REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 13 October 2002
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS
13 October 2002
===============
For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com
------------
This week:
MEKANIX #1 - "Targets"
by Chris Claremont, Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa
X-TREME X-MEN #19 - "Passages"
by Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca
KILLRAVEN #1
by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer
ME AND EDITH HEAD
by Sara Ryan and Steve Lieber
TRANSFORMERS: THE WAR WITHIN #1
by Simon Furman and Don Figueroa
------------
It's Chris Claremont week, as Marvel gives us two X-books, both by him.
And they're really not bad at all.
MEKANIX, despite the name, is a Kitty Pryde miniseries. Kitty always
seemed to be one of Claremont's pet characters, and here he picks up the
character in the university setting he established for her in X-Men
Unlimited a while back. Unusually for X-Men characters, Kitty has
decided to drop out of the X-Men and their associated teams altogether
and just go off to do a degree instead.
The plot here is pretty straightforward - Kitty just wants to get on
with her life but the anti-mutant loonies are hovering around the campus
having somehow or other established that one of the students in her
tutorial group is a mutant. (It's never really made clear how they
established this, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume that
some sort of explanation will be along in due course.)
Really, though, the series is an opportunity for Claremont to get back
to a character he clearly likes, and catch up with another of his
discarded creations, Karma. The series is fairly light on Claremont's
writing tics, and for the most part Kitty and Shan both come across as
rounded and believable characters. I always liked Kitty. I'm always
happy to see her when she's being written decently.
Art is from Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa, not names which mean a great
deal to me, although I'll go out on a limb and guess they might be
Spanish. They're pretty good - at first glance, nothing too out of the
ordinary, but the layouts are very strong and the backgrounds are all
well designed. Unusually, Claremont departs from his conventional
text-driven storytelling for parts of this story, and one of the results
is an excellent two-page sequence of Kitty and her psychiatrist sitting
in silence for an hour which makes good use of a subdued grid layout and
repetition of panels.
The downsides: while Kitty having a bar job is fair enough, the rather
silly costume she has (which was established back in the X-Men Unlimited
story) is just a bit too contrived. And the villains have a gratingly
awkward scene in which one of them stands around going "My god, do you
think we might perhaps be wrong", telegraphing his reform a mile off.
Nonetheless, in quality terms this is miles ahead of Claremont's recent
work. It's still Claremont, of course, and if you never cared for his
style then you probably won't think much of this either. On the other
hand, if like me you think he just lost the plot in the last few years,
you might be pleasantly surprised here.
Rating: B+
LINKS:
http://www.marvel.com
------------
The other Claremont book this week is X-TREME X-MEN #19, which gets
marks immediately, simply for getting the hell out of Madripoor. About
bloody time.
This is a bit of a stocktaking issue, trying to establish a new status
quo for the book's cast. The original justification for this series was
that the cast were going to go off on their own and hunt down Destiny's
diaries. For reasons which are somewhat tenuous, they seem to have
decided that they're not going to bother any more. The diaries plot
never really went anywhere, and the general impression I get from this
book is that the series has been given a serious rethink.
The logic being used to get rid of the diary-hunt plot is a bit
confused. According to Bishop, Rogue told them that they broke one of
the predictions in the Diaries and therefore their timeline has been
averted - presumably making them worthless. (Well, what he actually says
is, "The wheel of fate created by the Diaries has been broken", but I
assume that's what he means.) The prediction in question was the one
that she would kill Vargas, and of course the last issue ended without
us seeing on panel whether she killed him or not. The general hints in
this issue seem to be that she lied to them. The Beast seems to think
she killed him, and to be pleased about it. But then, that would fulfil
the prophecy so it wouldn't devalue the diaries. Yet if she didn't kill
him, that doesn't mean that she won't do it later. The logic of this
plot gets more and more tortured, the more I think about it.
But whatever the reasoning, the splinter X-Men are no longer looking for
the diaries and have relocated to New Orleans (where Rogue has inherited
another conveniently-located house). This means that another rationale
is needed to prevent them going back to the real X-Men team, and so this
issue gives us the core X-Men coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and
selling the X-Men on the idea of coming home.
