The Dogs: 20/11/06

THE DOGS: 20/11/06

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDERMAN #3. (Written by Peter David. Art by Mike Wieringo).

Apologies in advance here to Messrs Weiringo and David. This issue is not in the Dogpile for the art of for the writing, both of which are good if not great. No I'm afraid this is here because it has been tarred with the Other brush. When this 'event' finishes I will hopefully be able to get it together and give a cohesive argument as to how the planning, logistics and execution of this have combined to make it so, so bad. For the moment, suffice it to say it is, and unless the last issue is the biggest doozy since Infinite Crisis #4 I suspect I will be kicking off on the Other as a whole sometime soon.

UNCANNY X-MEN #468. (Written by Chris Claremont. Art by Chris Bachalo).

Now this is hard. My Crisis geekgasm and my Geoff Johns love notwithstanding, I'm an X-boy through and through. A good third of my entire comic collection is mutant-based. I love these characters. So when I say that this is the worst the core x-titles have ever been, you can be assured that I do it with a sense of perspective. While the travesties wreaked by Milligan are the subject for another review, Claremont is front and centre for this one. Now don't get me wrong, Uncanny is the house that Claremont built. No one has delivered the tales of the X they way he did during his prime years. However it now seems the once proud architect is roaming the halls of his homestead and pissing on the furniture. This issue concludes a two-parter focusing on Rachel Grey. Or Rachel Grey Summers. Or Marvel Girl. Or Phoenix Mark II. Whatever she's called. The point is that this character is now almost a metaphor for Claremont's work on the title itself.

Even at the beginning, Rachel Grey had one of the most convoluted conceptions in the history of comics. Now after layer upon layer of continuity and happenstance has been cemented on top of her there is no real character left. Just a collection of crappy circumstances built on to the least pro-active chassis in comics. Since her entire existence has been a retread of Jean Grey anyway, and given her inability to do even one positive thing on her own behalf, shouldn't she really be dead by now? To further exacerbate the already exacerbated, between these covers we find bad Bachallo art not good Bachallo art. The difference for those who aren't familiar with his work it is the difference between being able to tell what's going on and not really having a clue.