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Dec 12

Amazing X-Men #14 – “The Worst Of Us”

Posted on Friday, December 12, 2014 by Paul in x-axis

Oh good, another Axis tie-in.  We definitely haven’t flogged the inversion horse to death yet.  I’m so glad we’re getting it again here.

Let’s recap why these tie-ins largely don’t work.  The whole “inversion” angle is fine for a few issues of Uncanny Avengers where you camp it up to the nines and have the heroes go crazy so that other people have to step in and save the day.  But when you try to extend it beyond that, you find that it kind of works with the villains, but it’s a lost cause with the heroes.

The inversion gimmick assumes that “good” and “evil” are somehow personality traits in their own rights, rather than the result of personality traits.  So if you just try a straight good-evil flip, you get a character that doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense.  The inverted villains don’t really make sense either, but at least they don’t make sense in an interesting way.  The inverted heroes just wind up as rather boring interchangeable fascists.  And since that’s kind of the plot of Axis, there’s not much that tie-in writers can do to breathe life into it.

Chris Yost tries his best here, and he actually has one of the stronger ideas we’ve seen for an Axis tie-in, using Nightcrawler and Mystique.  Since they’ve got a relationship to start with that isn’t defined in terms of good and evil, you’ve at least got something to work with there that survives the inversion gimmick.

So the hook here is that the normally placid Nightcrawler is running around his home town terrorising people in general and priests in particular, in the sort of bitter retaliation for past lynchings that he wouldn’t normally indulge in.  And Mystique, who has a clearer understanding that something isn’t right with either of them, is trying to stop him from doing anything that he’ll regret once he’s back in his right mind.

Now that last bit is quite a good idea, given the premise that the story has to work with.  The idea that a newly conscientious Mystique would try to protect her son makes perfect sense, and her concern is perfectly logical.  Even if all the heroes are mad right now, they’re going to feel awfully bad about this when they wake up, and at least she can stop him crossing a line that there’s no going back from.  If nothing else, at least this gives some degree of dramatic stakes to a tie-in story where nobody’s in character because they’re all out of their minds.

It’s surprising that this angle isn’t being played up more, since at least it serves as a reminder that the real character is in there somewhere, in abeyance.  Because the thing about Axis is that everyone’s so far out of character that, essentially, none of the supposed star characters are really in it at all.  The inverted heroes are so one-dimensional that they barely function as recognisable versions of themselves; they are certainly not, in any sense, interesting.

“The Worst of Us” is not a great story – it can’t ultimately get around the fact that inverted Kurt is a flat character, and its status as a tie-in issue prevents it having any proper resolution.  But it does find something to work with in Mystique; it does have some sequences with nicely inventive uses of both characters’ powers; and it marginally advances the plot by clarifying that the revived Kurt doesn’t have a soul.  I’m not sure that’s the take Chris Claremont is running with over in Kurt’s solo book, but it’s certainly what Jason Aaron seemed to be suggesting.

Part of me thinks that it should have been possible to tie Kurt’s lack of a soul in with the inversion gimmick, but really, I’m not sure how; if anything, I suppose it could come into play more after things are sorted out, when Kurt discovers that he doesn’t feel all that bothered about what he did.  If indeed that’s what not having a soul means.  It’s one of those hazy concepts that manages to be terribly important-sounding while having no discernible practical significance.  That’s a problem for another day, though.

This story has the misfortune to come along at a point when I’m already pretty much sick of the crossover, but given what it has to work with, it’s not too bad.  It does get to grips with the challenge of finding a story in this material, more successfully than many books that have tried.  It’s time to move on, though.

Bring on the comments

  1. “If indeed that’s what not having a soul means.”
    Yeah, Nightcrawler’s version of not having a soul seems very different from Guido’s version. Or Fitzroy’s version. Or Magik’s. (Does Magik have a soul these days? Is it like a lizard losing its tail, and it eventually grows back?)

