X-men #4 Preview

[Kisinith]

Or it just needs someone else to execute it? Maybe he needs to step back from writing it completely and just be the idea-guy? Other writers seem way more successful responding to the concept, so...?

I dunno, seems that quite a few people like his writing and approach, in fact its general reception seems to have been overwhelmingly positive. Just using anecdotal evidence on the forums and overall sales numbers.

[Domino_Dare-Doll]

I dunno, seems that quite a few people like his writing and approach, in fact its general reception seems to have been overwhelmingly positive. Just using anecdotal evidence on the forums and overall sales numbers.

Were you here for the X-Men #1-3 boards? It's not always such a warm reception.

[kevinism]

Finally! What an amazing issue and the text pages were on point!!

[pkingdom]

The data page wars live on.

Still feels lazy. Hickman had 12 issues for worldbuilding and shouldn't need more. Just take a page and do like a newscast or something about what's going on in the world or how people are reacting. Hell, do something like One Piece cover pages, where each week/month they have one page with almost no text telling part of a story.

If your comic book story has to rely on pages and pages of solid text, you are failing as a comic book author.

Lastly, some of the stuff in the data pages sound more interesting then the story we're getting in the comic.

[loke13]

The data page wars live on.

Still feels lazy. Hickman had 12 issues for worldbuilding and shouldn't need more. Just take a page and do like a newscast or something about what's going on in the world or how people are reacting. Hell, do something like One Piece cover pages, where each week/month they have one page with almost no text telling part of a story.

If your comic book story has to rely on pages and pages of solid text, you are failing as a comic book author.

Lastly, some of the stuff in the data pages sound more interesting then the story we're getting in the comic.

Says who? Some of the data pages have been used to expand on things introduced in HoX but the majority of them have been used to flesh out each books personal narrative. And frankly that's the opposite of lazy.

[terrancejameson]

I was in love with Magneto, Cyclops, Xavier and Hodari this issue. Wakanda flexed super hard and I’m certainly tf here for it.

[Kisinith]

Were you here for the X-Men #1-3 boards? It's not always such a warm reception.

Yeah, and I was here for the New Mutants in space, HoX/PoX and X-Men #4 (obviously) The whole body of work is pretty damn impressive. Even issues #1-3 weren't bombs.

[Killerbee911]

The data page wars live on.

Still feels lazy. Hickman had 12 issues for worldbuilding and shouldn't need more. Just take a page and do like a newscast or something about what's going on in the world or how people are reacting. Hell, do something like One Piece cover pages, where each week/month they have one page with almost no text telling part of a story.

If your comic book story has to rely on pages and pages of solid text, you are failing as a comic book author.

Lastly, some of the stuff in the data pages sound more interesting then the story we're getting in the comic.

There is no data page wars,This opinion does not make sense text box(which what data page really are) are part of comics and has always been. Literally your point is art on the page legitimizes it, Comics forever has had text box exposition aka Data pages. The only difference is they aren't wasting an artist time to draw background art. I am reading Omni in 25 page comic I got 7 to 8 pages of this

Capture.jpg
Capture1.jpg
Capture2.jpg

That is how a "data page" in normal comic looks while presentation is cool, It is clearly pages with text presenting information "not showing".The art is just there to gave the page flavor not truly presenting what is being told .Pretending that comics hasn't always depended on large text box of exposition is silly. The nature of Americans comics which is heavily dependant on always having action means story beats a huge chunk of time get pushed in to text boxes or long character exposition dialogue so we can get fight scenes.

Of course data pages sound more interesting, The human imagination is undefeated. There is a reason why people say the book is always better than movie. The story you imagine is always going to be better than one they put on the page. You are literally doing a sale pitch for why the data pages are good.

There is no rule a comic book has to be 100% visual, The format is literally called comic(art) book(reading). I am all for expanding the format give me 20 pages of art and 2 pages of text, Give me 22 pages of art and 4 pages of text. I don't know if I would want 10 pages of art,10 pages of text for everything but depending on project it could work. Anyways Marvel has 20 pages of art, DC is has 22 pages of art per book ,Indies have 25 page of art sometimes. I am fine with everyone these formats add two extra pages of text which does not take anything from the art part. And creating 2 page of text is far easier than 2 page of normal books. Pages have to touch a writer, then artist, inker and colorist plus at least one editor. A text page just has to be done by writer(maybe graphic designer) then editor and it can be knock out with in one day. Call it lazy but it is cheaper, less time consuming than regular pages and we get good content.

[Purplevit]

First fine X-Men issue so far. First 3 were completely lame.

