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From: mcewan@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: X-factor; Jean Grey\
Message-ID: <36000081@uiucdcs>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 11:52:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.36000081
Posted: Fri Dec  6 11:52:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Dec-85 06:31:49 EST
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Nf-From: uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU!mcewan    Dec  6 10:52:00 1985


> 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.

Well, I'd rather read Vogon poetry than anything by Claremont, and I didn't
like X-Factor. In fact, I picked up X-Factor specifically because I wanted to
see someone else's handling of these characters. I'm not bothered so much
that the characterization is inconsistent with previous incarnations (although
I think that it is an insult to X-Men fans) as by the fact that I don't like
these characters as they are now presented. They're all boring or obnoxious,
and their method of operation makes no sense.

And as for demanding exceptional quality, I wasn't expecting anything special,
and I thought that the "Jean Grey returns" stories were BETTER than X-factor 1.

> 
> 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 comics and science fiction, not those outdated old farts like Dickens and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....

I guess we can all stop arguing about this now. We have the word of an
Authority. The Great and Learned Person has handed us the word from God.
We were, of course, being fools for thinking we can have our own opinions
about something that can be resolved by applying the wisdom of the ancients.
How silly to think that reading pleasure could be subjective.

			Scott McEwan
			{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!mcewan

"Listen! You smell something?"