Thursday, February 14, 2008

"I'm a Cyclops." "And I'm a WOLVERINE!!!!..."

So I decided the other night I needed to get back into comic book postings. I've really failed for the most part over the past couple months in having any sort of life going on to post about, so that has left most of my Blog and Journal links empty for the better chunk of the past couple months. And, really, my base hatred of the political process, plus my general apathy to society as a whole has prompted me to not want to talk about anything involving those at fucking all. Besides, it's not like there's much to talk about. If I were to try and discuss the news and what is occurring in the world, well apparently I'd have to just post random snippets of whatever I deemed Newsworthy followed by 1000+ words on the harrowing ordeal of Britney Spears and how our culture is "teetering on the brink" alongside her... seriously, someone fake a fucking overdose and put the poor girl out of her misery...

...actually, fuck that, someone put a fucking overdose in my goddamn arm so I just don't have to be exposed to it anymore. Fucking A...

So back to comics it is. Hopefully my current enthusiasm for wanting to post about something will keep me coming back to drop off a descent sized "column" once every week or two. Really, it's not so much my desire to want to talk about the things, but more that I tend to just go weeks on end where I do nothing but work and get my "lavish" five hours of sleep a night until it gets to the point where I become curious exactly what kinds of pills Heath Ledger was mixing and where I can get some prescriptions... too soon?

Anyway, to start these things back up, I decided I wanted to talk about one of the more oddball "relationships" that I've seen actually getting a more and more decent amount of panel time in comics recently; the sort of almost "tumultuous but with a bunch of mutual respect" one between the uni-visioned leader of the X-Men, Cyclops, and the stubby little, claw-poppin Canuck Wolverine. The reason for this is sort of straight forward, mainly it being with this sort of "Renaissance" period the X-titles seems to be going through right now, so is their "relationship" becoming more defined, and better depicted making each character come out "in a better light" so to speak. Here, lemme kind of go back and describe more what I'm getting at...

When I first started comics, the first kinds of comics I ended up purchasing were X-Men comics. And back then, really the beginning of the heyday of the Million-plus sellers and the variant covers and all that exciting hubbabaloo, Marvel was trying to make something abundantly clear: Wolverine fucking ruled! Like, holy shit dude! He's like, got these big fucking claws, kills ninjas by the fucking busload, and can like, regenerate really fast and shit! And I'm not talking "he heals paper cuts in less than a week" or any of that bullshit, we're talking you can fucking puree his fucking body and he'll still like, form this giant puddle of fucking death ooze and eviscerate your face while he all knits himself together and smokes a dozen cigars like a more "Economy Sized" Clint Eastwood. Plus, he's banged more Asian Chicks than Genghis Khan, and probably started in the same time period too. How fucking awesome is that?!? If you don't think that's awesome, then you're a giant fag, or probably a Cyclops fan. Fuck that douche...

Yeah, it went something like that. You either mindlessly thought Wolverine was the shit (which most did), or you were one of the few that actually thought "Y'know, between his ability to pretty much claw down every last villain in sight, AND his constant efforts to keep trying and take Cyke's chick, this dude is pretty fucking annoying and douchey. Actually, fuck this dude, I'm with the Visored guy!" And thus the rift began... well, either that or you were like me and preferred characters like Colossus and Beast to begin with... or you were a Gambit fan and were equally ridiculed by all three factions... seriously, fuck that character.

But for years and years it went like that; most writers stood by and made Wolverine as badass as they could because, well, he fucking sold comics and that's all that mattered. Meanwhile Cyclops was left behind, pretty much neutered as a character because the most popular character, aka the only one that basically matters because HE SELLS FUCKING BOOKS! basically just always came in and fucked shit up with his claws. Who needs a leader when you can just write that up a hundred times and everyone eats it up by the pitchfork load?

Something is changing though and like I said before it's seemingly rolled in with the fact that just in general better writers seem to be handling the X-titles (whether or not better stories are being told, that's personal opinion). Going back to the early part of this decade is when I seemed to notice it, when Grant Morrison took over and started his NEW X-MEN run, but what I've noticed is that a lot of this run or writers has seemed to notice that *gasp* these two characters actually accommodate each other!! And, wait, what's this? Oh my god, they actually respect one another? Holy fuck! You know what that is people? Oh my, I think we actually have characterization running here! Okay okay, calm down. Let's not get too excited here, lets go deeper...

What really has made this more prevalent has definitely been Whedon's work on ASTONISHING X-MEN. If there is one thing that title has consistently done since its start, it's show that these two characters, previously always at odds, actually work well together even when they're still occasionally grinding at each other. Wolverine has slowly been working his way back from simply being "The Best at What He Does" to realizing that Mr. Summers isn't too shabby at what he does either considering he's pretty much the best leader this side of well, with Captain America gone he's pretty much the best leader you can find in the Marvel Universe. And it also helps that Logan has slowly been integrated better into the fold of what the X-MEN are. Back when he was just "The Man With No Name that occasionally lends a hand in fucking shit up" he's sort of integrated himself more in with the school. Not necessary in a teacher role, but he does seem now to do better with "mentoring". And with that, he's come a lot more to defer to Cyclops' leadership, just as Cyclops really has come to accept that a man like Logan, who can be that feral beast who will throw himself into any obstacle can be one of the most valuable tools at his disposal. Funny all that had to happen what the Hot Red Head had to "finally" stay dead.

This is the kind of stuff that has been going through my head to write about and I think I can see myself sticking with it at least twice a month. I know it's a little rough, but that's kind of the point, and it kind of goes well with my more "flying by the seat of my pants" approach I take with my AICN reviews. Any thoughts, critiques, suggestions for future "topics" and whatnot are all welcome, but I realize no one is reading this bloody thing and I'm just frivolously punching at the keyboard because I just kind of miss writing and like to make myself heard from time to time. Looking around, it's almost like that's what the Internet is for anymore. Ah well...

Cheers...