  2. Cory says:

    ^ That’s actually a good point. Marvel Editorial has a framework for how Kurt losing his soul should work. He should have come back, more or less himself, but gradually communicating his indifference and moral deterioration. It’d be interesting if his character struggle was against his apathy. Kind of a, “I know I’m supposed to care and be better, but these other feelings are just more satisfying.”

  3. Si says:

    Hey, has anyone done anything with Mr Negative with this whole inversion thing? I mean come on.

  4. Si says:

    “James Brown means nothing to me now! Unglaublich what have I done?”

  5. Suzene says:

    This one was OK for filler, though, as with Nightcrawler’s solo, I’m getting pretty tired of Kurt wallowing in the past. I enjoyed James Tynion IV’s take on him in last month’s AXM one-shot more than I have Claremont, Yost, or Aaron’s, tbh. It wasn’t world-shaking, but at least it was fun and had Kurt dealing with some of the (relative) newcomers to the fold.

  6. ZZZ says:

    I love the way Kurt goes on a rampage attacking everyone he sees and Mystique barely manages to keep him from killing anyone (by using powers she’s really not supposed to have) and then he vanishes and she thinks “well at least I stopped him from killing anyone.”

    Because he couldn’t possibly have just teleported a block away and kept rampaging.

    It’s the kind of thing that comes up a lot in superhero comics, but for some reason in this instance seemed especially optimistic for Mystique to think she’d really accomplished anything.

  7. wwk5d says:

    Paul, can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Axis #7’s retcon revelations!

  8. Taibak says:

    I suppose the problem is that the whole inversion thing is really a Silver Age plot that came along 40 years too late. With stuff like The Authority, the Ultimate Universe, and Civil War having come and gone superheroes acting like jerks isn’t really all that compelling any more. Even Squadron Supreme was 30 years ago.

    Throw in the fact that the Marvel and DC universes are full of antiheroes – Wolverine and the Punisher have been around for 40 years – and it’s hard to see where the writers could even go with this gimmick.

  9. Taibak says:

    wwk5d: If there was any Avenger whose backstory doesn’t need to get any more complicated, it’s the Scarlet Witch.

  10. The original Matt says:

    Was that Retcon Wanda learning she doesn’t share Magneto’s bloodline?

  11. Rusty says:

    I’m suddenly reminded of Blackest Night’s endless tie-ins. The intended conflict about fighting dead loved ones wasn’t really there because the Black Lanterns were unrecognizable as those characters, and they all read the same because the Black Lanterns shared the same one-dimensional, “evil” personality.

  12. Jason says:

    Taibak: it’s not supposed to be superheroes acting like jerks, the issue is supposed to be these particular characters doing it

  13. ASV says:

    It would be a lot more interesting if he did actually manage to kill somebody, but words like “interesting” or “impactful” don’t really apply to the second- and third-tier franchise books. Increasingly, it seems like those tiers include every single book set at the school, because basically everyone who’s ever been an X-Man, other than Cyclops’s group, is living there with not much to do.

  14. ZZZ says:

    Wasn’t there something in House of M that also affected everyone of Magneto’s bloodline that contradicts the revelation in Axis #7? I can’t remember the specifics, but I remember something about Nocturne wandering around confused because Wanda’s spell recognized her as a member of Magneto’s bloodline (being Wanda’s daughter from another dimension) but no one in Magneto’s court knew she existed to explain it to her.

    I guess the fudge for that is to claim the House of M spell targeted both Wanda and Magneto – which at the time she didn’t realize meant including two separate families – while the Axis one specifically targeted only herself.

    Of course, now she’s unintentionally (though in her current state of mind she likely doesn’t care) screwed over Wiccan, Speed, Una, and Nocturne (if she still exists).

    I’m hoping it turns out to be a fakeout or that they at least leave it possible that Magneto and Wanda are still related, but considering how much writers love “everything you know is wrong” plot twists – and how Marvel Studios would probably love to separate the characters they’re adding to Avengers 2 from the one they don’t have the film rights to – I have a feeling this is going to be the company line for a while.

