![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brendalaIn light of the awful luck female comic book characters have had with reboots lately...
**excuse me for a second while I weep for Catwoman and Starfire**
...I was met with quite a surprise when I walked into a comic book shop a few weeks ago. Turns out that Mystic (a title from the defunct Cross Gen indie publisher) was picked up by Marvel and recently received a complete overhaul. And the reboot is AWESOME! It actually does what a reboot is supposed to do. It keeps the good elements of the original story and cuts out and/or fixes all the bad stuff. Best of all, it does so while crafting a story with fantastic female leads.
For those of you who never heard of Cross Gen, here are the cliff notes:
Basically, they hit the scene about 10 years ago with a bunch of different titles that all had one thing in common. The main character in each book had a magical mark on their body that looked like this:
This symbol was also the company's logo and it served to tie all their books together.
Cross Gen's books ranged in quality (most of them were OK, some were fantastic, and there were one or two stinkers). I was personally a big fan of Meridian (a story about a princess working to reclaim her kingdom from her psycho uncle), Scion (the story of a prince who inadvertently starts a conflict with his country's sworn enemy and must work to fix the damage), and the subject of today's review: Mystic.
The original Mystic was the story of two wealthy sisters named Genevieve and Giselle Villiard. Genevieve was a scholar working to become one of the head sages in her country's magic guild. And Giselle was her dopey, socialite younger sister (think Paris Hilton, but less annoying). An accident during the sage selection ceremony causes Giselle to absorb the magic powers of all the leading sages in the council (including her sister) and causes the sigil to appear on her hand. Naturally, this pisses off the council, causes a rift between the sisters, and forces Giselle to grow up and and learn how to deal with having a HUGE amount of power and responsibility that she never wanted to begin with.
This book was pretty good. But it had some significant flaws. First off, it got bogged down in the politics of the sage council and the past lives of all the former sages that ended up inhabiting Giselle's body after the ceremony went awry. Think of having to constantly listen to Roku, Kiyoshi, and all the other former Avatars constantly pester Aang in A:TLA. It was like that; except the dead sages aren't nearly as interesting as the dead Avatars. Politics are boring. And fake, nonsense politics are even more boring.
Secondly, the leading lady (Giselle), just wasn't that appealing. I get that she was supposed to grow as a person through all that stuff. But because of her initial "Paris Hilton" characterization, she was very hard to like for most of the early parts of the book.
Thirdly, the art was...generic comic book cheesecake:
Yeah, like that. The art wasn't bad. At times, it could be really beautiful. But it was filled with lots of awkward, spine-snapping "sexy" poses and ridiculous outfits on the female characters.
This brings me to Marvel's new take on Mystic. The first thing that struck me in the store was the art on the cover...
===
Not only is the art beautiful. But the girls look like normal girls. They're not sexualized. They're not wearing stupid costumes nor are they wrapping their limbs in bandages despite having no injuries. And they look strong and fierce and cool. I bought all four issues of the mini-series based on the cover art alone because I liked it THAT much.
As for the story in the new book: It is VERY different from the original Mystic. The only thing it keeps is the base premise and the character names. Honestly, I think people who never read the original are at an advantage because the big changes (like Genevieve's completely different physical appearance and Giselle's new personality) wont distract them like it would someone who read the original.
Anyhoo, in Marvel's Mystic; Genevieve and Giselle are no longer wealthy sisters with a distant relationship. They're unrelated BFFs who grew up together in a terrible orphanage. The Mrs.Hannagan-esque crone who runs the place works them to the bone; but the girls get their kicks by studying in her magic library in secret when she's asleep. Genevieve dreams of running away to the palace and taking the test to apprentice for the leading magic scholar in the kingdom. Giselle is supportive, but she often gently reminds her that only the aristocracy has ever taken the test and she's probably better off not associating with those elitist jerks anyway. And this is pretty much where the similarities with the original end.
Speaking of Giselle, she's a COMPLETELY different character in this book (and I LOVE her for it). She's a street smart tomboy instead of a ditzy, trampy socialite. She has a fun personality. And the relationship between her and Genevieve is sweet. They're not biological sisters anymore; but that connection is still there. And showing them care about each other from the get-go instead of being estranged at the start made me far more invested in the ups and downs they go through together.
Best of all, since this is a mini-series, it trims the fat and eliminates the boring political stuff that bogged down the former series. The new Mystic presents a conflict between the noble class that has access to magic and the peasants who don't. But you see this conflict through the eyes of the characters instead of having it fed to you via boring exposition from taking heads.
Also, in this version, becoming a sage doesn't mean you get possessed by dead magicians. So the story never grinds to a halt so one of the ghosts can explain to poor, stupid Giselle how magic works. She's smart enough to figure it out by herself.
I'd love to go on about this series, but I don't want to spoil any of the plot twists. So all I'm gonna say is pick up this series if you can. It's only a 4 issue mini-series. But here's hoping good sales will get Marvel to continue it. Issue 4 has a decent conclusion; but I really want to see more of the new, improved canon. And I'd love to see them take a stab at some of the other Cross Gen titles I liked.