This means that Claremont has to engage with the storylines in New
X-Men, which you might think would be an awkward clash. The eventual
reason for sticking to a separate team seems to amount to a continued
distrust of having everything concentrated at the increasingly-visible
mansion, not to mention suspicion about Xavier and the other telepaths
over there. Stories like this, which amount to an argument over
direction between the casts of two different books, are almost
inevitably won by whoever's book happens to contain the story. But the
argument works here, and Morrison's cast are allowed to turn up and make
a perfectly legitimate argument in favour of what's going on in that
book. Claremont makes a surprisingly convincing case in favour of
Morrison's plots, albeit for the primary purpose of making sure his own
cast have to make a real decision.
A concern, though, is that while this story gives the X-Treme X-Men cast
a continued rationale to remain away from the core X-Men, it's about not
fully buying into the New X-Men direction. There's nothing wrong with
that, but it's a negative reason, and it doesn't in itself establish a
positive new direction for this book to replace the missing diary plot.
Of course, maybe that's been marked aside to take place in X-Treme
X-Men: X-Pose, in which case, fair enough. (And yes, I know that the
diary plot never in fact gave this book any direction. That's been one
of its problems.)
A whole load of characters get written out, most of whom I won't be
missing. Lifeguard is among them. Break out the confetti. Of course, a
lot of them will be back in due course, but I can dream.
In amongst all this, Claremont brings in a whole load of cast members
and allows them to interact as part of one of the traditional
"re-establish the X-Men family for a holiday issue" stories. Aside from
a slightly strained self-parody sequence at the outset, it works pretty
well.
Larroca's art is on form this month, and he gets to enjoy himself by
designing new costumes for his cast in the style of Frank Quitely. To
be honest, aside from Sage's, they're a massive improvement on the ones
they regularly wear in this title. Shame we won't be seeing more of
them.
As with Mekanix, this is still very definitely Claremont. But it's
decent Claremont, which is the important thing. This seems to be the
first stage in overhauling the book, and if they want to give it a
directional rethink, I'm certainly not going to object. Of course, now
we'll have to wait and see what the new direction turns out to be...
Rating: B+
------------
Alan Davis' KILLRAVEN miniseries has been in the pipeline for years,
continually put back by a string of other projects. In fact, I think it
may well be a commission that dates back to the previous Marvel
editorial regime. Of course, Alan Davis is one of those creators who's
worth indulging when he says he wants to do something odd like a
Killraven revival.
Killraven originated in 1973. It's a sequel of sorts to War of the
Worlds, set in a timeline where the Martian invaders won. Heroic escaped
slave Jonathan Killraven leads a group of renegade humans in a world
conquered by Martians. They fight back against the Martians with
swords.
It must be said that time has not been kind to the Killraven character
designs. With his thigh-length boots and over-elaborate jockstrap, he
looks like he's fallen off the bondage float at a gay pride rally. Yes,
I realise that he and his comrades are supposed to be wearing their
gladiatorial costumes. But when you have a bunch of characters in
outfits that really do deserve the "pervert suits" moniker, especially
after the first few pages have shown us civilian characters who all look
like they're wrapped up warm for a camping trip, it's hard to avoid
realising how ridiculous they look.
Alan Davis is an excellent artist, but his writing is a lot more
variable. Unfortunately, this series reads like a sincere but
ultimately nostalgia-driven homage to a comic he particularly liked
reading 30 years ago. It's all very formulaic - the orphaned boy who
the hero must take in as a matter of honour, the hidden store of human
knowledge, the noble sacrifice from the man who stays behind to press
the button ("I always meant to instal a remote", he says, handily
flagging up the contrivance for the benefit of any readers who hadn't
noticed). The plot never really gets up above that level.
It's okay, and it's very pretty - it's by Alan Davis, after all.
However, it's like watching a remake of a film - if it doesn't have
anything to say besides "Hey, wasn't the original great", you have to
wonder what the point is.
