REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 19 March 2006
Paul O'Brien
19 March 2006
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For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com
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This week:
GENERATION M #5 (of 5)
by Paul Jenkins, Ramon Bachs and John Lucas
ULTIMATE X-MEN #68 - Date Night, part 3 of 3
by Robert Kirkman, Tom Raney and Scott Hanna
ANNIHILATION: PROLOGUE - "Annihilation Day"
by Keith Giffen, Scott Kolins and Ariel Olivetti
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As I've pointed out several times over the last few months, one of the
oddities of M-Day is Marvel's treatment of the fallout. Rather than
actually doing the obvious big stories in the major titles, they've been
shunted into miniseries like GENERATION M - presumably because the major
titles don't really want to tell those stories.
It turns out that Generation M doesn't really want to tell those stories
either. Nominally, this is the book following up on mutants who lost
their powers on M-Day, but in reality they've largely been shunted to
the sidelines so Paul Jenkins can tell us more about his new character,
journalist Sally Floyd, who will shortly be regaling us once again in
the Civil War: Frontline miniseries. Loosely speaking, the idea seems
to be that Sally has sunk into depression and alcoholism after the death
of her young daughter, but that writing about former mutants somehow or
other gives her the strength to turn her life around.
Quite how the one leads to the other isn't readily apparent. It turns
out that Sally's daughter was a mutant who aged in reverse, and
therefore might have survived if she'd lived to M-Day and lost her
"powers." This perhaps explains Sally's interest in the subject, but
doesn't really tell us why she suddenly decides to write a big article
about her tragedy in the final issue. Worse, the issue then turns into
one of those awful stories where all the other characters stand around
agreeing that they've just witnessed something terribly, desperately
moving - effectively, the writer patting himself on the back for page
after page. When the Angel is wheeled out to tell Sally that she's
displayed unparalleled courage simply by writing an article about her
dying child, one starts to wonder whether everyone involved has lost
their minds.
So, no, I don't buy it. The idea that Sally's kid might have survived
if M-Day had come a little sooner is quite a good one; the idea that
she's some sort of hero simply for writing about a glorified form of cot
death is just plain baffling. I simply don't understand why everyone's
so impressed by her. Not to the level of character after character
bowing down to admire her saintly heroism, in any event. It doesn't
work.
The creators then remember that there's a serial killer storyline, so
they resolve it and go home.
This seemed like an interesting premise for a series, but somewhere
along the line the book has gone charging down a blind alley, and not a
particularly interesting one at that.
Rating: C
LINKS:
http://www.marvel.com
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This week's only ongoing X-book is ULTIMATE X-MEN, with Robert Kirkman
completing his first three-issue arc.
Actually, it looks like this is going to be another of those titles that
nominally runs in arcs while actually drifting quietly back to the old
open-ended format. In reality this is more of a series of set-up arcs
introducing storylines for the individual characters - except Kitty, who
presumably doesn't need one right now because she's already got a
regular solo role in Ultimate Spider-Man. Otherwise, though, Kirkman is
trying to write an old school team book and ensure that everyone has
something to do. By modern standards this means that there's a heck of a
lot going on, but there's nothing wrong with that.
The main focus of this issue, however, is Xavier interrogating Ultimate
Lilandra about the Ultimate Shi'ar. Assuming that this issue isn't an
elaborate feint, Kirkman's taking a drastically revised approach to the
Shi'ar, turning them into an obscure religion that worships the Phoenix.
Supposedly they're the good guys who had a schism with the Hellfire Club
a few centuries back. It's certainly a bold attempt to redefine the
Phoenix as a more concrete piece of mythology, bearing in mind that it's
generally been thoroughly unclear what the mainstream version is
supposed to represent. On the other hand, given that this bunch don't
seem to be a secret religion - and certainly have no apparent motivation
to be - it rather strains credibility that a whole religion worshipping
Phoenix somehow escaped the X-Men's attention until now. Then again, I
suppose that logic hole would be closed if they turn out to be aliens
after all.
The other major strand is new character Eliot Boggs, who seems to be
developing worryingly ill-defined powers. Characters like that tend to
be bad news, and lead to very woolly plotting, but we'll see where
Kirkman is going with him. To be honest, he hasn't been a particularly
compelling character so far, but then he's only really had the
opportunity to run around and panic. Still, we really need to start
seeing some other sides of his personality in the next issue or so. The
window of goodwill to make us care about new characters is not
indefinite.
Despite all that, I'm generally pretty happy with Kirkman's run so far.
