REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 18 March 2001
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - 18 March 2001
http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk
================================
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This week:
X-MEN #111 - "Prelude to Destruction"
by Scott Lobdell, Leinil Francis Yu and Mark Morales
X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS #18 - "Promise of a New Tomorrow"
by John Byrne and Tom Palmer
JUST A PILGRIM #1 - "Anno Domini"
by Garth Ennis and Carlos Ezquerra
POWERS COLORING/ACTIVITY BOOK
by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
------------
Scott Lobdell continues to produce much more interesting work
on X-MEN than he does in his miniseries. This is possibly
because nobody can remember quite why they wanted to do a Blink
series, or a Gambit & Bishop series, in the first place. The
X-Men books, on the other hand, seem to have a pretty strong
idea of where they're heading.
This issue is the prelude to "Eve of Destruction", the upcoming
storyline which will be the last we see of the X-books before
Casey and Morrison come in to give everything a makeover. The
plan of action throughout Lobdell's interim run seems to have
been to dispose of as many outstanding storylines as humanly
possible, leaving Casey and Morrison with a nice clean sheet.
If it can't be ignored, it has to be disposed of now. Frankly,
as far as the X-books go, it's something of a novelty to see
them recognising that plots ought to be resolved at all, so
this alone is something to be welcomed.
But how to dispose of all those plots in so short a time? I
rather suspect Lobdell is heading for the apocalypse approach,
where a whole lot of stories are going to be rendered moot
(and therefore disposable) by doing something really big that
changes the landscape in preparation for Morrison and Casey.
That's certainly the approach that this issue seems to be
signifying, telling us that now the Legacy Virus is under control,
Magneto is going to declare war on the rest of the planet with
his army of mutants. It would seem surprising if they're
actually going to do the human/mutant war at all, let alone in
an interim storyline, but presumably this is heading towards
disentangling Magneto from Genosha and doing something
significant to change the face of the human/mutant relationship.
It would be stretching a point to call this issue a story. It's
meant to be a news report on the position in Genosha as Magneto
prepares for the war, but basically that means that it starts
off by recapping major recent plot developments, and then heads
on to updating us on the position of major characters. Normally
I'd say this was a rather cheap way of fast-forwarding through
all the set-up for a major storyline, and it is, but given the
time available to send Genosha from third-world hellhole to
credible world threat, this is a necessary evil. It's also
reassuring to see that although Lobdell made a dreadful hash of
Magneto in some of his original X-Men stories, he's pitched it
about right in this issue. He's still a villain, but you can see
his point of view, which is the key thing in making the character
work.
Leinil Francis Yu seems more awake than he's been in ages. After
months of rather disappointing work from him on the X-books, he
seems to be finding something in Lobdell's stories to get his
teeth into. It's rather irritating that he obviously hasn't
been given any references to draw Trish Tilby from (although it's
equally irritating that nobody took the obvious way around that
by changing the character's name), and his style really doesn't
fit for Captain America at all, but the issue scores highly on
atmosphere.
The issue's biggest failing is that this really is just a prelude,
and it's certainly not a story in its own right. But as
trailers go, it's a very effective one. Event stories have
never really been Scott Lobdell's forte - so far his run has
kept to smaller scale stories which play more to his strengths -
but this is a promising start.
Rating: B+
------------
X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS rumbles on towards cancellation, and by
now you undoubtedly know the routine. Yes, it's the best thing
John Byrne's done in quite a while; no, that's not saying much.
It's a readable enough book, moderately entertaining in its own
right, but thoroughly dispensable stuff.
This issue introduces the Promise, a group who are keeping
themselves in suspended animation until after the war between
humans and mutants is over. Quite what they're planning to do
after that isn't awfully clear - they mutter something about
the mutants needing voices of reason once they've won the war,
but the logic of this escapes me, nor do they make it at all
clear what they're planning to tell these victorious mutants
after having slept through World War III. For that matter,
their attempt to distinguish this philosophy from both Xavier's
and Magneto's seems forced as well - Magneto apparently believes
in conquest rather than war, but this is hair-splitting.