Rating: C+
------------
And now a slight change of pace, not least because this comic involves
good clothes.
ME AND EDITH HEAD, originally published in an issue of CICADA Magazine,
was nominated for Best Short Story in last year's Eisners. Now it's
been brought back into print in its own right. Given that the story
clocks in at fifteen pages (black and white), it's have to be pretty
damned impressive for me to recommend it.
And it is.
This is a comic about clothes, a subject that I couldn't care less
about. But then, at the beginning, nor does the lead character.
Katrina Lansdale auditions for the school play and doesn't get into the
cast. She's lumbered with doing the costumes instead. After some
inspiration from Edith Head's book How to Dress for Success, Katrina
begins to rethink her position. Meanwhile, her parents are getting a
divorce.
Author Sara Ryan wrote a novel called The Empress of the World and, as
far as I know, has done nothing else in comics. She is unfairly good.
It's beautifully told. Despite the short page count, there's an immense
amount of material contained in here, and nothing wasted. It has
wonderfully realised characters, and it touches on a whole range of
issues without ever losing sight of the core idea.
This is a great piece of storytelling. It's a coming of age story, of
course, and you can never go wrong with a classic theme done well. But
it's also a story about finding something new to love. Any writer who
can make me identify with a teenage girl's interest in fashion is doing
very well indeed.
Art is by Steve Lieber, and everyone who's seen Whiteout already knows
how good he is. (Anyone reading this who hasn't read Whiteout should
rectify that immediately by picking up the TPB.) He's able to pack
detail and content into every panel without ever compromising the
clarity.
All comics should be this good. This is how to do it.
Rating: A+
LINKS:
http://www.unrewarding.com/steve/edith.html
http://www.sararyan.com
http://www.stevelieber.com
------------
Ah, TRANSFORMERS. Striking while the iron is hot, DreamWave bring you
another Transformers miniseries.
My head says I should be avoiding this like the plague. But this is
Simon Furman writing Transformers, you see. And Furman's work on the UK
weekly Transformers comic was what got me into comics in the first
place. Back in those days, Furman seemed to be writing almost the
entire Marvel UK line singlehandedly. Bearing in mind that the line
consisted almost exclusively of toy licences, this was not easy work.
You try wrenching fifty solid issues of stories out of the frigging
Thundercats.
In fact, at around this time, Marvel UK was almost superhero-free. They
had two superhero titles - one was Secret Wars, treated as a toy tie-in
for the action figures, and the other, thanks to the fabulous British
tradition of merging unrelated weekly titles and hoping the sales would
combine, was the immortal Spider-Man & Zoids. Now there's a concept.
Ah, happy days.
Furman's approach to writing toy tie-ins tended to be that he would
embrace the concept head-on, and write it as if he meant it. If he was
going to write the Transformers, then dammit, this would be a series
that acted as if giant transforming robots was the most natural and
sensible idea in the world. His Transformers stories were bizarrely
epic in scale and are still being reprinted today. They were, it must
be stressed, a thousand times better than the crud in the American
title.
Continuing in that vein, this is the origin of Optimus Prime, a largely
character-driven story about him being selected as new Autobot leader
from a lowly position as archivist and promptly deciding that this war
thing's all a bit shit, so they should probably just give up. Grimlock,
of all people, is given the role of arguing for a more violent approach.
(He was always a much brighter character in the UK version of the
comic.) Taken at face value, it pretty much works.
Artist Don Figueroa is apparently a huge Transformers fan and certainly
seems to be having a whale of a time here. With the story set way back
in continuity, none of these characters transform into Earth vehicles
yet, so Figueroa has evidently spent ages messing about with everyone's
character designs to make them recognisable while stripping out all of
the Earth-specific elements. His redesign on Grimlock is a particularly
good piece of work. None of this will mean anything to anyone other
than the fans, of course, but then nobody else is likely to buy it.
Geektopia. The target audience should love it. Anyone else will stay
well clear. Everyone's happy.