He's continuing to make it a character-based series, and he's taking the
opportunity to do an old-school team book, a format which the mainstream
X-Men titles can no longer manage because of the ludicrously extended
cast. He's juggling a number of interesting storylines, and he's got
solid support from Tom Raney on art. And while the Phoenix stuff has a
few logic holes, it's fundamentally still an intriguing idea. A flawed
book, perhaps, but still generally very promising.
Rating: B+
LINKS:
http://www.funkotron.com (Robert Kirkman)
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ANNIHILATION: PROLOGUE is the lead-in book to "Annihilation", a rather
ambitious 23-part crossover set to run through to next January.
The ambitious bit isn't the scale so much as the commitment Marvel are
showing to some of their more obscure characters - entire miniseries
devoted to the Super-Skrull and Ronan the Accuser would be surprising at
the best of times. Marvel's outer space mythology has been pretty much
ignored in recent years, and the Silver Surfer is the only A-list
character involved here. (No, Nova doesn't count, especially when the
Nova Corps are being written as a transparently obvious riff on the
Green Lantern Corps.)
Nonetheless, Keith Giffen and Scott Kolins get the story off to a decent
start. It's a very simple formula. The threat turns up. It's an army
of marauding bastards. They kill everyone. Rinse, repeat. Basically,
it's an issue of the cosmic bit players - such as the Nova Corps -
getting absolutely trounced in order to sell the Annihilation Wave as a
very big threat indeed. And, simply by sheer large-scale destruction
and panic, it works on that level. Nova himself is actually used very
well here, as a minor cog in the machine who manages to slip through the
carnage unscathed and just sits around in shock. It set up a
potentially interesting series for him. The other three major
characters, on the other hand, just pop their heads round the door in
set-up scenes. Giffen doesn't really seem so interested in them, and
actually devotes more time to his own recent Drax revamp. Not that I'm
complaining, mind you - it was a good book.
The downside is that Giffen's cosmic stories have developed some
annoying tics of late, most notably a tendency to write everything in
made-up slang with garbled syntax, presumably to show us how very alien
it all is. Of course, the main effect is just to make the story harder
to follow. This is far from the worst example Giffen's produced lately
- some of his recent work has been downright incomprehensible, whereas
this is merely irritating. But it's still rather annoying in large
doses.
Nonetheless, the book succeeds amply in what it sets out to do - namely,
establish the Annihilation Wave as a huge threat. And given that it's
part 1 of 27, that's all that's really required of it. Granted, it
could do more to sell the individual miniseries - only Nova is really
pushed here, although Ronan is at least set up - but perhaps it's
achieved as much by selling the event.
Rating: B+
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Also this week:
HATTER M #2 - When I reviewed issue #1, I said that this title would
probably make more sense to me if I'd read Frank Beddor's original novel
- Looking Glass Wars, an inversion of Alice in Wonderland which claims
to be the true story that Lewis Carroll bowdlerised. A review copy of
the novel has duly arrived, which I'll cover shortly over at If
Destroyed. Suffice to say that it's pretty darned fun and, as I
expected, it does put this series in better context - partly because it
contains some necessary exposition about why Alyss and Hatter M were on
the run which wasn't actually in issue #1, and partly because it fleshes
out the importance of imagination in Beddor's Wonderland, where it pulls
double duty as the equivalent of magic. While none of this is strictly
necessary to follow the story, it's also fair to say that the book does
a better job of establishing Hatter's character. Anyhow, Hatter is
racing around 19th century Europe searching for Alyss, and ending up
having other adventures instead. This month, vampires prey on a violin
prodigy, and Hatter fights them with his lethal hat. It's all very
deadpan, and it features one of my favourite lines of dialogue in ages:
"Now go and drink your humble libations and make simple love to your
scrubwoman wife." I'm still bemused by the intended audience for this
book - the novel doesn't go on sale in America until the autumn, and in
any event it's aimed at a younger readership. Weirdly compelling
nonetheless, though. B+
http://www.imagecomics.com
http://www.lookingglasswars.com
http://www.templesmith.com
PLANETARY BRIGADE #2 - Keith Giffen and J M DeMatteis with their usual
comedy superhero routine, and by now you surely know whether you like it
or not. The art is a lot more stable than issue #1's bizarre selection
of artists, and there's actually a decent effort to shift tone at the
end for a proper dramatic finish. Mind you, there's some painfully
unoriginal stuff here with Mr Brilliant, the fat nerd superhero who runs
a comic book store. A decent two-parter overall, though. B+
http://www.boom-studios.com
