REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 22 June 2008
Paul O'Brien
22 June 2008
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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:
ULTIMATE X-MEN #95 - Absolute Power, part 2 of 4
by Aron Coleite, Brandon Peterson, Mark Brooks and Jaime Mendoza
WOLVERINE #66 - Old Man Logan, part 1 of 8
by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines
X-FACTOR #32 - "X-It Strategy"
by Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Drew Hennessy and
Craig Yeung
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Frankly, there's not a lot going on this week. Marvel, in particular,
have apparently chosen to hold back some of their biggest titles for
Wednesday (which just so happens to be the release date of Final Crisis
#2, oddly enough). But it's been pretty quiet across the board, so I'm
just going to run through the week's X-books, mid-story or no.
ULTIMATE X-MEN #95 is the second part of Aron Coleite's story "Absolute
Power." The story is a thinly veiled steroid allegory, which doubles as
the introduction of Alpha Flight. Northstar has been recaptured by the
Flight, whose powers have all been boosted by the mutant drug Banshee.
Last issue, Colossus turned out to be using it too, and he enlisted a
bunch of other powered-up X-Men to rescue his boyfriend.
There's also a bloody great banner on the cover saying "March on
Ultimatum." I have no idea why. Apparently it's supposed to be some
sort of tie-in indicator, and not just a generic advert. But the story
doesn't read like it's building to anything wider, so I'm none the wiser
as to what Ultimatum is or what this story might have to do with it.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm much happier when the books are
largely self-contained.
Now, when I reviewed the first part of this story, I gave it the benefit
of the doubt, even though it plainly had the potential to be incredibly
stupid. On the whole, I decided to be cautiously optimistic. Judging
from my mailbox, a lot of you weren't quite so forgiving. And, well, if
you didn't like last issue, this one isn't going to change your mind.
Actually, I still don't have a problem with Coleite's basic idea, which
is that mutants with slightly flawed powers might be using drugs to sort
themselves out. Steroids are a reasonably interesting idea, and the
concept is fair enough. But in practice, it's a bit heavy handed.
Cyclops finding that he can control his optic beams... well, fine.
Angel turning into a bird-man, and nobody seeming to find that at all
creepy? Um, no. That doesn't work.
What's more, if you stop to think about the plot, it unravels rather
quickly. As the issue kicks off, Colossus' breakaway group - who have
already taken Banshee, don't forget - head off to get some more drugs.
And to do this... they go to Colossus' home town in Russia. So...
So, hold on.
Colossus has supposedly been using this stuff the whole time he was with
the X-Men. His powers don't work properly without it. If that's so,
where has he been getting it all this time? Has he been making regular
drug-smuggling trips back to Russia? Or did he show up at the Mansion
on his first day with five crates of illegal drugs? And if Colossus has
to go all the way to Russia to get this stuff, why does he only order
twelve vials, to share between five people? And come to think of it,
how does he even contact the dealer, whose identity is supposedly a
secret to him? And why does this dealer, who's so concerned about his
identity that he makes Colossus wear a blindfold, appear in plain sight
of the window from Colossus' living room? And how come none of the
other X-Men take the opportunity to look at him when he does? And if
Xavier is that keen on finding out who the dealer is, why doesn't he
just read Colossus' mind to find out how to contact him? Is there
really a moral difference between taking the information and getting
Cyclops to trick it out of him? One that would mean anything to the
telepaths in Ultimate X-Men?
So... yeah, there are some problems here.
Despite that, even though my head says this is a bit of a mess, I didn't
mind it nearly as much as you'd expect. It's not great. In fact, it's a
seriously flawed story, and it's going to irritate quite a few readers.
But it's quite readable if you don't think about it too closely, and a
part of me rather admires the audacity of doing something as odd as this
in a fill-in arc.
Even so, I can't quite bring myself to recommend it.
Rating: C+
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Mark Millar and Steve McNiven have been reunited on WOLVERINE, with
their new eight-part storyline "Old Man Logan."