Anyhow, the Promise pop out of suspended animation every so
often, recruit a new member, and go back to sleep. For some
unclear reason they want Polaris (the entirety of humanity to
choose from, and they go for Polaris?!), so they kidnap her.
Meanwhile, the X-Men show up, are confused with a load of
hallucinations and basically repeat the same "gosh, everything's
an illusion" fight Byrne's already done once before in this
series.
Byrne's a smooth enough storyteller to distract attention from
the rather serious concept difficulties with this story, but
the more you think about it, the more you realise it doesn't
really make sense. Those of you who still think Marvel are
out of their minds for cancelling this book will probably be
very happy with it; everyone else can feel confident that
they're not missing anything.
Rating: C+
------------
JUST A PILGRIM is a new series that Ennis and Carlos Ezquerra are
publishing through Black Bull, which at least guarantees it tons
of wholly impartial coverage. And, er... well, do you ever get
the feeling Garth Ennis is stuck in a rut?
I have a theory that one day, Garth Ennis will publish the
ultimate Garth Ennis comic, forever purging his obsession with
certain repeating themes. The lead character will be a
chain-smoking, hard-drinking, Irish-American, Catholic,
ex-military western hero type. Every issue will be guaranteed
to contain comedy gratuitous violence, at least one comedy anal
violation, and at least one skewed and mildly blasphemous
portrayal of Christianity. Every fifth issue will be a hard-
bitten but touching story about the military mindset, particularly
the mutual loyalty of the ordinary soldier.
The series will be promoted by the distribution of a DIY Garth
Ennis kit, allowing you to replicate the unique atmosphere of a
Garth Ennis story in the privacy of your own home. The kit
will include a gun, a selection of western videos, a year's
supply of fags and Guinness, and a set of anal rosary beads.
Until this blessed distillation of pure Ennis is released,
devotees will simply have to make do with books like Just A
Pilgrim, which don't quite fit into the pure formula, but are
awfully close. Comedy ultra-violence? Check. Protagonist who
looks like a western hero? Check. Twisted Christian imagery?
Check. Cowardly ex-military type who will probably end up being
shown up as a traitor to his regiment in a touching yet hard-
bitten story about the mutual loyalty of the military mindset?
Oh, probably. Scene of comedy anal violation? Check.
None of which is to say that this is a bad issue - it's a
typically entertaining Ennis story - but it is, ultimately, Ennis
doing some of his regular routines in a different setting. The
premise is that it's a post-apocalyptic future, and a wandering
group of travellers are rescued by a gun-toting, western-hero-type
Christian loony. If you read Ennis' stories regularly, then
you've seen much of this before. That doesn't mean you won't
enjoy it here - he's an excellent storyteller, he doesn't produce
bad comics - but you have seen it before. If you haven't read
Ennis' stories before, you might as well buy a Preacher trade
paperback and cut to the chase.
Ennis and Ezquerra work well as a team, and the pacing and
timing here as excellent. The story itself is just fine, with
the possible exception of the rather cloying brat who's being
positioned as the audience's point of view. It achieves what
it sets out to do. I just can't help feeling Ennis would
benefit from trying something else for a change.
Rating: B+
------------
The POWERS COLORING/ACTIVITY BOOK is one of those things that
sounded like an awfully good idea in theory, but turns out to be
rather harder to make work as a full length publication.
The joke is that this is the colouring and activity book that
they hand out to little kids in the Powers universe, telling them
all about superheroes and how to deal with them. As it says at the
beginning, "I will remind my relatives and friends how important
it is to use safety all day long because this world is filled
with super-powered maniacs and assorted radioactive menaces
hellbent on destroying the Universe."
In theory this should be very funny, but the problem is that
this book can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be
a parody of an activity book, or a mock artifact from the Powers
world. It kicks off with a series of "how to avoid being hurt
by superheroes" jokes, which are funny if a bit repetitive.
There's a nice routine on how to tell if your father is secretly
a supervillain. There's a rather hackneyed, but still moderately
amusing, sequence parodying superhero origins.
