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Mar 23

X-Men #7-12 – “Muertas”

Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2014 by Paul in x-axis

“Muertas” is a storyline that starts off strongly and ends up as a bit of a mess all round.

Even the titling suggests confusion.  Issue #7 clearly gives the title as “Muertas, part 1 of 6”.  But issue #10 – sorry, “issue #10.NOW” – which ought to be “Muertas, part 4”, is instead titled as “Ghosts, part 1”, despite being manifestly a middle chapter, apparently for no reason other than to justify the dodgy promotion.

It starts with a decent idea, though.  Ana Cortes, a rich Colombian teenager, gets hold of the disembodied consciousness of Lady Deathstrike.  Before anyone asks, I couldn’t remember where she died either, and an explanation might not have gone amiss.  (As best I can figure, it’s meant to be Uncanny X-Force #5.1, where she escaped X-Force by uploading her consciousness to the internet – she’s appeared elsewhere since, but if she’s a downloaded consciousness these days, I guess there’s no reason why there can’t be several of her.)

Cortes plans to download Deathstrike’s mind into herself, so that she can become an Awesome Supervillain.  And she does.  The resulting Deathstrike – a mix between the original character and a thrill seeking idiot teenager in Day of the Dead makeup – starts trying to pick up further upgrades so that she can be More Awesome.  She ends up learning about Arkea, from the book’s opening storyline, and decides that Arkea would make a wonderful upgrade.  That, of course, doesn’t work out well for her at all, as she finds herself under the thumb of a destructive cosmic weirdo.

This is all quite good.  The new Deathstrike is a clever (yet reversible) way of livening up a staid character – I could see someone getting plenty of interesting stories out of that set-up.  There’s something genuinely interesting about Cortes’ self-destructive willingness to damage her own identity for the sake of entertainment.  And there’s a time-honoured classic story here about Cortes learning too late to be careful what she wishes for.  It ought to work.

It doesn’t, mainly because the story loses its focus.  It drifts away from Ana towards a range of less interesting ideas.  Once Arkea shows up, Deathstrike gets pushed towards the margins, not just of her group, but of the narrative.  And Arkea isn’t very interesting – she’s a one-dimensional killer.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing when she’s used as a foil, and having her as someone for Cortes to bounce off could have been fine.  But what actually happens is that Cortes has her big moment of redemption in part five and commits suicide, in a gesture whose contribution to the X-Men’s eventual victory is at best marginal, meaning that she shuffles off stage before the story even reaches its climax.  And before the potential in the character had been properly realised.

On top of that, the story increasingly gets sidetracked into Deathstrike and Arkea’s efforts to recruit a new Sisterhood, as a force to take on the X-Men.  These characters are clutter.  Two are introduced with great fanfare and then simply leave, without doing anything – one wonders if their introduction into the series was accelerated in the spurious belief that it might somehow justify that #1 on the .NOW issue.  The fact that Arkea feels the need to recruit the likes of Selene only serves to undermine her status as a supposed global threat.  And they’re a bizarrely random bunch anyway; even leaving aside the fairly obvious decision that they should be all female as a counterpart to the team (a decision which sits oddly with the book’s general approach of treating the stars’ gender as a non-issue), a team that features Madelyne Pryor, Typhoid Mary and the Enchantress feels like it’s been compiled by flicking through the Official Handbook at random.

At any rate, they’re a distraction from what ought to be Deathstrike/Cortes’s story.  She’s the one with a proper emotional arc here, and she ends up feeling like a subplot.  There’s a reasonable story in here trying to get out, but it needs a lot fewer characters, and a lot more emphasis on Cortes.

 

 

 

Bring on the comments

  1. Neon Shinobi says:

    As I stated in the comments of your original review of the all female X-Men title, the concept of an all female cast here is such contrived pandering for the sake of saying ‘hey, we’re diverse at Marvel’. On every occasion this cast just happens to come together even when a male X-Man with a specific skill set would be the perfect asset to handle an objective? This is insulting to female characters. Some of the most powerful and prominent X-Men have been women. You don’t need all female cast to hammer that home. Matter of fact wasn’t the last iteration of ‘X-Men’ comprised of all women and Colossus?

