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Sep 23, 2020

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2037: Generation X #19, September 1996

 For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 


 

I find it appropriate that I return to blogging (after a fucking month!) with a series of which I'm quite overly fond. I loved The New Mutants, and Generation X was a fantastic follow-up to the tales of young mutants that I grew up with. While the whole mutant metaphor is very useful for telling stories about marginalized groups, the onset of mutation, in puberty, also makes it a perfect vehicle for telling stories about growing up.

 So, a month off, and my wrists and thumbs are slightly better, but not much. The job I'm doing now is not super great for my pain, but it's a worthwhile endeavour, and I've had so many people tell me how appreciative they are for my efforts. Who knew that delivering groceries would be so fulfilling?

 That said, we're well into the Onslaught crossover here. I don't have all of the parts, but I figured I had enough to finally sit down and read a good, multi-title event. I think I probably got most of the parts of this crossover from my initial purchase of a comic collection from Cover to Cover Books when I was in the process of opening up my comic store. I started getting back into comics around the time that this crossover was happening, but I was much more into DC at the time.

The crossover itself is pretty great, and though there were subsequent problems, the Image-led reboots of The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Captain America were not terrible. Once Liefeld left, anyway. My Marvel re-introduction actually came from one of the series that spins out of this crossover, the amazing, fantastic Thunderbolts. I'll say a bit more about the actual Onslaught event tomorrow.

I love Generation X, particularly this initial Scott Lobdell/Chris Bachalo run. Mr. Bachalo's sense of panel layout and composition is just amazing. He and Mr. Lobdell seem unafraid to be very explicit about the materiality of their medium, breaking the fourth wall constantly and placing a sometimes Greek Chorus-level of exposition and commentary outside of the action of the comic. It's hard to describe, but today's comic is introduced by a talking toad whom we follow from event to event through the comic. Have I mentioned at all that this is actually a very strange comic, quite unlike the rest of the X-titles from the same era? Probably why I like it so much.

So, I'm back, hopefully. We'll see if I can keep it up.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

A few more pieces on Chris Bachalo.

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