And then... there's a word search, which when all's said and done
is just a word search. There's a join the dots puzzle, where
the joke is presumably meant to be that it's incredibly simple.
There's a "spot the difference" puzzle. This doesn't become a
hilarious parody of a spot the difference puzzle just by virtue
of having a Powers character in it. It's simply a spot the
difference puzzle. This stuff isn't funny. It's accurate, but
that's not really the point.
The end result is an uncomfortable hybrid, something you plainly
wouldn't give to real kids (who aren't the audience for Powers
anyway), and something that's half composed of material an adult
audience isn't going to have much use for. Doubtless this
seemed incredibly funny after a few pints, but in the cold light
of day you have to wonder what the point was.
Rating: C
------------
Also this week:
BLACK PANTHER #30 - Everett Ross defends the Black Panther before
a senate committee, in typically perverse manner. Includes some
flashback material to Captain America first turning up in Wakanda
in 1941, which works rather well. Guest art comes from Norm
Breyfogle, who really strikes me as a bit too melodramatic for
this book, but he's perfectly acceptable nonetheless. Another
solid issue. A-
CEREBUS #264 - More tensions between Cerebus and Jaka as they
head back towards Cerebus' rather conservative home town. The
actual story has been back on form of late. Meanwhile, in the
text pages at the back, Dave Sim spends two pages calling Bone
creator Jeff Smith a "non-masculine" liar and challenging him to a
boxing match because of something he said in a long-forgotten
Comics Journal interview. Sim is either completely insane or
has turned his entire life into a staggering work of performance
art. It would be nice to believe the latter, but the suspension
of disbelief involved is too much. A shame, since for the moment
the actual story is working nicely. A-
INCREDIBLE HULK #25 - Well, it's a big fight between the Hulk and
the Abomination, but given the previous issue's build-up, Paul
Jenkins does manage to make it work as a rather sad character
piece, with the savage Hulk persona coming across as utterly
pitiful and desperate. And John Romita Jr is rather good at
illustrating this kind of thing. Nonetheless... ultimately,
it's a big fight scene. B
IRON MAN #40 - Dear god, I thought this plot had been pensioned
off years ago. Villain traps hero in dreamscape, hero discovers
that his strength of will allows him to control his surroundings.
And just like Tieri's first Wolverine story, nothing is actually
resolved, making this little more than a protracted introduction
for a villain it's hard to see many writers wanting to use
again. Tired and derivative. D+
SPIDER-MAN: LIFELINE #3 - A neat enough conclusion to the
miniseries, although I'm stil left a bit vague on what exactly
this Lifestone thing was meant to do. Not sure the series
gained anything from the 1960s retro look, either. Nonetheless,
a solid little story. B+
TRANSMETROPOLITAN #44 - Spider investigates why the police are
staying at home, and Darick Robertson gets to show off his wide
range of rain effects. Some slightly strained plot logic in the
reasoning that news gathering grinds to a halt just because
the city's print district has been evacuated (don't they have
any TV originating from outside the City?), but still the best
storyline in a while. A-
ZERO GIRL #4 - More weirdness about squares and circles,
with Tim and Amy's relationship tethering it at least slightly
to the real world. Possibly just an exercise in surrealism, but
a rather endearing one, and one which is perfect for Sam Kieth's
art. B+
------------
Next week, out of the four X-books that are meant to be coming
out, one is actually going to appear. That's the final issue of
X-Man. It's joined by Gambit & Bishop #5, which is probably
beyond hope at this point.
