Uncanny X-Men #502

I'm getting my share of x-battles in SF from Secret Invasion: X-Men (and with better art), thank you very much... but I am interested in this talk about what Nightcrawler does on the weekends. Perhaps the first post-"manifest destiny" coming-out party? Or maybe just silly innuendo.

Wolverines arms are huge on the cover.  Digging Greg Land's art.

Uncanny X-Men is really firing on all cylinders.

Now bring back Rachel Grey, you bastards! :)

Yeah, as to Land, I went into this hating him, and although I'd prefer for his run to be over, I feel a lot better about him as the series goes on.

i am actually really excited about this run. that excited could be ruined pretty quickly though. for example, one more reference to how "green" they've gone and i'm going to set it on fire.

Bobdoad the setting it on fire comment ad me busting up. Its so funny dont they realise there printing on paper DUH HELLO

Is it some sorta right of passage that every new X-men writer has to create a new "mutant hate group" for the X-men to fight? I know they think this is some sort of new twist on the idea, but it really isn't. They might as well be the Friends of Humanity.

this is a great book but so far i hate it as much as i like it.  hopefully they will clean it up some so i can just love it.

@captainjack - I'm with you.  I loved last issue, but there was enough cheesy dialogue to make me feel guilty for liking it so much. 

@captainjack & @cutty --

Thirded.

I can't believe I'm reading a book this ugly.

@captainjack & cutty & aerodynamics

Fourth-ed-ed

For all the moments that make me smile, there are always moments that makes me visibly annoyed. 

Fiftheded

lol. 6th

Although i think we'll all be happier when Dodson takes over cause it could look A LOT better.

haha, 7th

 Land's art makes me conflicted.  I should hate it, but I don't really.  I love Fractions work, so I should love this, but I don't really.  Heres to hoping this picks up the pace.  Its the only X-book I am picking up since I dropped Cable (Sucked) a few months back.

 P.S.  Anyone else hate Cyclops' new uniform?

Dazzler's face made me ill, and Beast's face was A TRACED PHOTO OF A LION. I take back the things I said about Land improving.

Dazzler's boobs looked humongously disproportionate in that opening shot of her!  And all the smiling from Emma and Cyclops is really starting to annoy me.  I have never wanted to punch a woman more than I want to punch Emma and knock that grin off her face.  Land needs to be replaced, his work is brining this book down for me.  That being said, it was a pretty solid read for me.  Still not as great as I think it could be, but not terrible.  Loving the little quirks that Fraction throws in but I still don't really believe that the Hellfire Cult is that much of a threat.  Maybe its just me

Really liked this issue, it has a few minor problems, but it feels like a classic X-Men story. 

So Colossus was mentioned but never appeared.  I wanna see my boy FSU!

Yes the people looked stiff but I thought the story was really good.

Dazzler!!  Anybody know if she's still in New Excalibur?  Or if that title is still around?

Pixie's scooter has a Pixies sticker?!

OMG, WTF is happening to me? POSTMODERN/IRONY OVERLOAD !!!!!!!

@aerodynamics - it does!? *rummage, shuffle* Omg it does! I'll have to improve my rating of this one. Still, I think I've had enough of Emma's sh*t eating grin all the time. Ugh. Like when she's flexing in diamond form saying she needs to beat some people up? gimme a break.

I wish I could have given this issue lower than a 1/5 rating, if only because of the truly awful art.  Unfortunately, this wasn't even the worst art I saw on a book this week-- X-Factor was even worse.

This Greg Land hate amazes me.  I mean, I get it, but give the guy a break, this issue looked great.  Sure, there's the occasional panel where a bicep is too big, or its a little stiff, or women are drawn a little too....well...big.  But this issue looked like it was drawn by Steve Epting, it was clean, dynamic, and really supported the story.  Stop the hate

@cutty - Taste in art, as in all things, is subjective, but as for me personally what I really can't abide is the phoniness and impropriety exuded by most of the images Land produces. His figures look like tracings of bad fashion and advertising photography, which they evidently are. As cloying as these images are (to my eye) they are only that much worse when shoehorned into a comic book narrative. In my opinion, a vast portion of the appeal of comic books is their ideosyncratic aesthetic--the aesthetic famously emulated and exulted in the paintings of Roy Lichtenstein--which has grown, matured and expanded over the decades. Land's approach, to me, has the air of a step away from the glory of the medium, and it hinders his ability to convey a narrative. I do like his cars, though.