Rating: B+
LINKS:
http://www.dreamwaveprod.com
http://www.transformers.com
------------
Also this week:
BASTARD SAMURAI #3 - It's a big climactic fight scene, in which
characters talk about the rights and wrongs of human cock-fighting.
Unfortunately, this isn't a sufficiently controversial subject to really
carry off the issue - after all, it's pretty obvious who's in the right.
Good action sequences, though. B
http://www.mikeoeming.com
BATGIRL #33 - Back to business as normal following the protracted
fill-in arc. This seems to tie in loosely with the end of the Bruce
Wayne: Murderer crossover, but not in an excessively obtrusive way.
Batgirl and her two father figures - simple, straightforward, effective.
A-
BLACK PANTHER #50 - To call this a total change of direction would be an
understatement. A suspended police officer who's found the Black
Panther's abandoned costume (from several story arcs ago) wears it to
fight gangs in gun-toting fashion. It's a crime series, in other words.
Dan Fraga's art is certainly much better than expected, but let's be
honest, it's a totally different series. Time will tell whether this is
going to tie back in with previous storylines to any significant extent.
Judged in its own right... well, it's okay, but it's not really my sort
of story. B
http://www.digital-priest.com
CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 - If this comic had shipped on time, perhaps the
"Honor Them" cover would make a bit more sense. Anyhow, our hero goes
off to hunt down nasty terrorists. Apparently September 11 has given
him a newfound appreciation of Dresden. Yeah, because he never saw any
buildings being bombed during World War Fucking Two. Give me a break.
A token foreigner turns up to say that the War on Terrorism is a poorly
directed load of nonsense, but apparently she's wrong because terrorism
is bad and World War III would also be bad. Christ, this is awful -
high-school level politics and a plot that drags like a club foot. D+
http://www.johncassaday.com/
CALL OF DUTY: THE PRECINCT #4 - Sweet jesus, this is even worse. Bruce
Jones may be doing great work over on Hulk, but my god. Wasn't this a
semi-realistic police procedural to start with? Now we've got
devil-worshipping drug dealers and a drug which lets people burn but
remain alive. This series simply will not take that sort of strain on
disbelief. What is this, a leftover plot from an aborted Punisher/Dr
Strange miniseries? Plus, one of the most appalling sex scenes ever
written. ("Damn your honor to hell! LOVE ME! LOVE YOUR LITTLE SISTER,
JOEY!") Fucking terrible, to the point of making me laugh out loud
several times. And I was reading this in public. D
http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/tommandrake/
FABLES #6 - New arc, and we get away from the genre straitjacket and
back to the high concept. Mark Buckingham provides the art for a story
about the non-human fables who have been effectively thrown in jail and
forgotten about. An interesting idea, and one that plays better with
the central gimmick than the last arc does. Plus, it's Mark Buckingham,
and he's great. B+
http://www.comicon.copm/willingham/willingham.htm
IRON MAN #60 - Iron Man pisses about in medieval Wales, part two.
Apparently medieval Wales has come under attack from the Picts at some
point, which must have been a hell of trek down from Scotland. But if
you say so. Anyhow, it's dated rubbish. C
JLA #73 - Ah, the two arcs are coming together again. Look, could we
just admit nobody gives a toss about Aquaman, leave him in the past, and
avoid having to do all this stuff? No? Oh well... B-
http://www.manofaction.tv/kelly/
POINT BLANK #3 - Guest starring the Midnighter, who's surprisingly busy
this week for someone whose comic has been cancelled. Anyhow, Cole
continues his investigative work and Ed Brubaker tries to make it fit
into the WildStorm Universe. For me, the less obvious the costumed
elements in this series, the better, so bringing in the Authority
doesn't really work for me. Still not at all bad. B
http://www.edbrubaker.com/
POWERS #24 - End of the current storyline, of sorts - although it reads
like it's mainly setting up further plots about Christian Walker's plans
secrets. In the long term, great issue. A bit unsatisfying in terms of
the immediate arc, though. B+ (NB: This issue is missing a page due to
a production error - the link for the missing page is below.)
