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House of X/Powers of X

Started by radiator, 04 December, 2019, 09:09:03 PM

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Greg M.

I absolutely love 90% of Morrison's output - he's written some of the best comics ever published - but I'm not into his Batman run at all. The one exception is the stuff with Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin, which is wonderful. But Bruce Wayne is one of the most boring characters in comics, and unless Denny O'Neill's writing him, I couldn't care less about the guy.

I was surprised you didn't like Morrison's X-Men because I got the impression you liked the X-Men as a franchise, and to me, Morrison's run is gold. But if it rubbed you up the wrong way, fair play.

Colin YNWA

As ever the diversity within 2000ad fans strikes again. I've never hidden my love for GMozz but one of the free runs of his I don't get on with is his X-Men I just find it cold and lifeless, as I do hos (whisper it) his Doom Patrol run.

Edit - lifeless is a poor word to use to describe his DP but its cold and sharp to the effect of being off putting to me.

Greg M.

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 07 December, 2019, 10:44:35 PM
lifeless is a poor word to use to describe his DP but its cold and sharp to the effect of being off putting to me.

Unlike the warmth of Animal Man, with its endless parade of animal abuse, slaughter of the hero's wife and kids, and constant metafictional reminders that it's only a comic? (Only kidding, Colin! Just trying to wind you up because of your well-documented Buddy Baker love.)

To me, the warmth in Doom Patrol is in the humour, the whimsy, and the portrayal of damaged characters seeking connection and becoming a family.

JamesC

Morrison's a terrific ideas man but I never think he handles a character particularly well. I often find I really like his stories on my initial read through as I'm marvelling at the ideas and the big scope of things but then on a second read, once I already know that stuff, there's not much left.
Regarding X-Men specifcally, the strength of the Claremont stuff for me is in the characters - all that stuff with Kitty Pride and Colossus, Storm going through her thing etc. I can read that over and over.

JamesC

Quote from: Greg M. on 08 December, 2019, 08:26:18 AM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 07 December, 2019, 10:44:35 PM
lifeless is a poor word to use to describe his DP but its cold and sharp to the effect of being off putting to me.

Unlike the warmth of Animal Man, with its endless parade of animal abuse, slaughter of the hero's wife and kids, and constant metafictional reminders that it's only a comic? (Only kidding, Colin! Just trying to wind you up because of your well-documented Buddy Baker love.)

To me, the warmth in Doom Patrol is in the humour, the whimsy, and the portrayal of damaged characters seeking connection and becoming a family.

I'll take Animal Man over Doom Patrol any day. I always found the latter at bit boring.
My favourite Morrisibn thing is probably The Filth.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Greg M. on 08 December, 2019, 08:26:18 AM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 07 December, 2019, 10:44:35 PM
lifeless is a poor word to use to describe his DP but its cold and sharp to the effect of being off putting to me.

Unlike the warmth of Animal Man, with its endless parade of animal abuse, slaughter of the hero's wife and kids, and constant metafictional reminders that it's only a comic? (Only kidding, Colin! Just trying to wind you up because of your well-documented Buddy Baker love.)

To me, the warmth in Doom Patrol is in the humour, the whimsy, and the portrayal of damaged characters seeking connection and becoming a family.

We're spinning wildly off topic and I'm sure we have a Morrison thread or two, but yeah my Buddy love is well versed in these parts. It interesting that you get 'warmth and whimsy' from it as I'd love that. I get the damaged characters seeking connection and becoming family bit - it just I don't get warmth and whimsy from the character as they do it. I get sleek and cool - verging on the upptery. Least I did when I last read it - which was quite recently. I loved it - LOVED IT when it first came out - just doesn't seem to speak to me in that way anymore.

Love the way folks get different readings from the same material.

Greg M.

A lot of the time, I find Doom Patrol endearingly daft. Clever, unnerving, disturbing - but still deliberately daft. As much as anything, it's a series about the ridiculous and the journey of the main characters towards acceptance thereof – external and internal. But it's not a journey any of them can make without caring for the others – and to do that, they have to embrace both their own absurdity and that of their friends. To me, that's where the warmth and whimsy are.

And in Danny, obviously.

Which brings us circuitously back to HoXPoX. Like the Doom Patrol, the X-Men have made their home on a sentient, living, ambulatory locale with teleportation capabilities and its own arcane language. But would Krakoa be more fun if it was a Polari-speaking transvestite island? "Bona to vada your dolly old eek, Logan!"

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Greg M. on 08 December, 2019, 06:57:17 PM
ABut it's not a journey any of them can make without caring for the others – and to do that, they have to embrace both their own absurdity and that of their friends. To me, that's where the warmth and whimsy are.

And in Danny, obviously.


Yeah. I find Doom Patrol one of Morrison's warmest works. There's so much stuff going on between these characters — in a bizarre way, it's not a million miles from the dynamic that made Claremont's X-Men work. I also love the fact that when most of the mainstream comic industry was rushing headlong to embrace the DKR/Watchmen model of angsty grimdark, Morrison was tripping his tits off on magic mushrooms and antihistamines on a Glasgow hillside and bringing us... this.
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