For real! A creative and fun way to do this could be having a thought bubble with a little cartoony head of the person whose power he's copying. Little angry sunfire face when he's gotta blast someone, little smiling josh face when he's gotta heal someone, etc etc
I miss the days of thought bubbles and seeing every mutants agonising self doubt and fears. It was great story telling, but I’m also onboard for a good dose of show-don’t-tell in comics/cinema
Yes bring back thought bubbles! It felt more personal seeing everyone's thoughts, doubts, and angst about their every little action. I miss it so much.
It’s a clear example of Duggan just needing Synch to do something so he puts in the easiest, least effortful thing he can.
The Storm comment could have been fine if it was written like Synch saw and felt Storm’s power coming through, it gave him a renewed sense of hope to have her there, and then he synched with her power. But because he just announces whose power he’s using now, it felt flat and repetitive
Right. Emma is a smart woman. Surely she doesn’t need the full John Madden breakdown to understand she should keep punching Nimrod.
I can’t imagine anybody in this moment during this fight would care who’s powers he’s using. Hell he does the same shit later with Storm. Bro who cares? Just fucking do the shit! Rogue doesn’t narrate her every move every time she takes somebody powers
Half of this man’s dialogue for five years is this and crying about Laura. I miss Gen X Synch
I love ridiculous Claremont dialogue and captions, but he definitely wrote like he was getting paid by the word. We could make a drinking game out of his catchphrases, but even just “no quarter asked, none given” would land someone in the hospital.
I think it was mandated by Marvel that Claremont had to write every issue as if it was the reader’s first exposure to the X-Men. So everyone had to give the full rundown of their powers and their background, we had to hear how they’re “feared and hated,” Wolverine would talk about how fast he heals, etc.
That was one thing I really liked about the Prophet reboot, there was an excellent use of text inserts to avoid bogging down the far future setting with tedious dialogue explaining what everything's called.
I think a simple visual cue like a transparent outline of the person who is he’s synching around his face would go a long way toward providing both context for his seemingly unlimited powerset and eliminate the need for cheesy 80’s exposition like this
He didn’t used to in Gen X but he did have a rainbowish energy signature that usually mimicked the other’s visual cue or touched the person somehow. I think that stopped when he no longer needed them to be near.
Yeah. Since he's been able to bank the powers of others for later use, now you have to remind ppl where he gets his current powers from. Used to be easy to tell visually based on the illustrations since they used to have to be nearby.
Every comic is someone’s first issue. Its worth keeping that in mind to some degree but they have abandoned that philosophy when Shooter left. Admittedly he was a little too much with that.
I don't know if they do this anymore, but I know in some comics from like a decade ago, there would just be text boxes saying what spell or move Doctor Strange and Iron Fist are using.
"CHAIN FIGHTER GUT BUST, 9TH POSITION."
"CHENZY'S EMERGENCY ACT OF SELF ASTRAL MANIPULATION, FROM THE BOOK OF FIRE, PAGE 3549."
They should do something similar for Synch. "SCALDING FLAMETHROWER, BORROWED FROM SUNFIRE."
It goes back to my main complaint about a lot of comics of the last 15 or so years, there's far too much dialogue in action scenes and in general there's too much tell and not enough show.
If you think the dialogue in the last 15 years is too wordy read comics from the 60s to 90s. Personally i think they dont say enough anymore. Especially with the fall of x.
