Comic Books
UNCANNY X-MEN #521
“NATION X” What on Earth is Magneto doing on top of Mt. Tamalpais, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco? He’s not telling and the X-Men Psychics can’t get it out of his brain. But he’s been up there for days plotting something that will rock the X-Verse to its core. All this while Wolverine, Psylocke, Colossus and Fantomex take on the foes that have been plaguing the X-Men since the start of “Nation X”. Part 7 (of 8).
WRITER: Matt FractionPENCILS: Greg Land
COVER BY: Greg Land
Price: $2.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 3.0%
Reviews
| User | Added | Spoilers | |
| zombox | 02/17/10 | Yes | Read Review |
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Can’t wait for Kitty to come back.
What doesn’t ‘rock the x-verse to its core’? Sometimes these solicits are too predictable in their over-the-topness.
Kitty comes back… next issue?
Not sure. I know it’s going to be soon though.
Goddamn it. Fantomex? Really?
*sigh*
Everything else about the issue will be good, though. Fraction’s doing a great job.
I’m ready for Second Coming.
Kitty comes back in 523
I winced when I saw Land’s name. His art takes away so much from Fraction’s story. It makes this book feel cheap and unimportant as opposed to the flag ship x-men title
Wait. Uncanny has been the primary title for X-Men for a long time, right?
So… I know a lot of widely disliked artists have dedicated fanbases, particularly Liefeld. But has anyone ever heard someone defend Greg Land? I’m curious just to hear what their points are.
@Slockhart-Any time I read anything defending him, it’s never more than just "I like his art." Or "it’s not as bad as people say it is." But never any sort of substantial defense.
I’ve on more than one occasion argued that anything with cross-hatching cannot accurately be described as tracing photos. I also enjoy finding holes in people’s complaints about his work. I really like how Ponsor’s colors look on Land’s pencils too. not sure if any of that counts.
@drake
I got curious so I googled "In defense of Greg Land" and all I found was some blog post about how he’s the same as Alex Ross, but with a Maxim focus instead of a Norman Rockwell focus, and therefore he’s better. I don’t know what that comparison did my my brain, but it wasn’t good.
I will take Greg Land over Lenil Yu or Chris Bachalo every day of the week and twice on Wednesday. At least Land tells a story that can be *followed*.
@diabhol Not with you on that pal. I’d say both artists can run circles around Landish story-telling. Now if I wanted a ‘I want to fuck everyone in this comic’ type of story, then Land would be my man. Beyond that, he has nothing for me.
@diabhol really? because I’ve found Land’s super posed story telling clunky at best and utterly muddled at worst, no matter the writer. Bachalo and Yu on the other can be awesome story tellers when paired with the right writer (cough bendis cough). I wouldve agreed that niether one of those guys were great story tellers but amazing artists until I saw them do work with Bendis that was both beautiful and easy to follow as from a story telling stand point. Land on the other hand did the story where Psylocke came back and the story telling was so clunky I wasn’t sure what the fuck actually happened in the story. And I know it’s Land’s failings as a story teller and not Fraction’s writing because when Dodson does an issue I can follow it a thousand times better.
There is a Greg Land fans page on facebook….it has like 4 members.
@cubman
Now now, it has 12 members. Give him a little credit.
lol my bad.
@diabhol-You’re proving my point. You say you like him, but can’t bring up specific reasons or any concrete evidence for why he is a better artist and storyteller than Yu or Bachalo, according to you.
I like Greg Land because drawing is stupid. TRACING…now there’s an art!
Oh boy… this should be great.
@diabhol I understand art is, as Josh says "visceral," but man Lenil Francis Yu and Chris Bachalo are artists that really understand how to use a single page to is best advantage. Bachalo also does some of the most intricate penciling in the business. I will say, I never minded Land’s art as much when he was working on SOJOURN for Crossgen. He was accused of tracing back then (It was just as blatant then, too, but my favorite were the people trying to prove he traced Dragons from Dragonheart. 😉 but his characters were lest posed, as if he decided to move some of the bits around or – at the very least – trace from two different sources for one body. Now, he’s just gotten lazy and just C&Ps poses for the colorist to sort out. Land actually did some fill in work on Morrison’s JLA in the 90s. You’d never know because he was doing actual, original line work.
