REVIEWS: week ending 1 June
Paul O'Brien
I don't normally do reviews. But hey, I'm only doing four weeks
of actual work this summer, and I've got to fill in my time somehow.
And besides, the Onslaught crossover promises plenty of cannon
fodder. So this is the first in what may or may not be my weekly
ramblings about the week's X-books and related titles.
A word to the wise. I favour the Clive James style of reviewing.
This is more a columnist thing than a litcrit approach.
This week:
X-FORCE #56 - "Crazy For You"
Jeph Loeb; Adam Pollina; Bud LaRosa & Mark Morales
WOLVERINE #103 - "Top of the World, Ma!"
Larry Hama; Val Semeiks; Chad Hunt
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS & PHOENIX #2 - "Unnatural Selection"
Peter Milligan; John Paul Leon; Shaun Martinbrough
And this week's Onslaught crossovers:
AVENGERS #400 - "History Repeats Itself"
Mark Waid; Mike Wieringo; Tom Palmer
FANTASTIC FOUR #414 - "Family Business!"
Tom DeFalco; Paul Ryan; John Lowe
Spoilers, ladies and gentlemen.
Of the many techniques in the comic book writer's armoury, perhaps
the hardest to pull off successfully is surrealism. Done right,
it provides plenty of opportunities for newfound symbolism,
alternative viewpoints, and pointed insight. Done wrong, it's
six pages of nutters dressed as Deadpool singing television
theme songs and giving us a potted origin flashback. Guess which
one Jeph Loeb opts for in X-FORCE #56?
This month, Siryn and Shatterstar go back to the Weisman Institute
to rescue Deadpool. Shatterstar discovers that he might be a
human boy called Benjamin Russell (am I missing something, or
didn't the police tell him that two issues ago?), and Siryn makes
her way through what is presumably supposed to be a load of
hallucinations created by the Gamesmaster to rescue the hapless
Deadpool. Ho hum. The sole aims of the issue seem to be to
free Deadpool up for other stories, and worry Shatterstar a bit
more. The ending is totally unsatisfactory (Siryn waves a sword
at the Gamesmaster and he runs away), and what could have been
used as a nice character development story for Siryn just doesn't
come off.
Oh, and there's some attempts to draw parallels between Siryn
and Shatterstar's rescue mission and Warpath and Risque going for
a bike ride, which would be somewhat more effective if there were
any parallels there to draw. As it is, we've still got James
wandering around like a complete prat, inexplicably failing to
phone home to let his friends know he's alive. There'd better
be some mind control in this story somewhere, because he's acting
hopelessly out of character.
It's not all bad. Pollina does some quite nice work on the
hallucination scenes (though I've seen better), and there's a
rather good sequence with some Friends of Humanity members beating
up some poor bastard who lost half his face in a fire, on the
assumption that anyone who looks weird must be a mutant. Still,
it's awfully trite, and Loeb seems to be under the delusion that
the Gamesmaster has the same personality as Arcade.
------------
Over in WOLVERINE #103, things are looking rather better as
we get a twenty-two page two-hander between Elektra and Wolverine
(with a few sparring scenes thrown in to placate the kids). Our
old friend, the Eastern Symbolism Of Learning And Wisdom, is
wheeled out once again as Elektra tries to bring Wolverine's
human side back to the fore.
Again, not a brilliant issue; certainly not up to the standards
of last month's marvellous silent issue. The depiction of the
Wolverine's current mental state remains worryingly inconsistent,
as he suddenly regains the power of speech after several months
of wandering around like a particularly violent poodle, but he's
probably a more interesting character when he has some sort of
communication ability.
Val Semeiks provides fill-in art in his usual clumsy way. I've
seen some passable work by him on other titles, but even before
issue #100, his Wolverine always looked ludicrously over-muscled.
The character seen in this issue bears a passing resemblance to
the Wolverine we've seen from Adam Kubert, and none whatsoever
to Joe Madureira's. And if anyone can explain why Wolverine
is holding is sword in such a stupid way on page 17, I'd love
to hear it.
Still, Wolverine remains a consistently good X-book, somehow
managing to consistently avoid the obvious approach. Not its
best issue, but solid enough.