This is an unusual storyline for an ongoing title. It's basically
Wolverine: The End - or rather, it could have been, if somebody hadn't
done that already. It's set half a century in the future, in a world
where the villains one, the heroes mostly died, and a broken Wolverine
has settled down to quiet life as a farmer.
Obviously that's not going to fill eight issues. So, driven by the need
to pay his rent, Logan is dragged out of retirement for one last job,
which will of course be simple and will set him up for life. You know
the schtick.
I can't help but wonder why this story is running in the regular
Wolverine title. It's very rare for Marvel to run out-of-continuity
stories in their regular titles, and the premise seems more suited for a
miniseries. In fact, even the cover - which incorporates the subtitle
into the logo - almost looks like it was designed for a mini. Usually,
it's the other way round: Marvel take a story that would work perfectly
well in the regular title and inexplicably make it a one-shot, thus
selling fewer copies. This way makes more sense, but in practice it's
still a strange anomaly.
Now, Mark Millar does enjoy his worlds where the bad guys won. The
problem with this story, I think, is that he can't quite seem to make up
his mind what tone he's going for. Is this a melancholy, downbeat story
about a broken, shuffling hero in a despairing dystopia? Or is it a
wacky, over the top story about a bunch of redneck mutants flying around
in a vandalised Fantasticar?
For the most part it wants to be the first one, but that doesn't stop
elements from the second trying to shoehorn their way onto the page.
It's an uneven read. And perhaps that's why I don't really believe in
Millar's future world. It feels like a collection of elements from two
different stories, which don't always seem to have been thought through
very clearly. For example, the Hulk's family are apparently running
most of the western states of America - so why are they collecting rent
in person?
But the quieter, subtler bits... those work. That's not as easy as it
sounds, because Millar has Logan acting wildly out of character for the
whole issue. The risk here is that he no longer feels like Wolverine at
all. Millar gets away with it, though, and manages to sell the idea of
"How did he end up like this?" Steve McNiven does a nice line in empty
landscapes and characters who've given up. And sure, it's a slow start,
but there's nothing wrong with that. A story like this needs to start
slow.
I'm not entirely sold on this arc. From the look of it, Millar's taking
us on a tour across America where we can meet dystopian future versions
of other Marvel villains. That's not an idea that particularly thrills
me, and it's not too hard to predict the basic shape of the storyline to
come. On the whole, thought, this is a good start - as long as Millar
resists the temptation to throw in quirky ideas that mess up his sombre
atmosphere.
Rating: B+
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Finally, X-FACTOR #32 completes the team's departure from "Mutant Town",
and sets up their new direction.
It's taken us quite a while to get to this point. Mutant Town is
finally and decisively dismantled, and the government offers X-Factor a
choice: join the Initiative or become freelancers for the O*N*E. They
choose option three: run away and move to Detroit.
I confess to slightly mixed feelings about this change of direction. On
the one hand, it can't help but feel a little contrived. You can feel
the gears grinding, as the series lurches in a new direction. On the
other hand, Peter David is the sort of writer who can work with
anything. And there were problems with Mutant Town - a setting that
hasn't really made a great deal of sense since M-Day. Getting the team
out of there, and making them into a lower-profile investigative agency
in another city, is probably for the good in the long run.
But that still leaves the challenge of extracting the book from its
previous set-up in a satisfying way. David has dealt with that, in the
preceding arc, by playing up the way that setting collapsed around him,
and having Arcade force the team's hand by burning the place down. It
didn't come across all that clearly last issue, but this time around,
there's a much stronger sense that the neighbourhood has been destroyed.
By taking a few months to go through this, David has managed to make
this seem like the turning point where the team start their fight-back
from total defeat, instead of the clunky change of direction that it
could so easily have been. And there's a nice bit of misdirection, as
he establishes what seems to be a perfectly viable new set-up in its own
right, before throwing in one extra element at the end.
David has always been able to make the best of a difficult job, and I
think he's done it here. It's not the greatest story he's ever written,
but the change is probably for the best, and he's made it work better
than most writers could. Sure, I can hear the grinding of editorial
gears in the background. But I can live with that.