@Slockhart..Serene. Beautiful. Untouchable. All of those words can be used to describe the subject of Greg Lands art. Greg Land communicates the snobbishness, self-adoration, comedy, seriousness, fanaticism, in short the concept of life,,,He truly is a megalomaniacal Surrealist comic book artist..That is why I enjoy the man,myth, and legend Greg Land
Good lord, X-men, I was just centering my Chi! That’s it. I can’t handle this level of distrust anymore. If all the X-women didn’t look like porn stars today I would just leave and reverse the magnetic pole of the earth. But lucky for you, they do. If you need me I will be in my room with Ginger, Amber, and Porsche Lynn over there.
@mikeandzod21: Yep, really. Yu on New Avengers was a *mess*; Secret Invasion was an improvement (thanks to whoever inked him), but still…ugh. While Bachalo and his neo-manga nonsense kept me far, far away from adjectiveless X-Men. If I can’t tell one bug-eyed character from another, it’s worthless to me.
@drakedangerz: Art is subjective. This isn’t a court of law, it’s an opinion. If you don’t like Land, I can’t (and would be foolish to try to) convince you otherwise. All I can tell you is that, when I see Land’s work on Uncanny, it looks *good* and I can follow the story. In contrast, I mentioned two other writers for whom I cannot say the same. I will take good tracing over shitty penciling every day of the week and twice on Wednesday.
Every month people talk shit about Greg Land. All I’m sayin’ is that, IMO, he does a far better job than a few of the other artists that don’t receive the same treatment. I will, however, fully agree with everyone that Dodson is better. I’m not *completely* insane. 🙂
Say what you will about Land, but he’s done some gorgeous Hawkman covers. I haven’t been overly impressed with his Uncanny work though.
Kaare Andrews, the new artist on Astonishing X-Men, on Greg Land’s art:
"I really wanted to take the book away from the photorealism that has been flooding the market these past few years. It’s kind of embarrassing to constantly find Maxim photo spreads that have been traced into superhero covers and pin-ups. Fuck that. I don’t have any patience for it."
Ouch! Massive bitch smack!
"Art is subjective", but that doesn’t mean there aren’t clear definable aspects of it that can be discussed rather objectively. "Chris Bachalo sometimes does not produce sequential panels that are easy to follow–the forms in his action scenes are often crowded together" is one such objective consideration. "Greg Land traces models, which makes his characters looks stiff, and he gives his characters porno ‘fuck-me’ faces for no reason" is another. Sorry but the "art is subjective" bail-out card doesn’t always work all that well in every circumstance.
I actually agree with you, though, that Land’s work often makes for better sequential storytelling than Bachalo’s. I’ll admit that readily, even though I like Bachalo way, way, way more–because I think his detailed style is so unique that the drawbacks hardly matter. I’m also, sort of like you, one of those guys who sometimes defends Land…a bit. I don’t hate his stuff at all, aside from the creepy frozen smiles he has a habit of giving characters for no reason. Still, I think he does a good job of laying things out and rendering figures, whether they’re traced or not. The poses he gives characters are sometimes dynamic to great effect, and I think his line-work is good. I admit, though, these are pretty generic accolades. I agree with the consensus that there’s hardly anything SPECIFIC to say in Land’s favor. But I don’t hate the guy.
@Diabhol-And again, I’m telling you that you are not giving me any good reason except that "I like it." That is my whole point! I don’t care that you like it, like it all you want. I’m saying that no one can ever give a good reason for it.
