So this arc has the tagline SECOND COMING * REVELATIONS… I get the tie in part – the anti-mutant forces attacking pretty much every mutant left, simultaneously -  that works.  What I don’t get is the REVELATIONS bit.  What is there to reveal?   Peter David is big on long boiling revelations… hmm, let’s check the solicits.

Next month:

The mutant hunter Bastion has sent the Mutant Response Division and the newly resurrected Bolivar Trask after X-Factor with one mission: Kill them all. And it seems thus far that all is going according to plan. Meanwhile in the jungles of South America, Strong Guy has to form an extremely unlikely alliance if he wants to save Monet from the MRD.

June:

At last! All the members of X-Factor are reunited in this climactic, slam-bang X-plosion of a conclusion as Trask decides to take matters into his own hands and personally direct the forces of the Mutant Response Division into a full blown war against everyone’s favorite mutant detective team!

Huh.  No clues at all.  Not even a tease of a giant revelation (which Marvel tends to do, especially for this book… see July‘s solicitation blurb:

Remember when we warned you about the shocking twist involving Madrox’s baby? Remember when the return of Shatterstar wound up making every comics-related website? Well, that was just a warm-up for the shocking end of this issue. X-Factor gets a new client, a tall green-garbed woman with a deadly secret, but that’s just a set-up for the jaw-dropping final page that’s going to reignite the Internet and have fandom going, “Did you BELIEVE what happened at the end of X-Factor #207?!”

Yeah so.  You got me.  Normally, I would guess that the marketing folks just thought it sounded cool… but X-Factor is usually running a different course… soooo.  Something.

X-Men Legacy 235: Second Coming pt 4: The X-event continues!  People die (a d-list character who did actually feature in a favorite, 8 issue, limited series of mine.  From the 80s.), people get shaken around without their leg (Karma! OUCH.  Somewhere I read that she was getting some kind of a big overhaul… so uh, bionic leg I guess?, the X-Men finally get a clue and start fighting back, and Warlock goes uh… Warlockian.

Still no clues as to what the hell is going on with Hope, although I think it should be pretty obvious from, oh, the solicits for the X-MEN PHOENIX FORCE HANDBOOK (A Second Coming tie-in!).  How the hell is one of their stock reference books being billed as a tie-in?  The hell?  There is NO STORY in those things.  Usually?

Oh, and Greg Land, my favorite “artist” pulled “art” duties for this one.  And it was probably the least offensive thing I can remember seeing by him.  Yes, all the women had the same faces (I didn’t realize X-23 was in the issue until I saw Rogue with her powers later on… I thought she was Psylocke the whole time!).  Yes, there was a near-full page spread of Rogue standing with weird tiny-wings and splayed legs, ready to receive it in the backside and yes I swear that every time I saw a male face I could almost recognize which celebrity he was tracing and  yes, yes it did suck.  But it was slightly less sucky than other issues.  Maybe because I read it really fast, in the car?  Going back through it now I’m finding more and more stupidity…  You know what?  When he’s not drawing faces it’s pretty OK.  As soon as the faces come out it’s ARGOEGUHUHBOOM.  There is a great page with Warlock that I swear is actually another artist.  Oh.  Maybe he just traced that… O.O

Note: The cover at left is not the one I got.  For some reason I can’t find an image on the net (yet) of the non-variant cover.  WTF?

Guardians of the Galaxy 25:  Another strong issue – and the art was great too!  Except for a few panels where someone is drawn getting clearly atomized, yet no one gets atomized?  All the bystanders are dead… so?

So yeah.  Thanos is back.  And he’s pissed.  The one guy that actually wants to stay dead, and Magus had to go and be a dick and bring him back…  We get to see Thanos unloading physically like we haven’t in quite a while, but Quill has one trick up his sleeve… and it’s a hell of a trick.

I think the title is going on hiatus for a few months now.  Or something?  While the next cosmic event – I think it’s the Cancerverse (think a Marvel U where Cthulu-esque things won) vs. 616 – called THE THANOS IMPERATIVE (which doesn’t have the word “cancer” in it) – runs.  Which is kind of a bummer and kind of cool at the same time, because I won’t be spending any extra money to pick up the event.  I guess.

Oh, and I’ll leave you with a cover that I found particularly amusing.  Because, seriously, what the hell is going on with her belt?  Skirt?  Weird underwear?

I actually wasn’t expecting that. It makes sense – no one really cares about her anymore I suppose.  But still. Well played.  Poor Gladiator.

What else?
Oh, Batman & Robin has lots of potential, in that wild Morrison & Quitely way.  I suspect it will be a great ride, and then collapse into itself when they move onto another project.  Just a guess really – who can carry on a post-Morrison run?  The choice always seems to be regression, retcon or ignorance.

