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never fear! It will get worse again...muuuuuchhhhhh worse....

BUT...it will be interesting to see what Dave thinks after reading the end of the Magnus title I can still say that I enjoy that it was over with...lol.

Dave...whatever you do, be sure to read the final issues of X-O Manowar if you can get ahold of them. That is, if you want some good closure to the old Valiant Universe

I loved the stuff in the late Magnus issues that dealt with Rai. The stuff that dealt with Magus was painful however.

That is one of the few later issues I have read. I had heard about the dream sequence and all of that, so I felt that I needed to check it out.

My collection is complete with the exception of a few issues that I seem to have misplaced along the way. Weird issues like an A n A #6 and an EW. I think I took them out, and to read and put them away incorrectly or something.

Have you guys noticed what I mean about Magnus' hair though? It comes and goes. Weird. His outfit is changing all the time as well. I understand wanting to move away from the skirt, but you need to give him one outfit and stick with it!

One of the older ones had Rai in it, and I was gonna tell you which issue it was. It was during the Geomancer's Quest storyline.

NO! You called it a SKIRT! You mentioned it! Now you'll drag up that old argument again...

Oops! That was just a typo, honest.

Read another Birthquake issue, and once again it is solid. Not great, but the story is good and you can see how if it had been told correctly, especially with normal panel lay-outs instead of going for the Image style flash it could have been much much better.

These issues have a woman editor that I had never heard of before-but I know that before this she had never worked in comics before. If it had been someone with a tighter control on the continuity, Armstrong could've still made appearances.

Takashi could have really been a great villain, great motivation, and great power with that suit, and then being able to build an army, but Valiant simply wasn't keen on showing us a "world" by this point, they were just telling a story that took place in the future.

I was ticked at the end of issue 50 or 51, can't remember, but Obadiah has some meaningful time soul-searching-it got my hopes up, but in the end all he did was turn into Cyberstrike or another Wolverine rip-off.

Setting the bar too low, again.

Ah well.

MRF 54. Entire issue told as a recap. Very poor story telling.

At the end Magnus realizes that he himself was evrry bit as evil as the Psi-Lords themselves but Torque tries to reassure him with these words:

Rai changed himself back to human looking...and now, at least the world's once again an exciting place, full of challenge, mystery...

...And adventire!

Wow. Great Torque. How inspiring. Sounds like a commercial aimed at youth 8-11 for a video game!

Next up in my pile....the first Giffen book of the Magnus run.

Dun dun duuuhhhhnn...

MRF #55
I've recently begun reading all of the Magnus Robot Fighter comics that I own. There are 64 regular issues that were released during the Valiant era. On May 1st, for the first time in over a decade a new book will be released.

Color me excited. Jim Shooter breathed new life into this character back in the early nineties, and now he's back!

The run I am currently reading, however, has strayed far from the vision that helped propel Valiant into the same stratosphere as Marvel and DC comics.

Today's offering is issue #55. The first written by comics legend Keith Giffen. Most of Giffen's reputation is solid, but many consider his run on Magnus to be somewhat terrible. I've never heard anyone say anything positive about it.

I haven't read any, so I've been putting it off for years, but now the time has come. I'm punishing myself for being mean to our dog.

The first thing I notice though is the cover. It's horrible. It's dark and moody, but that doesn't seem to be an effect that they were going for, it's just some poor color choices.

There's a guy on it, obviously experiencing some powerful emotions. He looks like a guy who just found out his mom threw away his priceless comic books. The grief is tangible.

I think he's in a cave that has but one way out, but alas, the way is too hard. For some reason there are old toilets and other broken looking things. The guy, which is kinda stupid--Ive read every issue up to this point, you'd think I'd be able to identify the guy on the cover, really seems like he's crying. I don't think it's Terrell Owens. It's probably Magnus' son Torque. Then again maybe it's Magnus, and he just found out that on the inside of this book he has to wear his old battle skirt uniform.

Enough about the cover though, let's open this baby up.

First, I like the art. It fits with MRF especially if this story is taking place on the Goph levs. Rai has an immediate presence, which he has not had with this incarnation.

Elzy is a welcome sight, although I would never have recognized her. Not sure why the previous writers seemed to forget her existence.

Then Leeja shows up. Her skin is solid white like Rai's. Weird. How did that happen? Again I wouldn't recognize her if they hadn't given her name.

There are some good story elements here. There 's some plot development and even a little foreshadowing.

Leeja seems to be a different person. Of course she has already been a few different people in this series, strong and loyal when needed and the obligatory damsel in distress when it serves the story's purpose. This must be her third or fourth personality.

The story is good on the whole though...

Now that I'm done and I look again at the cover I'm left wondering...what were they thinking?

YES!!!! I was thinking the same thing about Leeja. As you read on, you may start to come to more conclusions about her, but I couldn't stand how the writers would change her and Magnus' personalities as the book went on. Why did they have to try so hard to make these Valiant book an "Image Comics" knock-off? Ah well. The past is prologue...here's to Mr. Shooter's new Magnus on the horizon!!!

I am so ready for him to put out some new stories again with these characters.

So far, Giffen's run has far surpassed everything that I've read since the end of the Malev War. I'm wondering what might happen to change my opinion though.