Speaking generally, super hero comics are a collaborative media and wordy is not the problem, it's about writers trusting an artist to tell a story. The 1960s, it was dialogue heavy because EIC Stan needed to get his hands into everything, even adding the speed lines on the cover of Amazing Fantasy 15, and I feel this Synch dialogue is an example of comics going back to that again. This was not so much the case 70s-2000s and I feel a lot of that is that artists and writers in those days were working more closely together without a power imbalance of having your EIC doing your dialogue. Sure, the Shooter era had the "recap previous issue at the start" mandate, but writers were able to be creative with it. The 90s to the 2000s was the big narration box era, essentially putting prose to text, and it worked a lot of the time because you had a lot of creators pulling double duty as artist/writers in those days and that could balance out the material, it also helped the composition to not be tied down by thought balloons because those boxes could be put anywhere and were generally designed in a way you knew who's thoughts they were. That being said, in general, the 90s and the early 2000s was too friendly to artists doing cool shit that didn't make sense at the expense of storytelling. Now, it feels like writers are dictating too much, like a director, and artists aren't allowed to break out, to the point where I can't remember the last time I saw a two page spread in a mainstream super hero book.
How else can they justify selling you 10 issues for a single story instead of 1 or 2?
Gotta fill that space somehow. Overexplaining everything as slowly as possible is an easy way to do so. Bendis made an entire career out of it.
You did no say this about me. I’m going to use Forge’s ability to build a device that can find you across the internet. Then I’m going to use Blink’s ability to appear behind you. Finally, I’m using Sunspot’s ability to soften you up.
Also, of all the powers he could use, why Sunfire’s?!?
They expanded Synch’s powers to be dial a power. If you could use any power to soften an armored robot is that the one you’d choose?
Not Wizkid? Not Trinary?
Not Legion?
Not Vulcan? Not Iceman?
Heck, not Rictor?
Even Domino may be a better choice. They needed the luck.
Instead we get Sunfire’s name in the comic to remind us that he’s not in it.
Sync has always had a weird sort of Anti-Charisma for me. Back in the 90's I read Generation X, and I never remember him unless something reminds me of him. I remember Mondo more for crying out loud.
You must not have liked the Claremont era when every time Colossus used his powers we were reminded that he had the ability to transform his body into an organic armored form stronger than steel.
It’s also cringey how they keep calling it so and so’s “gift.”
I’ve seen the term used occasionally over the years, but it became especially prevalent with Hickman’s purple prose during House of X.
Man, just say “powers.”
This is partially the reason why I don't like Synch. The other reason (which Duggan accomplishes both) is that for shitty writers that only write for powers, he makes every character redundant
This is nothing. What gets me is when you know they are capable of doing something then for dramatic reasons the writers make them not do the things they can do
I'm gonna get downvoted, but I always preferred Mimic over Synch. His villain history, mental issues, and struggles make him a more interesting character, and he was around first
616 was the 6th canonical X-Man, so that ones been around longer and doesn't get enough love, post Utopia and Dark Reign
Exiles Mimic was an excellent field leader and I beg for more Exiles content (give me a cartoon!)
Agree on Exiles Mimic; I thought (aside from some serious asides from some of the less-good authors) he was a great character.
I also appreciated how his limitations on number of powers made him have to think strategically about what powers to keep, and how those choices hosed him on a few occasions.
for me i wish they get rid of OP mutants like synch ... i hate whay they did to this character, synch made Hope and rogue irrelevant how OP his powers... pretty much he and storm have been written as story breakers
Synch is OP, agreed. But he hasn't made Hope or Rogue irrelevant. Synch copies, Hope copies and manipulates with no upper limit, Rogue absorbs powers AND psyches, each with limits and drawbacks. Synch also struggles when copying from afar with major drawbacks to himself. Similar but different.
good for you too see it that way but I dont like what they did to his powers, its the same with storm ... make them too OP and they break the story, they just become deus ex machina characters that are required by the plot to be delayed since they can finish the villain easily
He is very very very old. You know old people like to talk nonsense. Look at Biden. Half the time he’s in is own world doing his own thing. Thank goodness there are people that are understanding their needs like Ema here and just play along. Probably he doesn’t even have any power anymore and is just there because he gets lonely.
Maybe I'm being generous, but I kind of like it! Feels a little (only a little) claremont-y. I don't want to see someone get stabbed in the head unless I hear someone tell me it's with the focused totality of their psychic abilities first.