Not surprised that when Hickman writes a fine X-Men issue it means that this issue is not about actual X-Men again.

[Domino_Dare-Doll]

There is no data page wars,This opinion does not make sense text box(which what data page really are) are part of comics and has always been. Literally your point is art on the page legitimizes it, Comics forever has had text box exposition aka Data pages. The only difference is they aren't wasting an artist time to draw background art. I am reading Omni in 25 page comic I got 7 to 8 pages of this

Capture.jpg
Capture1.jpg
Capture2.jpg

That is how a "data page" in normal comic looks while presentation is cool, It is clearly pages with text presenting information "not showing".The art is just there to gave the page flavor not truly presenting what is being told .Pretending that comics hasn't always depended on large text box of exposition is silly. The nature of Americans comics which is heavily dependant on always having action means story beats a huge chunk of time get pushed in to text boxes or long character exposition dialogue so we can get fight scenes.

Of course data pages sound more interesting, The human imagination is undefeated. There is a reason why people say the book is always better than movie. The story you imagine is always going to be better than one they put on the page. You are literally doing a sale pitch for why the data pages are good.

There is no rule a comic book has to be 100% visual, The format is literally called comic(art) book(reading). I am all for expanding the format give me 20 pages of art and 2 pages of text, Give me 22 pages of art and 4 pages of text. I don't know if I would want 10 pages of art,10 pages of text for everything but depending on project it could work. Anyways Marvel has 20 pages of art, DC is has 22 pages of art per book ,Indies have 25 page of art sometimes. I am fine with everyone these formats add two extra pages of text which does not take anything from the art part. And creating 2 page of text is far easier than 2 page of normal books. Pages have to touch a writer, then artist, inker and colorist plus at least one editor. A text page just has to be done by writer(maybe graphic designer) then editor and it can be knock out with in one day. Call it lazy but it is cheaper, less time consuming than regular pages and we get good content.

A text box is not a data page.

A text box, much like in a novel, works as narration: they're traditionally a vehicle to help explain emotions that a character can't voice or properly verbalise, as well as to act as, say, stage instructions. "Adam graduated in 1998. He doesn't speak of this often as he feels self-conscious about showing his age", for example, is appropriate use of a text-box as it gives us relevant information about Adam while presenting something even vaguely interesting about what kind of character Adam might be; a bit of personality, if you will. This also impacts how we perceive what Adam does choose to verbalise next without interruption. By the end of the scene, we have a more complete view of Adam as a character for good or ill.

A data page takes away from that. It interrupts the story that's going on to show us...information. It might be information that's going to be relevant to the plot at a later date; but it's still an interruption. It's clinical, it's impersonal; it even takes whatever emotional tension the plot might need and, as such, makes the idea feel much smaller. Why should we care what some randomer types out, good or bad, and puts on a page; what does it actually contribute to the story? Does it truly allow the audience to experience the stakes that are supposedly raising or does its' lack of atmosphere and emotional value detract or even feel irrelevant to what's going on?


Imagine if the Orchis battle had been relegated to a data page; if we'd just been shown the report of how the team was obliterated, even if it was explained why it happened, rather than seeing it on-panel.

[Vishop_]

I’d love a one-shot issue of •|Å|• terrorizing Bronze Age humans. Maybe get a look at his original horsemen.

It was refreshing to see a mutant who isn’t helpless without their powers. It’s been awhile since Storm stabbed someone.

Yeah those are one of the few aspects I liked about Uncanny X-Force. New ideas/stories were introduced about Apocalypse and his four horsemen and then there is Twin Apocalypse stuff. Those were awesome concepts. The only thing that made me kinda of disappointed about this is that this characters weren't explored towards their potential.
Would love to see Hickman going for this stuff again , as he teased all of this in the 2nd issue.

As for this issue. I will give it a 9/10. Hickman delivered as expected. The only thing that made me kinda of disappointed was Magneto's geopolitical views. It was kinda of getting dragged towards his mutant supremacy stuff literally.

[Veitha]

A text box is not a data page.

A text box, much like in a novel, works as narration: they're traditionally a vehicle to help explain emotions that a character can't voice or properly verbalise, as well as to act as, say, stage instructions. "Adam graduated in 1998. He doesn't speak of this often as he feels self-conscious about showing his age", for example, is appropriate use of a text-box as it gives us relevant information about Adam while presenting something even vaguely interesting about what kind of character Adam might be; a bit of personality, if you will. This also impacts how we perceive what Adam does choose to verbalise next without interruption. By the end of the scene, we have a more complete view of Adam as a character for good or ill.

