JML

Name: Josh Labelle

Bio: Film school escapee, writer, lord of my own tiny skull-sized kingdom.

Twitter: twitter.com/JoshMLabelle


Reviews

I bought this largely because I found the cover striking. So score one for Nathan Fox. On a less superficial…

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What’s refreshing about this book is how the story feels not at all self-conscious. Manapul and Buccellato are just doing…

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This was brilliant. Tensions within the team have been masterfully brought to a boil. Even somebody like me who isn’t…

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JML's Recent Comments
July 9, 2013 1:07 pm Why does a solicit about a young woman getting a job with Honor Guard's support staff get me more excited than any crossover event? Stoked for this.
July 3, 2013 5:46 pm This was great! Pick of this kind of crappy week for sure. The only other thing I picked up -- Avengers -- was totally workmanlike.
July 3, 2013 12:30 am It's funny. The Tomatometer is crapping all over this, but some of the critics I trust (Conor, Matt Zoller Seitz from rogerebert.com) really liked it. Hmmmm.
July 1, 2013 8:02 pm If I don't count Adventure Time, which I buy for my girlfriend, I've only got one book coming out this week (Avengers). Hm. Maybe I'll try Satellite Sam, which I'd planned to read in trades instead. Or maybe I'll pick up the Captain Americas I've missed, since I dropped it and have now been kind of regretting it.
June 27, 2013 12:54 pm @sumguy: wasn't Wanda specifically agreeing with and defending Alex's speech in the last Uncanny Avengers? Funnily enough, I found a Chris Claremont '80s scene with Kitty saying something very similar to what Alex said. The delivery and wording were slightly different though, so you can see where what Kitty said seems like an attack on racial slurs while what Alex said makes it seem like he's denying mutants a collective identity: http://24.media.tumblr.com/7ff4926eec14f1adda27aa3df2ff9c29/tumblr_mp0udtEDOY1rusv7ao1_500.jpg
June 26, 2013 8:05 pm I think that they figure it's better to own it and have other characters offer differing opinions than to try to pretend it didn't happen. I can't imagine controversy hurts their sales numbers. I'm convinced that this whole debate springing up across the X-Men books was an accident, and that Remender didn't think what Havok was saying would be as controversial as it turned out to be, but it was a happy accident indeed and I think it's really cool how it's playing out.
June 26, 2013 8:01 pm I have no problem with Havok expressing it as his own opinion or saying that he doesn't personally identify as part of the mutant community, but that wasn't how I saw it as written. Remender's response to the controversy further led me to believe that Havok's opinion was in fact, originally, an editorial one. All that said, I do think we've gotten a lot of cool stuff out of him having written that page, so I'm glad he did it. The Wanda-Rogue conversation in the last issue of Uncanny was a nice touch and showed that Remender took the criticism to heart and was able to write a thoughtful response.
June 26, 2013 5:02 pm Not really digging this. I think if there'd been a little more time taken in the first issue setting everything up and establishing where all these characters are at and just generally letting the whole thing breathe a bit, I'd be into it more. The characters also seem very reactive so far. These are all problems I thought Wood pretty deftly avoided in his Star Wars and DMZ stuff that I've read, so I'll give it another issue and see how he wraps this up.
June 26, 2013 1:14 pm Bendis is really into time travel right now, isn't he?
June 26, 2013 1:09 pm This and Hawkeye are wrestling for Pick of the Week in my head. Kitty's rebuttal to Alex was beautiful. I love what Remender is doing in Uncanny Avengers, but I really do think he put those words in Alex's mouth out of ignorance. Ignorance of what it would mean to real-life minorities hearing it, ignorance of what it sounded like coming out of the mouth of a blonde, blue-eyed dude. After the outcry, he retweeted somebody posting a video of Morgan Freeman's comments about Black History Month to defend Alex's words. Then his attempts to claim X-Men are not supposed to be an analogue to real minorities seemed very gross to me, especially after seeing this video of Junot Diaz talking about how much he loved the X-Men as a kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4113UuBTio I guess my point is, I love Remender's superhero soap opera stuff, but when it comes to the metaphor at the heart of the X-Men, he doesn't get it or appreciate it like Bendis does. Bendis can be a very flawed writer but his flaws will never outweigh his ability to write something like Kitty's speech in this issue. p.s. wouldn't it be awesome if Marvel could get Junot Diaz to write an X-Men book? Good god, my head would explode.