From X-Men Annual #10, "Performance" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Art Adams, inks by Terry Austin.
The good: Art Adams art, duh. Cameo appearances from Walt and Louise Simonson, Puddlegulp (aka Frog Thor, now!) and in the page above, the Robot B-9 from Lost in Space!
The bad: Ugh, New Mutants! I just have never, ever liked them. Any of them. Mojo and Spiral...who turn the X-Men into kids...and the New Mutants have to step up to the a-team to rescue and/or avenge them. Longshot joins the team, and while he always looked sharp with Adams drawing him, for some reason Claremont wrote him as so dumb he didn't recognize water.
Admittedly, Longshot was kind of an alien, but still. Also, Kurt and Kitty probably shouldn't even be in this issue: they were both injured in the Mutant Massacre crossover and weren't on the team when Longshot joined. Ah, if Art Adams wants to draw them, why not?
And that's it, I'm on vacation! There'll still be posts here next week, but I'll be in my ancestral homeland in Montana, so have fun!
Glad to read that I'm not the only one who never warmed up to the New Mutants. I am always amazed at how Claremont was so good at writing the creations of others, but when he created his own characters, he came up with some of the most irritating characters in comics history. Kitty Pryde? Too cutesy to live. Cypher? Ever read the issue where Claremont narrated the music Cypher was listening to while he worked on some dopey Danger Room scenario? Ugh. Warlock? Double ugh.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the artists on the X books really made them shine: Byrne, Adams, (Paul) Smith, Romita. We just didn't know how good we had it back then, did we?