REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 15 June 2003
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS
15 June 2003
============
For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com
------------
This week:
DOMINO #2 - "Perfect Weapon, part two of four"
by Joe Pruett and Brian Stelfreeze
ULTIMATE X-MEN #34 - "Blockbuster, part 1"
by Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch and Art Thibert
KINGPIN #1 - "All the King's Men"
by Bruce Jones, Sean Phillips and Klaus Janson
LOVE FIGHTS #1
by Andi Watson
TOKYO STORM WARNING #1
by Warren Ellis, James Raiz and Andrew Currie
------------
At last, a fairly quiet week for the X-books. Why they can't spread the
damn things more evenly through the month, I'll never know.
Anyway, we start off with issue #2 of the DOMINO miniseries.
Unfortunately, it serves mainly to confirm my fears from the first
issue.
But let's begin with the positive, which is the art. I've always liked
Stelfreeze's slightly stylised approach, with iconic figures and
backgrounds where the light and shadow are distorted and exaggerated to
the point of abstraction. He's also colouring this series, with each
scene saturated in strange, unnatural secondary colours. For all its
flaws, this book certainly looks great. If you just want to admire
Stelfreeze's work from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, and I can well
understand why you might, then you'll be very happy.
However, the story doesn't match up to the standard set by the art. The
plot becomes marginally clearer this issue: Domino, who knows nothing
about her background, is trying to track down her missing mother. She's
doing favours for the mysterious Jonathan in order to get information,
and in the course of all this she stumbles upon news of a weapon that
can destroy the world.
It doesn't really work. The emotional core of this story is apparently
meant to be Domino's search for her mother (and, by extension her own
identity). But the plot has nothing to do with that; it's a baffling
mess of convoluted mechanics where Domino hasn't got much of a clue
what's going on, and sketchy exposition means the readers are likely to
be even more confused about the whole thing. The story keeps hurling
secrets and schemes at the reader until it all blurs into grey.
Meanwhile, having no real connection with all the racing around and
fighting, Domino's feelings for her mother get shunted right to the
outskirts of the plot, where they flounder around in awkward exposition.
("After all these years... after all my efforts.. I've found you at
last... mother.")
It's not awful, but it's a wilfully obscure piece of writing which is
too busy being conspiratorial to really get to grips with anything.
That said, however, it does look fabulous.
Rating: B-
LINKS:
http://www.marvel.com
------------
Brian Bendis takes over on ULTIMATE X-MEN this week. Since he's already
writing Ultimate Spider-Man, that pretty much means that the direction
of the imprint is going to be determined by his writing for the moment.
Ultimates only comes out a few times a year, and let's be honest,
nobody's paying attention to Ultimate Adventures any more. (No, it's
not finished, before you ask.)
To state the obvious, Bendis is a very different writer from Mark
Millar. His stories tend to be much more oriented around character
drama, whereas Millar is more of a high concept, action writer. Also,
with some notable exceptions, Bendis' revamps of characters for the
Ultimate imprint have tended to stay relatively close to the originals.
He sticks to the original idea, where Millar's reinventions tend to be
much more drastic (often to the point where you wondered why he didn't
just create a new character altogether).
However, we're not going to find out how Bendis deals with some of the
more drastic Millar revamps just yet, because this is actually Wolverine
and Spider-Man team-up. Plenty of people have already commented that it
reads more like an issue of Ultimate Spider-Man than Ultimate X-Men, and
they're right. Of course, Bendis and Millar are so different that the
change of style was always going to be drastic, but this goes further
than that. It's not just a Bendis story; to all intents and purposes,
it really is an Ultimate Spider-Man story, even down to first person
narration from Peter Parker.
Which is fine by me; Ultimate Spider-Man is a great little book, and I'm
more than happy to see more of it. This is a fairly typical Bendis
blend of action of character, as Wolverine takes refuge at Peter's house
after being gunned down in the first scene. There's enough action in it
to keep the kids happy, but the story's really built around Peter and
Mary Jane's reactions to Wolverine, a character who comes from a much
less innocent side of their world.
