Astonishingly Awful's Profile

This was a fun, refreshing read. Definitely something different.

Thanks to Eduardo Pansica‘s guest art, this issue is much easier on the eyes than issues #1-4. He even manages to produce a few outstanding panels, especially those featuring Mal Chance. However, his apparent talent and knack for horror is wasted on this utterly braindead book. The story and dialogue are as stupid as ever.

My personal highlight is when Honey Badger, or whatever the nam e of this derivative character is, clarifies that all of this takes place on the astral plane, and then suggests to find their missing teachers by sniffing them out. On the spirit plane. Let that sink in for a minute.

The good thing about this series is that indeed it all takes place in their minds, so it will be easy to have them all wake up in issue #10 (I can’t believe we have to suffer through five more issues of this crap) and realise it was all just a bad dream.more

It doesn’t get any better than J. Scott Campbell’s cover – there’s no point in even looking inside, unless you want to torture yourself.

There are exactly zero artists on this book that are capable of drawing sensual, sexy bodies, much less correct anatomy. Phil Noto at least provides some solid pages, but his figures, as much as I usually like them, possess the sexiness of Anne of Gree n Gables. It's like Marvel wanted to put out a swimsuit issue for people who hate swimsuit issues. They even do stupid stories in swimsuit issues instead of the sexist, body shaming filth my generation used to enjoy. Unfortunately the woke crowd Marvel is catering to doesn't buy as many comics as Marvel wants them to.

So, please, don't waste your money on this one, kids - unless you are more into "inner qualities" than hot bodies. If you want to (censored) by looking at hot superheroes and superheroines, get a few old Excalibur issues by Alan Davis or John Byrne's She-Hulk run instead.more

Stupid story as always, and an art style that aims for realism but actually reminds me of xeroxed photos. Usually I'm thankful for every issue not drawn by Humberto Ramos, but not in this case. This is the opposite of Ramos, but where Ramos is at least "fun", Sorrentino's pages look like all life has been sucked out of them.

It’s not bad, but mostly setup. I miss the days when we got a full story in one issue.

Farid Karami’s art is great, but maybe a little too clean for a book like The Punisher.

The Manga girl assassin seems to be a thing now. I really wonder what she’s representing in our collective psyche.

Besides that, this was not the most interesting issue, but still better than most of the bullshit that counts as comics these days.

- [ ] X-men outback #1. Look does this have just zero logic and huge flaws ? Yes. How the hell does Sabretooth just find them ? Then we are so chicken shit in writing we wipe his mind so no one knows this happened? Convenient no stakes storytelling by Steve Orlando . But at the same time is the best X-men story in recent memory. Great callbacks. Good action. It’s got a pulse in a dead franchis e . I’m taking what I can get. This wasn’t bad It’s certainly not Outback level good. By today’s awful putrid xmen titles It’s decent stuff despite the ass kissing of storm at epic levels. more

I’m glad there are still comics like this one. Redcoat pulls you in like a great novel or movie.

I read this book mostly because of the art, since I’m not a great Superman fan. I don’t even know who Superboy-Prime is.

Dan Mora is one of those extraordinary artists who can just switch between different styles and be great at all of them. Actually, looking through the pages of this book, I think his Manga-inspired default style - which shines through in all the other styles, and wh ich is probably the reason I don’t follow him regularly - isn’t even his best. I was most enamored with his romance comic pages with their more traditional drawing style and organic linework. Also, the Flash-Gordon-esque panel really intrigued me. I miss this capability for drawing anatomically correct in modern comics.

Ultimately, I still have no idea what this was really about in continuity, but do I care? No. Will I pick up the next issue of Superman, who apparently isn’t even in his own book? Unlikely. Can I appreciate a book that bursts with creativity, that is a wonderful artistic experiment and a love letter to the whole genre? Yes, absolutely.more

Captain America goes to hell - literally and figuratively. The tone shift from almost too realistic to mythic afterlife nonsense is jarring, to say the least. It’s one of those issues where I find myself saying „whatever“ after each flip of the page. Since I’m also not a fan of Valerio Schiti‘s art, this issue didn’t do it for me.

Uncanny X-Men #230, the issue that this new #1 is a prequel for, was my first American comic book (after reading a few of the older issues as German translations). The outback era is still my favorite run in all the X-books, so naturally, I was expecting the worst when this new series was announced. Marvel has done a few mini series about specific eras in x-history, and none of them were able to c apture the original’s magic. This one does. Kind of.
Of course Orlando is no Claremont, but he manages to capture the spirit of the era. Rogue and Dazzler fighting, Storm and Wolverine acting as the grown-ups of the team. Even the in-continuity references were spot on. I’m not sure if I had chosen Sabretooth as the villain of this issue, but Orlando found a good way to make this work with Sabretooth‘s next appearance during Inferno. The biggest issue I had with the story was Storm accepting her role as the team‘s goddess, something that sounds more like modern Storm. All in all, this story worked for me.
Unfortunately, the sucky art made all of this irrelevant. I didn’t expect a Silvestri level artist, but Segovia doesn’t even come close to what was considered average in 1989. As a result, the good script is completely wasted and the result is a cheap-looking rip-off that nobody needed.
Writing: 7,5
Art: 2,5more

I don’t know why, because it’s still MacKay on writing, but this storyline isn’t bad. I particularly liked the scene in which Animalia was able to convince the Department H pilot that the X-Men just want to help. If this trend continues, Cyclops’s Unlikable X-Men could actually become… gasp…heroes!

This is the most canceled at issue 10 looking series I've ever seen.

As much as I enjoyed the art, this issue was kind of boring and confusing to me.

Cable and his team are after a mutant influencer named Kali for saying bad things on the internet. Yet we never learn what exactly she is saying. I went back to read the first pages again, but seriously… at no point in the book do we learn what is so harmful about Kali‘s message, which begs an important question: when did comic writers become so inept at writing comics?
The art and character dynamics are good enough to keep me interested, but the main plot - just as in past issues - is making me scratch my head.more

Guest artist Rogé Antônio has one thing that most artists at Marvel, including regular series artist Luciano Vecchio, are lacking - a knack for dynamism and natural movement. Unfortunately Gail Simone can’t help but infuse the story with her woke nonsense at any opportunity, which is a real shame, since the book is mostly enjoyable.