Saturday, January 16, 2010

Fraction Brings Back the Pryde of the X-Men

CBR: Matt Fraction: "I knew very early on that Magneto was coming back and would become part of the dynamic of the X-Men. I knew what he was up to and what his personality would be. I also knew how that would complicate and and challenge personal relationships and, ultimately, he would have to demonstrably make good. The X-Men may not have reacted by thinking, 'He's here. Let's punch him!' But they still don't trust him. So I wanted to build that [trust] by having him give a gift to the X-Men, who are now his people, in the form of Kitty. It felt very right in this weird, full-circle way,"

The story of Kitty's return will be fully told in "Uncanny X-Men" #522, but the issue also seeds future plot lines in which the character will figure prominently. "The issue has a cliffhanger for the ages, as we go rocketing into the events of 'Second Coming' [A crossover event between all the X-Titles which kicks off in March and completes the "Messiah" trilogy of X-crossover stories.]," Fraction remarked. "So we wrap a chapter and get a glimpse of a new one before heading into 'Second Coming.'"

Kitty doesn't play a huge role in "Second Coming," but Fraction isn't bringing the character back only to let her recede into the background. "'Second Coming' is really the story of Cable and Hope, but Kitty will be very important after," Fraction stated. "Kitty being back is a big part of our next year. With where we are in 'Second Coming' and then coming out of it, Kitty's return couldn't come at a better time for all involved. So she's coming back right as there's a giant Kitty-shaped hole in the X-Men."

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone really missed Kitty? Marvel is making such a fuss about her return, but let's face it: she's no Jean Grey.

La Betsy said...

I miss a red in the pic, not Kitty...
What really annoys me in that article is the fact that Craption is indeed writing #526...
I had the hopes Kyle and Yost would replace his crappy write after Second coming.
I dont understand! Nobody is happy with Fraction, why is he keeping the rules of the main X-books continuity??
I want his head lol

FSaker said...

Poor Kitty, she'll have her "big return" in one issue just to go to the background in the next issue... Betsy at least got her own story arc in Uncanny to show her return (and as bad as it was, I must confess that I loved to see the villainesses forming the Sisterhood and Betsy joining it for a little while).

The funniest thing is that Fraction himself admits she won't be important in Second Coming. He has said in the past that he had big plans for Dazzler and Northstar when he brought them back, and both ended up being just wallpaper, so if he's saying Kitty won't appear much, I guess she'll be lucky if any part of her body has a little cameo in at least one panel in one issue of Second Coming...

Anyway, now we're only missing Jean to bring together the important X-Men (Havok, Polaris, Rachel and Sage are still missing, but it doesn't seem that many people miss them anyway...).

Anonymous said...

I love Sage If i could have one back i would have chosen her. Kitty although likeable i just dont miss and i worry she will basically take over Betsy's place straight away aswell as 2nd girl/emma adversary. Scarlet Witch would have been a much better plotline.

Its not that fractions plots are bad its just when you put it with Greg land's art and his stupid craptions its just ughhh

Anonymous said...

I like Havok but if you have Cyclops I dont miss him, Rachel might aswell drop dead because i have never seen her as important and none of the summers seem to either, especially now we have Hope the 4th jean Grey clone. Polaris is intersting because shes a bit insane and she's related to Magneto so that would be interesting. Dont know why they didnt just have the space team rescue Kitty.

Anonymous said...

Fraction might aswell not have bothered bringing Cloak, Dagger, Dazzler and Northstar back, they havent been used at all.

Anonymous said...

Fraction always talks such a big game yet never delivers. I'm glad my subscription ran out and I didn't renew one for the possible Jean return. I'm sure she'll just fit a Kitty sized hole for WALLPAPER like everyone else who's not ScottandEmma

FSaker said...

^
Exactly man, someone said that Kitty could take Betsy's place as the 2nd most important gal, but it seems that Fraction only cares about Emma, so Kitty probably won't come back with her rivalry with her. Besides, Ororo is already filling this role.

And I guess both Fraction and Marvel Comics know that Ororo and Betsy are more appealing to the readers than Kitty is, so I don't think she'll take their places. If anything, she'll probably become another wallpaper x-man.

Changing subjects now, I wonder: if Kitty is coming back right before Second Coming, could this mean that Jean will NOT return in Second Coming as we were expecting? And if she does, will she be relevant to the team or even the Phoenix's favorite redhead will be filling space as background wallpaper?

Anonymous said...

Maybe Kitty will return angry and bitter because no one rescued her. Maybe she'll be villain or something!

