REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 11 May 2008
Paul O'Brien
11 May 2008
===========
For more links, cover art, archived reviews, and information on the
X-Axis mailing list, visit http://www.thexaxis.com
------------
This week:
LOGAN #3 (of 3)
by Brian K Vaughan and Eduardo Risso
ULTIMATE X-MEN #93 - Apocalypse, part 4 of 4
by Robert Kirkman and Harvey Tolibao
X-FACTOR: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
by Peter David and Pablo Raimondi
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #1 - Room and Boredom, part 1 of 5
"The First Drink Is On The House"
by Matthew Sturges, Bill Willingham, Luca Rossi and
Ross Campbell
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1 - The Five Nightmares, part 1 of 6
"Armageddon Days"
by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
------------
I had high hopes for the three-issue LOGAN miniseries, given the
involvement of Brian Vaughan and Eduardo Risso. And now that it's
finished... well, it was okay. It's passable. But it doesn't get to
the level I hoped for.
Now, Risso's art is pretty good. There's a rough edge to his work, and
a visceral quality, all of which suits Wolverine. But when the story
calls for it, there's also a peacefulness and stillness. It's not
stunning and at times it might have benefitted from a little bit more
polish, but for the most part it does the job well.
So Risso does fine here. It's the story that falls short. Basically,
this is one of those stories where Wolverine revisits the site of a
traumatic incident from his past, and lays old ghosts to rest. This
being a superhero comic, the laying to rest is literal.
What's missing here, I think, is a sense that the original events were
particularly important to Wolverine. Vaughan seems to have been aiming
for some idea of a chance of peace and rest, taken away by random
violence. In the wider scheme of Wolverine's history, it's difficult to
invest this story with that kind of significance. But even if you leave
that aside and take the story entirely on its own terms, I don't think
it sells the idea that Wolverine lost anything that would have been
particularly life-changing. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Atsuko
doesn't feel like a three-dimensional character to me, so much as a
rather leaden symbol of What Could Have Been, and her relationship with
Wolverine feels like a contrivance.
As the story reaches its climax, it also veers into some heavy-handed
stuff involving tearing out hearts, which somehow manages to be both
clumsily literal from a symbolic standpoint, and excessively vague in
plot terms - not to mention calling for a degree of violence rather at
odds with the tone of the piece.
Superficially, this looks like a classy little number, and visually it
is. But as for the writing, while there are neat tricks and skilful
pacing, the story just doesn't hold together. There are moments of real
quality in this series, but I can't honestly say that it stands up as a
whole.
Rating: B-
------------
ULTIMATE X-MEN #93, the final issue of Robert Kirkman's run, came out
last week. But it took an extra week to make it to my store, and that's
why we're covering it now.
In his closing arc, "Apocalypse", Kirkman has been tying up his
storylines and clearing the decks for the next writer. Issue #93 is a
classic departing-writer issue, making a couple of big changes to give
the story a sense of weight, but also putting all the toys neatly back
in the box for the next writer.
I've said before that Kirkman's wrap-up feels a bit rushed to me, and
that comment applies again to this final story. Kirkman's basic story,
told over an extended period, involved Cable and Bishop coming back from
the future and manipulating events in order to get the X-Men ready to
face Apocalypse. They remove Professor X, set up Bishop as the new
leader of the X-Men, and generally try to get everything ready for the
bad guy when he arrives.
Now, that's a passable plot. It's not about anything in particular, but
it's a story that you could hang things on. Still, despite the many
months of Bishop stories, not much was done to build up the threat of
Apocalyspe, who comes charging in from left field as a sort of villain
ex machina. And then, after all that, he just gets zapped by Phoenix.
Erm... am I missing something here? Phoenix wasn't even on Bishop's
team. She spent the last couple of years sitting around at the school
with the other non-combatants. How did any of Bishop and Cable's
scheming contribute to Phoenix beating Apocalypse, which from the look
of things she would have achieved anyway? It doesn't even seem like a
particularly close fight. And after brushing the bad guy aside, Phoenix
then gets to deliver a baffling speech blaming Professor X for the whole
thing, the logic of which entirely escapes me.
