Astonishing X-Men #35

[flint_marko]

This is from Astonishing X-Men #35 by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez

Comments

[pallas_athena]

*Sigh* Yes, the guy's got a point.

Yes, bringing a darker, grittier, more "realistic" interpretation of what a mutant is face-to-face with the pretty and colourful X-Men is a very, very good story device, and I'm glad it's being done.

...But all I can hear here is Ellis making a point, Ellis saying something Ellis has always wanted to say. Ellis CAN be a good writer, but I like him least when he grandstands. Yes, he's got some valid and witty things to say-- but all the fun drains out of a story when any given character can become a glove-puppet with the rhetorical Hand Of Ellis unavoidably visible up its arse.

[nezchan]

That's the thing. There are conventions in superhero comics, and the X-Men have had to fit into those conventions over the years. In the same way that a realistic face looks awful on a cartoon body, dark-and-gritty doesn't really work in a colourful hero book like this one.

Hell, the 90's should have taught us that.

[darkknightjrk]

I don't really see any grandstanding due to author's intent--that's more because the actual character needed to rant. If it was author's intent, I think they would have felt his point, or something, but Emma puts the guy down (and if any character is Ellis' voice, it's her) and Scott decides to kill him with kindness.

[halloweenjack]

And the particular message here is that Ellis thinks that his audience is stupendously ignorant, and doesn't know what real-life mutants are like, or needs reminding--as if there isn't a massive nationwide fundraising campaign for birth defects (the March of Dimes) every year, or those ads with the cleft-palate kids.

[fifthie]

I don't blame Ellis in particular here in that I swear I've heard a thousand different versions of this speech crammed in the mouths of various X-characters.

Although this is the most annoying version, in that putting it in the mouth of the villain undermines whatever point there was supposed to be, because it just becomes another story about an ugly villain who is ugly and villainous because ugly = villainous.