  15. wwk5d says:

    “how Marvel Studios would probably love to separate the characters they’re adding to Avengers 2 from the one they don’t have the film rights to”

    I’m guessing that’s their main motivation. Have the characters line up as much as possible to their movie counterparts. And since Marvel is planning an Inhumans movie, kill 2 birds with 1 stone…because you know new fans who will see Avengers 2 and might pick up/start reading or rereading Avengers (*snicker*) will be confused as heck and wonder “Wait, why are they saying the Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver are the kids of Magento from the X-men movies? This wasn’t in the movie, screw this, I am utterly confused now and won’t read the comic bo-, er, graphic novel!”

  16. Neil Kapit says:

    A filler tie-in issue for a filler series….yeah, I’m giving up on this book and knocking it off my pull list.

  17. Niall says:

    Perhaps this has more to do with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver being in the Inhumans movie?

  18. errant says:

    It’s cute that Marvel still thinks that people who go see those movies start buying and reading their shit comics.

  19. The original Matt says:

    Yeah. It’s an obvious “get troublesome magneto heritage out of the way for the movie” retcon.

    Frankly, I find it a bit insulting. Same as Black Nick Fury. I’m okay with the movie-verse characters being different than their comic counterparts in service of a streamlined universe/good actor who is the wrong skin colour. I also don’t care that hawkeye doesn’t wear a mask. (Seriously, I saw someone post online somewhere they hated Avengers because hawkeye didn’t have a mask)

  20. Neil Kapit says:

    ” It’s cute that Marvel still thinks that people who go see those movies start buying and reading their shit comics. ”

    At least they haven’t entirely given up on that audience, as opposed to DC

  21. moose n squirrel says:

    “At least they haven’t entirely given up on that audience, as opposed to DC”

    I think in practical terms, though, Marvel HAS given up. Who’s the audience for this crossover, for instance? Who’s going to buy 8 issues of Axis, a story that spins out of however many issues of Rick Remender’s Uncanny Avengers, which itself is largely an extension of his run on X-Force – at, what, four or five bucks a pop, no less – other than die-hard ever-Wednesday comics-shop-goers? Put this together with the fact that “big tentpole crossovers” have gone from one a year to about three a year, and it becomes clear that this is not a publishing strategy designed to appeal to the casually curious reader brought in from watching Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever. This is a strategy designed to squeeze every possible dollar from an existing (and shrinking) readership.

    There are books out there that could work well to appeal to those elusive new readers – and for all I know, do – but they’re books like Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye, which have solid artists and writers on them and are fairly self-contained, and don’t require the reader to buy half a dozen other titles to follow the story.

    Of course, the whole idea that someone who enjoys a movie is necessarily going to want to read the comic it was based on is flawed in all sorts of ways. If someone likes the “Thor” movie, they could like half a dozen things about it that don’t translate to the comics (and for that matter, someone who’s a fan of, say, the Jack Kirby or Walt Simonson Thor might like it for a dozen reasons that don’t apply to the movie). They’re not interchangeable; they’re different media doing different things. And of course, today, someone looking for more Avengers or whatever after watching the movie is more likely to think “I’ll check out the video game” than to think “I’ll check out the comic.”

  22. Niall says:

    I guess the question is “Who is buying the Avengers Versus X-Men trades?”.

    I think that there is a small but significant number of people who are not floppy readers but who buy comics superhero trades partially because they are familiar with the movies.

  23. Nu-D. says:

    Who’s going to buy 8 issues of Axis, a story that spins out of however many issues of Rick Remender’s Uncanny Avengers, which itself is largely an extension of his run on X-Force – at, what, four or five bucks a pop, no less – other than die-hard ever-Wednesday comics-shop-goers? Put this together with the fact that “big tentpole crossovers” have gone from one a year to about three a year, and it becomes clear that this is not a publishing strategy designed to appeal to the casually curious reader brought in from watching Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever. This is a strategy designed to squeeze every possible dollar from an existing (and shrinking) readership.

