REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 25 May 2008
Paul O'Brien
25 May 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 #94 - Absolute Power, part 1 of 4
by Aron Coleite, Mark Brooks, Jaime Mendoza and Troy Hubbs
WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #25 - The Deep End, part 5 of 5
by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon
X-FACTOR #31 - "The Middle East Side Is Burning"
by Peter David and Pablo Raimondi
X-MEN: DIVIDED WE STAND #2
"Lights Out" by Mike Carey, Scot Eaton and Andrew Hennessy
"Planting Seeds" by CB Cebulski and David Yardin
"The Hole" by Andy Schmidt and Frazer Irving
"Idee Fixe" by Duane Swierczynski and Chris Burnham"
"The Sun Also Sets" by CB Cebulski and David LaFuente
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ULTIMATE X-MEN #94 sees the arrival of a new creative team. Artist Mark
Brooks is a familiar figure, but writer Aron Coleite is new to these
parts. He's best known as a contributor to Heroes, although before
that, he did a bit of work for Top Cow.
Coleite has the awkward task of filling a few issues before the
Ultimatum event gets under way. In fact, the cover has a big "March to
Ultimatum" banner on it, although there's no sign of the story itself
leading into a crossover. Instead, Coleite seems to have just picked an
Ultimate X-Men story to tell, and knuckled down to business.
And it's worth stressing that this is indeed an Ultimate X-Men story.
When Mark Millar created this version of the team, for better or worse,
he gave them dramatically different origin stories. There's an obvious
temptation for writers to ignore that in favour of doing mix-and-match
tributes to Claremont stories of old. But here, Coleite is doing a
story based on Colossus' time as a mobster, a Millar idea which has been
downplayed ever since.
Unfortunately, something seems to have gone horribly wrong in the
transition from Robert Kirkman's run. Somewhere along the line, the
co-ordination has gone to pot. So, after leaving for the stars amid
much fanfare last issue, Jean is simply back. Nightcrawler is back with
the team. Firestar has shown up from nowhere. Actually, you could
probably get away with the latter two. But simply reintroducing Jean
without explanation the issue after she left? Come on. There are
clumsy attempts to cover for it in dialogue, but it still feels a bit
amateur hour.
But that aside, it's a reasonably strong start - at least, so long as
you're prepared to accept that this Colossus is a totally different
character from the original. Coleite's approach to him makes reasonable
sense; he drifted into organised crime after being disowned by his
family. However, more eyebrows will be raised by the idea that this
version of Colossus depends on drugs for his strength. Without them,
he's just a guy made of metal; and that's a lot of metal to lug around.
I'm in two minds about this. I've always thought that Millar's version
of Colossus was not an improvement. The original version worked because
he played the honest, wholesome, slightly naive innocent on the team.
Giving him mob connections took away that innocence, and replaced it
with a cliché about post-Communist Russia. Coleite is making a good
faith attempt to deal with it here - as well as doing a fairly obvious
steroid metaphor - and if you're going to have this sort of thing in
Ultimate Colossus' back story, you might as well do something with it.
I'm not convinced that the resulting character is actually an
improvement on the original; in a team book, there's a place for nice
guys. But that's hardly Coleite's fault.
Along the way, we also have the introduction of Ultimate Alpha Flight.
It's a reprise of their very first appearances in X-Men, where they kept
trying to recapture Wolverine, only with Northstar swapped into the
runaway role.
A lot of this issue works, but there are stumbling blocks. As already
noted, there's a grindingly botched transition from the Kirkman run. On
top of that, the story wants us to believe that drug-enhanced mutants
are the most terrifying thing ever, but coming right on the heels of a
Phoenix story, that doesn't really fly. And although the cliffhanger
might turn out simply to be audacious, it also has the hallmarks of
being potentially very silly indeed.
Still, I'll give Caliete the benefit of the doubt for now. He certainly
covers a lot of ground in his first issue, and while I'm not entirely
sold on some of these ideas, I can see the possibilities.
Rating: B
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WOLVERINE: ORIGINS reaches its first anniversary issue - well, 25 is
kind of a round number, isn't it? - with the final part of "The Deep
End."