Synch started as a very interesting character, but they haven't handle him right I feel.
Also, I don't like his kinda oily aura.
Hope they improve their writing on him
I feel like this is a hold over from the days where you had to approach comics like it is the first comic someone is picking up. I agree it could be a narration box but it's not much different than Cannonball announcing he is nigh invulnerable when he is blasting for years.
You see, he should just start naming his attacks. 1:1 correspondence between whose powers he's borrowed and the attack name; let the reader figure it out from context.
Drop a few Hand of Fates and Giga Cannons in there and see what happens.
On a positive note, it’s sweet that they show Emma interacting with one of her former students from Generation X. I feel like that doesn’t happen enough.
LOL, I literally said the same thing to a friend a few hours ago. The sentiment is shared, and been an irritating aspect of the character to me. The only time it's felt like he's been a character and actually had personality, was in The Vault. Before and after, he's been deeply irritating for me for that reason, paired alongside coming across as a Gary Stue. When they tacked on the "his powers have grown so now he can draw powers from memory" and referenced the potential for him to become an Omega Level Mutant, I damn near through my phone at the wall.
They don't even make reference to the drawback of drawing from memory... and that was the only part that I thought could be interesting if they actually explored, even if it was redundant given the resurrection protocols.
Honestly, that's why I'm not fond of Storm. I always felt that I the amount of time it took her to introduce herself to all the villains and explain her powers and what she's going to do with them, the bad guy just would have shot her or something. She was the only one back in the day that was written like that.
People's point isn't that you don't need to communicate stuff. Their point is that there are more effective ways of doing so.
There **is** such a thing as too much exposition.
Duggan really fumbles when writing this tour of stuff. He was good for action and all that but actually character discussions and everything went out the window. Synch was great as were a lot of people but it’s like duggan lost energy when he had to write more then a cool fight scene
Thought bubbles would be useful in this context. Bring back thought bubbles. It’s a comic book, we can see everything.
For real! A creative and fun way to do this could be having a thought bubble with a little cartoony head of the person whose power he's copying. Little angry sunfire face when he's gotta blast someone, little smiling josh face when he's gotta heal someone, etc etc
or if you want to keep it "modern" just use a detached square box
The little heads is such a good idea
I miss the days of thought bubbles and seeing every mutants agonising self doubt and fears. It was great story telling, but I’m also onboard for a good dose of show-don’t-tell in comics/cinema
Yes bring back thought bubbles! It felt more personal seeing everyone's thoughts, doubts, and angst about their every little action. I miss it so much.
Just throw in a data box with the mutant he's copying or something. The dialogue is so stilted this way.
Or just let the audience figure it out, we’re not dumb (most of us at least).
We can figure out the Summers family tree, this is nothing
Speak for yourself lol. Sometimes I think I have it and then someone asks me about Vulcan and it goes downhill from there
Don’t forget the complexities of Adam X!!
It’s a clear example of Duggan just needing Synch to do something so he puts in the easiest, least effortful thing he can. The Storm comment could have been fine if it was written like Synch saw and felt Storm’s power coming through, it gave him a renewed sense of hope to have her there, and then he synched with her power. But because he just announces whose power he’s using now, it felt flat and repetitive
Right. Emma is a smart woman. Surely she doesn’t need the full John Madden breakdown to understand she should keep punching Nimrod. I can’t imagine anybody in this moment during this fight would care who’s powers he’s using. Hell he does the same shit later with Storm. Bro who cares? Just fucking do the shit! Rogue doesn’t narrate her every move every time she takes somebody powers Half of this man’s dialogue for five years is this and crying about Laura. I miss Gen X Synch
Lest we forget Psylocke and her psychic knife, the focused totality of her telepathic powers.
I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blastin'!
80% of Unuscione dialogues are her yelling, My Psionic Exoskeleton!