  2. ZZZ says:

    Yeah, this storyline really got messy at the end. The most mind-boggling part to me was bringing back Madelyne Pryor only to have her do next to nothing before deciding she doesn’t feel like fighting anymore, while the X-Men act like she’s just another random criminal as opposed to the villain with arguably the most emotional baggage attached to her from their point of view.

    And the backup story seemed so utterly random, with Karima turning up even though it was happening concurrently with the other storyline she was also in, the “Where’s Jubilee?”/”There she is” cliffhanger, the chyrons that seemed to forget Pixie has a real name. If there was a point to it other than letting us know that they haven’t completely forgotten about the Mercury/Bling! subplot, I couldn’t spot it.

  3. Chaos McKenzie says:

    In Wood’s defense, I don’t think he’s making Mercury gay, like many people are suggesting on the ‘net. I think/hope he’s doing an open minded/acceptance thing.

    The all women conceit of this title doesn’t work, as Neon says the groupings seem odd. It worked in the first arch, that also used Beast and some male students, but the idea just seems forced as it progresses.

    This storyline was very disappointing after a strong start to the title. Here’s hoping it gets better in the next… but I hope Arkea gets dealt with a put to bed, as I agree heavily with everything Paul said.

    It’s funny. Six months ago I was so excited for the x-books again, but that’s almost all exhausted now. Booo.

  4. Uncanny Michael says:

    I believe Lady Deathstrike died at the end of Secret Avengers vol. 1 with the rest of the Descendants, with Remender finishing the story he started with Uncanny X-Force #5.1 and the surrounding Deathlok Nation issues.

  5. Team Zissou says:

    I think she died in Messiah Complex, actually. Right after she killed Caliban, Wolverine’s first iteration of X-Force killed her in retaliation.

  6. Tdubs says:

    This is the only X-Men book I’ve given up on. I wish this volume would go away and someone would give us a good storm series. So every time the sisterhood has been used (I guess twice now) it’s been a dud for me.

  7. Nemo says:

    I actually loved the eclectic new Sisterhood assembled, bringing in unusual foils for the team. Typhoid Mary was a fun addition finally getting the chance to explore her status as a mutant, and the Enchantress works given the X-Men’s past adventures in Asgard.

    Bringing back Selene and Madelyne Pryor should have been a huge ominous event, but having them just leave without doing anything was baffling. Hope they end up in more capable hands.

    I agree the Cortes/Deathstrike plot was really interesting when it started but completely fell apart by the end. It does not help that Arkea is so poorly defined (if she’s a sentient bacteria whose main purpose is to possess machines, how come she always ends up in human hosts?) and one-dimensional.

    And the backups didn’t really amount to anything, would’ve preferred if that space was used to actually develop the main story properly. As it is, it’s a disjointed and anticlimatic mess.

  8. ChrisKafka says:

    I was pretty excited to see Typhoid Mary used here, and when I heard that Madelyne Pryor was going to be used, Iwas excited.
    The Sisterhood is a perfectly fine idea….Forced, sure, but playing off of the name “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”, I thought it would work fine.
    What we got ended up a mess in the end.
    I’m losing faith in Wood’s ability to write a good X-Men story-line. I have no idea what’s going wrong, as Wood can be a very good writer.
    Between this, and his last work on X-Men when everyone was meant to be so upset about that mutant DNA, and Wood never explained what point he was trying to make….these stories are just bad.
    I have no idea how we’re supposed to take this story’s ending seriously.

  9. Mo Walker says:

    I agree with Paul, Marvel clearly did not use their Marvel Now branding effectively with this title. Why couldn’t the Marvel Now #1 issue been thirteen? Also, it is clear that Brian Wood had to adjust some things after the losing the Dodsons and the Marvel Now branding. Clearly this storyarc fell on its behind. Hopefully Wood can bounce back.

    Also, I believe the Jubilee backups were designed to give the spotlight since she is the title’s defacto lead or point-of-view character.

    If Paul has time, it would be nice to get a mid-year progress report on the X-titles around June or July.

  10. JG says:

    What’s the point of bringing Madelyne Pryor back (as a villain) again?

