The X-Axis – 20 December 2009
This is going to be a short one, because for various reasons I haven’t had time to read all this week’s books. (Most of them are mid-storyline anyway, although there’s always Silver Streak Comics #24 from Erik Larsen’s Next Issue Project, which is probably going to be interesting if nothing else.) So, I’m just going to run through this week’s X-books… all seven of them.
Astonishing X-Men #33 – We’ve reached part three of this storyline, and for once Astonishing X-Men is actually sticking to a monthly schedule. Mind you, this issue has Phil Jimenez’ contribution downgrade to breakdowns, so I wouldn’t put money on them keeping it up for the rest of the storyline. Andy Lanning is doing the finished art, and although the results aren’t quite as polished, it looks fine. Last issue, you may recall, we discovered that the villain was a mysterious baddy who was reanimating dead mutants to use as weapons. Now, this isn’t quite the same concept as the current “Necrosha-X” crossover over in X-Force, Legacy and New Mutants, but it’s close enough to be a bit awkward. Anyhow, in this issue, we discover that said baddy is called Kaga, and has a hidden base somewhere. So the X-Men fight another of his monsters, and then sneak aboard his ship… and, uh, that’s about it. It’s light on plot, then, and to be honest it’s fairly light on ideas too, so it stands and falls on whether it’s got cool fight scenes – which it does, for the most part. At least, it’s got enough to avoid feeling sluggish, even though the plot only inches forward. Even so, if Astonishing X-Men is meant to be the book where creators can tell their own X-Men stories without having the hassle of worrying about wider continuity, you’d hope it would be doing something a bit more distinctive.
Cable #21 – I swear, this book teeters on self-parody sometimes. We all know the formula by now: Cable and Hope arrive somewhere new, Bishop follows, Bishop tries to kill Hope, Cable and Hope escape yet again… repeat until dead. Now, last issue ended with Cable and Hope escaping a starship in life support pods, with Bishop pursuing in a space whale. As you do. That allows our heroes to spend another couple of years in suspended animation, and so at long last, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Hope reaches adolescence, and gets her powers. (They’re the ones you’d expect.) So, they crashland on Earth, and Bishop shows up again… and this time they beat him! Which, frankly, after all this build-up, is incredibly anticlimactic – especially so when it then turns out that they can just take his time machine and use it to go home. If it’s that simple, might it not have been a good idea to set this up as a goal about eighteen months ago? But never mind… they’re finally going home. And guess what? They overshoot, they land in the past, and Bishop gets swept along so that they can do the whole sodding routine one last time. Now, okay, granted, this goes some way to neutralising the anticlimax of beating him so quickly earlier in the issue. But god, how many times do we have to see this comic recycle the same plot? Answer: until the other books are ready for the “Second Coming” crossover.
Oh, and by the way, if Cable and Hope really do arrive in “New Amsterdam, 1614”, as the story claims, then that’s a bit odd, since the town wasn’t founded for another decade. They’re probably thinking of the founding of the New Netherland colony, which did take place in 1614, but that’s Albany. To be fair, the art does show a forest, but if that was the idea, shouldn’t the caption just say “Manhattan”?
Dark Wolverine #81 – Moonstone (sorry, “Ms Marvel”) has a nice long chat with Daken and tries to psychoanalyse him. On the plus side, it’s certainly better than the last arc, which came across as filler. Giuseppe Camuncoli returns on art, and it’s good, striking stuff – he knows how to make an extended conversation into something visual. It’s also a story which tries to get some mileage out of Moonstone’s psychiatric background, with the idea that she sees him as an interesting case study. And for a pleasant change, the story plays down Karla’s manipulative side in favour of the idea that she was basically a legitimate psychiatrist (or at least, that’s how she sees herself). On the other hand… the pay-off comes down to saying that Daken isn’t as complex as he seems, and that underneath all the charm, he’s basically just a psychopath. Why would you want to tell that story? It’s basically an issue devoted to telling the readers that the lead character is much less interesting and much more shallow than he appears. And… this is good, why?
Uncanny X-Men: First Class #6 – More retro superheroics, with the seventies X-Men still fighting the all-powerful cosmic weirdos, the Knights of Hykon. The character designs are great – they look unique, but there’s a common theme that makes them look connected. And the story does a decent job of setting them up as A-list villains, which isn’t always easy in a book like this. When all is said and done, though, it’s still a straightforward and old-fashioned story, almost a throwback to Marvel’s house style of thirty years ago. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you see the First Class books as something intended for younger readers; a series like this has a good reason for being told in that style. What sticks out a mile, though, is an attempt to retcon the origin of Phoenix, as if it wasn’t complicated enough already. It’s a trivial retcon, adding an explanation for the solar flares from X-Men #100, but still, I don’t see what it adds, and in an area of X-Men history that already looks like a particularly cumbersome Heath Robinson device, I’d personally steer well clear unless there was some good reason for meddling with it. And it seems especially incongruous if they’re going for younger readers.
X-Factor #200 – Jumping back to its original numbering. It’s priced at five dollars, but for that you get 52 pages of story, plus a reprint of Madrox #1 and a bunch of Handbook profiles. And it’s certainly the best of this week’s crop. I question the decision to just relocate to New York between issues without offering any explanation, but at least it keeps the team separate from the rest of the X-books and lets them function as the X-team who still have a foothold in the mainstream Marvel Universe (given that the rest of the groups relocated to the west coast). The main plot sees X-Factor being roped in to investigate weird goings-on with the Fantastic Four, but alongside that, there’s some great character-driven subplots, continuing the triangle with Madrox, Theresa and Layla. And Peter David has finally hit on the right formula for writing Shatterstar, going back to the original premise that he was bred for show as much as anything. A smug Shatterstar beating up higher-profile superheroes, posing, and yelling “Are you not entertained?!” just works. Good issue.