------------
Sadly, Cyclops and Phoenix get to do something in FURTHER
ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS & PHOENIX #2. This is a pity, as they
are undoubtedly the least interesting element of the book.
Milligan and Leon are doing an excellent job on creating the
Victorian atmosphere. The steam-driven redesign of Apocalypse
is marvellous. And the portrayal of Nathan Essex is pitched
excellently - recognisable, but not yet actually evil.
And then Scott and Jean, possibly the two most boring characters
in the X-Men mythos, have to show up and spoil it all.
Scott and Jean are team players. They work marvellously as
bonding forces within a group, be it the X-Men, X-Factor, or
the Xavieronians Inter-Varsity Softball Team. But there's
nothing particularly exciting about them as individuals, and,
aside from an attempt to explain away Sinister's obsession with
Scott, there's no particular reason for them to be in this series.
There's a Rise of Apocalypse mini-series coming soon which will
cover Apocalypse's origin without the need for time-travelling
X-Men to bugger things up. If they'd done this as a Mister
Sinister mini-series, it would have been ten times better.
--------------
With no Onslaught in the core titles this month, we turn to
the crossovers in search of the truly appalling. And Marvel
is bountiful, for it has sent us AVENGERS #400 and FANTASTIC
FOUR #414.
Many of us have been looking forward to Avengers #400 for quite
a while. The promise of Mark Waid taking over the book seemed
rather enticing. Unfortunately, this issue doesn't live up to
expectations.
There are two ways to approach an anniversary issue, according
to tradition. You can either have a big plot resolution, or
you can do a cutesy nostalgia trip. Waid has opted for the latter,
possibly because this will be the last proper issue of Avengers
before it gets subsumed into the Onslaught crossover properly
and eventually destroyed.
Loki summons up copies of Avengers villains from "shadow matter"
and, uh, there's a big fight. Eventually Edwin Jarvis tempts
Loki into exposing himself and, well, the Avengers beat him up.
Dull as dishwater, to be honest.
Mike Wieringo turns in some competent but unexciting art; he
still suffers from a terminal inability to make any character
look older than twenty-two (Jarvis looks about right, but only
because he's balding). When your Quicksilver looks like a member
of the New Warriors, something's wrong.
Oh, it's okay. It's just totally underwhelming and it doesn't
really work. Maybe next month. As for the X-books crossover,
Nate Grey shows up on the last page. That's it, really.
The Fantastic Four have something more to offer. They have the
writing of Tom DeFalco. This is clearly a deck-clearing issue,
wrapping up the Hyperstorm subplot. By the way, if you read the
issue more closely, complainers will find that it's clearly
stated that Hyperstorm comes from one of the many DOFP timelines.
DeFalco is a bloody awful writer at the best of times, and the
lead-in to a major crossover is not the best of times. Most of
this issue is just about plausible, but I simply don't believe
that after the young Franklin Richards is brought back from the
future, Reed and Sue would immediately phone Xavier to enlist
him in Generation X. It just doesn't make sense.
Still, all credit to DeFalco - I've barely read an issue of
Fantastic Four in years, but I could still follow the plot. More
than you can say for most of the X-books. And Paul Ryan turns in
some perfectly good art, sadly wasted on a rushed plot wrap-up.
This is by no means the worst writing DeFalco's done recently.
In fact, it's even a pretty readable issue once you get past
his annoying habit of ending every sentence with an exclamation
mark where at all possible. But we've seen it all before, and
we simply don't care. Imposter wives? Check. Imposter
girlfriends? Check. Obscure members of the Summers family?
Check. Hero announces that he's going off to battle evil on
his own, but the team insists on joining him? Check. Galactus
returns from the dead? Probably, check.
And half-way through, Onslaught shows up posing as a kid called
Charlie and tries to make friends with Franklin. Next month,
we get to see this plot resolved with art by Carlos Pacheco.
Yay! But with writing by Tom DeFalco. Grumble.
Next week, Cable, Onslaught: X-Men, and Uncanny X-Men. If I
can be bothered.
Paul O'Brien
pr...@tattoo.ed.ac.uk, 1995 SLT (News) 228
I hate football yet like "Three Lions." Do I need help?