    Other than taking a metaphorical dump on Claremont of course.

  11. Niall says:

    Good analysis.

    Yeah, the story had potential but feels like it lost it. In retrospect, it went off course when Arkea went on a recruitment drive.

    Plenty of potential in bringing Madelyne Pryor back – what with Cyclops, Nate, Cable, young Cyclops and Jean hanging about.

    Speaking of things Jean Grey related, is Bendis right in writing Gladiator as being responsible for the Grey massacre?

  12. Tim O'Neil says:

    The fact that the book’s been around for a year and everyone keeps saying, “the ship could still be righted!” means that the ship is pretty far off course. I don’t have a lot of hope that this will happen, but a consistent artist would be a good step in the right direction. (What is Clay Mann doing, anyway? He shouldn’t be stuck on the backups.)

    It feels as if this book could have been better without the overriding need to push the storylines into arcs. I agree 100% that the set-up was building to something a lot more involved that what we got. I think, shaky foundations regardless, the story could have worked if the Sisterhood had been set up as long-term open-ended foils for this specific team of X-Men, much in the same way that the Marauders were used in the early 200s of UNCANNY or the Hellions in NEW MUTANTS. The dynamics of the Sisterhood, random as the characters were, was interesting and could have been very fun in future stories – but it does not look as if that was never meant to be.

  13. Andy Gilham says:

    I haven’t read the story in question, but, we don’t do Day of the Dead in Colombia. That’s Mexico.

  14. Joseph says:

    Thanks, Andy. I had a twitter conversation with Wood about this when the Ana Cortes character was first introduced. I find it very implausible that a Colombiana would parade around in a Mexican costume. Wood shrugged it off saying that the holiday is observed all around Latin America, even though the character design is obviously Mexican.

    From the get go I wasn’t feeling this story, in part for the above reasons, but was willing to go along with it to see Monet and Karima on the cast. However that good will was almost entirely wasted. Wood’s developing the same kinds of ticks Fraction had on his X-Men run. Too many characters, and an ambitious long-game that never pays off, but enough to string us along because of the potential that some of the characters will eventually do something.

    Since the most promising character arcs sizzle, eg. Ana Cortes, Gabriel, Roxy, I think I’m ready to drop Wood’s X-Men.

  15. Suzene says:

    I’ve only really been paying attention to the back-ups, since I’m fond of the New X-Men, and I just…no. Nice art, but what a ridiculous, out-of-character mess for Bling! and Mercury both. As much as I like these kids, I think it would be better for them and the book if the back feature went away.

  16. Michael P says:

    So it’s not pretending there’s no such thing as sexism is itself sexist. The things I learn in comment sections.

  17. Michael P says:

    *sigh* Ignore the “it’s” in the above.

  18. Chaos McKenzie says:

    I think in Bendis’ storyline, Gladiator is responsible only in the fact that he is the rule of the Shi’ar at present and the command to destroy the Grey bloodline came from the throne of the Shi’ar. He didn’t order the act himself. I think it was back when Lilandra was a little unbalanced from the stuff with Cassandra Nova, not sure though. BUT if it was something Lilandra ordered, I could see Gladiator standing behind it with his usual loyalty to her rule and the Shi’ar throne in general.

  19. Given that Gladiator’s tenure in the Imperial Guard included Shi’ar rule by D’Ken, Deathbird, and (for a little while, anyway) Vulcan, he’s probably stood back and did nothing for a lot worse than that, too.

  20. Billy says:

    I think it was Claremont who wrote the story where the Shi’ar sent assassins to kill off the entire Grey family. It was kind of stupid, fairly contrived, had a silly gimmick, and a somewhat gaping plothole, and I really want to remember it being a Claremont story.

    The logic was that the Shi’ar decided that the Phoenix Force had a connection to the Grey family, and thus the best preemptive way of dealing with the Phoenix Force was to kill off the Grey family before one of them became a future host.

    The gimmick was that each page was one second, kind of like a comic book version of the TV series 24.

    The contrived bit that I remember was that the Shi’ar waited to attack at a Grey family reunion, so the entire family would be together.