So as of next week, the late running books list will stand at:
Blink #4, Cable #91, Excalibur #4, Generation X #74, Generation X
#75, Ultimate X-Men #4, Uncanny X-Men #392, X-Force #113 and
X-Men #112. But hey, people are scraping their souls dry to
produce work like Blink. And you want them to produce it on
time? What are you, some kind of soulless culture Nazi? Some
kind of suit? Is that what you are? Are you? With your
schedules and your calendars, as if that was what mattered in
life. The one true calendar is the calendar of the creative
soul, asshole. Would you disturb rare pandas when they were
mating? Well, this is the same thing. X-Force? That's like a
panda. Just like a panda, it is. It bloody IS. When the
moment of creative epiphany strikes, then and only then will the
new stories gush forth and you will lap them up like the scum you
are. And you will be grateful, and dance, and say "Thank you,
thank you" - weeping now, with the passion of the moment - "thank
you, for this labour of love that speaks directly to my heart,
that touches me in ways I have never truly been touched before,
thank you for bringing this joy into my drab little life, with
its supermarkets and its Gap clothing, thank you for making my
life worth something, even if only in the reflection of your
glory." And in that instant of transitory peace, you will
finally understand.
Or alternatively, there's always heroin, I suppose.
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS REVIEWS - http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk
Relax - Bush can't count as far as World War III.
Kyle Moyer
>teeth into. It's rather irritating that he obviously hasn't
>been given any references to draw Trish Tilby from (although it's
>equally irritating that nobody took the obvious way around that
>by changing the character's name),
Well, I suppose that wouldn't really work since Trish is easily the most
likely person to score an interview with the Beast.
>The series will be promoted by the distribution of a DIY Garth
>Ennis kit, allowing you to replicate the unique atmosphere of a
>Garth Ennis story in the privacy of your own home. The kit
>will include a gun, a selection of western videos, a year's
>supply of fags and Guinness, and a set of anal rosary beads.
Anal rosary beads?
I feel dirty and evil for finding that so funny.
>In theory this should be very funny, but the problem is that
>this book can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be
>a parody of an activity book, or a mock artifact from the Powers
>world. It kicks off with a series of "how to avoid being hurt
>by superheroes" jokes, which are funny if a bit repetitive.
>There's a nice routine on how to tell if your father is secretly
>a supervillain. There's a rather hackneyed, but still moderately
>amusing, sequence parodying superhero origins.
Personally, I enjoyed it. If it was the full price of a regular issue of
Powers, I'd be angry but for $1.50 ($1.00 after my pre-order discount), I
thought it was worth it and entertaining.
>And then... there's a word search, which when all's said and done
>is just a word search. There's a join the dots puzzle, where
>the joke is presumably meant to be that it's incredibly simple.
>There's a "spot the difference" puzzle. This doesn't become a
>hilarious parody of a spot the difference puzzle just by virtue
>of having a Powers character in it. It's simply a spot the
>difference puzzle.
And also the fact that I couldn't "spot the difference."
I thought maybe it was just me, but my wife couldn't either and she's
usually a pretty observant person who's good at those kind of things, so
I'll ask here.
Where's the difference?
And while I'm at it, on the page about "How to tell if your father is a
super-villain," shouldn't it say third person instead of first?
>So as of next week, the late running books list will stand at:
>Blink #4, Cable #91, Excalibur #4, Generation X #74, Generation X
>#75, Ultimate X-Men #4, Uncanny X-Men #392, X-Force #113 and
>X-Men #112. But hey, people are scraping their souls dry to
>produce work like Blink. And you want them to produce it on
>time? What are you, some kind of soulless culture Nazi? Some
>kind of suit? Is that what you are? Are you? With your
>schedules and your calendars, as if that was what mattered in
>life. The one true calendar is the calendar of the creative
>soul, asshole. Would you disturb rare pandas when they were
>mating? Well, this is the same thing. X-Force? That's like a
>panda. Just like a panda, it is. It bloody IS. When the
>moment of creative epiphany strikes, then and only then will the
>new stories gush forth and you will lap them up like the scum you
>are. And you will be grateful, and dance, and say "Thank you,
>thank you" - weeping now, with the passion of the moment - "thank
>you, for this labour of love that speaks directly to my heart,
>that touches me in ways I have never truly been touched before,
>thank you for bringing this joy into my drab little life, with
>its supermarkets and its Gap clothing, thank you for making my
>life worth something, even if only in the reflection of your
>glory." And in that instant of transitory peace, you will
>finally understand.
