Reading Uncanny xmen 410-441 (The Chuck Austen Era)

[grinningdemon]

"okay, you know the mutant human guy who's constantly being feared and hated just because he looks like a demon of some kind? so, get this: he's actually a demon! Invalidates the message of X-Men? No no, see it's just... like... well his dad is a demon! Get it??"

To be fair I haven't actually read the Austen era so maybe it was handled better than I've heard and my snap judgment has supported.

It was actually handled worse than you think...but feel free to read it and view the train wreck for yourself.

[grinningdemon]

I like Austen era, he created Azazel (who isn't a demon hes a mutant who thinks hes a demon, like Apocalypse thinks hes a god) and crazy Lorna

What are you basing this "not a demon" thing on? Wishful thinking?

[Mutant God]

What are you basing this "not a demon" thing on? Wishful thinking?

No, in the comic it said Azazel's group the Neyaphem, were mutants who look like demons

[grinningdemon]

No, in the comic it said Azazel's group the Neyaphem, were mutants who look like demons

Granted, I haven't read that story since it first came out, but I don't remember that...and it seems like fans wouldn't hate it so much if there was an out built into the story...but, as I said, I haven't read it in 10 years so I'll take your word for it...either way, still a terrible story and a terrible run.

[DrBat]

I wasn't crazy about a lot of Austen's run, but I thought his Juggernaut storyline was pretty good.

He also had Northstar talk to a little mutant kid about his homosexuality. A little kid, to me that was very inappropriate.

What did he say that was inappropriate?

[gsnake007]

Having read his run for the first time i agree with everyone on annie and her stupid son and havok that was just wrong. Same thing with angel/paige doing that in front of her mother was messed up.I did like juggernaut and his growth and reform was interesting specially his single issue about his past

[Anduinel]

It was garbage:

-Nurse Annie was a horrible character, and her "romance" with Havok was creppy as heck.
-Ruining Stacy X.
-The whole creepy Angel/Husk thing (especially the mid-air sex romp in front of their teammates/her mother).
-Polaris going crazy for lame reasons.
-Female characters all being crazy, useless, sex-obsessed, or some combination of the three.
-The Draco.
-Doing an entire story centered around Catholicism when it's clear that he doesn't know thing 1 about Catholicism and didn't bother to do any kind of legitimate research on the topic.
-Etc

It was a trainwreck of a run.

He also gave quite a few characters rotten and/or abusive fathers. For Charles and Cain it was canon, so no issues there. But Carter got one. Sammy got one. Nightcrawler got one. Stacey X got one. Hell, Northstar got one and both people he might have referred to as "father" were dead by the time he was six. It was a weird theme and makes me suspect Austen was projecting his own issues onto the page, as he mentioned during one of the interviews for his "mature" superhero project, Worldstorm, that he did come from an abusive household.

[Agent Z]

What exactly is it about Lorna going crazy that some people actually like? Not trying to dis anyone here just genuinely curious.

[BlitheringToot]

Ugggh. I forgot all about Azazel.

Azazel was awesome in "X-Men: First Class," but darn it, he should have JUST been a mutant. Having be pseudo-demonic, and a counterpoint to Archangel's "angelic" race of mutants just reeked of lamesauce.

As I said before, in general I enjoyed Austen's run, but when it was bad it splattered everywhere.

[JustJelly]

I just said this in another thread recently but even most of the art on that run sucked...Quitely is one of the most overrated artists in comics and even the better artists that came after him couldn't make the terrible character designs look good.

I love the Grant Morrison New X-Men and I'm a big fan of Quitely (especially on Batman and Robin). That being said, Frank Quitely drew Jean Grey and Emma Frost terribly with way too pouty lips. Even for Emma it was too much. But the worst was Cyclops, he looked like Geordi La Forge from Next Gen. It looked like that visor was fucking grafted into his skull, it was unnerving to look at. But I loved everyone else's art, especially Bachalo's Assault on Weapon Plus work.

[Nevets]

Austen had some issues for sure...but it really was #2 in the 3 X-Men titles at the time, under X-Treme and far above New.

[jmc247]

What exactly is it about Lorna going crazy that some people actually like? Not trying to dis anyone here just genuinely curious.

You really can't lump together the times she has acted mentally ill as if they were all the same. Like after Havok supposed died in 1998 she locked herself in a room and spent weeks on end talking to Havok's costume.





This was of course pre-Austen. Then during Morrison's run she spent weeks in the mud of Genosha after the genocide having the last moments of the population repeated in her head. Yes, that made her unstable for a time, but it made her tough as nails as well. Lorna was smarter, more powerful then ever and actually had a spine something she totally lacked in the 70s and 80s and only had a very weak one in the 90s. It made sense that she be really extreme for the first few issues after coming back and it level off over time.



The notion in the love triangle Austen set Lorna up to look like a clown and the bad one compared to Nurse Annie is false. They all were supposed to come off badly in one way or the other as its a love triangle. Nurse Annie came off looking like an idiot and self centered.

[Conch22]

I legitametly enjoyed the beginning of Austens run. He brought in Northstar, used Havok and Polaris (both characters I'd been missing since X factor), gave a good amount of focus to Nightcrawler, Archangel and Iceman, played up the relationship between the Professor and Juggernaut well. I liked Azazel and Nurse Annie, he helped establish Husk more centrally in the books (sadly didn't last). The thing is, people treat Austens run as this bizarre left turn, but it really wasn't. Long lost evil relatives, bigoted religious fanatics, the "third species" aspect, the love triangles and drama.

For context, I didn't read past the trial of the Juggernaut and liked the Draco rather alot.

[Emerald_616]

I legitametly enjoyed the beginning of Austens run. He brought in Northstar, used Havok and Polaris (both characters I'd been missing since X factor), gave a good amount of focus to Nightcrawler, Archangel and Iceman, played up the relationship between the Professor and Juggernaut well. I liked Azazel and Nurse Annie, he helped establish Husk more centrally in the books (sadly didn't last). The thing is, people treat Austens run as this bizarre left turn, but it really wasn't. Long lost evil relatives, bigoted religious fanatics, the "third species" aspect, the love triangles and drama.

For context, I didn't read past the trial of the Juggernaut and liked the Draco rather alot.

Uncanny #442 & 443 were worth reading as they dealt with the fallout of Morrison's Planet X story, but you did not miss ANYTHING in issues 437-441. It was an editorially mandated Romeo & Juliet update using a younger Guthrie sibling. And Paige and Warren had sky sex in front of everyone

[kevinism]

The innocence of a child should always be protected from the overbearing presence of western homosexuality.

Is this sarcasm?