David Finch's art is a pleasant surprise. He was the artist on Call of
Duty: The Brotherhood, which had its moments but tended to some heavily
idealised characters that detracted from the supposed "real-world"
approach. (Plus, his storytelling wasn't helped by the almost
impossible remit of doing clear scenes where half the characters were
wearing identical firemen's uniforms that made it impossible to tell
them apart.) This is much better work, however. Partly that's because
his style is more suited to the material, but he does a great Wolverine,
and his style really clicks with Bendis' pacing.
It's a real change of pace from the Millar run, but that was the only
sensible way to go. There's a lot of validity to the complaints that
Bendis has just copied the formula that worked on Spider-Man, but it's a
formula that really does work.
Rating: A
LINKS:
http://www.jinxworld.com
------------
Well, that's the X-books out of the way, so let's look at a new ongoing
series from Marvel, KINGPIN. At least, I think it's ongoing this week -
they announced it as a miniseries and then changed their minds for some
reason.
Whatever, it's here now, and it's a series about the early years of the
Kingpin when he was building his empire. It's not an origin series as
such - we pick up with the Kingpin already building his criminal empire,
so really the key motivation stuff has already been and gone. This
seems to be about how he achieves his goal.
I have my doubts that there's really an ongoing series in this. We know
how it all turned out, which doesn't do wonders for the dramatic
tension. And this is a character created to be a villain; I'm not sure
how he's meant to work as the lead character in his own series. This
first issue is a solid enough piece of crime fiction but it doesn't
really answer my concerns about the viability of the series.
Basically, this issue sets up the future Kingpin's current status (minor
crimelord on the rise), and his grand strategy for success - take drugs
out of the ghetto and to the middle classes. That's an interesting
idea, and one that might well merit a lengthy storyline, depending on
what direction writer Bruce Jones chooses to take. However, the first
issue is more of a masterclass in Fisk's tactics - manipulate everyone,
make them think they're the one guy who knows the real scheme, and then
kill them once their expendable.
It's a good little story, and it leaves it up to the reader to try and
extract Fisk's true feelings and attitudes from in amongst the deceit -
which accounts for about 99% of his dialogue, so it's more about reading
between the lines. Okay, the chess metaphor is rather obvious, and the
idea that Fisk is a fearsome master manipulator isn't exactly going to
come as news to anyone. But it's the first issue, and Jones does
establish these key points cleverly.
Art comes from Sean Phillips and Klaus Janson, and as you'd expect from
that combination, it's effective rather than pretty. Spider-Man looks
thoroughly out of place when he drops by for a cameo and seems to be
about the only character in the book with a normal complement of curved
lines. They're great storytellers, though, and that's the key thing.
For the most part, they've round the right angle with the Kingpin - they
make good use of shadow to swtich his intimidating presence on and off
according to the scene.
Perfectly good as an issue in its own right, but it doesn't really
answer my questions about how there's going to be a series in this
character.
Rating: B+
------------
Andi Watson specialises in low-key character stories, with his
distinctively minimal, greytone artwork. He is therefore the last
person in the world that you'd expect to announce an ongoing monthly
superhero series, but here's LOVE FIGHTS #1 regardless - a superhero
romance comic.
Some of you might remember Young Heroes In Love (though given the sales
figures for that book, I suspect not many of you). Well, this is
nothing like that. Barring dual identities, this isn't actually a story
about superheroes themselves. Instead, it's a love story about Jack and
Nora, two people living in the shadow of the superheroes.
Jack's an artist on a licensed comic about the Flamer, a fire-powered
hero with an ill-advised name whose popularity is going through a bit of
a dip at the moment. Nora works at eXpose, a magazine which is very
interested in the superheroes, but only if it's juicy. But despite all
this, it's really a story about relationships, which is usually Watson's
strength. Jack is chronically unable to ask girls out, despite his
vehement denial. Andi Watson knows all the buttons to push so that an
issue of Jack's intensive dithering resonates rather than just making
you wish he'd do something.
