Sunday, May 07, 2006

Sigh, I Hate To Do This. . .

Relax, it's not going to be another monolithic post like yesterday. I was looking back over this Deadpool story in Ultimate Spider-Man, reflecting on how I thought it was really good, horrible characterization of Ultimate Deadpool aside. Then, in the the most recent issue (#94), I see Rogue on the front lines as the good guys attack where Xavier's held at. She appears to be smashing the wall down, right alongside Colossus, to which I say, huh?

Ultimate Rogue doesn't have super-strength, so what's going on? Well, maybe she borrowed the power from Colossus. Except she would manifest it the same way, meaning she'd be metallic-looking, which she wasn't. OK, so she got it from the Reavers. Except their strength is a result of cybernetic implants/transplants, so I'm not sure she can steal that.

Then I thought of something. When Gambit died in the Ultimate X-Men Annual, and his powers (and personality) transferred to Rogue, she'd also absorbed power from the Juggernaut during that battle. So maybe, that got retained, along with Gambit's powers. There hasn't been any mention or sign of this in Ultimate X-Men thus far, but hey, it could happen! Cheers, I've solved the mystery!

Then I went back to issue #92, and I saw her flying next to Angel. She didn't have wings to suggest taking power from him, so now what?

I'm trying to figure out who this is on, Bagley or Bendis. I don't know if Bagley had to put Rogue in there or not: she never says anything, nor does anything or real consequence in the fight, so I doubt her presence was ordered by Brian Michael. Someone at least seems to understand she has Gambit's powers, her eyes are colored in with that black/magenta scheme they've had since the Annual. But shouldn't someone have mentioned to Bagley this Rogue can't fly or punch down walls?

I really hate to pin this on Bags, because I was loving the art in this arc, even more than normal. He got draw a lot of fight scenes, he did a decent job of showing the X-Men gradually getting battered, costumes torn up and being consistent with it. I though it was really a nice touch in #91, when Shadowcat phases Peter out of the rings that are crushing him, you see bruise marks on Peter's torso and arms, that actually persist for the remainder of time he's shirtless. That's nice to see; it seems like some artists can only draw a character one way, and can't change it to depict the results of a battle. They might draw some lines to represent them bleeding, but no evidence of bruising or other damage that would go along with that.

So you know what? Let's just blame this on Bendis. He should have made sure Mark Bagley knew the score on Ultimate Rogue. You all with me?

7 comments:

Fitz said...

You go to school at SEMO? I went there.

Let me know your e-mail. I want you to be a member of TeamFitz on the intranet

Jim said...

I would not be opposed to some Bendis blaming.

CalvinPitt said...

fitz: sure thing, I'll send it your way.

jim: I think it's a favorite pasttime of many.

LEN! said...

I'll do something rare: Instead of blaming Bendis, I'll blame the editors. This is exactly the kind of thing that an editor is supposed to look at and say "Brian, you need to change this. Ultimate Rogue doesn't have these powers."

CalvinPitt said...

len: you're right. I'd forgotten we discussed the general craptacularness of Marvel's Editorial Staff.

Anonymous said...

X-Editors get paid to surf the internet all day long.
There are so many problems throughout the entire line it's sad.

.... come on, reality warp....

Jake said...

Bah! Fools! You seem to be operating under the impression there is any kind of continuity from one Ultimate title to the next.