Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site k.cs.cmu.edu Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: net.comics Subject: Re: X-Factor Message-ID: <690@k.cs.cmu.edu> Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 06:02:58 EST Article-I.D.: k.690 Posted: Mon Dec 2 06:02:58 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:31:00 EST Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking Lines: 46 Why is everyone so down on X-Factor???? I have dropped X-Men and New Mutants, but I will continue to buy X-Factor for as long as it maintains the standards of the first two issues. In fact, I enjoyed X-Factor 2 considerably more than the last six months of New Mutants and X-Men combined! Among other things, we finally have a reasonable characterization of Cyclops, which Claremont was never able to do because of his hatred for the character; I especially liked the way Layton pointed out how much he uses his "cursed powers" as an excuse for his own social ineptitude. There is no sentimentality here, just honest emotion, and that in itself puts it light-years ahead of Claremont's soap operatic trash. I've been trying to figure out the negative reactions, and I've come up with two main ideas. First, people feel that anything would have to be Swamp Thing's quality or better to make up for the idiotic stories where Jean Grey returned. Since I avoided those stories, I don't have any such perception of karma, and I can appreciate X-Factor for what it is. Second, people are only familiar with the Claremont X-Men and expected something similar. Wake up, guys; THESE are the X-Men, the Stan Lee characters, not those johnny-come-lately jerks that Claremont jacks off to pictures of. They are infinitely better than that Len Wein-created cast of losers and stereotypes. (The only good thing Wein ever did was Swamp Thing, and I understand Wrightson held down a huge chunk of the storytelling on that. Wein is always trite and feeble, and his "new X-Men" were no exception.) They have real, complex relationships in the classic Stan Lee style, not the cut-and-dried, melodramatic ones which Claremont has created. I'll bet you don't like Marvel Tales either... Seriously, there is more authentic characterization, plot, humor, and pathos in X-Factor than in anything Claremont has written in the last two or three years. I prefer not to think that everyone here is totally without taste, so I must assume that people were expecting something different, and so see this book only in terms of their expectations. Which is, simply put, a tight competitor with BATO for the best team book on the market. PS. My love Pam, who's about to begin her Ph.D. in Writing, agrees with me concerning the relative quality of this book and Claremont's drivel. Is it possible a classics scholar knows some things you don't? Nah, you read comics and science fiction, not those outdated old farts like Dickens and Shakespeare and James, so you must have highly discerning standards of plot and characterization.... (Oh, am I going to catch it for this....) -=- Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot, CMU Center for Art and Technology tim@k.cs.cmu.edu | uucp: {seismo,decwrl,ucbvax,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 | CMU. Tomorrow's networking nightmares -- today!