You'd think that Watson's art would be a horrible clash of styles with
the superheroes. Of course, the superheroes are kept right to the
margins of this story - the battle in this issue takes place almost
entirely off camera - so that doesn't really present a problem. When we
do see them, they're often just lines in the sky or vague shapes in the
horizon. They're a presence around the edge of the world, part of the
background rather than something that's really knocked the world off
course.
It's still a curious mix. The tension between the superhero genre and
Watson's style is part of the fun here, though, and the result isn't
really a hybrid so much as an Andi Watson comic with superheroes around
the edges. It works, though.
Rating: A
LINKS
http://www.onipress.com
http://www.andiwatson.com
------------
TOKYO STORM WARNING is a song by Elvis Costello, and if you ask me, it's
not one of his better ones. Goes on for bloody ever, and it's way too
repetitive. It's also the name of the latest Cliffhanger miniseries,
which writer Warren Ellis describes as "a gentle piss-take of the giant
robot genre played straight."
Not a genre I really follow, to be honest. Which leaves me uncertain
whether Ellis has undershot on the "piss-take" part of it and just
produced a straight pastiche, or whether there's something going on here
on a subtle level I don't get. Whichever one it is, the book really
just reads to me like a straight giant robot book. Sure, it's got a
sense of its own ridiculousness, but doesn't the real thing?
Of course, as we saw in Authority, Ellis does great dumb action scenes
when he wants to, so three issues of giant robots in faintly over the
top action sequences is still a perfectly readable proposition. It
depends on whether the artist can run with it and produce something
sufficiently absurd.
The problem with James Raiz' art is that it lacks scale. The big reveal
panels tend to show Great Big Thingies filling most of the panel,
against a background of high-tech buildings that don't really convey a
sense of scale. Just how giant are the giant robots? How many storeys
high? Honestly, after re-reading the last five pages of it in action,
I'm still not sure. Raiz has redesigned the whole of Tokyo in sci-fi
mode, which is fair enough, but means that I don't honestly know how big
any of this stuff is meant to be. The art makes it look as though the
robots are the normal size and everything around them is small, when it
ought to be the other way round.
It's certainly a pleasant-looking issue, and the three-headed dragon
creature is a lovely piece of design. When he's dealing with real
people, Raiz turns in some lovely work. But he doesn't give a blow-away
sense of lunatic scale, which is what this issue needed in order to
work.
Rating: B-
LINKS:
http://www.wildstorm.com
http://www.warrenellis.com
------------
Also among this week's comics...
CEREBUS #289/290 - Yes, the number's correct - this is a double issue to
get the book back on schedule. It's also the first two parts of "Latter
Days Part II", which turns out to be just a continuation of the
interminably dull "Chasing YHWH." But, if anything, the insanity quota
has risen even higher. In the first half of this storyline - and I use
the term loosely - Cerebus minutely dissected the Book of Genesis to
expound on his theory that references to "YWHW" are in fact to a
feminine spin-off of God who keeps getting things wrong, because she's a
girl. This issue consists entirely of Cerebus dreaming while Dave Sim
expounds on his theory on the history of the universe in mock-Biblical
prose, complete with footnotes sprawling across the bottom of the page,
making it unambiguously clear that this is Sim's own view. It's the
comic as essay, which would be interesting if Sim's reasoning hadn't so
clearly nuts. "It seems to me that God has given men and women an
equivalent numerical presence in the world so that anyone (willing to
look at the evidence through unprejudiced eyes) would recognize the
implicit disparity between man's accomplishments (in the Image of God)
and women's accomplishments (in the image of the spirit of God, in the
image of the light which came forth upon the Word, and in the image of
the Word)." Yes, that's right, Sim believes that men and women exist in
equal numbers so that the differences between them will be clearly