So despite Kirkman's extended long-term build, what we end up with is a
story that tags on a rather arbitrary ending. I'm left looking back at
the last couple of years of stories - all the stuff about the X-Men in
Australia and so forth - and wondering whether there was anything more
to this than a mix-and-match exercise in piecing together a mosaic story
from disparate familiar elements. What was the point of all this? The
story ends with the X-Men deciding that they need to take a more active
line in changing the world (because Phoenix tells them to), but how that
moral relates to the preceding story is decidedly obscure.
In a clear indication of how Ultimate X-Men is sliding down Marvel's
priority list, regular artist Salvador Larroca has left before the end
of the story, in order to take up his new assignment on Invincible Iron
Man (of which, more later). His replacement is one Harvey Tolibao - a
basically sound artist, but prone to massive over-rendering of muscle,
even on characters who aren't particularly well built. A closing scene
of the X-Men sitting around on sofas is utterly bizarre, with half the
team looking as if their over-stretched tendons could snap at any
moment, sending a shower of blood and sinew across the room.
This is a story which has the superficial qualities of an ending, but
when you stop to think about it, doesn't relate in any particularly
coherent way to the story that came before. Not a success.
Rating: C
------------
I don't understand Marvel's publishing strategy sometimes.
Over the last couple of years, they've started plugging the gaps in
late-running series by running spin-off one-shots, instead of the more
traditional fill-in issues. This makes some sense; it's essentially a
fill-in issue under another name, but it avoids the awkwardness of
splicing stories into the middle of the regular creative team's
storylines.
But now we have X-FACTOR: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. This isn't a fill-in
issue; it's by regular X-Factor writer Peter David. Granted, X-Factor
aren't in it, but it does star Quicksilver, who's in the regular cast.
And, crucially, this is a major turning point in Quicksilver's
storyline.
To all intents and purposes, this is an issue of X-Factor. But for some
inexplicable reason, Marvel have chosen to label it as a one-shot, which
traditionally results in lower sales. I don't understand that decision
at all.
Anyway, this is a story about Quicksilver hitting rock bottom after
years of misery, and finally turning things around. To go much further
than that, and to talk about the wider implications, I'm going to have
to spoil the plot, so don't say I didn't warn you.
The first half of the story is Quicksilver lingering in a jail cell and
hallucinating about people from his past. And then, when he spots a
murder in progress through the cell window, and wants to help, his
powers suddenly come back. Most of the rest of issue is Quicksilver
racing around celebrating the fact that suddenly, and inexplicably, he's
himself again. It's rather joyful.
This ought to be a pretty big deal for the X-books generally, because
this makes Quicksilver the first mutant to spontaneously recover from
M-Day. It's arguably more significant in plot terms than the baby from
"Messiah Complex." But this issue ignores all that in favour of playing
up the significance to Quicksilver's personal story arc. And even
though the M-Day storyline has tended to be meandering and
directionless, Peter David and Pablo Raimondi really make this scene
work, in an "all is right with the world again" way.
Now, with the best will in the world, this story is not a self-contained
one-shot. It's the turning point in a wider storyline that's been going
for years, and dramatically, it depends on those earlier issues to work.
Yes, it's all explained; yes, new readers should be able to follow it
without any problems. But it's still only the middle chapter of a
longer story, not a true story in itself. It ought to be an issue of
X-Factor, not a one-shot.
But judging it as an issue of X-Factor, it's a winner. It's a happy
little story that finally starts to lighten things up again.
Rating: A-
------------
Back in the early days, DC's Vertigo imprint produced an awful lot of
vaguely goth, adult-oriented fantasy comics, building on the vast
success of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. The imprint has broadened its range
considerably over the years, but still revisits its roots from time to
time.
And so, here we have HOUSE OF MYSTERY. Notionally, this is a revival of
the series that ran from 1951 to 1983 - an anthology title with the
titular House as a framing device. But as the opening scene
acknowledges, the real selling point of the House of Mystery is its
connection to Sandman, where Neil Gaiman incorporated it into the
Dreaming.
