The Wages of Despair Credits: Elliot S! Maggin (writer), Dan Fraga (penciler), Lary Stucker (inker), Comicraft (letters), Don Skinner (colors). Based on a novel by Scott Lobdell & Elliot S! Maggin
Summary: Chamber notices that his Gen X teammates are behaving strangely. They’re cold, distant, and increasingly lifeless. Images of the Hellions, Emma Frost’s previous team, are also appearing around the campus. Chamber hallucinates that his body is back to normal and Emma is recruiting him at the London branch of the Hellfire Club. In reality, M and Husk are taking his body to the Biosphere, where D’Spayre is waiting. Chamber fights back, expelling D’Spayre in a nexus of psionic energy. Chamber appears lost in the nexus, but he forces his body to rematerialize. His body briefly returns to its pre-mutant state, but he’s unable to maintain his original form. Soon, his face and chest are again consumed with psionic energy.
Review: Marvel licensed a plethora of paperback novels in the ‘90s, but I didn’t know until now that one of them was adapted into an actual comic. I can’t speak for the quality of the original novel (which is never named in the issue), but the adaptation has major problems. Since Chamber is the narrator, the only one unaffected by D’Spayre, and ultimately the hero, it’s obvious this is a Chamber story. However, I have no idea what the story’s supposed to be saying about him. The idea is floated that the other characters are all acting as depressed as Chamber normally acts, but really, they’re acting like zombies. They don’t even have pupils after a certain point. If the story’s about Chamber’s feelings regarding his teammates, we’re never offered any deep insight into what he really thinks about them. If the story is about him yearning for a whole body again, the idea’s barely explored. An entire story about Chamber getting his body back and losing it again has potential, but the comic deals with this in literally one page.
Perhaps the novel had a clearer theme, along with an actual explanation for what D’Spayre wants, and a fleshed out arc for Skin and Sync (who leave the school when things get weird, eat lunch, and then go back only to be immediately captured). Dan Fraga, fresh from Extreme Studios, provides the art. It seems as if he’s moved on to a Jim Lee impersonation, and while he shows a little personality on a few pages, the characters usually end up with the same generic faces and bodies throughout the issue.
5 comments:
I read that novel! I don't remember anything about it now, except that I enjoyed it at the time. As I recall, it was co-written by Maggin and Lobdell.
I remember getting this annual and realizing slowly as I read it, that it was based on the novel. I felt a little cheated by that, since I had essentially already read the story once before, and it was (in my opinion back then) superior the first time!
P.S.: My brain could be totally making this up, but I think Skin and Synch did have a little side-story going on in the book. No idea what it was, though...
By the way, you may have deduced this on your own, but the book isn't named in the comic, because it was simply called Generation X:
http://www.amazon.com/Generation-X-Scott-Lobdell/dp/1572972238
Dan Fraga imitated Jim Lee? I always thought he was a Liefeld clone...
Somehow you managed to skip over Generation X issue 31.
Like issue 30, it has full-on kiddie mode illustration, with Emma Frost looking like a high-school freshman and Generation X looking barely into the teens. Jubilee, in particular, looks especially immature. Sean, by contrast, still looks like an adult.
The sentinels have devolved to a point where Generation X can take them on despite being outnumbered at least 2-1; they also can be destroyed in mass by a car's exploding gas tank (ignited by a burning rag in the gas filler pipe, cause that would work...), which Generation X apparently can ignore; at least Synch had invulnerability from M, but that doesn't explain how all the rest survive without injury. Well, one assumes they survived, the end of the comic only shows Synch and the St. Croix twins being dug out of the rubble, but considering they all show up in the next issue without any marks, one must assume that they were fine.
Daria, the Sentinel with a heart, ends up just feeling like a deus ex machina to explain how Jubilee was able to escape as she vanishes into the distance and is never seen again, presumably destroyed by the other sentinels pursuing her. Which for some reason, aren't smart enough to backtrace their flight path once they realize that Jubilee got dropped off somewhere. And this is despite Daria's speed advantage that allows her to get out of sensor range from the other sentinels despite having a group of them take off only seconds after her and her loaded down by the dead-weight of Jubilee.
The ending of the comic is particularly bad, with Sean warning Emma that "the kids are mine. Stay away from the school, Emma Frost. You're no longer welcome." Then he flies off to see, leaving all the children, including Penance, who Emma was going to sell to Emplate (at least he believes that) with Emma to take care of. Next issue we see him at Muir Island and Emma trying to manage everyone at the School solo.
All in all, I consider issue 31 to be one of the most poorly written and illustrated ones in the entire series.
A quick search reveals the link to my #31 review (BTW, everyone, I had no idea these comments had been locked away for approval. 2018! )
https://notblogx.blogspot.com/2010/05/generation-x-31-october-1997.html
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