apparent. Quite why they would not be noticeable in a 3:2 ratio, he
doesn't really explain. Anyhow, it seems that Cerebus is ending with a
twelve issue non-fiction essay on the world according to Dave Sim, with
Special Reference to Why Women Suck. Horribly compelling, for all the
wrong reasons. C-
FILTH #11 - Ah, the big reveal. Of course, my Scottish nationalist
sentiments - such as they are - bristle at a story titled "A Very
English Nervous Breakdown" and given a cover based on the Union Jack,
which is not the flag of England. Bad England. Bad. Anyhow, this is
the explanation - more or less - of everything we've seen so far, and it
manages the all-important trick of coming as a surprise while still
making perfect sense. God, I love Grant Morrison comics. Plus, needless
to say, Chris Weston makes it look fantastic from start to finish. A
http://www.grantmorrison.com
INCREDIBLE HULK #55 - This is the 25c issue released to tie in with the
movie, although the fact that the movie isn't out yet suggests a
scheduling problem to me. Purists have made something of the fact that
the Hulk doesn't actually appear in this story, which normally doesn't
bother me in Jones' work - after all, Banner is the Hulk, and that's the
central idea. But then again, this is the big tie-in issue for the film
that, uh, isn't out yet, and this might have been the time to do a
single-issue story. Anyway, if you ignore all that stuff, it's a
pleasant break from the conspiracy material (which was verging on
self-parody - how many convolutions and internal betrayals can one
government conspiracy have?). The Absorbing Man, in blatant disregard
of his role as a supporting character in Thor, is in jail and is using a
power very, very tenuously related to his existing abilities to
interfere with people's minds. Quite good as a mystery story, although
it really does take a huge stretch of the imagination to accept this
stuff as even remotely connected to the Absorbing Man's defined
abilities. Debuting on art, Leandro Fernandez does his usual solid
storytelling, as well as giving the Absorbing Man a suitably sinsiter
look - albeit one totally unrelated to the way he's being used over in
Thor, but I suppose it's out of fashion to comment on that sort of
thing. B+
POWERS #32 - Brian Bendis' survey of the history of superpowers in the
Powers universe continues, as we get up to Conan the Barbarian. (Which
is only even covered in the Marvel Universe because they happened to
pick up the licence to the character. But I digress.) A pattern is
fairly obviously emerging in this storyline, and I'm interested to see
where Bendis is heading with this - presumably there's some pay-off at
the end of this rather than a bunch of disconnected flashbacks, because
it certainly has no obvious relevance to the present day material thus
far. Audacious, though, and largely successful. B+
PUNISHER #28 - I wasn't wild about Tom Mandrake as the artist on this
series - something about his style just didn't work for black comedy.
This time round we have Cam Kennedy on art, and he's much more like it.
Okay, his male characters all look decidedly similar and chiselled, but
this plays better into the black comedy angle that Garth Ennis has
chosen to use on this book. I'm slightly surprised Ennis is still
working on this book - it's been a while now, and he's a relentlessly
one-dimensional character - but even without any particular direction in
evidence, he continues to find entertaining angles for the stories. B+
------------
Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art. http://www.ninthart.com
Next week, the second issues of New Mutants and Wolverine, the third
issue of Sentinel, and yet another Wolverine miniseries - Spider-Man &
Wolverine - begins. Plus, Uncanny X-Men #426.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
ARTICLE 10 - http://www.ninthart.com
Negative numbers, presumably.
Paul O'Brien
Aaron Forever
to the comic store after work, just getting there a hair before closing
time, for some books that i wasn't all that excited about anyway.
thank you, Marvel, for this week :)
Billy Bissette
> by Warren Ellis, James Raiz and Andrew Currie
>
> not one of his better ones. Goes on for bloody ever, and it's way too
> repetitive. It's also the name of the latest Cliffhanger miniseries,
> which writer Warren Ellis describes as "a gentle piss-take of the giant
> robot genre played straight."
