X-Men: Second Coming

^^^ Agreed. It's very rare in comics that a story ever actually has an ending where everything wraps up. Because comics are a serialized medium there will always have to be seeds planted to keep the story moving forward.

@Bigtymin

True. I just hoped for a bit more info after all that, but it was sorta expected. Maybe we'll know in a year or two. But yeah I know that's how most stories work, it's just seeing for an extended period time makes you more selective. Well, not you specifically, you know what I mean

Batman25JM wrote:
They spend half of this event stalling. Nothing seemed to happen for a good portion of it, and then boom! They quickly end it. And they did it in the ultra predictable way. Who here didn't know that Hope's powers would manifest just when they most needed them to beast Bastion?

I totally agree with the pacing issue, but I totally disagree with the Hope thing. Simply put... it wasn't a mystery. There's no reason it SHOULD have been surprising. This was an entire story (three really) about this one girl, and how powerful and important she's likely to be. It's perfectly logical, then, that her power would manifest at the climax of the story and be the one thing that could defeat the undefeatable.

So many comic writers rely on mystery to keep people coming back from one issue to the next, but it's kind of ridiculous. I used to watch Friends. Every episode. Sure, sometimes they'd dangle the Rachel/Ross will they/won't they in front of us, but for the most part, there was no mystery. Just a fun story. So I kept coming back for more. Nowadays, however, almost every writer, regardless of the title, seems to feel this need to include mystery as a hook to keep people coming back. Y'know what? Just write well. If I enjoy your story and dialog, I'll keep coming back.

prescribeddrone wrote:@Bigtymin

True. I just hoped for a bit more info after all that, but it was sorta expected. Maybe we'll know in a year or two. But yeah I know that's how most stories work, it's just seeing for an extended period time makes you more selective. Well, not you specifically, you know what I mean

Haha I hear ya PD. I do think the main overarching stories for the X-books the last 2 or 3 years did come to an end with Second Coming: Hope finally returning and manifesting her powers (perhaps with the Phoenix Force), X-Force being exposed, Bastion being taken down, and the X-gene appearing to have returned to the gene pool.

But as with everything in ongoing comics, these doors closing lead to new doors opening up. I think the main thing to watch now is that Scott thinks he's been vindicated about Hope now with these 5 new mutants, we'll see if that's actually the case...

Oh man. I got like 5 panels into the Uncanny X-Men Heroic Age one shot written by Fraction and I want to punch a puppy.

^I flipped through it at my LCS, and thought it looked pretty bad, so I skipped it. I don't even care if it was a sort of conclusion to some of the Second Coming stuff.

I think the storyline was pretty good, if redundant in parts, but the dialog hurt my brain. The first snippet is Scott trying to keep Henry around after the big crossover, which is all well and good, but it was written so poorly, and the way the panels were blocked out was just stupid. EXTREME CLOSEUP OF BEAST WITH HIS DIALOG in one panel, then EXTREME CLOSEUP OF CYKE AND HIS DIALOG in the next. Why does the conversation need to be EXTREME AND DYNAMIC!

Cyclops needing to blow off steam so going to the savage land and killing a bunch of dinosaurs was bad enough, but then Steve Rogers shows up with a bow and arrow, and has to say "I borrowed the bow and arrows from a friend of mine" as if we couldn't, as reader, have wrapped our tiny minds around the idea that he might have just brought one because it is the savage land. Then instead of arresting Cyclops, or even mentioning all the very illegal stuff he got up to, he says "Have a medal from the president, you saved the world under that bubble, or at least we are assuming you did, and in the HEROIC AGE you aren't terrorists anymore". Such a ham fisted way to handle the changing status quo.

Beast and Molly talking about extinction at the tar pits was just kind of lame. I suppose they had pages to fill though.

The Hope/Franklin Richards stuff was interesting, it was good that they showed SOMEONE trying to figure out what the fuck she is. I liked the idea that Franklin is totally used to talking to people who aren't from the normal timeline/reality he lives in and was able to give her some advice. I also think this story had some of the strongest and most consistent art in the issue.

Over all, a big Meh on the whole thing. Now they are going to fight vampires while Hope goes to Alaska to look into who her parents were, because obviously no one would have tried to figure that out since her birth already...

MAKE MINE MARVEL LULZ!

The dialog is the main reason I dropped Uncanny. Fraction just doesn't get how the characters talk.

Second Coming was a success but far from a legendary tale or classic.