A data page takes away from that. It interrupts the story that's going on to show us...information. It might be information that's going to be relevant to the plot at a later date; but it's still an interruption. It's clinical, it's impersonal; it even takes whatever emotional tension the plot might need and, as such, makes the idea feel much smaller. Why should we care what some randomer types out, good or bad, and puts on a page; what does it actually contribute to the story? Does it truly allow the audience to experience the stakes that are supposedly raising or does its' lack of atmosphere and emotional value detract or even feel irrelevant to what's going on?


Imagine if the Orchis battle had been relegated to a data page; if we'd just been shown the report of how the team was obliterated, even if it was explained why it happened, rather than seeing it on-panel.

Reading your posts it feels like your argument against data pages is just that you do not like them. They're messing around with this new concept to convey information which most of the time is extra info that would have taken a lot of page space (we didn't need to have 10 page of Xavier explaining how Resurrections work, with data pages it looked succinct and it avoided unnecessary expository dialogue which is a bore most of the time and it also sounds a bit dumb sometimes to have characters explain stuff to each other). Plus it's nice experimentation for the media which doesn't necessarily need to explain everything through pictures but can also play around with design and crossing with other medias (the graphic design aspect of it all is also very interesting imo).


A journal page is literally the most personal thing ever and it's just hinting at a future plot that we're going to see on page
It's such a nice touch that from issue 1 he slowly started changing his views and it's a narrative choice to build this thing up with every issue instead of giving it 5 pages each issue (we'd be complaining that it was taking too much space in that case). It's not crucial, it's a nice touch and it's not like Duggan wrote it in its blog, it's still a part of the comic (and it's subjective if you enjoy reading it or not).

[Killerbee911]

A text box is not a data page.

.

They are text box in comics that tell you things that happened and not show, Pretty pictures that have nothing to with those words being said. It happens quite a lot in comics. Not every text box is that but they are plenty case where writers you large speech bubbles or text box to exposition away instead of show you the thing.

I am not trying to convince anyone to like them that a personal choice thing and that is fine. What I am fine with is them not pretending that the page is part of story by sticking art on page and do the exact same thing as a data page. I am fine with two extra text pages because Marvel books are 20 pages of art that is their standard. I am fine with these page being exposition and free up the book to focus on story. I am fine with these pages even having some story beats on them because the nature of genre means that some get left on cutting room floor.

Data page tool that free up the X-men comics to dump explanations for things that could clutter up a story. And they are extra pages and as I mentioned the writer has to a script out a page,the artist to draw the page, The inker has to ink the page, The colorist and to color the page, Someone has to letter the page, An editor has review the page etc. Like I said DC gives you 22 pages so you can make an argument for hey these could be real pages. But in terms creation of content these pages are way cheaper and quicker to do and in terms of Marvel they are extra. In world with 22 pages I would be fine with 2 extra pages that expand the story, explain concepts or free the story from having to explain concepts.

The one thing I am not going to do is pretend, We don't get pages as "useless" as this these ones, Art on them doesn't make any better for purpose you guys are talking about and you wouldn't even complain about them simple because have art. We are comic fans you don't complain about big ridiculous splash page used to take up space to reach a number count, We generally don't complain about speech bubble heavy pages or text box heavy aka data pages that are around to explain thing instead of show them in story. You can dislike the data page that fine personal taste, I just think it more streamline and better than what normal happens and in this case it is two "extra" pages.

[AbnormallyNormal]

I liked this issue although I felt the speechifying was slightly too pompous

And Apocalypse completely contradicted what Erik and Xavier were trying to say lol.

The stuff with Cyke and Gorgon neutralizing the teams was ok but pretty mundane, that happens in tons of books.

I have to agree with folks thinking Erik's speech was a BIT over the top, to be honest I felt the mutants came off way aggressive during this encounter with the human reps. Not super insanely diabolical but... too aggressive.

[Zelena]

Reading your posts it feels like your argument against data pages is just that you do not like them. They're messing around with this new concept to convey information which most of the time is extra info that would have taken a lot of page space (we didn't need to have 10 page of Xavier explaining how Resurrections work, with data pages it looked succinct and it avoided unnecessary expository dialogue which is a bore most of the time and it also sounds a bit dumb sometimes to have characters explain stuff to each other). Plus it's nice experimentation for the media which doesn't necessarily need to explain everything through pictures but can also play around with design and crossing with other medias (the graphic design aspect of it all is also very interesting imo).

And it doesn't come… out of blue, it doesn't break the rythm? I mean… maybe you want these informations, but not necessarily at the moment, not all of them?
I experimented that but in comics that took place in the real world: the author was a bit of a pedagogue and was brought very smoothly… it wasn't excessive neither.