Thursday, May 17, 2007

Exiles #94

Exiles #94
Just a comment on the "swashbuckling" prowess of "Slaymaster" (lord what a stupid name). Swashbuckling is often defined as an amateurish technique of swordplay which involves uselessly spinning one's own sword in tight circles close to one's body, often banging it on a side shield, in order to intimidate an opponent. In other words, it doesn't work unless the opponent sucks. The only time it would work against a strong opponent would be if it were used as a ruse - to make one's opponent cocky and thus draw him in to a target area, (whereupon the swordfighter would immediately change techniques to something more useful). Nothing that we've seen of Slaymaster implies this. Thus, we are forced to conclude one of two things: 1) Slaymaster's opponents suck. 2) Slaymaster sucks (in addition to having an overinflated ego).

Actually, there a third, more likely possibility: Claremont's an idiot. (Thought I was going to say "Claremont sucks", didn't you? Well, he does, but that would have been altogether too easy.)


What's with all the expositionary dialogue in this book? Nobody talks like that in comics anymore. It hasn't been done since the 90's!
I'm sure the artists try desperately to explain what's happening, but they fail miserably in quite a few places. I mean, what the hell? Sue Storm has eye beams and plasma blasts? Huh?
The "plot" beats are unbelievably silly. What seems to be designed to give this book dramatic tension instead makes it merely laughable, if not outright dirisible.
Claremont writes some of the characters, especially Morph, as if he's never seen them before, and has no clue as to what their personalities are supposed to be.
And the resolution? A bunch of technobabble that makes zero sense whatsoever.
Claremont starts to give creepy romantic feelings to Blink regarding Sabretooth. Ewwwww.

I actually found myself wishing that everybody had died at the end of this story, so that I could stop buying this AWFUL title (which I only do for its inclusion of Spider-Man 2099 - and then doubt myself every month. I keep waiting for him to die or be replaced, so that I can cancel this title), and move my subscription to a more high-quality publication, something which, unfortunately, this title can never be as long as it remains in the hands of Chris Claremont.

1 comment:

MaGnUs said...

Sadly, Claremont doesn't have what it takes anymore... his New Excalibur is a bit better than the other stuff he's writing, but he's lost it.

Geez, as seen on my blog, he called "ninjas" "gaijin" on the previous issue of Exiles!!!

It's sad, since he's one of my favorite writers, and he defined the modern X-Men