This issue was a huge step down. Too much going down and too much of Fraction trying to be cute with Fantomex. And what’s with the way Scott addressed Magneto in the beginning? Asking him if he wants coffee and a blanket?? Ugh.
Wow this issue was bad. When the art wasn’t completely distracting me from the story, the story was still boring. It was near impossible to tell what happened during the fight scenes. As far as I could tell, they shot a man in the head, then he’s randomly in another room with a computer.
I had to check the solicits in a desperate attempt to hope there was no Greg Land. GOOD NEWS! Next month we’ve got Whilce Portacio, then Terry Dodson for the foreseeable future.
So, essentially the main story was terrible (With the Gamemaster), almost unreadable and too much "I’m gonna put my spin on this character" (Who appears to be photo-referenced/and or traced off of Simon Baker’s face) for Fantomex. I will say, I’m curious to see where Fraction takes the John Sublime angle as I did not expect that coming. Though, I imagine to come off as impotent as it did here. The Magneto story was great (aside from some rather silly dialogue between Emma and Scott. Also, Mag’s helmet has been blocking psychic powers for some 45+ years. Why is shocked she can’t read his mind despite him having it in was odd.) and should have been the focus of the issue. 3/5
Narrative Question: The purple guy swimming at the bottom of the pillar, is he an X-Man? Because it sure didn’t seem that way, yet he was wearing an X-suit. Can anyone clarify that?
I hope fraction and land move away from the x-books after second coming. Fingers crossed.
I made a comment about Invincible being like comfort food; the x-books are like junk food. I know I’m not suppose to be buying them when I don’t like a writer or an artist, but I can’t help myself. I’m addicted to these characters.
@rockingeek. I’m the same. I’ve loved X-Men since I was a kid. Can’t fucking help myself.
@PraxJarvin I’m pretty sure that’s not the Gamesmaster… Land just isn’t creative enough to not rip off some other character’s design. I agree with you on everything else. And I have no clue who fish boy is. I think there was another Fish Boy but he was killed in New X-Men a while back.
Even Magneto pulling some cool ass shit and Fraction actually making me like Fantomex is not enogh to distract me from Land’s art. I know we all must sound like broken records to a lot of you, but some of his characters made me want to cry for how bad they looked (and familiar..STOP USING THE SAME FUCKING MODELS FUCKWAD!!!!).
If some one else did the art…possible POTW.
@Kaare Andrews (wherever you are) Thanks! Way to put it the ball in Joe Q’s court!
Sammy or Squidboy was killed by Black Tom in Austen’s run on X-Men. I also have no idea who the character in this issue was.
It’s official. Magneto’s the man. He’s totally vindicated in my book.
That fishguy btw must be new.
Why did Marvel feel the need to announce that ending?
This issue was AWFUL, but if I didn’t know it was coming, I would’ve jumped out of my seat when I flipped to the last page.
@cutty i lucked out in that i completely forgot about that press release until seconds after i read the very last page. major fist pump action whe that happened
I’m still hoping Havok, Polaris, and Marvel Girl can come back with Kitty
Fraction’s idea of interesting writing seems to be throwing as many Morrison-esque ideas into the mix that he can, following through on none of them, and abandoning all of them as soon as he gets bored. Of course the problem is that his ideas are awful – A team of supervillains that get the advantage on the X-Men by downloading data into a hard drive? Yup, they should have lasting power.
This book has zero narrative focus, and the characters are just interchangeable parts at this point instead of the distinct personalities that they should be. He re-introduces them into the x-universe randomly, and forgets them immediately. Dazzler? Pixie? Northstar? More than anything, this book has been boring for a very long time, and is going nowhere. Thank god Kyle and Yost are running the crossover.
@cutty-Exactly.
So glad I didn’t know anything about this issue before reading it. The last page was epic.
@jspegele – that’s awesome, I wish I could say the same. Strangely I had the Kitty thing blown on this website, but I really can’t blame them considering Marvel just went ahead and put it out there. I’m still not sure why they did that?