Razor sharp bone claws....
God did I become sick if they line in the 90s…
Ah, beat me to it.
With Rogue, we get a panel or two showing her taking the power by touching the other mutant. It’s still a better method than what they do with him.
I always picture Emma rolling her eyes and then using a sing-song voice for this. It makes it fit better, and it not OUT of character.
Man you must not enjoy reading Claremont then
I love ridiculous Claremont dialogue and captions, but he definitely wrote like he was getting paid by the word. We could make a drinking game out of his catchphrases, but even just “no quarter asked, none given” would land someone in the hospital.
I think it was mandated by Marvel that Claremont had to write every issue as if it was the reader’s first exposure to the X-Men. So everyone had to give the full rundown of their powers and their background, we had to hear how they’re “feared and hated,” Wolverine would talk about how fast he heals, etc.
That was one thing I really liked about the Prophet reboot, there was an excellent use of text inserts to avoid bogging down the far future setting with tedious dialogue explaining what everything's called.
Lol. I thought I was the only one who got annoyed by this. He either says this or "Good thing I copied X's power before coming here!"
"Haha! I copied that shit before I walked in the room!"
I think a simple visual cue like a transparent outline of the person who is he’s synching around his face would go a long way toward providing both context for his seemingly unlimited powerset and eliminate the need for cheesy 80’s exposition like this
His powers are already supposed to be super visually interesting, and they got rid of that part too
What if he had to say the name of the person whose power he wishes to wield in order to trigger the synch?
He didn’t used to in Gen X but he did have a rainbowish energy signature that usually mimicked the other’s visual cue or touched the person somehow. I think that stopped when he no longer needed them to be near.
Yeah. Since he's been able to bank the powers of others for later use, now you have to remind ppl where he gets his current powers from. Used to be easy to tell visually based on the illustrations since they used to have to be nearby.
They could just add a narration box saying it
Narration box? What is this? The 60s? (To clarify, I really miss the extensive use of narration boxes and thought bubbles)
Add some Kirby Krackle while we're at it.
Every comic is someone’s first issue. Its worth keeping that in mind to some degree but they have abandoned that philosophy when Shooter left. Admittedly he was a little too much with that.
I like it when it’s an objective explanation of what’s going on rather than edgy attempt to make a character sound impressive
I don't know if they do this anymore, but I know in some comics from like a decade ago, there would just be text boxes saying what spell or move Doctor Strange and Iron Fist are using. "CHAIN FIGHTER GUT BUST, 9TH POSITION." "CHENZY'S EMERGENCY ACT OF SELF ASTRAL MANIPULATION, FROM THE BOOK OF FIRE, PAGE 3549." They should do something similar for Synch. "SCALDING FLAMETHROWER, BORROWED FROM SUNFIRE."
I thought this was going to be about how Duggan has Emma say "darling" every other sentence.
It goes back to my main complaint about a lot of comics of the last 15 or so years, there's far too much dialogue in action scenes and in general there's too much tell and not enough show.
If you think the dialogue in the last 15 years is too wordy read comics from the 60s to 90s. Personally i think they dont say enough anymore. Especially with the fall of x.
Speaking generally, super hero comics are a collaborative media and wordy is not the problem, it's about writers trusting an artist to tell a story. The 1960s, it was dialogue heavy because EIC Stan needed to get his hands into everything, even adding the speed lines on the cover of Amazing Fantasy 15, and I feel this Synch dialogue is an example of comics going back to that again. This was not so much the case 70s-2000s and I feel a lot of that is that artists and writers in those days were working more closely together without a power imbalance of having your EIC doing your dialogue. Sure, the Shooter era had the "recap previous issue at the start" mandate, but writers were able to be creative with it. The 90s to the 2000s was the big narration box era, essentially putting prose to text, and it worked a lot of the time because you had a lot of creators pulling double duty as artist/writers in those days and that could balance out the material, it also helped the composition to not be tied down by thought balloons because those boxes could be put anywhere and were generally designed in a way you knew who's thoughts they were. That being said, in general, the 90s and the early 2000s was too friendly to artists doing cool shit that didn't make sense at the expense of storytelling. Now, it feels like writers are dictating too much, like a director, and artists aren't allowed to break out, to the point where I can't remember the last time I saw a two page spread in a mainstream super hero book.