On paper, this sounds like it ought to tick all the boxes for a
successful Vertigo series. It's got the Sandman connection; it's got
fantasy; it's got stylish covers; and it's written by Matthew Sturges
and Bill Willingham, who are producing some of Vertigo's most successful
current work in that vein, with Jack of Fables. And it's got an entirely
nominal connection to an old DC book.
As it turns out, the result is an odd, hybrid book. I'm not altogether
sure where this series can go, but there's something oddly intriguing
about the first issue.
The basic idea is that the House of Mystery has gone missing from the
Dreaming, and has somehow been turned into a tavern - at first glance,
not a million miles from the Sandman "World's End" arc, but I'll let
that slide. The inhabitants of the House hang around telling stories to
one another and waiting their turn to leave, which seems to be
determined by factors outside their control. So while the main body of
the issue is all about the people in the House and their story, it also
doubles as a framing sequence for the stories they tell. Apparently
we're getting one of those per issue, keeping the book in touch with its
anthology-title roots.
I'm not quite sure what you do, in the long term, with a series about a
bunch of people sitting around in a tavern and not being allowed to
leave. But that's a problem to be confronted in future issues, and for
now, the book is off to a strong start. The main story is spiky, and
makes the assorted weirdness work. There's an air of gentle black
comedy which undercuts some of the more gratuitous moments of horror, to
enjoyable effect. In tone, at least, this is a book that could do well
with the Sandman audience - although it perhaps runs the risk of being
so close in tone as to invite an inevitably challenging comparison.
The sub-story, Bill Willingham and Ross Campbell's "The Hollows", is an
utterly creepy piece of surrealism about a woman who somehow manages to
marry a giant fly without noticing anything unusual. It's utterly
repellent, but in precisely the ways that it ought to be - and there's a
beautiful use of the page turn to tease readers about just how graphic
the art is going to be.
My only nagging doubt is that this is an ongoing series, and I'm not
sure where you go with it. But as a first issue, it's excellent work.
I'm willing to give the creators the benefit of the doubt and assume
that they know where they're heading with this.
Rating: A
------------
This is a tricky time to launch a new IRON MAN series. On the one hand,
obviously there's a movie out, and Marvel feel obliged to flood the
shelves with Iron Man product. On the other, it's not as if the
existing Iron Man series has been doing well enough to suggest an unmet
demand.
As a character, Iron Man presently labours under two major problems.
First, there's Warren Ellis's recent relaunch of the character, giving
him superpowers and turning him into a human Bluetooth device.
Presumably, this was supposed to make Iron Man a vehicle for stories
about the merger of man and machine - a pet theme of Ellis', but of
questionable relevance to the character. Looking at the stories that
have appeared over the last couple of years, it's difficult now to see
Ellis' Extremis idea as anything but unwelcome clutter. It does not
appear to have inspired later writers.
Second, there's Iron Man's new status quo as the head of SHIELD - or
rather, the Civil War storyline that got him there. That story did
wonders for Iron Man's profile, but it did so mainly by positioning him
as an authority figure for other heroes to kick against. This version
of Iron Man is essentially the police commissioner who suspends maverick
detectives for not filling in their paperwork properly. It works as a
foil, but it's an uninspiring set-up for the star of his own series.
With Invincible Iron Man, writer Matt Fraction has to wrestle with both
these premises, and also with the need to write the character in line
with the movie. Oddly enough, that third requirement may have provided
the solution, by forcing a back-to-basics approach and turning attention
back to the core ideas of the character, rather than the plot of Civil
War.
The core idea of Iron Man - or at least, the version that the film has
seized on - is that he's a guy who built weapons, saw it rebound on him,
and decided to set things right by using his technology for good. The
comics built on that theme with the idea that he was equally alarmed at
the idea of his Iron Man technology getting into the hands of the
supervillain community. Essentially, though, Iron Man's motivation is to
redeem himself for the consequences of his earlier mistakes - both
before and during his heroic career.
Fraction puts that idea at the core of his story, and by doing so,
manages to make Iron Man more sympathetic than he's been in years. The
"head of SHIELD" stuff isn't a problem; you just don't talk about how he
got the job. And besides, the theme of redemption and atonement is
ideal for digging Iron Man out of the hole that Civil War landed him in,
if and when they choose to go there. Crucially, though, Fraction's Iron
Man has a degree of humility and uncertainty about the long-term
consequences of his choices, which makes it possible to like him again.