http://www.imagecomics.com/powers/powers24_p24.jpg
http://www.jinxworld.com
http://www.mikeoeming.com
SPIDER-MAN'S GET KRAVEN #4 - Ron Zimmerman continues to expound on why
he doesn't like Hollywood. Yeah, whatever. This really isn't working
at all, and I fail to see why anyone thinks readers should be interested
in Zimmerman droning on about why he didn't like his last job. C
http://www.newcomicreviews.com/GHM/columns/RonZimmerman/
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way/xmi94/ (John McCrea)
STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES #4 - Guest starring the Authority, who are
made to look like complete bastards for once. I like this book. The
art's still got its problems - the colouring still seems a bit off to
me, although it's nowhere near as lurid as it was at first - but there
are plenty of ideas in here that I'm enjoying. Worth a look if you
haven't been reading it, since this is the beginning of a new arc. A-
http://www.micahwright.com
VISION #3 - Gremlins? Literal gremlins, who crawl into aircraft and
destroy them? Coupled with throwaway references to "terror from the
skies"? Oh lord. A couple of nice character moments in here, but not
enough to avoid everyone looking like a stereotype (the party girl
student with hidden talents, the innocent but plucky kid, the cold robot
with a heart of gold). Nice art, though. C+
http://www.geoffjohns.com
------------
On Monday at Ninth Art, a new Article 10 column, about the reaction
in... certain quarters to James Sturm's Fantastic Four: Unstable
Molecules miniseries.
Next week I'm going to be on holiday over the weekend, but if I'm
feeling energetic I might do the reviews on Thursday. No promises,
mind. Failing that, see you in a fortnight. Check back to the website
on Thursday and you'll find out either way.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
ARTICLE 10 - http://www.ninthart.com
NTL - even worse than I'd heard.
Paul O'Brien
Sean Walsh
news:FZuLOxF3...@esoterica.demon.co.uk...
>
> MEKANIX #1 - "Targets"
> by Chris Claremont, Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa
>
> deal to me, although I'll go out on a limb and guess they might be
> Spanish. They're pretty good - at first glance, nothing too out of the
> ordinary, but the layouts are very strong and the backgrounds are all
> well designed. Unusually, Claremont departs from his conventional
> text-driven storytelling for parts of this story, and one of the results
> is an excellent two-page sequence of Kitty and her psychiatrist sitting
> in silence for an hour which makes good use of a subdued grid layout and
> repetition of panels.
Both these guys have been doing some art for Thunderbolts recently, as part
of that book's unfortunate constantly-changing art team. Some interiors and
covers. Not bad stuff at all.
> KILLRAVEN #1
>
> It's okay, and it's very pretty - it's by Alan Davis, after all.
> However, it's like watching a remake of a film - if it doesn't have
> anything to say besides "Hey, wasn't the original great", you have to
> wonder what the point is.
I'm in the process of reading the original stuff now, actually. I'm not
finding anything really great about it; I mean, it's a good concept, but it
seems like standard '70s sci-fi schlock reading it now.... But Alan's
Killraven is working for me. It's a regular creative team for 6 issues. I'm
6 or 7 issues in on the original storyarc, and I think there have been 12
different people working on that story already...
> CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 - If this comic had shipped on time, perhaps the
> "Honor Them" cover would make a bit more sense. Anyhow, our hero goes
> off to hunt down nasty terrorists. Apparently September 11 has given
> him a newfound appreciation of Dresden. Yeah, because he never saw any
> buildings being bombed during World War Fucking Two. Give me a break.
> A token foreigner turns up to say that the War on Terrorism is a poorly
> directed load of nonsense, but apparently she's wrong because terrorism
> is bad and World War III would also be bad. Christ, this is awful -
> high-school level politics and a plot that drags like a club foot. D+
> http://www.johncassaday.com/
But he's blowin' up terrorists, man! Or somethin' like that..............I
gave up after issue 3.
