo, Ramos, Silvestri), some great covers. I don't have all of them, I'd love to have the set, but I think one is a key that I'm not going to want to pay for, so have to get lucky and find it in a $1 bin.

This was so cool that I didn't even get upset about the time travel (they avoided paradoxes as far as I could tell). Also I haven't read a lot of Cable comics so I found out that Scott Summers is actually his dad (not sure how his mom is). Loved that the different X-teams were all involved in this event and I liked the interactions between Scott and Xavier.

I only gave it the 4th star based on the final chapter, it looked like it was going in a very stupid direction but turned out it was just messing with the reader.
Mutants have always represented some minority and in this there's some comparison of mutants with refugees, nice that they're keeping up with the times.

Some of the art is a little iffy for me, not a fan of Storm's low hanging trousers. I don't mind her showing some flesh but she doesn't visually project the kind of gravitas and power that she shows in her dialogue and actions.

Wolverine is also in this which i'm naturally biased against, he's so ubiquitous. The version here, 'Old Man Logan' is fairly tolerable though.

Pretty decent as an opening gambit.

CONTEXT EDIT: The only X-Men comics i've read previously are the Essential series of reprints, so everything up until the early nineties.

Finally, a book with some levity and moral compass. Sad that this or more humor driven books (Squirrel Girl, Hellcat) are the only ones that remember comics ought to be fun.

The first chunk of the book reprints Incoming #1, which is a murder mystery round-robin story told in 4-page segments by dozens of writers and artists. A dead body turns up and the story thread jumps through the perspectives of various Marvel superheroes as they tag team and segue around the 616 to figure out whodunnit and whydunnit. Ho-hum overall, but there is a big callback for very minor characters recognizable to longtime Marvel fans.

The next chunk is a sequel to Meet the Skrulls that has some beautiful art by Mattia De Iulis and a script that might be good if it were allowed to focus on the family and let them do anything other than brood, but mostly is given the duty of providing a recap for the long-running conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls.

The final chunk is an Empyre Handbook that has tiresome and repetitive summaries of all the stories from the many Marvel titles that lead up to Empyre and profiles of some of the major and minor characters who will probably play a role. A real chore to read, the dry and removed narration just highlights how ridiculous comic book writing in shared universes can be. What seems fine in the moment with splash pages and four-colors becomes ludicrous when given a history textbook treatment.

This does not excite me about Empyre, but I'm still going to read it anyway.

I thought it was good story, but not great. Lot of different characters, which means it is difficult to establish much depth.

That was terrible. The art was hideous, the writing atrocious, and there is a certain obnoxious blonde male whose current presence in the group frustrates me beyond all coherent thought. Even the ending, sentimental and 'sweet' as it was, left me cold after a while. Bleh. Let us not speak of this book again, and pray that the next one doesn't suck as much.

Admit it, you're only reading this for Bobby.

Apart from the Iceman appreciation (and I loved his chat with Anole btw) and 'farmer/lumberjack' Piotr (who I adored), there were some things that annoyed me.
Is Storm hallucinating Prof X?
Is it just me or is young Jean and Old Man Logan's relationship creepy in a pervy kind of way?
WTF happened to Scott? (Old Scott, that is. Young Scott has been kidnapped by Toad and is bloody and beaten). What did he do? How did he die? Why was this all off page?

I wouldn't call Messiah Complex the best X-Men related storyline. Some of these characters are pretty far from my favorite X-Men related characters. Some of the relationships, motivations, and even art art fall short of my favorite examples of such things in X-Men related stories of the past. Some of the art was even semi-incomprehensible, in terms of figuring out what's supposed to be happening, and I'd expect Marc Silvestri to be better at body proportions after all these years.

Despite all of that, Messiah Complex is good enough to reinforce my long-standing, strong appreciation for X-Men stories. It addresses the major themes that have made X-Men stories so interesting, dives head-first into issues that make other mainstream comics creative teams flinch, and consistently leans on writers who can weave some serious, interesting tension into a tale, just like I came to expect from X-books in the '80s and early '90s. It kept me wanting to read all the way through like I was being led by the nose. It draws heavily on a lot of X-Men related in-world history, but still makes sense for me despite the fact I've been a very infrequent visitor to that world for most of thirty years.

The last pages set excellent tone to end the thing. I'm looking forward to reading [b:X-Men: Second Coming|8651048|X-Men Second Coming|Mike Carey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1409504479l/8651048._SY75_.jpg|13522259] next.

Ahhh, yes. The oft discussed Moore/Ramos arc of the series. For me, the writing itself wasn't bad (not like BKV though), but my main issue was the art. I do. not. like the art. Ramos' style maybe suited well for other titles perhaps, but I felt it was wrong for this one. I felt he made the characters look too much like caricatures. But then I guess I was spoiled by Alphona's wonderful art from when the series was in it's prime. For me, a good story or series can be utterly ruined by poor art, no matter how good the writing itself is. I guess I'm kinda snobbish that way...

Ahhh, yes. The oft discussed Moore/Ramos arc of the series. For me, the writing itself wasn't bad (not like BKV though), but my main issue was the art. I do. not. like the art. Ramos' style maybe suited well for other titles perhaps, but I felt it was wrong for this one. I felt he made the characters look too much like caricatures. But then I guess I was spoiled by Alphona's wonderful art from when the series was in it's prime. For me, a good story or series can be utterly ruined by poor art, no matter how good the writing itself is. I guess I'm kinda snobbish that way...

Ahhh, yes. The oft discussed Moore/Ramos arc of the series. For me, the writing itself wasn't bad (not like BKV though), but my main issue was the art. I do. not. like the art. Ramos' style maybe suited well for other titles perhaps, but I felt it was wrong for this one. I felt he made the characters look too much like caricatures. But then I guess I was spoiled by Alphona's wonderful art from when the series was in it's prime. For me, a good story or series can be utterly ruined by poor art, no matter how good the writing itself is. I guess I'm kinda snobbish that way...

Well, the art is Bad, and the story is Also Bad.

Damn prankster kids... they're all getting what's coming to them...

oh, wait... am I becoming a bit like the Doc? Nah... I just have to use my spider sense to avoid any future interventions from those fuddy duddies in the Avengers and I'll be kosher.

Mega AI tie-in time!

We've got a nice buddy-buddy time with Caridac, too. Finally, the Doc is showing his strengths. Never mind the egomania, the single-minded devotion to cleaning up the streets, or using a little foresight. If he is allowed to use he genius, it's all good, right, Peter?

Ah finally, some real plot is moving forward. The Goblin is the man.

Alas poor Urich, a slave to debt and a pawn of green. I feel sorry for ya.