Reviewer: James Hatton
Publisher: Marvel
Story Title: I’m Just A Poor Boy & Brothers
I’m Just A Poor Boy
Writer: Jai Nitz
Penciler: Georges Jeanty
Inker: Don Hillsman II
Colorist: Tom Chu’s Color Dojo
Letterer: Dave Sharp
REMY! It is so good to see him again. Without a doubt, Gambit is my favorite mainstay ‘X’ character. Quite a bit has to do with one of the first X-Books I ever read was his debut issue. I didn’t get it then, but it was my -first- book. I lost sight of him when X-Treme came out, as I thought it was horrible.
Since then, he apparently went through some issues with his powers and some issues with Rogue. I have no fine now.
Story!
Remy’s got himself a job to pull. Get some discs and some money, pass the discs and keep the cash. The story is a bit simple, but I don’t expect much from an Unlimited story nowadays.
Throughout the heist, Gambit is spending his money hand over fist. (Think Gambit’s power & casino chips) and then we get the final twist. It’s not unexpected, and it plays to the whole -superhero/thief doing the right thing- motif, but overall it’s a good reinitiation to our favorite ragin’ cajun. Especially if he is going to be appearing in one of our future titles.
Art!
Jeanty’s art is a bit stiff. It’s not the worst art ever, as his close-up facial shots are very expressive. His action and prone character shots seem to need a bit of work. Christ, I sound like an art teacher…
Overall!
It’s everything I expect out of an Unlimited story. A small little sub-story that is completely irrelevant to anything, but deepens your understanding of a character. It is a ‘thief with a heart of gold’ bit, so it’s a bit of old hat for Remy, but if he’s coming back to one of the two main titles, some new readers might need a refresher course.
Brothers
Writer: Mike Raicht
Penciler: Staz Johnson
Inker: Livesay
Colorist: Kanilla Tripp
Letters: Dave Sharpe
I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to make the Guthries the next version of the Summers. We have Sam, Paige, lil Jethro, Billy-Bob, Jebediah, Ezekial, and now.. Icarus. Icarus, who is the hick John Mayer version of Angel.
I’m not impressed.
Story!
This whole story is just a conversation between Sam and his brother, Jay aka Icarus, about how the familia de Guthrie works. Apparently, Sam and Paige are traitors because they left to join the X-Men, and Jay isn’t so sure it’s the place for him.
Waah. Piss and moan. Waah.
With a see it a mile away ending of Sam showing Jay just how important it is to do good deeds, Jay learns that maybe that the X-Mansion is the right place for him. He also learns the meaning of Christmas. Oh, and he finds out Planet Of The Apes is Earth.. IT’S EARRRRRRTH…
Maybe I’m biased because I don’t like that the Guthries mutant powers seems to be more related to inbreeding than any kind of true genetic purity, but this story just felt completely archetypical.
Art!
I was pleasantly surprised that the art to follow this story was actually decent. Johnson has a firm grasp of how these characters look, and with alot of the flying and action, nothing looked unbelievable.
Mayhaps his inker was a bit off, as there is a lack of consistency in some of his faces. A girl’s eyes go from large and anime-like to small and thoughtful.
Overall!
Bleh. As I said, it might have been because of my Guthrie biases, but with the first story we were given a review of a character who has been MIA for awhile. This story, on the otherhand, gave us a superficial level of depth to a whiny Austin creation that was unnecessary.
