X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #5. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Hmm. So from the look of this, where we’re going is that Professor X didn’t actually kill the crew of the Agnew, but wanted it to look as if he had – and he’s psychically trying to cover his tracks, leading to anomalies which Sally Floyd has been misinterpreting as something to do with her alcoholism. That’s interesting, even if I have my doubts about teasing the reversal of such a major plot point that quickly. Then again, it also raises the question of what Professor X is really doing in a cell, having framed himself for murder. I’m certainly intrigued, though I’m not sold on the timing.

X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) The thing about “From the Ashes” is that it doesn’t have a unifying theme, unless you count “diaspora”. And it’s broadly intended as, if not an outright reset, at least a restatement of the core idea. I don’t have a problem with that; you need to go back to the themes from time to time. But it’s going to come across as fairly conservative (with a small C) and it’s never going to create the same sort of first issue excitement as something like House of X.

And that’s pretty much what we have here. We’re setting up Cyclops’ X-Men team, we’re establishing the cast, we’re introducing the new location, and we’re fighting some bad guys. I’ve read enough of Jed MacKay’s Marvel work to have some confidence in him, but taken purely on its own terms, this is a good-but-not-great issue. The new team go into action so we can get a sense of the team dynamic. The immediate villains are the Fourth School, basically an Orchis faction who’ve reinvented themselves as the U-Men; the bigger picture is the introduction of 3K, who are obviously the main villains of MacKay’s run.

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X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #4. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Moving on to the book’s second arc – which still feels like weird timing when X-Men #1 isn’t even out yet, but okay. And it seems we have an actual regular creative team on this book now, which is a different approach. This arc, “What Charlie Did…”, is about journalist Sally Floyd trying to make sense of Professor X’s recent heel turn and his handing himself in to the authorities after Fall of the House of X. If you’re struggling to place Sally Floyd, then she’s the alcoholic journalist from Generation M, a miniseries from the Decimation period. After that, she got shunted over to the wider Marvel Universe as one of its cast of available journalists, but I don’t think the X-books have done anything with her since Generation M, and she doesn’t seem to have been used anywhere in several years. Still, if you’re looking for a viewpoint character to write about mutantdom, she’s as good as any.

This first chapter is really just restatement of ideas. Sally’s basic role as a talented journalist and recidivist alcoholic is set up again, and we get a recap of all the things Professor X has done wrong- specifically, the things that were turning points in how the character was interpreted – coupled with a reminder of his more straightforwardly heroic moments that have been downplayed over the years. The project here is apparently to explain how these conflicting versions of the character are meant to work together, but part of the angle is some weird Arthurian connection in Xavier’s self-image. Hard to say at this point where they’re going with this, and it certainly seems a bit early to be setting up Xavier for rehabilitation from the end of Krakoa, but we’ll see.

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X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #3. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. The first arc turns out to be just three parts, which is fine – that feels like the natural length of a fairly straightforward ghost story. The ghost turns out to be mostly preoccupied with his wife, a mountaineer whom he assumes must have died on the mountain for no particular reason beyond sexism. That comes somewhat out of the blue as a plot point in this story, which hadn’t really hinted very much about what the ghost was up to, but it does dovetail nicely with Scott’s discomfort about how his relationship with Jean can survive their power disparity in the long run, which is the idea that Paknadel really seems interested in. It’s a solid idea for an Infinity Comic short, nicely illustrated for the most part (though some of the vertical scrolling feels a bit clunky in this one). A pretty good little story.

DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE: SLASH ‘EM UP INFINITY COMIC #2. By Christos Gage, Alan Robinson, Carlos Lopez & Joe Sabino. Well, yup, that’s an extended fight scene. There’s not much to this in the way of plot. Wolverine has a vaguely interesting motivation: he’s helping a old man who, as a kid, used to help him out in Madripoor, until he forgot about the boy due to memory wipes and abandoned him. But it really is just an extended fight scene, even if it’s done with a bit of wit.

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Well, this is quiet…

X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #2. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Don’t ask me what the schedule is for this book – the first two issues were released, um, twelve days apart. But it’s a nice solid story. It’s simple – something is possessing a bunch of people and making them march off through the snow. Scott is one of them, and he needs to find a way of getting Jean’s attention (because while she could easily keep track of him whenever he’s out of sight, she doesn’t). It’s basically a ghost story, and it’s got some relatively detailed character work, certainly for an Infinity Comic. Neves has always been a solid artist and he has some good uses of the vertical scrolling format here, with merging panels and the occasional interesting perspective trick. It’s pretty good!

WOLVERINE: BLOOD HUNT #2. By Tom Waltz, Juan José Ryp, Guru-eFX & Cory Petit. Um. Well, this is mostly extended fight scenes. There’s a little bit suggesting that Maverick has a more complicated agenda than the first issue implied but… no, mostly it’s just Wolverine and Nightguard fighting a zombie horde. Sorry, vampire horde. But it’s the same thing to all practical purposes. I see why we’re doing Blood Hunt tie-ins this month – it’s a very handy buffer between X-seasons. But this is the sort of issue that makes my heart sink at the thought of reading the rest of the crossover. Even the core titles participating in this event are only doing three issues each. The X-books are doing eight! And while Jubilee at least has a hook to do vampire stories with, there’s a real diminishing returns element to tie-ins taking place in the margins of a crossover like this. How many different stories can you really do about vampire hordes roaming wild? Because by my count there are 48 tie-in issues to Blood Hunt not counting the core series, and I’m willing to bet that the answer to my question isn’t “48”. In isolation, this is a competent action issue but… god, how much of this?

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