    The plot hole and a significant part of the stupid was that the Shi’ar conveniently let Rachael live. The one Grey family member other than Jean who has successfully connected with the Phoenix Force. And the one most likely to be a future threat to the Shi’ar if the Shi’ar made her an enemy.

    The Shi’ar kill her entire family line, beat her, capture her, give her a back tattoo that they can use to track her or something, and then leave her. This of course promptly causes Rachael to swear to destroy the Shi’ar.

    (I want to recall this was also around the time that the Shi’ar guy with the Phoenix Force sword showed up.)

  21. origami says:

    Wood probably intended the new Sisterhood to be long term enemy in this book, similar to the role held by the Hellfire Club in Uncanny X-Men during Claremont’s first stint.

    This explains why the ending feels so anticlimactic and is such a let-down; obviously the Sisterhood will be back another day, presumably with a bigger bang.

    This means the formation-of-Sisterhood arc is essentially a 10-page subplot inflated to 6 issues. In the old Marvel days, this would have simmered as a subplot over 5 to 6 issues, taking perhaps 1 to 2 pages per issue. God, I miss those days!

  22. Dave says:

    Yes, subplots in long-term series really do work. Shame Marvel’s forgotten that (I even think when they’re about to do one of their renumbering/relaunch creative shuffles, they could actually go to the effort of having the new writer tell the old writer what’s coming up so small elements of the next arc can start appearing).

    Maddie’s one of the characters they should just stop bringing back. I didn’t really understand what went on with her in the last ‘Sisterhood’ / Jean’s body story…or when she was hanging out with Nate Grey. Her story was done 25 years ago. And Selene finally got a decent ending in the Kyle/Yost X-Force after years of vague scheming.

    I don’t see why the cast in this title isn’t just predominantly female (even if that’s only 60-80%), which would incorporate both diversity AND credibility.

  23. Nu-D says:

    End of Greys was a CC storyline published in 2006. I don’t think it was ever explicit who sent the Death Commandoes to kill the Greys. I believe that Lilandra was still on the throne, but I’m not sure.

    Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire is when the big-sword Phoenix guy first shows up. That was 2007-08, just after End of Greys, and the arc lasted a year and left Vulcan and Deathbird on the throne, D’Ken and Lilandra dead.

    Sometime after that, Vulcan was deposed and Gladiator took the throne. Might have been War of Kings or something like that.

    Anyhow, during the Neramani rule, Gladiator was really just a military field leader. He was never shown to have any kind of authority to advise the ruling class or exercise any discretion about executing orders. He was told, “take the Guard and execute such-and-such an operation.” he had authority to design and execute tactical operations; but the overall goals and strategy were set by the higher-ups.

    Therefore, it’s hardly fair to suggest that he was responsible for End of Greys. Unless he conceived and ordered the operation, he wouldn’t have had the authority to object. IIRC, the original story doesn’t include him at all, so he might not even have been aware that it had occurred. The Death Commandoes are not his field operation. And it’s never shown where their orders come from.

    One more example of BMB having no regard for continuity.

  24. wwk5d says:

    “Wood shrugged it off saying that the holiday is observed all around Latin America, even though the character design is obviously Mexican.”

    Ugh. I hate it when writers try to be multi-cultural and get it wrong. Then act like it’s a big “whatever” when people call them out on it. This is almost as embarrassing as Morrison’s “They speak Pakistani”.

    If we are 12 issues into a run and people are still promising/hoping that it’s going to get better…chances are it won’t.

  25. Niall says:

    Thanks guys.

    So Gladiator’s only real connection to the death of Jean’s family is that he took over from the regime that was responsible for it?

    Flipping Bendis.

    Here, Gladiator has forgotten all about Rachel.

    Why the heck do Marvel even have editors?

    http://www.comicbookresources.com/prev_img.php?pid=20811&pg=3

  26. Toboe says:

    I think it was actually Araki who ordered the hit on the Grey family while Lilandra was recovering. He was loyal to D’Ken and Deathbird. Gladiator had nothing to do with it.

