There I am, being dragged closer to it. I claw at the ground, shouting at the indignity of it all. I was a disciple. I knew its every intricacy, its every chapter and verse. I'd managed to elude its grasp for over a decade, something I proudly shouted to the heavens on as many occasions as opportunity would allow. I had put this thing down, conquered it and slammed it back to the hell it had become.
Kicking and screaming, I am forced upon its altar and shown, once again, its uncanny face. I bow my head, not in reverence but in submission. I have completely and utterly given in.
And like a addict returning to the needle, Matt Fraction has made me read The X-Men again.
I'd given up reading The X-Men, proper for nearly a decade. Sure, I'd read Grant Morrison's New X-Men but let's be honest, that wasn't the X-Men. That was Grant Morrison's X-Men and when he left, I left with him, vowing never to return.
For about a year I'd been hearing good things about Matt Fraction on the X-Men and while I wasn't initially floored, I could easily see that this was a man unleashing his love for the superhero genre upon the masses who'd come to expect nothing but the X-cliches of gloved fists vowing revenge and berzerker rages against machines.What we got was a man who understood that for Wolverine to be Wolverine he had to be Wolverine. Meaning, he had to get his hands dirty so enter a leader, Cyclops, who allowed for this to happen. Matt Fraction's Cyclops was the delivery of the shiny promise Morrison always hinted upon.
His X-Men Science Squad was the welcome geek-tastic continuation of his Image Comics graphic novel, The Five Fists of Science.
And do not even get me started on his Emma Frost or his Namor, for that matter.
It is Uncanny X-Men methadone for those with New X-Men cravings.
And here I go again.
So, what comics did you think you'd never read and now, love?
6 comments:
The Immortal Iron Fist. Fraction strikes again.
Hah, Devon you beat me to writing this post...
For me, it's Captain America.
As a Canadian I really have never cared about the blonde-haired, blue-eyed patriotic symbol of militaristic superiority of my neighbours to the south. Canadians, you see, have a very blasé attitude towards patriotism, and more often have a negative, even suspicious reaction towards it. There's a reason why "Captain Canuck" never took off here.
So it was weird for me when my wife announced she was a big-time Captain America fan I was a bit taken aback. But she turned me on ... (ahem)... to Brubaker's Cap and I've been hooked ever since.
It helps that the main storyline for the past two+ years has been the theme of "legacy" which is always one of my favourites (and Bru's exploration of Bucky as Cap is almost as good as Waid's explorations of Wally West living-up-to-the-legend in Flash). I'm not sure if I'll stick with Cap once Bru leaves, though.
Second to that is Daredevil, a character who never really appealed to me all that much, but after much critical insistence I started picking up the Bendis run in trades and have resoundingly turned around on the character. A large part of that is Marvel has allowed Daredevil to sustain his own continuity and remain almost completely separated from the happenings of the Marvel U... Civil War didn't out Matt Murdock, and there didn't appear any Skrulls, so it makes Daredevil one of the most accessible books in comics. Unlike Captain America, whose title I'm reading mainly because of the writer, I've actually become a Daredevil fan.
So there you go.
Mine was Avengers.
When I heard back in 2002? or so? that some new guy was completely destroying the Avengers I was disgusted. Kill the Vision? The Scarlet Witch was the bad guy? WHAT?
About 2 years ago I was stuck in Louisiana working with colleagues and picked up a copy of New Avengers Breakout-and it was pretty good. I followed up with the rest-New Avengers, Secret Invasion, Spider Woman and even Powers. It was all pretty good. I even read Avengers Disassembled for the first time and was surprised at how much love he had put into it. And in hindsight, it was necessary to reconsruct the group lest they lose their relevance as Marvel's premiere super group.
Scalped.
So not my comic. A protagonist who's an a-hole. No superheroes. I should hate Scalped.
Yet I'm now crack addicted to this story on the reservation.
The Punisher. I figured, sure one day I MAYBE might read some of Ennis' run, but I'd never go into a shop and pick up an issue. But then then turned him into Frankenstein, and teamed him up with the Legion of Monsters. It's the kind of off-the-wall craziness that Rick Remender and Tony Moore's Fear Agent stuff has. It also has heart, which makes it something more than just "boy isn't this wacky!". I'm not picking up the single issues due to financial constraints, but I'll be first in line for the collection when it hits stores.
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