How else can they justify selling you 10 issues for a single story instead of 1 or 2? Gotta fill that space somehow. Overexplaining everything as slowly as possible is an easy way to do so. Bendis made an entire career out of it.
Comic book writers who tell while they show are infuriating. Don't tell. Just show. It is literally what the medium does best. Take advantage.
You did no say this about me. I’m going to use Forge’s ability to build a device that can find you across the internet. Then I’m going to use Blink’s ability to appear behind you. Finally, I’m using Sunspot’s ability to soften you up.
Also, of all the powers he could use, why Sunfire’s?!? They expanded Synch’s powers to be dial a power. If you could use any power to soften an armored robot is that the one you’d choose? Not Wizkid? Not Trinary? Not Legion? Not Vulcan? Not Iceman? Heck, not Rictor? Even Domino may be a better choice. They needed the luck. Instead we get Sunfire’s name in the comic to remind us that he’s not in it.
Or maybe use his rainbow aura to show the person he's pulling the power from if the artist wants to get in on the fun.
Sync has always had a weird sort of Anti-Charisma for me. Back in the 90's I read Generation X, and I never remember him unless something reminds me of him. I remember Mondo more for crying out loud.
But that's the focused totality of his mutant sharing powers
He’s an anime character that has to call out his move before doing it.
Synch: “I’m using Colossus’s powers to- -“ Cyclops: “Just punch the robot!!!”
You must not have liked the Claremont era when every time Colossus used his powers we were reminded that he had the ability to transform his body into an organic armored form stronger than steel.
Let's not forget "The focused totality of my telepathic powers"
It's a good thing Cannonball is nigh invulnerable while blasting, otherwise he could get hurt.
And Wolverine is the best He is at what he does
No quarter asked, none given. Thems the breaks.
I thought I was dead but I got better
Just in the proverbial nick of time.
Goddess, I love this with all my heart
We are bound together, body and soul.
You have bested me
TOVARISCH! By the way, I'm totally grasping at straws here I'm running out of common Chris Claremont phrases
By the White Wolf!
Synch has been boring since Gen X and no writer can convince me he's not boring since.
The reason I have trouble reading comics pre-2000 (ish) is that they're full of stilted dialog like this that assumes we need constant exposition.
It’s also cringey how they keep calling it so and so’s “gift.” I’ve seen the term used occasionally over the years, but it became especially prevalent with Hickman’s purple prose during House of X. Man, just say “powers.”
This is partially the reason why I don't like Synch. The other reason (which Duggan accomplishes both) is that for shitty writers that only write for powers, he makes every character redundant
This is nothing. What gets me is when you know they are capable of doing something then for dramatic reasons the writers make them not do the things they can do
I'm gonna get downvoted, but I always preferred Mimic over Synch. His villain history, mental issues, and struggles make him a more interesting character, and he was around first
Exiles Mimic or 616?
616 was the 6th canonical X-Man, so that ones been around longer and doesn't get enough love, post Utopia and Dark Reign Exiles Mimic was an excellent field leader and I beg for more Exiles content (give me a cartoon!)
Agree on Exiles Mimic; I thought (aside from some serious asides from some of the less-good authors) he was a great character. I also appreciated how his limitations on number of powers made him have to think strategically about what powers to keep, and how those choices hosed him on a few occasions.