In any case, far be it from me to act as an arbiter of taste. This is just one reader's explanation of 'the hate'.

@aerodynamics - who said what in the what now?

Land used to be a penciller (and a good one), now he's a tracer.

I thought the Land art here was less offensive than usual, but overall it's still a lot of posing and fake looking facial expressions that get in the way of the storytelling.

I was actually psyched to see what would happen when Emma went into battle in diamond form (what happens?  does Colossus throw her at people?  I don't think the diamond has ever been shown as anything but a defensive measure).  But the fight scene was confusing and I don't even know if she did anything.  It hurt my appreciation of a book I'm otherwise enjoying.

Also, Fraction's been known to go PoMo, but I don't think the Pixies sticker was ironically self-referential.  The character's self-chosen codename is Pixie, the Pixies presumably exist in the Marvel U, why wouldn't she have a sticker?  Granted, I don't really see a teenaged girl these days listening to the Pixies -- but I have a Slayer sticker on my car b/c I like Buffy, not b/c I'm a fan of the band.

once agian i liked this book.  there were still things that bugged me.  what amazed me was when Emma and Scott were talking and they werent in bed.  Amazing, trully amazing.  in the end i feel the same way about the book i did before.

oh yea, and no one said anyting about going green!

@conor - aren't half the guys out there tracers these days?  i have no basis, but I feel like some of my favorite artists - Michael Lark, David Aja, Tony Harris, etc... lightbox it up for all their art.  Now I am not putting Land in that group, but I also feel like he gets treated a little unfairly

Photoreferencing (especially when you take your own photos like Tony Harris) is deferent than what Greg Land does.  It has also been proven that he has traced other artists' work.  I will never buy a book he is on.

fair enough.  I just got back into comics about a year and a half ago (after about a 10 year layoff) and I missed all the controversial Greg Land stuff.  It seems like a lot has changed in the way comic art is done since the Jim Lee/McFarlane/Silvestri days

I dont understand why Land has a job if he was outed for tracing other people's work. That seems like big no-no and the companies shouldnt be giving him paychecks if he's stealing from others. Is it the big boobs? Is that really the only reason he has a job?

Maybe he should stick to just posters, cause someone said it earlier, it looks fine when his art is just still. But he is just terrible to write a comic with any motion involved....Oh wait I just got a notice saying all comics do that. lol

"Land used to be a penciller (and a good one)"

Can anyone point out where? I'm curious...

@ drakedangerz: I thought I was the only one that noticed the constant smiling. I don’t' know why that bothers me so much.  I enjoyed the issue and then I just realized it seems like in every panel every single character had the pearly whites showing.

@Cooper   I recall Land was the artist on 'Birds of Prey' at one point -- maybe when Chuck Dixon was writing it?  I remember really liking it and being puzzled why people said such bad things about the guy.  Then I ran into some of his recent work and thought "oh". 

You know in South Park when they use a photograph of Mel Gibson's face and they animate it as a static cutout that typically has an inappropriate expression for the scene, adding to the comedy?  That's what Greg Land's art reminds me of.  It looks beautifully rendered as static images divorced from the story, but when you look at the art and consider the actual mood or tone of the moment most of the expressions seem comedically inappropriate.  I enjoy reading the story once, focusing on the words, then leafing back through the art and adding my own narrative track and I just laugh, and laugh, and laugh.  The man has talent as a creator of images, but his ability to tell the author's story is simply horrible.

Don't know if it's because everybody talks about it but I really noticed how bad the art was it this issue, I'm still trying to figure out what is going on with Wolverine on the first page.  For me, it was odd because I usually don't pick apart the art and I don't even think I have a favorite artist, but I was picking apart almost every page.  Hopefully we can get a new artist because the story is good but the art is really bringing it down