> SPIDER-MAN'S GET KRAVEN #4 - Ron Zimmerman continues to expound on why
> he doesn't like Hollywood. Yeah, whatever. This really isn't working
> at all, and I fail to see why anyone thinks readers should be interested
> in Zimmerman droning on about why he didn't like his last job. C
> http://www.newcomicreviews.com/GHM/columns/RonZimmerman/
> http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way/xmi94/ (John McCrea)
He hates Hollywood, huh? Zimmerman'll be working on a Hollywood project in
no time, you just watch....
> STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES #4 - Guest starring the Authority, who are
> made to look like complete bastards for once. I like this book. The
> art's still got its problems - the colouring still seems a bit off to
> me, although it's nowhere near as lurid as it was at first - but there
> are plenty of ideas in here that I'm enjoying. Worth a look if you
> haven't been reading it, since this is the beginning of a new arc. A-
> http://www.micahwright.com
I was reading something about how this series is being considered a failure
already. A financial failure, I'd guess, because I've honestly heard little
negative buzz about this book...
--
Sean
My webpage: http://www.Sean-Walsh.com
Quantum Piett! http://www.geocities.com/quantumpiett/
My latest eBay auctions: http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/slwalsh/
¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø
Tom Galloway
Paul O'Brien <pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>ME AND EDITH HEAD, originally published in an issue of CICADA Magazine,
>character Katrina Lansdale...
>Author Sara Ryan wrote a novel called The Empress of the World and, as
>far as I know, has done nothing else in comics. She is unfairly good.
>how good he is. (Anyone reading this who hasn't read Whiteout should
FYI, Katrina's a supporting character in The Empress of the World, which
is also a good teenage girl coming of age and falling in love story.
tyg t...@panix.com
Paul O'Brien
<wals...@hotmail.com> writes
>
>He hates Hollywood, huh? Zimmerman'll be working on a Hollywood project
>in no time, you just watch....
Zimmerman also wrote a swiftly-cancelled TV series called "Action"
(which was quite good), setting out at even further length why he hates
Hollywood.
It seems to be one of his hobby horses.
>I was reading something about how this series is being considered a
>failure already. A financial failure, I'd guess, because I've honestly
>heard little negative buzz about this book...
None of the relaunched WildStorm books has done well in the charts.
After a giveaway first issue, Gen13 #2 is already down to number 85,
placing down there with the Call of Duty comics. And that's the
successful one.
Stormwatch #4 charted at number 106, below Hellblazer but above
Promethea and WildCATS. It's actually done better than a lot of the
other WildStorm books, but the line as a whole has not performed
impressively at all.
Alan Sepinwall
Paul O'Brien <pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Zimmerman also wrote a swiftly-cancelled TV series called "Action"
>(which was quite good), setting out at even further length why he hates
>Hollywood.
To be more accurate, Zimmerman wrote *for* a swiftly-canceled TV series
called "Action." Chris Thompson was the creator, and Zimmerman was one of
several staff writers, who only had his name on two scripts, one of which
as a co-writing credit.
"Action" was very uneven, and I don't remember if either of the episodes
he wrote was any good.
-Alan
Paul O'Brien
<sepi...@force.stwing.upenn.edu> writes
>
>To be more accurate, Zimmerman wrote *for* a swiftly-canceled TV series
>called "Action." Chris Thompson was the creator, and Zimmerman was one
>of several staff writers, who only had his name on two scripts, one of
>which as a co-writing credit.
Hmm.
Incidentally, Rich Johnston reports rumours that Zimmerman has been
approached to write Agent X following Gail Simone's resignation.
Wow, Marvel REALLY don't get it, do they?
Shawn Hill
: In article <Ev$rTJBwu...@esoterica.demon.co.uk>,
I thought Action was hilarious, every single episode. Sad that it had to
be on Fox: it'd probably still be around if it had been done for HBO or
Showtime.
Shawn
Matt Shepherd
news:aohacp$tug$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu:
If this was the show that Jay Mohr starred in -- and memory is fuzzy -- it
was pretty weak compared to Made In Canada, a sharp satire by Canuck Rick
Mercer about the incestuous, back-stabbing Canadian television industry.
- Matt
www.man-man.org