  27. joseph says:

    @wwk5d I couldn’t tell if he was defending some kind of editorial or artistic decision, or if he was just careless. I spent last summer in Mexico City, and have worked on projects based in Colombia, and from my outsider perspective at least there seems to be a bit of a rivalry between the two nations, with my Mexicain fruends (gold naturedly) mocking Colombian accents. And Colombian friends in the US resenting being mistaken for Mexicans, or told they speak Spanish “wrong.” All anecdotal, I could be wrong, but ultimately Ana Cortes comes of as a walking cliche, her nationality tacked on for added flavor.

  28. Nu-D says:

    Some Catholic communities in El Salvador celebrate dia de los muertos, although it’s more subdued and religious than the representations of the Mexican celebration I have seen.

    Re: Gladiator. To be clear, I don’t know for sure whether there was a story or an issue that somehow showed he had a part in the End of Greys. I do know that he was not involved in the original story, and his role in the Shi’ar Empire at that time would not be consistent with him being responsible.

    But then again, it’s ridiculous to hold lil Jean responsible for the actions of the Phoenix, and Bendis seems to think that’s a plausible theory. So in Bendis-world, perhaps Gladiator is responsible for not arguing with his superior officer who ordered an operation that he was totally uninvolved in and not responsible for executing or even consulting on.

  29. Tim O'Neil says:

    Liliandra died in WAR OF KINGS, murdered by a mind-controlled Darkhawk. (It was cooler than it sounds.)

  30. I was okay with the idea that the Shi’ar were willing to put young Grey on trial (and maybe even execute her) for things she hasn’t done yet. But that’s largely because after years of various writers portraying the Shi’ar doing various illogical things, their primary defining feature is that they’re an empire of beings who can be counted on to pursue that illogical end with a bloody-minded blindess.

    Considering that the larger Marvel space universe consists of them, warring Skrull factions that seem to pop up everywhere with territorial demands, and a Kree race that performs whatever whims an unfathomable computer thing tells them to do, I’m starting to appreciate why Starlord’s father always seems to be in such a bad mood.

  31. Nu-D says:

    So your argument is that the Shi’ar are inherently irrational, and therefore it’s not a problem that lil Jean is on trial for something that she has not done and will not do? I don’t buy it; that just means it’s crappy writing.

    Not to mention, if you end Jean Grey at this point in her personal timeline, she won’t be available to prevent the M’kran Crystal from destroying the universe. So even if you buy that she’s somehow responsible, or should be prevented from eating the broccoli people, you can’t reasonably argue that this is the way to stop her, because you’re sacrificing all of reality and saving nothing; in fact, you’re killing the broccoli people several months earlier, because they’ll all die with the multiverse, instead of having a few more months of life until DP shows up.

  32. errant razor says:

    Maybe for the Shi’ar culture, that’s completely rational.

    Everything they do is completely irrational in human terms. They are always written that way. They clearly have their own standard of logic.

  33. Omar Karindu says:

    It may be that Bendis is more familiar with the 90s cartoon version of the Phoenix Saga, where Jeanix was in fact tried for her potential to destroy an inhabited world rather than for having done so already. (This was of course because hey couldn’t have her killing billions or dying herself; she’s actually resurrected at the end after her off-camera suicide.)

  34. Reboot says:

    > Not to mention, if you end Jean Grey at this point in her personal timeline, she won’t be available to prevent the M’kran Crystal from destroying the universe. So even if you buy that she’s somehow responsible, or should be prevented from eating the broccoli people, you can’t reasonably argue that this is the way to stop her, because you’re sacrificing all of reality and saving nothing; in fact, you’re killing the broccoli people several months earlier, because they’ll all die with the multiverse, instead of having a few more months of life until DP shows up.

    Wasn’t the actual problem that a zoned-out Cyclops blasted the core? Ergo, if the X-Men weren’t there (since Phoenix hadn’t powered up the Stargate to take them there), it would all have righted itself as it did after every other conjunction.

  35. That was my–obviously poorly made–point, that it’s a fine line between writing a group of aliens as irrational by human standards, and just being lazy as a writer and assigning them whatever motivations are necessary to make the plot work, and that the way various Marvel folk, Bendis included, have treated the Shi’ar over the years crossed that line a long time ago.

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