It's been a while and strangely I didn't get through as many X-Treme X-Men comics as I wanted to since my last blog about this series, but nevertheless, I got to issue #12 and, again, I'm not really impressed. Effing Chris Claremont again turned the series from partially good to bad to pretty awesome to terrible within 6 issues.

Really, for a while I was digging the series (say issues #4-7) when all of a sudden, things started to just get blotchy with the story and I was constantly going back a page or two to see what the hell was going on. But what was different than from issues #1-6 than #7-12 is that starting with issue #8 the art was almost as confusing as the dialogue (which Claremont began to use to tell a portion of the story). Although stunning at times, a lot of the art had the characters in very weird angles and positions during fight scenes. A lot I could deal with, but for some parts I was just baffled as to where a character started and began.

As for the storytelling, Chris Claremont did exactly as I thought: started a great story and told it poorly. A lot of the plot points in these last 6 issues were mainly jumped right into with no warning. It was kind of confusing, given that I'm used to stories leading up to a plot point rather than just throwing one in.

In one issue, the X-team are walking along in a house when on the next page a monster breaks through the floor and Rogue and Gambit are being held up in the air... it's way random and utterly confusing for a new reader. It really makes me wonder how this series kept selling...

Even still, Chris Claremont knows how to write an effing good storyline as a whole and I have to give it up to him for that... No spoilers this entry, sorry kids.

I'll check back with my next 6 issues or so and let you know what's what...
Tags: chris claremont, confusing, destroythecyb.org, rant, x-men, x-treme x-men