I never thought I'd read/pick this up. Not because I'm a X-men purist or enthusiast (the opposite really, I'm rather indifferent to 95% of the Marvel universe's inhabitants), but because it just never made me 'Need have now'. It's pretty and I really like the artwork and I've been a fan of Dave Roman's since Jax Epoch (Flannel Sorceress, you know you want to read it now), but I have already so much I collect that I thought I'd let it go until I had extra money.

Oh well I make mistakes sometimes.

Prompted by an urge to pick up Deader Still by Anton Strout, for him to sign at the upcoming Brooklyn Book Festival this weekend, I had a little time left over and decided to read a graphic novel or two. But I've caught up on all my series (yes I spend that much time in the bookstore) so I browsed and came upon Misfits. Kitty Pryde is a character that I like only sometimes--not in the movies, but in X-Men Evolution and Wolverine & the X-Men I like her a lot. In the comics...meh.

This is definitely a shoujo lover's dream--reasonably attractive girl gets sent smack into the middle of a *special* school filled with ultra-hot guys who fight to gain her attention. They fight often too. I wouldn't say that Kitty doesn't have some redeeming qualities--she is smart, loyal, a good person who believes in helping people, but I think that if she had been transferred into a school with a more even ratio of girls to guys, she wouldn't have been latched upon so quickly.

Her admirers include: Pyro, Angel, Forge, Quicksilver, Havok and Nightcrawler, with appearances from Gambit, Cyclops, and Iceman. To be fair, really only Pyro and Angel make any sort of 'serious' play for her (with Pyro by far leading that charge), everyone else has varying degrees of friendship interest. Except maybe Iceman. But he plays things very close to the chest.

The shoujo re-imaginings of some of my favorite X-men (and not so favorite) was interesting to say the least. Um Xavier walks. Magneto is...amusing more then menacing. Storm is rocking a mohawk (so anyone who remembers Storm from the 90's X-Men episodes in the future? Yeah that's her), Jean is a professor but currently off looking for people to recruit, Cyclops is a STUDENT. I liked how a lot of the re-done character traits became more 'shoujo' hero like. I think the fit was pretty good for the most part. I'm not as keen on Iceman's re-imagining, because I don't remember him being so...aloof and isolationist in the comics, but I'll forgive them. They had Gambit. And he was hot. And he cooked. I can't ask for nothing more.

Closer to the end Roman and Telgemeier work in a more serious conflict, slowly percolating a romance that develops between Kitty and one of the other guys and then channeling that into the conflict at the end. There isn't a lot of outside intrusion, since the story is set at the Xavier Institute, but when there is it goes...BLAMMY. Also some of the comic elements made a crossover--Cyclops and Havok being brothers for instance, Havok's wonky sudden power surge, Magneto's fanaticism in regards to Mutant Rights and Xavier's Pacifist approach, Magneto's Hellfire Club (though in this its more of an elite clique at the school).

I thoroughly enjoyed Misfits. A lot. I want an art print of Gambit now. Please? Anyway (back on topic) the end gives us a brief summary of what volume 2 will be like in light of some of the...changes at the end of volume 1. More girls (please please please Rogue. Please. Pretty please. And Jubilee. Pretty pretty please), drama and angst abounds in volume 2...with no actual tentative due date. Ah well. I'll be in line for it anyway! ( )

A fantastic re-imagining of the X-Men with all the right themes, stylistic renderings and motifs from manga coupled with the things that make X-Men stories interesting - being an outcast, the social dynamics of a school setting and cool powers. ( )

X-men reimagined as a shojo harem manga? I am highly amused. The concept sounds like it could be a disaster of a bad alternate universe fanfic, but it's actually a cute take on the characters even if the history is fairly ignored. I am amused at how easily some parts of the xmen universe fit into the shojo mould. My big complaint is in casting Kitty as the only girl at the school (although there are female teachers) since the women of xmen are part of what makes them my favourite superhero team. I imagine they would have pulled in more if they'd made it to volume 2, but I guess it's not to be. What a shame, I think they could have done some pretty fun stuff with this concept if it kept going! ( )

I'm not a big X-Men fan or a shojo fan; I don't read much of either. But I enjoyed this, mostly because I'm a Telgemeier/Roman fan. Kudos, guys!

http://lampbane.livejournal.com/627374.html

"You know that part in the "Bed Intruder" speech/song where Antoine Dodson says, "You are so dumb. You are really dumb, for real" ?

I could hear that almost the entire time I was reading this book. Just on endless loop, and it just wouldn't get better.

[...]

The worst part is that instead of looking at the X-Men history and characters and writing a shoujo story around them, they completely changed the X-Men history and characters to fit their story. Similar to the movies, Jean and Ororo are teachers, except here Scott is still a student (as is his brother). The Hellfire Club is just the most "elite" students at the school, and while Angel being a member makes sense, Forge and Longshot are also members. The real capper is Iceman, who instead of being the warm-hearted, gregarious character we know and love from the Marvel Universe, is a cold dick.

The whole Pyro vs. Iceman thing was done much better in the movies, which changed stuff, sure, but managed to keep the "spirit" of the characters and maintain a lot of the key relationships. Here they were probably trying to say "look, the guy with heat powers is cold inside while the guy with ice powers has a warm heart" but COME ON.

I think the worst part is that they went into this fully expecting and preparing for a volume 2, but I'm pretty sure that project's dead, so there's no chance of redeeming themselves. Then again, there's also no more opportunities to wallow in cliché, so victory?" ( )