My life for a Blink comic.
Nothing else matters.
>Or alternatively, there's always heroin, I suppose.
Heroin won't kill as many brain cells at least.
Mintus.
Hetrophobe might have a proublem dealing with it but I thought it was
really cool.
Mintus
Kyle Moyer
Mintus. wrote in message
<13158-3AB...@storefull-621.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...
>Hey I liked Just a Pilgram. Liked the format. I can see where a
>Hetrophobe might have a proublem dealing with it but I thought it was
>really cool.
He didn't say he didn't like it.
"None of which is to say that this is a bad issue - it's a
typically entertaining Ennis story - but it is, ultimately, Ennis
doing some of his regular routines in a different setting."
Translation: This is good, but it would be nice to see Garth Ennis do
something a bit different for once.
And to be honest, I agree. Garth Ennis has a lot of talent, but I've
started to grow bored with the stuff he's done since Preacher ended.
Paul O'Brien
Mintus. <DocM...@webtv.net> writes
>Hey I liked Just a Pilgram. Liked the format. I can see where a
>Hetrophobe might have a proublem dealing with it but I thought it was
>really cool.
Does anybody have the faintest idea what this guy's talking about?
Paul O'Brien
Kyle Moyer <kyle...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>And also the fact that I couldn't "spot the difference."
>I thought maybe it was just me, but my wife couldn't either and she's
>usually a pretty observant person who's good at those kind of things, so
>I'll ask here.
>Where's the difference?
I was going to say "maybe the joke is that they're all the same"
which is, I emphasise, the ONLY reason I bothered to check in detail.
The one top right has a slightly different belt.
>And while I'm at it, on the page about "How to tell if your father is a
>super-villain," shouldn't it say third person instead of first?
Yes. Kind of blows the punchline, doesn't it?
Kyle Moyer
Paul O'Brien wrote in message ...
>In article <13158-3AB...@storefull-621.iap.bryant.webtv.net>,
>Mintus. <DocM...@webtv.net> writes
>>Hey I liked Just a Pilgram. Liked the format. I can see where a
>>Hetrophobe might have a proublem dealing with it but I thought it was
>>really cool.
>Does anybody have the faintest idea what this guy's talking about?
He's saying that he liked Just A Pilgrim and that he likes the format and
that if you don't you're a heterophobe.
Now, if you want to know why he's saying that, I can't help you.
Consul de Designers
> >been given any references to draw Trish Tilby from (although it's equally
> >irritating that nobody took the obvious way around that by changing the
> >character's name),
> Well, I suppose that wouldn't really work since Trish is easily the most
> likely person to score an interview with the Beast.
Yeah, but given how she interviewed the others, she sucks as a journalist. The only, and this is
so very minor IMO, she could get that exclusive with Magneto, given her ins with the xfolks.
But then again, I would have thought that Mags doesn't give 'exclusive' interviews since he
wants everyone to know he means business.
--
till next time,
Jameson Stalanthas Yu, 'mutatis mutandis, strive to be humane, not human'
Shade and Sweet Water, mes amis and Edgerunners
Link at: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~jamesony
Brian Fried
> Well, I suppose that wouldn't really work since Trish is easily the most
> likely person to score an interview with the Beast.
She's also the stock reporter for the MU's TV, while Ben Urich handles
every crime story, and Peter Parker shoots nearly every front page photo
in the BUGLE. ;)
> Personally, I enjoyed it. If it was the full price of a regular issue of
> Powers, I'd be angry but for $1.50 ($1.00 after my pre-order discount), I
> thought it was worth it and entertaining.
I agree. The price was just low enough to make you go "Hey, neat little
gimmick. Not too bothersome."
> And also the fact that I couldn't "spot the difference."
> I thought maybe it was just me, but my wife couldn't either and she's
> usually a pretty observant person who's good at those kind of things, so
> I'll ask here.
> Where's the difference?
It's there. Took me a few minutes to find it. I'll give you a clue: the
different one is the one on the top row, far right. :)