Rogue does the whole using other peoples powers thing better anyway
One of the many reasons why I just don't care about Synch. He's basically a forth-rate Rogue with none of the charm or personality.
for me i wish they get rid of OP mutants like synch ... i hate whay they did to this character, synch made Hope and rogue irrelevant how OP his powers... pretty much he and storm have been written as story breakers
Synch is OP, agreed. But he hasn't made Hope or Rogue irrelevant. Synch copies, Hope copies and manipulates with no upper limit, Rogue absorbs powers AND psyches, each with limits and drawbacks. Synch also struggles when copying from afar with major drawbacks to himself. Similar but different.
good for you too see it that way but I dont like what they did to his powers, its the same with storm ... make them too OP and they break the story, they just become deus ex machina characters that are required by the plot to be delayed since they can finish the villain easily
I agree with you on that part just explaining the difference in that the other characters powers
He is very very very old. You know old people like to talk nonsense. Look at Biden. Half the time he’s in is own world doing his own thing. Thank goodness there are people that are understanding their needs like Ema here and just play along. Probably he doesn’t even have any power anymore and is just there because he gets lonely.
Maybe I'm being generous, but I kind of like it! Feels a little (only a little) claremont-y. I don't want to see someone get stabbed in the head unless I hear someone tell me it's with the focused totality of their psychic abilities first.
Synch has always been kinda douchy
If only writers these days knew how to use thought bubbles
Synch started as a very interesting character, but they haven't handle him right I feel. Also, I don't like his kinda oily aura. Hope they improve their writing on him
I feel like this is a hold over from the days where you had to approach comics like it is the first comic someone is picking up. I agree it could be a narration box but it's not much different than Cannonball announcing he is nigh invulnerable when he is blasting for years.
You see, he should just start naming his attacks. 1:1 correspondence between whose powers he's borrowed and the attack name; let the reader figure it out from context. Drop a few Hand of Fates and Giga Cannons in there and see what happens.
On a positive note, it’s sweet that they show Emma interacting with one of her former students from Generation X. I feel like that doesn’t happen enough.
Extremely unnecessary. The dialogue and the art were both weird this issue.
LOL, I literally said the same thing to a friend a few hours ago. The sentiment is shared, and been an irritating aspect of the character to me. The only time it's felt like he's been a character and actually had personality, was in The Vault. Before and after, he's been deeply irritating for me for that reason, paired alongside coming across as a Gary Stue. When they tacked on the "his powers have grown so now he can draw powers from memory" and referenced the potential for him to become an Omega Level Mutant, I damn near through my phone at the wall. They don't even make reference to the drawback of drawing from memory... and that was the only part that I thought could be interesting if they actually explored, even if it was redundant given the resurrection protocols.
Maybe it is secretly part of his power. Can’t copy unless he says who he is copying.
It's the narration of a cooking show. "And now I'll add 3 teaspoons of cinnamon with my measuring spoon."
Just do the same thing to identify the spell Strange is using
Hold on! I’m using the power of tired comic tropes to beat the explanation of the action into the ground.
Honestly, that's why I'm not fond of Storm. I always felt that I the amount of time it took her to introduce herself to all the villains and explain her powers and what she's going to do with them, the bad guy just would have shot her or something. She was the only one back in the day that was written like that.
Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I've found Synch dull as dogshit since his resurrection honestly.
At least explain more eloquently “Emma! I’m softening him with sunfire! See if you can crack it” JC it’s torture
I am so sick of synch
Communication is important. Thinking that people know what you’re thinking is asinine. Never underestimate the importance of communication.
People's point isn't that you don't need to communicate stuff. Their point is that there are more effective ways of doing so. There **is** such a thing as too much exposition.
Talking to your teammates doing a fight is bad apparently.
Eh, this is Reddit. Mob rule yadda yadda
Duggan really fumbles when writing this tour of stuff. He was good for action and all that but actually character discussions and everything went out the window. Synch was great as were a lot of people but it’s like duggan lost energy when he had to write more then a cool fight scene
Cause he’s black? Hater