    Not me. That readership shrunk by one a couple of years ago exactly because of the perpetual crossover. I really only read self-contained titles (X-Factor, Captain Marvel, Hawkeye), and largely only in TPB format these days. AXIS and Messiah this-or-that, and Age of Ultron alienated me from reading comics. It’s the same reason I quit the first time back in 1995 with Age of Apocalypse. If one of these crossovers is good enough, I’ll hear about it and read it in TPB in a couple of years; probably by checking it out of the library.

  24. Lawrence says:

    Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver being Magneto’s children was a retcon to begin with, so it’s not really that big of a deal.

    It doesn’t really change anything, they are still siblings who Magneto coerced to join his group of evil Mutants. Even if they aren’t biologically-related, they can still play up Magneto’s fatherly role in the same way they play up Xavier as a father figure to Cyclops.

  25. Paul says:

    The retcon probably is driven by a desire to detach Wanda and Pietro from the X-Men, whether to fit with their depiction in the Avengers or to screw with their depiction in the Fox films. But to be honest, it’s not a bad idea; if you really want to keep Magneto as a Holocaust survivor (and there seems to be a general consensus that this is sacrosanct), he’s really far too old to be their father, at least without some very cumbersome explanations. It isn’t a central part of anyone’s characterisation and you can make a case that it’s become a drag on all involved.

  26. jpw says:

    Nick Fury, Jr. is one of the most inane ideas to come out of Marvel in a long time, and that’s saying a lot. I missed the story when it originally came out but reading about it now makes me glad i have severely limited the Marvel books i read.
    Retconning SW and Pietro’s relation to Magneto seems ill-advised. Quicksilver is just a cheap Flash knock off w/o that detail.

  27. wwk5d says:

    @Paul

    I don’t mind the retcon so much as I do the supposed reasoning behind it. I’d like to give Marvel the benefit of the doubt, but given how cynical I’ve become lately, I really do doubt that the reasoning for the retcon was story driven.

  28. Nu-D. says:

    if you really want to keep Magneto as a Holocaust survivor (and there seems to be a general consensus that this is sacrosanct), he’s really far too old to be their father, at least without some very cumbersome explanations. It isn’t a central part of anyone’s characterisation and you can make a case that it’s become a drag on all involved.

    Disagree. Both Pietro and Wanda have had multiple story arcs where they struggle with their relationship to Magneto. House of M, Darker than Scarlet, and more. Their relationship to Magneto is very integral to their characters.

    As far as squaring it with Maggie’s age, men older than Magneto have fathered children. It’s not that hard.

  29. moose n squirrel says:

    The familial dynamic between Magneto and the twins is pretty important to their characters – that is, to Wanda and Pietro; Magneto’s obviously got plenty going on without the family drama, but the family stuff is a nice bonus that further complicates his role as down-and-dirty terrorist/freedom-fighter. I don’t think either Quicksilver or the Scarlet Witch or nothing without that family baggage, but it does take a lot away from them.

    The bigger problem, really, is that Scarlet Witch is an absolute mess at this point, and has been since Disassembled. There have been a couple attempts to rehabilitate the character since then, but most have been either half-assed or just never really taken (the one in Avengers: Children Crusade was probably the best try, but weirdly enough, everyone seemed to ignore it – up until Remender picked up on the notion that she should have a grudge against Doom, but seemingly forgot that she was also explicitly depowered back to not-insane levels at the end of that story). Really, everyone since Bendis has been treating the character as a walking plot device – either a MacGuffin or a problem to be fixed – and at this point she probably needs to go away for a while until someone competent can figure out how to make her work again.

  30. Omar Karindu says:

    At least they haven’t entirely given up on that audience, as opposed to DC

    True, but I think Marvel’s most impressive moves of late have been the decision to find a balance between feeding the fan market and making space to try a range of tones and styles. The recent volumes of Young Avengers, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and so forth are doing very interesting things in ways that the big franchise books aren’t,

    And meanwhile DC sputters along with a weirdly, pseudo-nostalgic house style and has only recently tried anything like the revamped Batgirl. Around the time Marvel was launching a book like Superior Foes of Spider-Man, DC was busy driving J.H> Williams III off their Batwoman title with ham-handed editorial edicts.