This, you'll recall, is the five-part story largely devoted to Wolverine
and Deadpool fighting one another. With the final part, it finally ties
into Way's wider story, as Daken shows up to hijack the fight for
himself. So Deadpool fights Daken for half an issue, and then
Wolverine's plan pays off, as it should.
Now, to give credit where it's due, this is a pretty decent issue.
Deadpool and Daken work reasonably well together, as Wade makes a decent
comedy foil for him. And the moment where Wolverine's scheme is
revealed is very well done, tying together a bunch of stray plot
threads, and getting across how it all works without lapsing into clunky
exposition. I can't say it actually makes me any more interested in
Way's overall storyline - but as an exercise in pulling the threads
together, he does it well.
The real problem with this story has been the languid pacing of the arc
as a whole. The book has taken too long to get to this point. But
having got here, they made it work.
In fact, this issue would normally be a B+. It's only an odd piece of
packaging that brings down the rating. Marvel have added a dollar to
the price, and thrown in a reprint of the whole of New Mutants #98,
Deadpool's first appearance. If you're going to reprint that story, I'd
have thought Deadpool #1 would be a better place to do so. But it's a
Rob Liefeld story from 1991, most of which is taken up with other
subplots, so frankly it's not really worth running on its own. And I
find it very hard to imagine that any fans of the slow-paced, deliberate
storytelling in Wolverine: Origins will be particularly interested in
Liefeld's hyperdayglo randomness.
So, the issue is padded out with an irrelevant story that doesn't work
in isolation, and which is a terrible fit with the lead strip. And for
that, they're charging us more. You've got to mark the book down for
that, really, haven't you? But the main story itself, well, it's not
bad at all.
Rating: B
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X-FACTOR #31 seems to conclude the Arcade storyline, although this isn't
the sort of book that runs in clearly defined arcs any more.
Most of this storyline has been about X-Factor disintegrating and then
having to fight the most (intentionally) pointless villain in the
X-books' repertoire. It's basically an exercise in the team hitting
bottom. And this issue sees that through to its conclusion, as Mutant
Town gets torched in Arcade's back-up plan. With the book's setting now
dismantled, there's nowhere to go but up.
Now, some of you will say that this is just a series that's been badly
derailed by the X-books' wider agenda. That could well be right. But
one of Peter David's strengths has always been an ability to work around
almost anything that the editors can throw at him, and turn it into a
good story regardless. He wrote most of the stories that got any real
mileage out of M-Day, and he's making this direction change work as
well.
Besides, the Mutant Town concept hasn't really worked since M-Day. So
unless that story was going to be imminently reversed, I don't have a
problem with moving on to something else more workable.
Now, having said all that... This is an issue with plenty of good
moments and plenty of good ideas, but which somehow ends up feeling less
than the sum of its parts. David is always great with his dialogue.
There's a neat subplot with a depowered mutant comedian, pointlessly
ploughing on with jokes that are now utterly useless (though the gag
gets a little irritating by the end). And Pablo Raimondi produces a
wonderful double-page spread of the district in flames.
Still, the cover, and the solicitations for upcoming issues, suggest
that this is supposed to be the total destruction of Mutant Town, and to
be honest, it doesn't quite pull off that sense of scale. That's where
this issue falls a little short. Which is a shame, but there's a lot of
good stuff in here, regardless.
Rating: B
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Finally, X-MEN: DIVIDED WE STAND #2 is the second of two anthologies,
catching up on members of the X-Men's extended family of supporting
characters while the team are dissolved. The first one was a mixed bag,
elevated largely by a Matt Fraction story.
This one is just a bit average, I'm afraid. Individually, the stories
are perfectly inoffensive; but collectively, the series can't help but
feel superfluous.
The opening story is the strongest. Mike Carey and Scot Eaton's "Lights
Out" is simply a monologue by the Beast as he recovers some possessions
from the wreckage of the school (and retrieves the disembodied brain of
Martha Johansson, who apparently hasn't been forgotten about after all).
It isn't really a story, just a vignette. But with the team apparently
about to relocate to the west coast, saying goodbye to the old school
seems to have fallen through the cracks. This story does it, and that's
something.
"Planting Seeds" is the first of two stories written by C.B. Cebulski.