As for Extremis, it's mentioned in passing, and treated purely as a
fancy interface with the armour.
So, Fraction has the right ideas about the character. And it goes
without saying that Salvador Larroca's clean lines are a good match for
the clinical Iron Man design. The art may be a little over-polished for
some tastes, but it works for me.
The flaw - or perhaps more accurately, the bit that's not quite as good
at the rest - is a "third world terrorists get cheap Iron Man armour"
plot which doesn't quite convince. From the look of it, the
technology's only good for suicide attacks, which doesn't seem to
justify the "Iron Man 2.0" label that the story tries to place on it.
And new villain Ezekiel Stane, although clearly meant to be irritating,
does feel like the creators are trying too hard.
But the basic direction is spot on, and if the story isn't quite in the
same league, it's still fine. A decent start.
Rating: B+
------------
Also this week:
CABLE #3 - More running around in the future. I think I'm getting the
measure of this series. There's a reasonably interesting central idea
about whether Cable is going to let himself be drawn into any other
heroics, or whether he's just going to guard the baby to the exclusion
of everything else. Given that his aim is to rewrite history and
prevent this sort of timeline from occurring, does he even regard the
locals as people at all? But with three issues to get to this point,
the pace seems a bit languid; and Ariel Olivetti's art varies from
striking to stilted. It's okay, but unremarkable. B-
YOUNG X-MEN #2 - Jokes about Magnum, PA? Somebody's been re-reading
their early New Mutants comics. This is a strange book and, so far,
it's not working for me. We've got a bunch of random background
characters, in a story which involves them being sent to take down the
original New Mutants, who have apparently become evil. This is so
obviously going to be a feint that it's difficult to get worked up about
the plot. Marc Guggenheim hasn't really got a handle on writing
Blindfold at all, and a scene in which we're solemnly told that
Cannonball is more dangerous than Magma (because a "human cannonball" is
more dangerous than a "human volcano") just makes my head spin. I
really don't get what they're trying to do with this series. C
------------
There's more from me at If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more
Article 10 columns, you can always hunt through the archives on Ninth
Art.
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
http://www.ninthart.com
Next week, it's the first issue of Captain Britain and MI-13, the
Excalibur replacement from the writer of last year's highly enjoyable
Wisdom series. I'm looking forward to this one. There's also the first
issue of GeNext, a five-issue miniseries by Chris Claremont about the
next generation of X-Men, set in a world where the series took place in
real time.
Wolverine #63 completes the "Get Mystique" arc, while Wolverine: The
Amazing Immortal Man and Other Bloody Tales (no, really, that's the
title) is a one-shot with three stories by David Lapham. X-Men Origin:
Colossus is a one-shot about Peter's back story. X-Men: Legacy #211
begins a new arc, "Sins of the Father." And New Exiles #6 has a biplane
on the cover.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS - http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED - http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART - http://www.ninthart.com
grinningdemon
>YOUNG X-MEN #2 - Jokes about Magnum, PA? Somebody's been re-reading
>their early New Mutants comics. This is a strange book and, so far,
>it's not working for me. We've got a bunch of random background
>characters, in a story which involves them being sent to take down the
>original New Mutants, who have apparently become evil. This is so
>obviously going to be a feint that it's difficult to get worked up about
>the plot. Marc Guggenheim hasn't really got a handle on writing
>Blindfold at all, and a scene in which we're solemnly told that
>Cannonball is more dangerous than Magma (because a "human cannonball" is
>more dangerous than a "human volcano") just makes my head spin. I
>really don't get what they're trying to do with this series. C
I agree this book has been substandard thus far but I have a minor
clarification for your analysis...the Magnum joke was part of a scene
that was directly revisting Uncanny X-Men #167 when the X-Men came
back from space to take out the Brood-infected Xavier and met/fought
the New Mutants for the first time...the essentially replayed the
scene in simulation and part of the original scene included the New
Mutants watching Magnum when the X-Men burst in.