This Issue! Things Get Worse! #123
The Uncanny X-Men #123
“Listen—Stop Me If You’ve Heard It-- But This One Will Kill You!”
Chris Claremont and John Byrne
Synopsis
The crazed assassin Arcade captures each of the X-Men and forces them to endure the tortures of Murderworld, his self-designed death-trap/carnival chamber.
Rolling Commentary
Wow, that’s a horrifically bad title. But whatever.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled issue of X-Men, to bring you The Amazing Spider-Man!
Page 2. Man, I clearly don’t know my 70’s Marvel history all that well. Until those issues of X-Men in Japan, I’d never even heard of Colleen Wing, but apparently she sort of knows Spider-Man.
Page 4. I guess Betsy and Amanda are comfortable enough with how Nightcrawler actually looks to be seen in public with him.
Page 6. Wow, Banshee, way to be a stereotype…"Finnegan’s Wake"?
Page 7. Damnit, Arcade, what kind of shitty assassin are you?!? You sneak up and shoot two separate X-Men…with a fucking tranquilizer dart?!?!? You’re an assassin! You kill people! See, now they’re going to escape and beat you over the head with a chair, because that’s what ALWAYS happens when you capture the good guys instead of killing them! Kill them now, you moron! Kill them while you have the chance!
Idiot.
Page 9. Hey, here’s a thought, how much does all this shit cost Arcade? Life sized pinballs rigged with electric shocks? A sophisticated control room? Lackeys? Since he has a spectacularly ineffective record at killing superheroes (Spidey and Captain Britain are still walking around, you may notice), how much can he possibly charge?
Page 12. Instant androids?!? See, this is exactly what I’m saying, this is extraordinarily advanced technology. Where the hell is Arcade’s funding coming from?
Page 17. I know it’s terribly dated and more than a tad nationalist of them to brainwash Colossus like that, but I kind of like the Proletarian, to be honest with you.
Post Mortem
Man, no one likes Arcade (by "no one", I clearly mean refer to myself, and if you like him too bad). And not because he’s extraordinarily lame, like Moses Magnum. He’s just fucked up. There’s potential here, to be sure, but he’s so bizarrely twisted and wasteful in his killing techniques. He’s like a low rent Joker, only half as clever and with out any of the humor or class.
Also, even though Spider-Man is totally my favorite comic book character ever, I really don’t know why he’s in a third of this issue. If Arcade had captured him too and he was fighting along side the X-Men, I could see it, but as it stands? He really wasn’t an important character in this story. He seems to mostly be in here to set up another confrontation with him and Arcade in some future book, presumably his own (had Peter Parker, Spider-Man started yet?) or with someone else in Marvel Team-Up. I just think that if you cross over with other characters, you should have an actual plot that uses all of them.
“Listen—Stop Me If You’ve Heard It-- But This One Will Kill You!”
Chris Claremont and John Byrne
Synopsis
The crazed assassin Arcade captures each of the X-Men and forces them to endure the tortures of Murderworld, his self-designed death-trap/carnival chamber.
Rolling Commentary
Wow, that’s a horrifically bad title. But whatever.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled issue of X-Men, to bring you The Amazing Spider-Man!
Page 2. Man, I clearly don’t know my 70’s Marvel history all that well. Until those issues of X-Men in Japan, I’d never even heard of Colleen Wing, but apparently she sort of knows Spider-Man.
Page 4. I guess Betsy and Amanda are comfortable enough with how Nightcrawler actually looks to be seen in public with him.
Page 6. Wow, Banshee, way to be a stereotype…"Finnegan’s Wake"?
Page 7. Damnit, Arcade, what kind of shitty assassin are you?!? You sneak up and shoot two separate X-Men…with a fucking tranquilizer dart?!?!? You’re an assassin! You kill people! See, now they’re going to escape and beat you over the head with a chair, because that’s what ALWAYS happens when you capture the good guys instead of killing them! Kill them now, you moron! Kill them while you have the chance!
Idiot.
Page 9. Hey, here’s a thought, how much does all this shit cost Arcade? Life sized pinballs rigged with electric shocks? A sophisticated control room? Lackeys? Since he has a spectacularly ineffective record at killing superheroes (Spidey and Captain Britain are still walking around, you may notice), how much can he possibly charge?
Page 12. Instant androids?!? See, this is exactly what I’m saying, this is extraordinarily advanced technology. Where the hell is Arcade’s funding coming from?
Page 17. I know it’s terribly dated and more than a tad nationalist of them to brainwash Colossus like that, but I kind of like the Proletarian, to be honest with you.
Post Mortem
Man, no one likes Arcade (by "no one", I clearly mean refer to myself, and if you like him too bad). And not because he’s extraordinarily lame, like Moses Magnum. He’s just fucked up. There’s potential here, to be sure, but he’s so bizarrely twisted and wasteful in his killing techniques. He’s like a low rent Joker, only half as clever and with out any of the humor or class.
Also, even though Spider-Man is totally my favorite comic book character ever, I really don’t know why he’s in a third of this issue. If Arcade had captured him too and he was fighting along side the X-Men, I could see it, but as it stands? He really wasn’t an important character in this story. He seems to mostly be in here to set up another confrontation with him and Arcade in some future book, presumably his own (had Peter Parker, Spider-Man started yet?) or with someone else in Marvel Team-Up. I just think that if you cross over with other characters, you should have an actual plot that uses all of them.
posted by The Amazing Justin Palm! at 7/01/2006 11:12:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home