REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 29 June 2008

[Paul O'Brien]

THE X-AXIS
29 June 2008
============

For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com

------------

This week:

UNCANNY X-MEN #499 - X-Men: Divided, part 5 of 5
by Ed Brubaker, Mike Choi and Ben Oliver

WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS #4
The Last Knights of Wundagore, part 2 of 2
by Fred Van Lente and Salva Espin

MADAME XANADU #1 - "By the Runes"
by Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley

------------

If you're a regular reader, you'll know that I complain from time to
time about Marvel putting out way too many X-books at once. This week
takes us to the next level, with Marvel releasing an absolutely insane
quantity of comics, period. Six of them are X-books, but luckily for
me, four of them are in mid-storyline. It's weeks like this that remind
me why I changed the format.

I'd be fascinated to know the thinking behind this week's deluge. The
theory has been mooted that Marvel is trying to blast Final Crisis off
the shelves. I suppose that's possible, but I can't imagine it working.
It seems much more likely to me that Marvel's own titles will just have
got lost in the shuffle.

Anyway, this week's big X-book would be UNCANNY X-MEN #499. Whatever it
may say on the recap page, this is the fifth and final part of the
book's "Divided We Stand" arc, leaving the way clear for the new
direction starting in issue #500.

There are two parallel strands to this story. In San Francisco, Scott
and Emma free the city from the influence of Mastermind, who's turned
the place into a hippy throwback commune. And in Russia, Colossus,
Nightcrawler and Wolverine cross paths with the Red Room, and end up
fighting Omega Red.

There's no obvious connection between these two stories. At times, the
rhythm of the intercutting feels as though Ed Brubaker is trying to draw
some sort of parallels, but quite what they might be escapes me. To be
perfectly honest, the main thing I took from this arc was that they had
five issues to kill before issue #500, and so they threw in a couple of
lower-key stories as a change of pace.

Not that I have a problem with that, mind you. The curse of modern
comics is to lurch from one big event to the next. And not everything
can be an earthshaking story. There's something to be said for easing
off the throttle for a few months, and just letting the X-Men fight bad
guys in relatively inconsequential stories for a bit.

To be fair, this isn't a completely throwaway arc. It gets the X-Men to
San Francisco, where the series will now be set. The idea is growing on
me, but I'll come back to it next month when it's properly underway.
However, it feels rather tacked on in this issue. The X-Men fight a
villain, and then the mayor of San Francisco shows up at the end to say
"Hey, how about moving in?"

When all is said and done, there's not much to either of these arcs, and
not much to unite them as a larger whole. The art also seems to take a
knock this issue, with fill-in artist Ben Oliver doing half the book.
Unfortunately, it's the San Francisco half, meaning that Mike Choi and
Sonia Oback end up drawing a fight scene in a darkened metal room,
instead of the flower-child scenes that would have played to their
strengths.

It's a passable issue, and there's something to be said for it as a
change of pace in the context of the series as a whole. But it's far
from essential reading.

Rating: B-

------------

So far, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS has largely steered clear of X-Men continuity
in favour of guest stars or original characters. If you want to tell
lighter, simpler stories for a younger audience, it's probably a smart
decision.

Wolverine: First Class has followed a similar formula with "The Last
Knights of Wundagore", a two-parter featuring the likes of the High
Evolutionary and his evolved humanoid animals. Come to think of it, the
Evolutionary ought to be a good fit for the X-books. But this is more
of a "world tour" story, with Wolverine and Kitty simply meeting another
Marvel Universe concept in their natural habitat.

The tricky bit with this formula is to make sure that the story is still
ultimately about Kitty and Wolverine, and to find a way of making them
more than just interchangeable protagonists meeting the guest star of
the month. Fred Van Lente clearly has an eye on that pitfall. Frankly,
the story is mainly about the New Men fighting the Man-Beast; on a broad
level, the heroes could easily be swapped out. But Van Lente works hard
to personalise it, playing up Kitty's reaction to being given
responsibility, and Wolverine's response on losing his berserker rage.

Salva Espin's art is in the solid, traditional Marvel house style.
That's fine for this book, and the humanoid animals are really rather
cute. It's not a flashy comic, but the storytelling is sound and the
characters are expressive.

But the book falters with some ropey plotting, mainly in the areas where
the two X-Men have been shoehorned in. Considering that she's been
turned into a humanoid cat against her will, you'd think Kitty would be
a bit more upset about it. If anything, she takes it in stride to such
a degree that it undermines the idea. And I honestly have no idea what's
going on with Wolverine's subplot; if the High Evolutionary didn't
really do anything to him, then why was he acting out of character at
the start of the issue?

These are problems, but they're around the edges of the plot. It's still
a polished effort which should appeal to readers who simply want to see
the X-Men doing some old-style superheroics.

Rating: B+

------------

With its latest wave of titles, Vertigo seems to be returning to its
roots: literate fantasy stories, and revivals of lesser-known DC
characters. This time, it's Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley working
on MADAME XANADU.

