Firefly

Question :

Dear X-Central,

Several points I wanna comment on. First, There was a letter, by Christopher Goodnight. He said, and I quote "You took a throwaway character and made her the star of a series," talking of course about Layla Miller. Uh—hello? Don’t you have that a little backwards there, Chris? Layla Miller played a ginormous role in HOUSE OF M! Furthermore she plays significantly a lesser role here with X-Factor. Peter, you don’t think of Layla as a throwaway character do you?

M is becoming a favorite character of mine recently, whereas I hated her in GENERATION X.

Rictor, well... let me put it thisway: X-FACTOR needs more A-list characters if it’s gonna work even in the current incarnation. Rictor has always been a secondary b-list character—and that was when he had powers! I hate his hair. Really I do. Remember when he had black hair and a mohawk? Ah the good old days. And of course mohawks are back the last few years, huh? Hmmm. I have to admit, Strong Guy killing that guy Buchanan—I really thought it was because of the phone call, so that was pretty predictable. Back to Rictor! As far as I’m concerned, Pietro can have him!! Maybe make an all new team of his own or whatever. I’d much rather have Ric’s old buddy Shatterstar on this team! Not really too much of a fan of Shatterstar, but he doesn’t really have Earth (or star)-shattering powers, so he fits the criteria, right? Angel/ Archangel, Moonstar and maybe Shatterstar are some of the more-A-list characters I’d like to see in this series! I know there’s a new artist coming on after next month’s story-arc Finale, and I thank you for that. But Pablo Raimondi?!? What, Carlo Pagulayan was busy?? I know you wanna set a mood for the noir of this book(which I could frankly do without altogether) but that’s mainly done with the inking and coloring anyway, isn’t it? This series deserves a better, more A-list artist!

Andrew J. Shaw

Answer :

Sorry, Andrew, but sadly enough, Rafael Soto has already made clear to us what a bunch of second-rate creators are running the show. For consistency’s sake, one would almost have to require that we’ve got B-list characters to match our lack of status. Personally, I happen to think Pablo is as good as artists get, and I’m hoping this issue proves that.

As for Layla Miller, I have to admit, I’m bewildered over any negative fan reaction to her debut in HOUSE OF M. The knock on her seemed to be that the series wouldn’t have worked without her, and therefore her presence was somehow weak, forced, or a deus ex machina. Curiously, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” hinged on the character Tia Dalma, the voodoo priestess, who was nowhere to be found in the first film. For that matter, Joss Whedon’s “Serenity” absolutely needed the character Mr. Universe in order to work, and he was nowhere in the previous thirteen episodes of “Firefly.” So I fail to understand why fans have singled out her introduction in HOM as somehow an indication of a weak story or contrived character. In any event, I’m glad you like what we’ve done with her. She’s developing quite a fan base. If this keeps up, she’ll be promoted to A-level and be removed from the book entirely, since we only have second rate characters and creators around these parts.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to curl up in a corner and go fetal until the next lettercol, where we’ll no doubt have even more compliments that make me want to hit myself in the face with a baseball bat.

 PAD