Does anybody else know what I mean about that cover? One of the worst ever. Followed by one of the best in a long while...Magnus in the center of the "dot" on Rai's chest. Very good!

I'm reading issue 57.

The art has gone back. Grey, whoever he was, did a good job. His work provided a "mood".

This book has jumped around so far-but I'm not reading the error version.

Again, a really good premise to begin the book.

Lil Magnus asks 1A if it wrong for humans to serve robots, is it wrong for Magnus to serve 1A. Nice ironic question.

I think its a bad idea to return to this, who is a son and who isn't business though. For the last several issues each was simply their own man, they were who they were and the story was better served for it. Now we are forced once again to look into the motivations of each.

We've done this before, and they all come across as whining mama's boys.

Something that I think needs to be posted in the "Rules of the Valiant Universe" thread is:
Pony-tails do not equal cool.
They can be cool. But late Valiant gave everyone a pony-tail in order to make them hip. It failed to do so.

One of the pages is unreadable. Suki speaks, Rai answers. Rai speaks again. The panel layout seems to suggest that you should go down and read the panel directly beneath the first two. Takashi asks Rai a question. The next panel he is telling Rai to cheer up, so that doesn't make sense.
Hmm, perhaps Takashi's knee breaking the panel while he is sitting was supposed to clue me in that it was next in the flow. So, Takashi begins by telling Rai to cheer up. "There is the matter of a legacy to be reclaimed, no? Rai looks at him. Takashi screams at him, and then asks why he brought Magnus to Japan, and then accuses him of being an arrogant *SQUEE*

Uh, what?

In a dream sequence I think Tekla showed up in a human body, she looks at him, he looks at her, and then he slices her in half. Then he seems to be mortified by his own actions (repeat four times and you got the plots from some of the last ten issues!)

The we are treated to a tiny circle with leaves in it. Symbolizing Magnus' desire to "leave this plain of existence". He the says, "ex...exquise...ggghh-hkk-k...

I think he was about to say, "bacon powder" after that, but Mother Nike screamed, No! Before he could! The she is struck by the irony of calling for a robot to save his life!
"Medi-unit! Come back!..."

Then she walks out and cries to her ancestors. The end.

Um? Lame. Bring on 58!

Oh, a couple more things.

That ladt theresa who was the editor is gone, and Layton is back in charge. She only made it through two Giffen books by my count. They were good, too, and this one kinda stunk so...read into that what you will.

Also I was bummed again about the cover. Magnus has half a robot face on the cover, and the crossed out the fighter on the title, making it say, Magnus Robot. Inside the book though, nothing is said about him becoming robotic at all. He was shot last issue, but who knows who. The guy's head appears in a basket toward the end of this book, but we have no idea who he was. And Magnus has a metallic looking patch on his chest, but that hardly makes him a robot, right?

Giffen's MRF was good, man. Glad to see someone else brave enough to admit it.

I actually liked the first three issues. The last two have been back to middle of the road dreck like it was before the start of the run.

Maybe plotting for Punx took some of his focus off of MRF?

Starting #59...

I find it odd that they would strongly imply that he was dead at the end of issue #57 and then have him coming up ou of the grave on the cover of 58.

Better to have added the funeral scene to 57 and make the readers stew (a little-we all know that no one dies in comics).

I like the contest that they added too-try to guess what's gonna happen in issue 64! Haha!

I know! I know! Pick me!

Black-hole class suckage?



-slym

Issue 59 comes across a Keith giving himself a blank slate.

I don't see why they insisted on going back to the Tekla well over and over but never did much of anything. It would have made for a great story if she simply showed up. "Hey Magnus, how's it going?"

He'd be tempted more than likely especially since Leeja had her moment of indescretion with Rai. Could've made for plenty of tension and inner turmoil. Instead we find out in a flashback that she showed up and he killed her instantly.

Not the same character we met in the first two story arcs, who was thoughtful and introspective.

Giffen on Magnus=barf city

You're being too kind....

I may very well agree by the time, I'm done, but I don't at the moment. The writing has improved greatly since his run began. The stuff just before it was mindless and wandering. This is tighter so far. It's dropped off a little already though, and the slow speech of Rai and Takashi is a little annoying, but at least they have some character traits now!

It seems he simply did his own thing and cared little for continuity. Takashi killed his mom, then tried to take over the world. Next thing you know he's just hanging out as the ruler of some garden world where all he does is sit in a throne all day.

Aram is gone again, torque has pretty much disappeared and Leeja is bi-polar. Clane is back, however to the guy he was before-a politician.

Magnus #61 was up next, so I read that one this morning and...

I'm almost liking the letter column better than the book.

They had one in there that was very critical. I doubt that it was the only critical one in the bunch but it was hilarious, because the grammar was horrible, and the guy sounded rather dumb-which may have lead to its selection. "If you don't like our books, you're kinda dumb!"

The guy basically said that Giffen turns everyone into a hippy! Good reading.

So the Malevs were revealed as being back, and the PsiLords were even implicated in the scheme. It's not really clear how any of this was pulled off, it's all just "there". Not the best story telling ever, but again, it's another good idea-at the heart of it. Late Valiant truly did not suffer from a lack of good ideas-it's just the execution that seems to be off.