I've recently picked up Rogue #6, the final issue of the first arc of the Rogue ongoing. It's been pretty underwhelming thus far. I am not impressed by Richards' artwork; the heavy outlines make it stiff. Worse than the art, though, is Rodi's writing and his poor characterization. The story depends mostly on everyone involved behaving as though they've been brain-damaged, and over the course of six issues not a whole lot happens... yet for all that nothing much happens, they managed to wrap up Rogue's family history so that it doesn't seem like there's much room to expand on it further - and what was established is pretty piddling after over twenty years of secrecy on the subject. Not much of a big revelation.
On the bright side, both Rodi and Richards are off the title. The new team is Tony Bedard writing and Karl Moline penciling, and judging from what Bedard has said, the outlook is a little more promising. Bedard at least seems to think of Rogue in terms of her potential as a powerhouse, and the issues he names as favorites are old classics like UXM #172 and #173, when Rogue was rampaging around Tokyo with Wolverine beating up Yakuza. His first arc is supposed to involve Rogue's history with the Brotherhood, and he's promising some new developments with her powers - of course, we've heard this before. But I am hopeful.
I'm also going to pick up X-Men #166 to check out the new writer, Peter Milligent, and the start of his arc "Golgotha." I love Salvador Larroca's art, and since Rogue and Gambit are both actually in this issue, I'd like to see how it turns out.
And, on an even brighter note, there's Quantum Leap. My brother, smart boy, gave me season two on DVD for Christmas, and I am struck once more by how excellent the series really is. I don't think I appreciated just how good it was when it was airing. I just teared up watching the episode "Jimmy," in which Sam leaps into a mentally handicapped man. Seriously teared up. It's amazing how well it holds up; it doesn't look over twenty years old. Anyone who hasn't seen it, my God, people, you have no idea what you're missing.
I also picked up X-Men Legends, which is also good stuff. Finally, an X-Men video game that's more than just two characters beating up on each other. It's not perfect, but it's very good. I had a great deal of fun tromping around the Sentinel factory as Rogue, throwing trucks around and breaking everything that would break, which was pretty much everything. When Cyclops announced, "X-Men, it looks like we're going to be putting in some overtime," I felt like the game had succeeded. My only complaints is that the enemies, aside from the bosses and the Sentinels, tended to be too generic... some characters you unlock too late to make much use of them, and though there are fourteen to choose from by the end, they're not evenly balanced. Cyclops, Storm, Jean, Wolverine, and Iceman have skills and advantages that make them almost necessary to whatever team you try to put together, while Gambit, Jubilee, and Beast wind up being pretty superfluous. And both Gambit and Colossus had terrible, terrible accents. But I'm looking forward to Legends 2 and, with luck, a few new playable characters. In the meantime, it's got at least one more play in it; I want to see how I make it through with Storm instead of Cyke for my leadership bonus and some other alternate characters.
Edit to add: Something else that is awesome is Robin McKinley's
Sunshine.
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funwithrage was very right. McKinley has, of course, never let me down yet.
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