the vynsane asylum

Looks like that poster was part of Under the Influence - A Tribute to Stan Lee art exhibition in LA.

Lots of very cool art there.

Holy fuck, movie Magneto with the baby ducks was AMAZING, as was Dr. Strange as the sunset!!!

i like the stained glass AF#15.

Another two reasons for me to not pick up anything from Marvel again:

The X-Men should have lofty ideals to stick to. They should not condone a team of assassins. Period. I don't mind comics about killers, but the heroes of old keep getting reinterpreted to be more badass and appeal to kids who should play less Halo 3. What is wrong with having characters try to stick to their guns (figuratively speaking, not literally) and taking a moral stance? Hell, when the world is moving in the other direction, it could actually be more interesting. It's easy to write killers. It's not easy to write a believable hero who isn't hackneyed.

Bishop is NOT a bad guy. Gambit is. Making Bishop a traitor fifteen years after he was introduced, without any indications of it, is wrong. Sure, there's the shock value that this "loyal" X-Man has secretly been plotting against them for all these years. But there have also been a LOT of stories where Bishop was alone, or at least away from the X-Men, and acted in ways that a traitor would not have done.

Fuck, make that pansy Cable be a traitor. Reveal that Stryfe really killed him long ago and replaced him or some shit.

It's kind of ambiguous - Bishop was "acting in good faith" even though he's the big surprise traitor this time.

I thought you were going to rag on Marvel for having an X-wetworks team (yep, really) led by Wolverine...... on behalf of Cyclops. Behold, the ALL-NEW, ALL DIFFERENT X-FORCE!

I do think it's totally out of character for the X-Men to have such a team. There are a lot of fanboys being masturbated by Joe Q over that one. Like I said, it's easy to write killers. Heroes are harder to write well. Even Claremont couldn't do it twice.

anarky wrote:I do think it's totally out of character for the X-Men to have such a team.

It is - that's why I feel like the story of the X-Men is over. Scott, in the last X-book I read, summed it up pretty nicely right at the end of the story: "There are no X-Men".

It's really causing me pain, but I really am going to drop Uncanny. Once Giant Sized Astonishing comes out, I think that'll be it for me.....even the last arc of it has dragged. Too many characters that I just don't care enough about taking up too much of the space.

Maybe Professor X will make a deal with the devil and change everything to the way were 20 years ago.

Who am I kidding? Marvel wouldn't do something that retarded.

Does anyone get the impression that, by playing almost exclusively to teenyboppers who want lots of blood and gore and thunder thighs and little bitty pointed feet and such, Marvel is actually doing the same thing they did in the mid-1990s, which led to them going bankrupt and crashing the entire industry?

There is some good stuff still. I don't doubt that, even though I haven't seen anything that catches my eye. But sacrificing a 45-year legacy to have a book full of guys with claws killing people? And involving Wolfsbane, who has absolutely no connection aside from turning into a wolf? Bob Harras would've totally had Rob Liefeld do that.

Killing Captain America to replace him with a formerly brainwashed assassin who totes a gun? Total Nicieza move there.

Ghost Rider is now an avenging angel? Didn't another popular Marvel character who's associated with a skull go that route about ten years back?

Man, they need to realize that the fanboy crowd will buy the books no matter what they do. They should focus less on giving them what they want, and look more at people who aren't reading their comics but might easily be convinced to do so.

Barnes and Noble sent me an e-mail for an after holiday sale.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/sale/index.asp?r=1

I posted this here because of these:

The "40 Years Of X-Men DVD-ROM" is $10 off. 485 complete issues sounded like a lot.
http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/search/ ... &z=y&ITM=2

Also "Amazing Spider-Man The Complete Collection":

Revisit and relive every Amazing Spider-Man comic book printed over 42 years - March 1963 through June 2006. A total of over 560 complete comic books including Annuals, all articles, the Spider's-Web Column, Bullpen Bulletins, pinups and every single advertisement.

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/search/ ... &z=y&ITM=7

I just read Cable #1...and it sucked. Nothing happened. Cable gets held up by three muggers from the future. Kills them. Changes a dirty diaper, then gets shot by Bishop in some future saloon.

Remember when comic books were chock full of story? And some of them still are. But not this one. It was six pages of story blown out to fill 22 pages of comic.

And I won't be coming back for issue 2.

Uncanny X-Men 496 has spoilers relating to the end of the Astonishing X-Men storyline. Spoilers as in who lives and who dies... Goddammit.

That's OK, by the time Giant Size Astonishing comes out you won't remember what happened in the past 24 issues.

I will when it involves one of my favorite Mutants of all time.

So, they killed _________ (I read a spoiler, but I'm leaving it blank for anyone who doesn't know), they made Bishop a bad guy, and Jubilee is now some snigtarded armored fruitcake on the New Warriors.

Yeah, I won't be coming back to this series anytime soon.