Here's an X-Men comic I could really get behind.

[richardak]

In 2009, Marvel published with Del Rey a comic called X-Men: Misfits, reimagining the story in the style of a Japanese high-school soap-opera comic.  Even though I'm not a fan of the X-Men and never have been, I liked this comic, mostly because it took the idea of a school for mutants seriously, and the conflicts between different groups of mutants played out among factions of students and faculty at the school.  One of the (several) things I didn't like about the mainstream X titles was that, far too often, the interesting premise was just an excuse for conventional superhero action.  Unfortunately, it appears to be highly in doubt whether there will ever be a volume 2.  Oh well.  Anyway, here are some scans.  I've only done a handful out of the approximately 175 page first volume, so page limits shouldn't be an issue.  If there's interest, I'll post more.  Incidentally, this is not a Japanese comic.  The writers are American and the artist is Indonesian, but it has clearly been heavily influenced in both writing and art by a number of different Japanese comics.










When she arrives at school, Kitty is in for a bit of a surprise about the makeup of the student body....

To be blunt, it was an odd decision to make Kitty the only female student.  The purpose it serves in the story, so far as I can tell, is that it helps catapult Kitty quite quickly to the upper echelon of the school's social hierarchy, which is necessary for the direction the writers wanted to go to the story.  Putting Kitty in a privileged position within the school enables them to tell a certain kind of story.  Anyway, that's largely the subject of another post if people are interested.


One of the things I'm not sure how I feel about regarding this comic is the way they've introduced a family connection between Lensherr and the Prydes.  It's clearly implied that Kitty's grandfather saved Lensherr during the Holocaust, and the fact that the writers made Kitty the protagonist creates a pretty powerful subtext, hardly new to X-Men comics, but I've never really bought the metaphor.

Comments

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm no authority on manga - I've barely read any of the stuff - but this doesn't strike me as too bad. The random blushing and sweating and fireworks and flowers and bubbles and confetti and I-don't-know-what-else in the background is a little annoying, and Kitty randomly turning into a, well, kitty for no apparent reason is a tad on the weird side, but, well, there's a reason I don't read manga that much - there are stylistic elements to it that don't really gel with me, and if they're intentionally trying to evoke that sort of atmosphere, then it's silly for me to complain about it.
On the other hand, I do like this version of Kitty. I'm not sure why exactly, but I like the added details of her being a middle child and working at the family restaurant. Also, her character seems... well, this may sound weird, but she seems like this particular version of Kitty Pryde would work much better in another medium. It's like all the weird 'I AM STARTLED SO I AM GOING TO TURN INTO A CAT WHILE THE WORLD EXPLODES AROUND ME' moments are just because it's a manga, and if she was in a different sort of comic, her character would be much more at home and relaxed. She may have been created as a manga character, but she doesn't FEEL like a manga character - she feels like she's been imported, like an exchange student or something, and is not quite fitting in with the native customs. I honestly don't know if that makes any sense, but those are my impressions about her.
(Also, I am AMAZED that it's taken this long for someone to come up with the 'Mag-Neato' gag. It's so OBVIOUS, and yet somehow I never thought of it before.)