I've never heard of Madame Xanadu; from what I can glean from Wikipedia,
she's some sort of fortune teller and supernatural adviser, who used to
be the Lady of the Lake. However, this is an origin story, so we're
starting back in Camelot.

It certainly looks wonderful. Amy Reeder Hadley's art has a wonderful
delicacy and charm to it. If everyone looks rather clean and pretty in
this pseudo-medieval England... well, it's Camelot, isn't it? I'm not
going to let that spoil my enjoyment of some pretty pictures. Visually,
it's a home run.

The plot, on the other hand, is standard fare; the fall of Camelot is
imminent, and Nimue (our heroine) wants to stop it, while being
intermittently hassled by the Phantom Stranger. And then there's the
dialogue.

You see, this is the sort of story where people say things like "Grant
me this boon, oh generous elm!" or "A frail talent compared to your
powers, oh mage!" And frankly, it gets rather wearing over the course
of an issue. The high point of the issue is a thoroughly entertaining
scene where Nimue's cynical sister mocks her wishy-washy tree-hugging.
This is genuinely funny, and shows some self-awareness.

But at the same time, it flags up the big problem here: Nimue is just
rather irritating and over-earnest. She feels like the sort of person
you would regret inviting to a dinner party. When the villain shows up
to make those sorts of points, I'm not quite sure how to interpret it.
Has Wagner completely missed the mark? Or is this some sort of
foreshadowing where he's flagging up her grating naivety? After all, it
is an origin story - this is her starting point, and the direction of
the plot suggests that it all falls apart.

If I knew more about the standard depiction of Madame Xanadu, I could
probably make a more educated guess about whether she's likely to stay
this irritating. As it is, I'm left in two minds. There are bits of the
issue that I really enjoyed, and the art is gorgeous. But... she's so
irritating. She talks to elms.

On first reading, the bad massively outweighed the good for me. The more
I think about it, though, the more I'm starting to wonder whether Wagner
might be heading somewhere more interesting that you'd initially
suspect. I'm hesitantly willing to give it another couple of issues to
show its hand a little more, largely because I like the art.

Rating: B

------------

Also this week:

ANGEL: REVELATIONS #2 - Warren's revised origin story continues, and
it's certainly the oddest looking X-book in ages. For the most part, in
fact, Adam Pollina's weirdly elongated figures are strangely graceful
and effective. But I'm not so sure about the design for the girlfriend,
Amanda; there's a lack of subtlety there, shall we say. Still,
Pollina's work brings interest to what otherwise seems a fairly standard
boarding school story, albeit a well-executed one. B+

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #26 - The first half of a two-part story, largely
devoted to the origin of Wolverine's son Daken. The art, by guest
penciller Stephen Segovia, reminds me somewhat of Larry Stroman, and
once it gets going, it's really quite appealing. As for the story, it's
a serviceable origin, but doesn't really do much to humanise Daken.
Basically, it's the early life of a psycho, and I've never found that
sort of character especially interesting. Admittedly, I've never been
particularly keen on the character, but even trying to keep an open
mind, I just don't see much in him beyond a collection of stock villain
behaviour. Still, Way does it well enough, and at least manages to make
Daken seem disturbed rather than contrived. B

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #13 - Another of those guest star stories, as Machine
Man shows up. And yes, you're right, Machine Man wasn't around in the
sixties - so this is set before his debut. There's a slight awkwardness
here, as the story is mainly trying to be consistent with the original
Machine Man character, but apparently feels compelled to chuck in the
occasional allusion to his reinvention in Nextwave and Ms Marvel. With
Angel still missing after being "written out" last month, First Class
seems to be drifting in the direction of longer term storylines. But
this is all good fun, as the teenage X-Men react to the possibility of
Warren getting replaced by a robot. A-

X-MEN: LEGACY #213 - Marvel's most continuity-heavy book finally gets to
explaining the threat. And boy, does this series reach into the
backwaters. Mike Carey has evidently waded dutifully through all
previous stories touching on Alamagordo, and ends up using even such
little-known villains as Amanda Mueller, from Fabian Nicieza's run on
the Gambit solo series. Carey is making the best of this, and it's good
fun for readers like me who remember the original stories and enjoy
immersing themselves in the details as he tries to knit them all
together into a coherent whole. Of course, this hasn't been a
fashionable way of doing things in recent years, and I'm not sure it's
necessarily getting the best out of Mike Carey either - or at least, the
stories with the broadest appeal. But I'm rather attached to it, if
partly against my better judgment. B

------------

There's more from me at If Destroyed, and apparently the Ninth Art
archive will be back online at some point...
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com

Next week, Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi take over Astonishing X-Men
with issue #25 - and it's on time, which is a good start. Meanwhile,
Cable #5 wraps up the book's opening arc.

--
Paul O'Brien

THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com