    Such edicts seem to come down at Marvel, too, but mostly for tentpole comics or some movie-featured characters. (I suppose it’s a good thing for Matt Fraction and us that the big-screen iteration of Hawkeye was such a nonentity.)

    They’re not interchangeable; they’re different media doing different things. And of course, today, someone looking for more Avengers or whatever after watching the movie is more likely to think “I’ll check out the video game” than to think “I’ll check out the comic.”

    This is also an excellent point, the sort of thing many comics aficionados tend to forget.

    The bigger problem, really, is that Scarlet Witch is an absolute mess at this point, and has been since Disassembled.

    I’d say you can go all the way back to Byrne’s WCA run for the damage to the character. Almost everything in between that and Disassembled was a series of frantic, not entirely convincing revamp attempts and salvage missions. And let’s not get started on how Byrne essentially permanently derailed the Vision. It was an exciting run at the time and felt fresher than what Steve Engelhart had been doing on the title, but in retrospect it was exciting for all the wrong reasons.

  31. wwk5d says:

    I enjoyed how Busiek wrote Wanda. Not everything he did was perfect, but overall, he did a good job salvaging her as a character.

  32. Chris says:

    Hank Pym and the Scarlet Witch.

    Casualties of multiple writers.

    Vision too

  33. Jamie says:

    “Nick Fury, Jr. is one of the most inane ideas to come out of Marvel in a long time, and that’s saying a lot.”

    It’s true, but it’s really negligible at this point, especially if you skipped the stories that established him and wrote out the original. And it’s not like the Steranko books are really relevant anymore. SHIELD has basically been just like the Ultimate’s SHIELD since around Civil War.

  34. DP says:

    I haven’t been following Axis by the simple expedient of not buying any books with it marked as a crossover.

    Is there any point to it? Far as I can see the main fallout should be that no one will be mad at Scott Summers anymore, as they’ll all have been where he was?

  35. The original Matt says:

    The “point” of the series was to shuffle the deck and bridge Season 1 & Season 2 of Uncanny Avengersand launch a new “direction” for some titles. Usual crossover fare, then. A few characters have remained inverted. I won’t spoil it, though. I’m sure Paul will have an Axis thread soon.

  36. The original Matt says:

    I will say the frustrating thing with these crossover titles, though, is not knowing which comics will “matter”. (Yes, I hate that term, too). When it comes to these things, I’ll only be tie ins for comics I was already reading, anyway. As a result, when Dr Doom and Magneto turn up with possessed Wanda during Axis #9, I realise that evidently Avengers World (which I didn’t buy) forwarded some part of the wider plot, while the tie in title Revalations (or whatever it was called, of which I wasted money on the first issue) was pointless.

    My main gripe here, is that I dislike the marketing strategy of tie ins. Yes, I know this is somewhat redundant commentary to comic readers in 2014, but if we stop complaining about it, they win.

    Disclaimer: I will concede that Wanda may have been shown to be possessed during the mini-series and my brain simply did not retain that information. I loved Uncanny Avengers, but this title didn’t grab me.

  37. Paul: The retcon probably is driven by a desire to detach Wanda and Pietro from the X-Men, whether to fit with their depiction in the Avengers or to screw with their depiction in the Fox films. But to be honest, it’s not a bad idea; if you really want to keep Magneto as a Holocaust survivor (and there seems to be a general consensus that this is sacrosanct), he’s really far too old to be their father, at least without some very cumbersome explanations. It isn’t a central part of anyone’s characterisation and you can make a case that it’s become a drag on all involved.

    In addition to what Nu-D mentioned about Wanda and Pietro having multiple story arcs in which their characterization was tied to being Magnus’s kids, those cumbersome explanations for the sake of continuity already exist: Magneto was de-aged once, and the twins spent some time in suspended animation in Wundagore.

    I grant you that wouldn’t continue to fly so well by 2050, but hopefully next year Marvel follows through on what they’ve been teasing for a while now and gives us the “Crisis on Infinite Earths”-style reboot they want us to think they’re going to do.

  38. […] This volume also covers the Axis tie-in and Annual #1, but we’ve covered them […]

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