>
> Not a genre I really follow, to be honest. Which leaves me uncertain
> whether Ellis has undershot on the "piss-take" part of it and just
> produced a straight pastiche, or whether there's something going on here
> on a subtle level I don't get. Whichever one it is, the book really
> just reads to me like a straight giant robot book. Sure, it's got a
> sense of its own ridiculousness, but doesn't the real thing?
Perhaps you have a different experience, but from my experience anyone
who uses "taking the piss" is generally describing something that they are
pretending or actually believe is something really witty, when in actually
it is just rather average, stupid, derivative, or just an excuse to
be insulting while dodging responsibility.
Yes, I know what the phrase means. But it's kind of like the comment
occassionally made by some that "Anyone who says 'In my humble opinion'
likely has nothing at all humble about his opinion."
Haven't read the book, but yes the real thing can have a sense of its
own ridiculousness. Indeed, any giant robot series of the last decade or
so would require it in order to be good. Else it would just be [the
pretentious mess that is] Evangelion.
> CEREBUS #289/290 - Yes, the number's correct - this is a double issue to
<snip>
> Anyhow, it seems that Cerebus is ending with a
> twelve issue non-fiction essay on the world according to Dave Sim, with
> Special Reference to Why Women Suck.
Cerebus was supposed to die at 300...
So, what are the odds he's going to commit suicide?
Better yet, what are the odds he's going to commit suicide after he gets
fed up with the rantings of Dave Sims in his head?
> INCREDIBLE HULK #55 - This is the 25c issue released to tie in with the
> movie, although the fact that the movie isn't out yet suggests a
> scheduling problem to me. Purists have made something of the fact that
> the Hulk doesn't actually appear in this story, which normally doesn't
> bother me in Jones' work - after all, Banner is the Hulk, and that's the
> central idea. But then again, this is the big tie-in issue for the film
> that, uh, isn't out yet, and this might have been the time to do a
> single-issue story.
But the Hulk isn't supposed to show in the moving until the latter half
either... :)
lavar78
<nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
In particular, thanks for the first non-Austen week in recent history.
Unfortunately, he'll have his revenge...
/lavar78
Paul O'Brien
<lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom> writes
>
>In particular, thanks for the first non-Austen week in recent history.
>Unfortunately, he'll have his revenge...
Not so - Chuck Austen's Captain America #14 came out last week.
lavar78
<pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <160620030829129327%lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom>, lavar78
> <lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom> writes
> >
> >In particular, thanks for the first non-Austen week in recent history.
> >Unfortunately, he'll have his revenge...
>
> Not so - Chuck Austen's Captain America #14 came out last week.
Damn! Maybe we'll have to start calling him "Cockroach" Austen.
/lavar78
Jim Connick
"lavar78" <lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom> wrote in message
news:160620031508047810%lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom...
: In article <w03WV$GWnd7...@esoterica.demon.co.uk>, Paul O'Brien
There's a craptacular 3 Austen books due out this week too, Superman :
Metropolis, Uncanny, and the first of the new US War Machine mini. Maybe,
just maybe, one of them will be good.
Ronny Hedin #1837
> There's a craptacular 3 Austen books due out this week too, Superman :
> Metropolis, Uncanny, and the first of the new US War Machine mini. Maybe,
> just maybe, one of them will be good.
Jeeeesus. If he could write as much as he does AND have the majority of it
be good he would have to be, like, god. Or Stan Lee, maybe. As it as, no
wonder it's crap when he's churning out such shitloads of it.
Jim Connick
"Ronny Hedin #1837" <th...@mangakai.org> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.06.16....@mangakai.org...
Agreed, it's like Igor Kordey syndrome, when you are doing so much, the
quality is bound to suffer.