**excuse me for a second while I weep for Catwoman and Starfire**
...I was met with quite a surprise when I walked into a comic book shop a few weeks ago. Turns out that Mystic (a title from the defunct Cross Gen indie publisher) was picked up by Marvel and recently received a complete overhaul. And the reboot is AWESOME! It actually does what a reboot is supposed to do. It keeps the good elements of the original story and cuts out and/or fixes all the bad stuff. Best of all, it does so while crafting a story with fantastic female leads.
For those of you who never heard of Cross Gen, here are the cliff notes:
Basically, they hit the scene about 10 years ago with a bunch of different titles that all had one thing in common. The main character in each book had a magical mark on their body that looked like this:
This symbol was also the company's logo and it served to tie all their books together.
Cross Gen's books ranged in quality (most of them were OK, some were fantastic, and there were one or two stinkers). I was personally a big fan of Meridian (a story about a princess working to reclaim her kingdom from her psycho uncle), Scion (the story of a prince who inadvertently starts a conflict with his country's sworn enemy and must work to fix the damage), and the subject of today's review: Mystic.
The original Mystic was the story of two wealthy sisters named Genevieve and Giselle Villiard. Genevieve was a scholar working to become one of the head sages in her country's magic guild. And Giselle was her dopey, socialite younger sister (think Paris Hilton, but less annoying). An accident during the sage selection ceremony causes Giselle to absorb the magic powers of all the leading sages in the council (including her sister) and causes the sigil to appear on her hand. Naturally, this pisses off the council, causes a rift between the sisters, and forces Giselle to grow up and and learn how to deal with having a HUGE amount of power and responsibility that she never wanted to begin with.
This book was pretty good. But it had some significant flaws. First off, it got bogged down in the politics of the sage council and the past lives of all the former sages that ended up inhabiting Giselle's body after the ceremony went awry. Think of having to constantly listen to Roku, Kiyoshi, and all the other former Avatars constantly pester Aang in A:TLA. It was like that; except the dead sages aren't nearly as interesting as the dead Avatars. Politics are boring. And fake, nonsense politics are even more boring.
Secondly, the leading lady (Giselle), just wasn't that appealing. I get that she was supposed to grow as a person through all that stuff. But because of her initial "Paris Hilton" characterization, she was very hard to like for most of the early parts of the book.
Thirdly, the art was...generic comic book cheesecake:
Yeah, like that. The art wasn't bad. At times, it could be really beautiful. But it was filled with lots of awkward, spine-snapping "sexy" poses and ridiculous outfits on the female characters.
This brings me to Marvel's new take on Mystic. The first thing that struck me in the store was the art on the cover...
===
Not only is the art beautiful. But the girls look like normal girls. They're not sexualized. They're not wearing stupid costumes nor are they wrapping their limbs in bandages despite having no injuries. And they look strong and fierce and cool. I bought all four issues of the mini-series based on the cover art alone because I liked it THAT much.
As for the story in the new book: It is VERY different from the original Mystic. The only thing it keeps is the base premise and the character names. Honestly, I think people who never read the original are at an advantage because the big changes (like Genevieve's completely different physical appearance and Giselle's new personality) wont distract them like it would someone who read the original.
Anyhoo, in Marvel's Mystic; Genevieve and Giselle are no longer wealthy sisters with a distant relationship. They're unrelated BFFs who grew up together in a terrible orphanage. The Mrs.Hannagan-esque crone who runs the place works them to the bone; but the girls get their kicks by studying in her magic library in secret when she's asleep. Genevieve dreams of running away to the palace and taking the test to apprentice for the leading magic scholar in the kingdom. Giselle is supportive, but she often gently reminds her that only the aristocracy has ever taken the test and she's probably better off not associating with those elitist jerks anyway. And this is pretty much where the similarities with the original end.
Speaking of Giselle, she's a COMPLETELY different character in this book (and I LOVE her for it). She's a street smart tomboy instead of a ditzy, trampy socialite. She has a fun personality. And the relationship between her and Genevieve is sweet. They're not biological sisters anymore; but that connection is still there. And showing them care about each other from the get-go instead of being estranged at the start made me far more invested in the ups and downs they go through together.
Best of all, since this is a mini-series, it trims the fat and eliminates the boring political stuff that bogged down the former series. The new Mystic presents a conflict between the noble class that has access to magic and the peasants who don't. But you see this conflict through the eyes of the characters instead of having it fed to you via boring exposition from taking heads.
Also, in this version, becoming a sage doesn't mean you get possessed by dead magicians. So the story never grinds to a halt so one of the ghosts can explain to poor, stupid Giselle how magic works. She's smart enough to figure it out by herself.
I'd love to go on about this series, but I don't want to spoil any of the plot twists. So all I'm gonna say is pick up this series if you can. It's only a 4 issue mini-series. But here's hoping good sales will get Marvel to continue it. Issue 4 has a decent conclusion; but I really want to see more of the new, improved canon. And I'd love to see them take a stab at some of the other Cross Gen titles I liked.
