Age of X-Man (USA) di AA.VV.

[Man of Steel]

Letto The X-Tremists #3
Numero di passaggio, matite curate molto male, self-insert da parte della writer nei panni di Betzy e...boh era strano, ma non è che non ci stava...

[Azrael]

Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #3
Written by Leah Williams
Art by Georges Jeanty, Roberto Poggi, Jim Charalampidis
Lettering by VC's Clayton Cowles
Published by Marvel Comics
Review by C.K. Stewart
'Rama Rating: 7 out of 10

Content warning ahead for mentions of eating disorders. Age of X-Man: X-Tremists writer Leah Williams has been open about wanting to deliver a better Blob in this limited series, using his role as the X-Tremists' leader as an opportunity to rehabilitate a character who has often been defined, literally and not very positively, by his fatness. Last week's Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #3 is where this concept is put to the test, pushing the boundaries of how much you can do to really rehabilitate a character's narrative legacy in a world where the framework to even discuss it -- as physical prejudices, per Williams, don't exist here -- have been wiped out.

This issue picks up immediately after the final scene of #2, with Betsy crawling atop a table to ask Fred if his freshly-revealed feelings for her still hurt him. Slightly slack-jawed and visibly startled, he says yes, and Betsy departs, having agreed to let him keep his feelings and not betray her friend by ratting him out to the rest of the squad. The action through the rest of the issue is fairly compelling; the team squabbles over the continued presence of their pregnant captor in the basement and a failed mindwipe on a new captive by Betsy, and there's a building sense of discomfiting horror as you become more aware that you're watching a love story play out against the backdrop of a team that's angry, but still surprisingly tolerant, of their teammate torturing a pregnant woman in a basement. The narrative remains contrasted to Jeanty and Poggi's bold and lively art, with colorist Charalampidis' vibrant work starting to seem more at odds with the book's darker narrative undercurrent in a way that's starting to feel intentional.

This undercurrent is undercut by a central scene near the end of the book between Betsy and Fred - an intense and uncomfortable monologue from Betsy in which she discloses how much easier it was to cope with her eating disorder in an Asian woman's body. It's a heavy admission that feels out of place in this particular conversation, a private tet-a-tet over classic novels where what could have been an emotional and thoughtful exploration of Betsy's narratively, ah, problematic history could have been unraveled and rewritten. But Williams glosses past the most jarring aspect of Betsy's admission - the aspect that made Psylocke's years in Kwannen's body so particularly uncomfortable - and by introducing Betsy's history with her eating disorder, Williams undermines her own oft-stated goal about introducing a better Blob. It starts to feel as if this team is relying on a "world without physical prejudice" to avoid ever having to discuss Fred's fatness at all, all while putting the only fat character on the team squarely in the position of being an unexpected emotional sounding board for a woman discussing her disordered relationship with her own body.

Fred isn't the only shirtless character in the book, but where Bobby's fashion choices seem framed squarely as a way to show off his physique. Fred, instead, is given unflattering pants and a jacket that doesn't close, as if no one could be bothered to order uniforms in extended sizes. He gets two outfits -- neither particularly stylish or complimentary - and while he's not drawn, physically, in a particularly unflattering way, the conversation between Betsy and Fred really emphasizes that Williams and the team are attempting to "rehabilitate" Fred as a character in the vacuum of this book without ever having to address the pop culture disdain for fat bodies that often made him a somewhat controversial character to begin with.

It's not to say that this monologue from Betsy couldn't have happened, but that it's a lazy choice to give Betsy the space to explore her feelings about her body from before Nate Grey and then in turn use the "absence of physical prejudice" in Nate Grey's world as, seemingly, an excuse to never address the physical prejudices turned on Fred/Blob as a character that apparently prompted his inclusion in the book in the first place. With luck this is addressed in future issues in some way, but Betsy's revelation feels so jarringly out of place in the story at this point that it casts a pall on the rest of the issue, despite some impressive action sequences delivered by Jeanty and Poggi.

[Man of Steel]

Letto Prisoner X #3
Solito numero paranoico di Prisoner X, ancora una volta continuano a stuzzicarci con Legion, ma non succede na mazza...

[Man of Steel]

Letto Apocalypse and the X-Tracts #3
Numero che stava procedendo bene e poi...da dove salta fuori quella pagina finale? Totalmente random.

[Man of Steel]

Letto The Marvelous X-Men #4
La storia procede bene, nulla da ridire in particolare....
Diciamo che siccome sappiamo che dopo avremo Hickman, non mi aspetto chissà che cosa come conseguenze ecc...

[katzenberg]

Chissà se Hickman andrà a riprendere qualcosa da queste mini...

[Man of Steel]

Letto NextGen #4
Brisson sta girando a vuoto, non fosse per il finale, uno potrebbe anche skippare questo numero...

[Man of Steel]

Letto The Amazing Nightcrawler #4
Twistone finale niente male, tutto il numero era mirato verso ad esso eee ora manca solo l'ultimo numero.

[Man of Steel]

Letto The X-Tremists #4
Numero che diventa interessante solo verso la fine, the fire rises!

[Man of Steel]

Letto Prisoner X #4
Numero carico di azione e mi è piaciuto non poco, vedremo cosa faranno con l'ultimo numero.

[Man of Steel]

Letto Apocalypse and the X-Tracts #4
Huh...avrei dovuto immaginarlo i guess, comunque sia, i twists di questo numero/mini sono stati gestiti bene, non rimane che leggere l'ultimo numero!

[Man of Steel]

Letto The Marvelous X-Men #5
Si conclude la mini, ma la storia dovrebbe terminare nel numero Omega, proprio come AoA.
Ora gli X-Men sanno cosa ha fatto Nate, tempo di chiudere questa timeline.

[Man of Steel]

Letto NextGen #5
E con questo chiude la mini, finale carino, voleva essere un po' dark, ma sappiamo tutti cosa sta per capitare...

[Man of Steel]

Letto The Amazing Nightcrawler #5
Si conclude anche questa, alla fine quella che mi sembrava la più interessante si è rivelata quella più debole.
Aveva i suoi buoni momenti tho, ma niente di che...

[Man of Steel]

Letto The X-Tremists #5
Termina anche questa mini, buona dai, dovrebbe avere delle conseguenze interessanti, il tutto potrebbe essere liquidato nel numero Omega tho e non nella gestione di Hickman, staremo a vedere i guess....