I can’t stand Hal Jordan as a “character”, but dammit if Johns isn’t turning out the best books I’ve seen DC put out – Sinestro War was excellent, and the Blackest Night business COULD be decent.  Except they decided to make a fucking yearly event out of it SO I expect it to suck in that regard.

Captain Britain & MI13 was cancelled – shame if there ever was one.  More than any other book Marvel has cancelled in the last few years, this one has real quality, guts, etc.   There are better books running (X-Factor, the Abnett & Lanning stuff), but none that I can recall being cancelled.  And certaily drek of  lower quality still continuing.

I’m still tempted to pick up the New Mutants series, and the Claremont X-Men Forever potential fiasco but man, money you know.  Maybe if they’d cancel half the x-books I’d buy the rest.  Wolverine certainly has enough titles – Wolverine (Daken),  Origins, Weapon X, New Avengers, Dark Avegers (Daken), X-Force (& girl wolvy), Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, First Class, the new X-Men First Class series…um, did I forget any ongoings?  That’s not even counting all the idiotic guest appearances and limiteds.  Of those titles…I only buy 3 so yeah, even that is too much Wolverine sometimes.

Looks like they may be bringing Steve Rogers back already – boo hiss to that if it’s true.

Huge boo hiss to bringing the other Flash back.

Conner Kent was missed, but the manner in which he and Kid Flash “returned” was like  “WTF?  You couldn’t just have Superboy Punch that shit back?”

Let’s see… what else.

The Greg Land cover for the Cap/Mi13 annual is fuckhideous, as usual. It’s not really worth linking too, you’ve seen that face in every single book he’s ever worked on. I suspect that must be his masturbation muse, because it’s really entirely too much, even for a tracer.

Umm.

Stuff. Yeah, let’s call it there for now.

panel from Uncanny X-Men #509

That’s Lady Deathstrike. With 8 claw penises piercing Wolvy from behind. Uh hu.  It looks like he might be kind of enjoying it though.

SERIOUSLY.  Does every face Greg Land traces have to come from porn??? Every single one?

And why is she straddling him?  She wouldn’t even have the leverage to dig her claws in like that would she?  So why…oh RIGHT. Because he TRACED SOME PORN.  Then added claws.

Oh. And she’s talking while licking him, or something.  Somehow I’m sure that was Greg’s idea, and not in the writer’s script: “Lady Deathstrike viciously impales Wolverine from behind with her claws, while straddling him like a horny teenager and managing to say something while licking his shoulder.”  Yeah.  Quality plotting there.

Look, I can see how some people might thing his stuff is “pretty” – but it’s a fucking mirage!   Look closer!  It’s like a porn star with lots of plastic surgery and makeup – you might not notice how beastly they are when all you see is the back of their head as they are getting slammed or something…but then, when the cameraman accidentally leaves the focus on their face for too long – when it’s not in motion – you get a little sick in your mouth…or so I’m told.

Yeah, it’s like that.

[UPDATE: Found an awesome link with tons of his tracings.]

click to embiggen

So I saw the cover to the right and got really annoyed.  Not only is it fucking hideous:

• Her boobs are even larger than normal giant comic boobs.
• The outfit looks like it was cut-and-pasted over pre-existing art (surprise – it probably was!)
• I KNOW I’ve seen that EXACT face somewhere.  Probably more than one somewheres.  And I’m not even talking about the original ad or whatever he traced it from, I mean I’m sure I’ve already seen it used in a comic.  Wish I could remember which one.
• His females have porn-face almost all the time.  This cover especially.  It’s really, really annoying.  Nevermind that most of them look the same. I used to have an old post showing him using the exact same face for uh…Invisible Woman & Kitty Pryde I think…but Ic an’t find it now.

but it’s also tacky & talentless.  Tracing + cut & paste != cool.  I don’t mind it as much inside a book, because I can ignore particularly idiotic panels…but the covers are hard to ignore.  I can’t believe this guy has “star power”.  I’ve never disliked  a comic professional’s work so much in my life (not even Mark Millar’s, although I’ve softened on him a little bit in my old age) – although I’m somewhat hesitant to call him a “comic professional”, since I think his “work” is anything but professional.  However, it is in comics, and he does get paid for it sadly, so that technically fits the bill.

LitG points out his swipes every so often, there’s one from yesterday about halfway down.

You can google “Greg Land” + various things to see all kinds of topics on this (“Greg Land porn face” works well), so I’ll restrain my venom to some degree – others have done it better, and with visual evidence.  Still, I suspect I’ll come back to this frequently as long as he is still getting work.  If only he weren’t on Uncanny….sigh.

[update: here's a blog with a few comparisons.]