PUNISHER vs BULLSEYE #5 - End of the miniseries, which I thought was
worth mentioning because it's by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon, the
creative team for the upcoming Wolverine: Origins series. Obviously you
can't go too far wrong with Dillon, who excels at using the details of
body language and expression to give more depth to a scene. And he's an
ideal partner for Daniel Way, who writes a lot of slow-paced material
that desperately needs that sort of art if it's going to work. But this
isn't particularly impressive - unfortunately, it falls down the gaping
and desolate chasm of "nearly funny." The ending doesn't particularly
make sense either - yeah, I get the basic idea that Bullseye's
manipulating the Punisher into doing his hits for him, but how does he
end up outside the house with the rocket launcher again? And no, having
two characters wandering around with broken noses for an issue is not
inherently funny. B-
SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER #4 - Another Seven Soldiers miniseries
finishes off, and this is one of the stronger ones. The tie-in to the
wider storyline is minimal, mind you, but along with Guardian, this is a
book I can really see working as an ongoing title. The concept of
Bulleteer as a reluctant superhuman dragged into a more-than-slightly
pervy world of extremely minor league superheroes, corrupted by
(effectively) fans projecting their own strange ideas onto basically
innocent concepts, stands up surprisingly well as more than just a
one-joke concept. There's easily another series to be done with this
character. She's a woman with perfectly useful superpowers that
unfortunately disqualify her from every job in the world except
"professional superhero", which basically involves turning up at grim
conventions and having no fun at all. Possibly too close to home for
some fans, but excellent nonetheless. A
http://www.dccomics.com
http://www.grant-morrison.com
X-MEN: APOCALYPSE vs DRACULA #2 - I've got to admit, I was braced for
this to be a trainwreck, and it hasn't been. Halfway through the
series, Tieri is still keeping Apocalypse and Dracula apart, and if
anything he's trying to drag Apocalypse in the direction of Dracula's
stories rather than doing it the other way around. If he can set up his
version of Apocalypse before the two inevitably have to meet then he
might just get away with this unlikely pairing. That said, the series
is decidedly lacking in atmosphere, which is in large part an art
problem. Clayton Henry is a perfectly good artist for bright, shiny
things, but he doesn't do dark and tense, and he's alarmingly miscast on
this book. B-
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Last week's Article 10 on Monday at Ninth Art, and there's more from me
shortly at If Destroyed.
http://www.ninthart.com
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
Next week, Wolverine #40 concludes "Origins and Endings", Exiles #78
guest stars the original Squadron Supreme, X-Factor #5 follows up on
poor Siryn, X-Men #184 continues the Apocalypse storyline, and Storm #2
tries to convince us that we'd like to see her marry the Black Panther.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com
Shawn H
: SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER #4 - Another Seven Soldiers miniseries
: finishes off, and this is one of the stronger ones. The tie-in to the
: wider storyline is minimal, mind you, but along with Guardian, this is a
: book I can really see working as an ongoing title. The concept of
: Bulleteer as a reluctant superhuman dragged into a more-than-slightly
: pervy world of extremely minor league superheroes, corrupted by
: (effectively) fans projecting their own strange ideas onto basically
: innocent concepts, stands up surprisingly well as more than just a
: one-joke concept. There's easily another series to be done with this
: character. She's a woman with perfectly useful superpowers that
: unfortunately disqualify her from every job in the world except
: "professional superhero", which basically involves turning up at grim
: conventions and having no fun at all. Possibly too close to home for
: some fans, but excellent nonetheless. A
: http://www.dccomics.com
: http://www.grant-morrison.com
This is a nice review of the title character concept, but she was a minor
portion of this very iffy final issue. You detected no slippage in quality
at all?
Shawn H.
Chris McFeely
> showing to some of their more obscure characters - entire miniseries
> devoted to the Super-Skrull and Ronan the Accuser would be surprising at
> the best of times.
Hey, at a time when we've got miniseries for Doc Samson, Silver Sable,
Dominic Fortune and the Daughters of the Dragon on the shelves, very
little surprises me...
Chris
Jinx
For my money, the smaller, below the radar characters are where Marvel
is doing its most interesting work at the moment. Its the larger more
high profile properties where the work hold my interest less and less.
Gerard
> For my money, the smaller, below the radar characters are where Marvel
> is doing its most interesting work at the moment. Its the larger more
> high profile properties where the work hold my interest less and less.
Agreed