Next week, there is just the one Austen book scheduled (so far), US War
Machine V2 #2, so it must be catch up time for him or something :)
lavar78
<j...@theaww.com> wrote:
I don't think Uncanny's in the running.
/lavar78
Jim Connick
"lavar78" <lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom> wrote
: > : > >In particular, thanks for the first non-Austen week in recent
history.
: > : > >Unfortunately, he'll have his revenge...
: > : >
: > : > Not so - Chuck Austen's Captain America #14 came out last week.
: > :
: > : Damn! Maybe we'll have to start calling him "Cockroach" Austen.
: > :
: > : /lavar78
: >
: > There's a craptacular 3 Austen books due out this week too, Superman :
: > Metropolis, Uncanny, and the first of the new US War Machine mini.
Maybe,
: > just maybe, one of them will be good.
: >
: I don't think Uncanny's in the running.
:
: /lavar78
I'd say that's a pretty fair bet. Metropolis has a nice artist at least...
Franklin Harris
"lavar78" <lav...@NOSPAM.hotmailDOTcom> wrote in message
Not given that it is part 2 of a story that already stinks.
--
Franklin Harris
Pulp Culture Online, www.pulpculture.net
"The truly psychotic don't need to cop an attitude." -- Poppy Z. Brite,
alt.horror, 2/21/03
starblood
news:JZqIOcEg...@esoterica.demon.co.uk...
> Quite good as a mystery story, although
> it really does take a huge stretch of the imagination to accept this
> stuff as even remotely connected to the Absorbing Man's defined
> abilities.
I don't see it at all.
Ralf Haring
<pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>INCREDIBLE HULK #55 - Quite good as a mystery story, although
>stuff as even remotely connected to the Absorbing Man's defined
>abilities.
Even a relative idiot like Creel should be able to figure out that he
can absorb the ropes that *are going throug the plasma shield* holding
up his little platform and then *he can go through the plasma field
too*. Not a very good artistic choice there.
-Ralf Haring
"The mind must be the harder, the heart the keener,
the spirit the greater, as our strength grows less."
-Byrhtwold, The Battle of Maldon
Damaeus
posted on Mon, 16 Jun 2003 01:21:52 +0100:
> Brian Bendis takes over on ULTIMATE X-MEN this week. Since he's already
> writing Ultimate Spider-Man, that pretty much means that the direction
> of the imprint is going to be determined by his writing for the moment.
> Ultimates only comes out a few times a year, and let's be honest,
> nobody's paying attention to Ultimate Adventures any more. (No, it's
> not finished, before you ask.)
I like Ultimate Adventures and I still look for it when I visit a comics
shop. I think Marvel decided from the outset which one they wanted to
succeed. Ultimate Adventures was delayed a lot. The first issue was
released in November 2002 and six issues were guaranteed. At one issue
per month, the series should have finished its initial six-month run
back in May, but here we are going on into August and we've only seen
four issues released. Talk about losing an audience. I wonder if the
other three comics were treated the same way.
Damaeus
W. Blaine Dowler
> I like Ultimate Adventures and I still look for it when I visit a comics
> shop. I think Marvel decided from the outset which one they wanted to
> succeed. Ultimate Adventures was delayed a lot. The first issue was
> released in November 2002 and six issues were guaranteed. At one issue
> per month, the series should have finished its initial six-month run
> back in May, but here we are going on into August and we've only seen
> four issues released. Talk about losing an audience. I wonder if the
> other three comics were treated the same way.
It's my understanding that the delays on "Ultimate Adventures" were caused
by the creative team, and not Marvel's management. Still, the others were
released on schedule, and "Captain Marvel" has continued at a higher cover
price. The only serious abuse was that administered to the people who read
"Marville."
--
- Blaine
http://www.bureau42.com
ICQ: 24893016
"No, it is a very interesting number, it is the smallest number
expressible as a sum of two cubes in two different ways."
- Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), Indian mathematician. The
mathematician G. H. Hardy had referred to the number '1729' as 'dull'.