Sigh. I was watching the Losers while I wrote these posts, and now it's over...and I still have four issues to go. You know, I often regret my decision to avoid swearing on my blog, because this seems like the time for it. We're up to "The Draco, part three" from Uncanny X-Men #431, written by Chuck Austen, art Philip Tan.
After a traumatizing little flashback with Polaris--she found out Magneto was her father, and went to Genosha to confront him just in time to arrive when the island was destroyed, as seen in New X-Men--the X-Men find themselves somewhere else. Warren has Iceman's head, but thinks Bobby's dead, even though he's still blinking and trying to talk. Nightcrawler is himself again, although the faceless nobodies he was linked to in the teleport circle thing are dead. (Or, at least most of them.) In fact, wasn't there an army of demony-types last time? Well, they're gone and won't come up again, so leave it.
Angel offers to cut Kurt free, as the other mutant's hand has melted to Kurt's. (Why the Angel has a sword...again, I'm not going to dwell on it.)
And Azazel finally appears! He admits he should've anticipated that the X-Men might have seen and followed Kurt, but doesn't appear especially worried about it. One of his crew calls Angel a "Cheyarafim," but Azazel corrects him, Angel is too young to be whatever that is. Angel offers to use his healing blood on Kurt's hands, because at the time, that's what Warren's blood did; but it burns Kurt. Jillian, a female Nightcrawler-type with wings, screams "Death to all angels!" and it's on...after nine more pages of subplots with Sammy Pare, Juggernaut, and Polaris.
As fighty-time ensues, Azazel tries to regain control of his crew; and Jubilee asks Abyss, the noseless blue kid from the first chapter of this, what, if anything, he can do. Abyss says he can open up holes that suck stuff in. Where does it go? He admits he doesn't know, he never got anything back. He tries it, but starts spitting stuff back out, like his neighbor's dog (alive? Hard to tell.) and Mystique. (Obviously alive, despite being trapped in whatever for however long without food or water, because everyone loves Mystique.) To...be...continued.
I agree with you, I didn't care too much for Chuck Austin's run either. But then you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who did.
ReplyDeleteHow come you didn't do a St.Paddy's day skit? That's cool though because I'm working on one @my blog. It should be up later. I have a Banshee figure, and I'm not afraid to use it. Ha!
I think I can help you with the "Cheyarafim", unless you were just joking. Have you ever seen a rococo painting where the angels look like fat babies? Each of them is a 'cherub', but the plural is 'cherubim'. There's a different, taller and leaner way of depicting angels used to represent a seraph. The plural for that is 'seraphim', which I think was the word which the author was trying to obscure.
ReplyDeleteAll those terms were originally coined in languages that used different alphabets, so any way you choose to spell them with the Romanized letters we use in English is pretty much fair game. The thing is (and you'd need to ask a religious or art history scholar about this), I don't think there have been too many variant spellings in the last 150-200 years. The printing press has done a lot for standardization. I think the reason for the deliberately abstruse (and I think made up) spelling is to imply that the character using the term is very old. The writer is trying to give the reader a clue that Angel can't pick up on because Angel can't read the word balloon and see the ridiculous spelling. Or maybe he's just pretentious.
Dale!
ReplyDeleteI usually do strips a week or two in advance, so it never occurs to me. Also, I'm about as Irish as a green Coors; that is, not so very. And I liked your Banshee strip!
pblfsda!
Yeah, I kinda get what Austen was trying to do there; but it just annoys me to add mutant angels and devils to the ninety-seven other secret hidden races of the Marvel Universe. (And between them and Apocalypse and his hangers-on, there were a relative ton of mutants way back when.) And the mutant hidden races aren't the best, either: the Neo, the Externals...ugh, there's some others that make the Morlocks look good.
Thanks for the kind word Googum. If you have any comments or suggestions you're more than welcome to post them. Trying not to sound nerdish or anything here, but you are major source of inspiration when it comes to these strips. So I hope you don't feel like I'm trying to steal from you in any shape of form. Trust me, you're light years ahead of me in putting together strips. I don't have anywhere near the access to props and settings like you do, So I have to make do with what I have. Still look forward to your strips. Damn, I think I still sound like some dork with a case of idol-worship. Ha! You da' man!
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