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If Y2K hasn't taken us down, and you are actually reading this, Happy New Year! And contrary to popular belief, this is NOT the turn of the millennium, but that is an entirely different rant. I will admit that clicking over the entire year odometer numbers like this is cool though.
What? X-Men? Oh yeah, there is a theme to this column...
For the New Year, Marvel was kind enough to finally release the last issue of X-Men: True Friends. Issue one came out way back in July, if I remember correctly. I kept having plans to write a review of this miniseries, but they kept putting off the last issue until now.
This is something that has been driving me up the wall. This series was written way back, something on the order of ten years ago, and takes place roughly during that time frame. The art, or at least the pencils, were also mostly completed at that time. So how come it took six months to go from original publication of the first issue and the last? This will undoubtedly be a mystery of the millennium, whatever year it finally comes around.
Anyways, now that I've ranted about the lateness of Marvel, which still doesn't rival the scheduling of any Cliffhanger book, or Liefeld project, I should really get to the actual CONTENT of the book.
This was written back in the late 80's/early 90's before Claremont lost his mind. So, it's still quite good on the writing part of things. There are little things that are neat for the continuity buff to see, and ties up a few danglers, I think. Unfortunately, if you are a continuity buff, there are some niggling bits that just don't quite fit in. I think they can be reconciled without too much trouble, but I'm not gonna bother. Since it was written when it was, some errors would undoubtedly come up. This is classic Claremont, yes, so all the usual pitfalls come along with that, but he still isn't as verbose as he has gotten to be these days.
The art... The art... Well, first off, I'm not a big fan of Rick Leonardi. He has never drawn a good Rachel, as far as I've seen. Comparatively though, he did some decent stuff here. The first issue was bad even for him, and the 2nd issue had some nice stuff. The final issue had some mediocre bits for him, though, so the art was a bit of a turn off. The art was not overly distracting to the story, so as a whole, this was a pretty decent series. Some continuity bugs, and occasionally poor art, but it was a fun romp, and a good story for Shadowcat and Phoenix. If classic Claremont, or the characters appeal to you, this is a definite thing to pick up.
Hope everyone survived the Y2K fun intact, and I'll see y'all next month!
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