It's a Magik story, and the basic point is "Hey, remember how we brought
Magik back in New X-Men? Well, so do we." This story seems to be taking
the line that the Darkchilde is actually Magik, which I recall was a bit
more ambiguous in the original story. The plot, if you can call it
that, involves her plucking up the courage to visit the X-Men, finding
the school ruined, and going home again.
But basically, it's just a reminder that this plot is still alive
despite the cancellation of New X-Men, and will be picked up... well,
somewhere or other. Daniel Yardin contributes some lovely art, but
there's not much else to it.
Cebulski's other story, "The Sun Also Sets", features Surge and Dani
Moonstar. It's one of those rather awkward scenes where characters
proclaim philosophies at each other, and without more context to it,
it's difficult to take terribly seriously. All I really got out of this
is that Surge, a character who seems to have been written out
altogether, is feeling a bit emo. Oh well.
"The Hole", by Andy Schmidt and Frazer Irving, picks up on the
Starjammers, who have been languishing in a Shi'ar jail since the
Emperor Vulcan miniseries ended. If you're wondering what that could
possibly have to do with "Divided We Stand", well, the story sees Vulcan
gleefully breaking the news to Havok. Havok then gets a bit annoyed.
At best, this is a trailer for a Havok/Vulcan story, to appear in some
unspecified place at some unspecified time. However, the art gives it
some value. Colouring his own work, Irving produces some lurid lighting
effects and goes to town on Havok's powers. Irving's not always a
comfortable fit for superhero stories, but the sheer oddity of Havok's
design seems to play to his strengths.
Finally, we have "Idée Fixe" by Duane Swierczynski and Chris Burnham.
This really has nothing to do with "Divided We Stand." It's a prologue
to Swierczynski's Cable series, explaining from Forge's perspective how
Bishop got that artificial arm. Obviously, for readers who thought
Bishop's flashback in Cable #2 just wasn't detailed enough, this will be
essential reading. The rest of us and shrug and move on.
A mostly average collection, including a couple of borderline trailers,
raised somewhat by artwork stronger than the stories really deserve.
Rating: B
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Also this week:
AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #13 - As the book enters a second year, and
Christos Gage fully takes over the writing, we get a rather bold move:
the introduction of a completely new class of trainees. And we're
talking the dregs of the Marvel Universe here. Annex? Prodigy, of the
Slingers? Batwing, from Untold Tales of Spider-Man? Gorilla Girl, for
heaven's sake? This really is the Dork Squad, and giving them their own
book is a surprising move. But in fact, this is a lovely little opening
issue, with Gage showing why he's so good at offbeat team books, and
Steve Uy with some nicely understated art. It's a self-contained story,
which is always nice. And it even finally spells out whether the
trainees are there by choice and what happens to them when they graduate
- something which hadn't been made entirely clear in the first year.
Gage's StormWatch PHD was an underrated little gem, and on the strength
of this issue, I have high expectations from his run on this title. A
ECHO #3 - There's something a little odd about seeing a fairly
conventional superhero story done in the style of Terry Moore, but it
does work. The trick is simply to use the relatively standard thriller
elements as background, and focus on the human side of it. Now, I'd
have to admit that it's the execution that appeals to me about this
book, rather than the plot (which, frankly, I can see lumbering towards
me from some distance). But Moore does it well enough that the
familiarity of the plot isn't really the problem that it would be in
lesser hands. A-
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There's more from me at If Destroyed, and apparently if you haven't read
the Ninth Art stuff by now, you're too late.
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
Next week, Aron Coleite takes over as writer on Ultimate X-Men with
issue #94. Wolverine: Origins celebrates 25 issues, by finishing off
the Deadpool arc and reprinting the whole of New Mutants #98. X-Factor
#31 sees riots in Mutant Town. And X-Men: Divided We Stand #2 is the
second of two short story collections.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com
~consul
> 25 May 2008
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> Cebulski's other story, "The Sun Also Sets", features Surge and Dani
> Moonstar. It's one of those rather awkward scenes where characters
> proclaim philosophies at each other, and without more context to it,
> it's difficult to take terribly seriously. All I really got out of this
> is that Surge, a character who seems to have been written out
> altogether, is feeling a bit emo. Oh well.
What would have been neat would be if in the Young X-Men issue, which obviously takes place after this scene, Dani would have said, "What!?!!? Again!!??!!?
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>