Maybe they'll return her to astonishing as well. I really hope polaris comes back soon too

Anonymous said...

I think it’s great that Kitty s returning as a giant disembodied head, what a great idea! But seriously, the last thing uncanny needs is another mutant, even a good one like Kitty. I think readers would agree that Fraction has every major mutant on reserve and hardly uses them, so why add another one that fans will be disappointed not to see?. For example someone mentioned Storm in this string, and I honestly don't know if she lives on the island or not, it’s to hard to keep track. I think this writer is good at coming up with the big idea, but I totally agree that they go absolutely nowhere. And it seems that he has written himself into a corner with his ideas and the only way to attract readers is to sew in the return of a major players like Magneto or Kitty, just to keep us interested, but then the stories are always let downs. I think the better mutant stories are now being told outside uncanny, and I am also going to let this title slide, it’s just getting that bad. I actually find the return of Kitty in one issue and the admission that she will not be used much in the near future a little insulting to the reader and just another device to get us to buy what has been a mediocre to bad series.

centurion said...

@Anonymous 11:18AM - You make a strong argument. This is one of my criticisms of Fraction's run on Uncanny as well. The roster on Uncanny is too crowded, that's for sure. My problem is not specifically with the amount of mutants on the team, but the fact that so many are present yet given virtually nothing meaningful to do. It may very well cause Fraction to have to divide these mutants into teams as they did in the early 90s. Adding a large cast of characters to a book without developing them significantly is just a waste in my humble opinion.

Anonymous said...

Cant believe i used to think the 12 or so X-men during the 90's where tons and now we have like 40+ not being used...

Anonymous said...

Thanks centurion for saying that I make a strong argument. And I don’t want to get on the tooling on Fraction wagon, but the series is getting a little frustrating. There are many great characters in uncanny that I am sure have fans who want to see more of them, but we just don't. People here seem to talk about Dazzler a lot, and she is reduced to almost nothing, and the fact is that we have seen more of her in the Psylocke mini than we have in uncanny. And the way Beasts departure was handled, one page with no real dialogue and a kind of ironic almost snakry comment from Cyclops, kind of bad. I know it’s just comics, but speaking for myself, I have followed some of these characters for a long time, and to have see them written in such a glib kind of way, kind of well.. sucks. I think Fraction forgets that some of these characters are now older than the readers, and his style of trying to be ironic, which works for someone like Joss Whedon, comes off as almost disrespectful when he does it.

And I am dreading that the Psylocke mini has only one issue left, I would love to see more.

Anonymous said...

can we not all mail marvel requesting an issue 5 and beyond? like if it was posted up here. im sure a lot of fans would email marvel for Betsy.

zerophyte said...

I somehow knew that face was going to be Kitty's in that cover, dunno how I suspected it. Secondly

I know this question is off-topic..
But the Psylocke image on this websites top logo banner, what issue is that artwork from?? I'm trying to find a higher quality image of that Psylocke pose in general which is in the top banner. Any hint would be appreciated.

Thanks.

- zero

PsySpears said...

Chris its from the CyberForce/X-Men crossover

heres a link to the pic :)

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/preview2.php?image=previews/imagecomics/topcow/cyberforce-xmen/01/CFXM_COVERS_B.jpg

and i agree with the above poster who said P:LAB should set up a mail in to marvel for another betsy comic.i think it would work,alot of people would be interested.

FSaker said...

Changing subject (again), luckystar and CmX will probably publish this in some minutes, but anyway, Marvel has released the Advance X-Solicitations for April: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24440

The solicitations say that one of the X-Men going to rescue Hope is going to die in a battle against the Purifiers. One of the covers seems to imply that the mutants in this team will be Wolverine (who obviously won't be the one to die), X-23, Magik, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Archangel and... uh-oh... Psylocke.

I hope Betsy isn't the one who will get killed in action, she came back from the dead not long ago. But then again, I wouldn't like to see any of these people killed (wouldn't care about Logan, but as I said, he won't be the one dying).

BTW, in the Legacy cover, Rogue is using powers from several X-Men, including Betsy's psychic butterfly effect! Cool cover by Finch; too bad that Land is the one who will be "drawing" this issue...

centurion said...

As many people have said already, Uncanny needs to be downsized and re-organized. Yes, the 90s had a great influx of characters before X-Men (now X-Men Legacy) was created), but the challenge one faces is that when one increases the amount of characters, they have to balance the page time so that those characters don't appear as scenery. Popular characters like Psylocke, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, etc, need more involvement in Uncanny, or they need to be moved to an X-book where they can get much more focused time.

best,
centurion