Rating: B
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Also this week:
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #2 - Ah, so this book does have a connection to
the original series after all - albeit a very tenuous one. And it's
quite a neat little idea, playing on Captain America's rediscovery in
Avengers in a way that's a lot less gratuitous than it might first seem.
(Putting his shield on the front cover is a little bit misleading, mind
you, even if it's strictly accurate.) This is looking like a fun little
team book, although I don't see it having a much broader appeal than the
Annihilation crossovers that spawned it. B+
HELLBLAZER #245 - The start of a two-part fill-in story by Jason Aaron
and Sean Murphy. And it's excellent stuff. Hellblazer has drifted over
the years into a sort of low rent, back street Dr Strange, which often
works for it. Aaron evidently remembers the days when it was considered
a horror book, and that's how he's writing it. There's some wonderfully
unpleasant stuff in here, helped all the more if you're not quite
expecting the book to go that way. The story is about a low-budget film
crew making a documentary about John Constantine's old punk band, but
it's mainly about the nastiness. A
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There's more from me at If Destroyed, and apparently the Ninth Art
archive is going to back online at some point...
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
Next week, Uncanny X-Men #499 completes its "Divided We Stand" arc and
sets up for the anniversary next month. X-Men: Legacy #213 continues
digging into Professor X's past, now with added Gambit. Wolverine: First
Class features the Knights of Wundagore, while X-Men: First Class guest
stars Machine Man. Angel: Revelations #2 continues the original
miniseries, and Wolverine: Origins #26 begins a two-part origin story
for Daken.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com
grinningdemon
I was actually a little more put off by Cyclops taking the drug and
suddenly turning into Superman (flying, super-strength,
eye-beams)...it was a bit much. I honestly just can't bring myself to
care about the Ultimate version of Angel...like so many of the
Ultimatized X-men, he's just so drastically different from the
original (and not in a good way) that I couldn't care less.
I agree...although I do like some of the backstory elements Coleite
has added...Cyclops killing people the first time his powers kicked in
and Rogue being molested as a child actually suit the characters
pretty well...I think it would have even worked with the original
versions.
>
>Rating: C+
>
> ------------
>
>Mark Millar and Steve McNiven have been reunited on WOLVERINE, with
>their new eight-part storyline "Old Man Logan."
>
>This is an unusual storyline for an ongoing title. It's basically
>Wolverine: The End - or rather, it could have been, if somebody hadn't
>done that already. It's set half a century in the future, in a world
>where the villains one, the heroes mostly died, and a broken Wolverine
>has settled down to quiet life as a farmer.
Well, since Wolverine: The End didn't actually live up to the name (it
wasn't the end), I guess it's fine.
I thought it was a waste of paper, myself...I think Millar's
overrated.
>
>GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #2 - Ah, so this book does have a connection to
>the original series after all - albeit a very tenuous one. And it's
>quite a neat little idea, playing on Captain America's rediscovery in
>Avengers in a way that's a lot less gratuitous than it might first seem.
>(Putting his shield on the front cover is a little bit misleading, mind
>you, even if it's strictly accurate.) This is looking like a fun little
>team book, although I don't see it having a much broader appeal than the
>Annihilation crossovers that spawned it. B+
>
I'm enjoying this book quite a bit (and I loved the Annihilation
crossovers)...I just hope Secret Invasion doesn't crap all over this
one when it rears it's ugly head in a few issues.
sal...@gmx.de
> Hellblazer has drifted over
> the years into a sort of low rent, back street Dr Strange, which often
> works for it. Aaron evidently remembers the days when it was considered
> a horror book, and that's how he's writing it.
That "low rent, back street Dr Strange" description might fit the
Carey run, but ever since Diggle took over with issue 230, it's been
very much a horror book. Just read issue 239, the one set in Sudan
that introduces the cannibalistic war mage, that was exremely
horrifying.
Heinz Hochkoepper