X-Force #22 – Part of the “Necrosha-X” crossover. And I’m starting to get a bit confused here. Selene raises the population of Genosha from the dead, only to discover that most of them are still depowered – something which apparently comes as a surprise. But… hold on, hasn’t Selene already raised a bunch of mutants from the dead? If most of the dead were also de-powered on M-Day, then she’s been remarkably lucky in her choice of zombies, hasn’t she? Actually, I suppose there might be a point to this. So far, Selene’s only revived mutants we’ve heard of. Most of the population of Genosha were anonymous no-names… so perhaps the idea is that M-Day really did have a disproportionately limited effect on characters associated with the X-Men. Then again, I’m probably being too generous: that’s always been obviously true, yet very few characters have ever remarked on it, and they don’t start here. That aside… yeah, fighting, and more fighting, and murky art, and more fighting. And scheming among the villains, and then more fighting. The last issue sparked my interest somewhat, with the idea of raising the Genoshans from the grave, but this doesn’t follow through.
X-Men: Legacy #230 – Rogue fights Emplate, part four. Basically. I mean, you’d struggle to say that this was a story about anything in particular – it’s simply Rogue getting to be a good old-fashioned hero by beating up a villain we haven’t seen in a while. Not sure I’d have spent four issues on a story like this, but it is quite good fun. Mike Carey writes an entertaining Emplate, as a character who’s either a terrifying weirdo or just a ridiculous poser, depending on your perspective. And since the future direction of this title apparently involves Rogue as the mentor of the X-Men’s trainees, the story might also serve an important purpose by getting Bling! back into circulation, giving her some screen time, and setting up a relationship between her and Rogue. But time will tell about that.
The line really isn’t having a good time, these days, is it…
No podcast?
I almost wish they’d just change Astonishing’s title to New Ultimate X-Men and be done with it.
Also, I’d actually forgotten just how ridiculous M’s backstory is. Are she and Psylocke in a league of their own, or are there other X-Men whose pasts don’t make sense no matter how much you drunkenly squint at them? I’m not counting stuff like Jean’s comings and goings or the copious footnotes of Logan’s life, but the ones where the core ideas are as tortuously convoluted as weird body swaps, unexplained power changes, and the whole Crimson Dawn thing.
About X-Force 22:
The reason why all previous resurrections were those of powered mutants is that zombie Caliban has ability to find them (as he could find alive mutants when he was alive). It makes sense, i suppose.
And we also have Warpath’s tribe, which brings us to the conclusion, that the whole thing began with Eli Bard raising entire graveyard where the tribe, Thunderbird and Caliban were buried.
Cyclops’ back story has been muddied a few times. The idea that his whole childhood was engineered by Mr. Sinister is coo-coo-crazy.
Wait, if Cable and Hope spend those two years in suspended animation, wouldn’t she not age?
Probably best not to think about it too much.
> …but the ones where the core ideas are as tortuously convoluted as weird body swaps, unexplained power changes, and the whole Crimson Dawn thing.
Dani Moonstar’s had about six power sets to date. She’s got to be up there.
> No podcast?
They said three weeks at the end of the last one, so next week.
To be honest, I’v pretty much lost track of Rogue’s status quo now. Doesn’t help that I never read her solo series where she got Sunfire powers (was that in the solo series?), but then there was a reset in Messiah Complex and…is that it now? No, Mystique’s in there somewhere too.
cant wait for XF#200. really love how everything coming together/finally resolving. it really seems like a Planet Hulk event, without the banner..and the same distance from all other X-Men stories as Hulk was to Earth. i thought the move to NY was a lil abrupt – cause they didnt do much with Detroit. maybe just needed a one-shot setting for the SI/She-Hulk crossover and the dupe baby..?? isnt shatterstar’s line a quip he picked up in #50? maybe that was the preview.
im finally picking Cable up again after the first arc. ive got no clue how theyve carried Hope 9as far as writing) since then. should be interesting. but im digging on X-Man in Dark X-Men right now.. not to mince Nates.
really loving Legacy too. Rogues finally free of her mutant bondage. x-Brats can come and go as needed. its Nation X without the nation building. and the creative(and in title) teams free to take 4 issues sparring with Emplate. if they threw Allred in, id give all other titles up.
Since it looks like the writers of Astonishing X-Men and the whole X-Necrosha crossover didn’t compare notes enough to avoid using the same premise so it’s probably safe to assume they didn’t get on the same page with lesser details, it was remarkably fortuitous that they introduced cloning as an arrow in Kaga’s quiver, as it will come in useful for explaining away the inevitable moment when the same dead mutant pops up in both books. On the other hand, it’s odd that the X-Men were so sure that ALL the Brood had been wiped out, considering how frequently they pop up in other books.
Can we please go back to discussing the finer points of Marvel UK comics and the obscure characters therein?
PS: Doesn’t the utterly execrable Cable and Hope backup in X-Force this month give us the clearest hint as to what’s going on with her? I mean, if that’s the big reveal… more than a bit anticlimactic for what’s been a 2-year-long storyline.
I’m pretty sure Spratt is still living on 21st Century Earth. Must be time he fell afoul of Amadeus Cho.
Oh, apparently, he didn’t make it to the 20th Century. Poohsticks.
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Best gag of the week: Ben Grimm making fun of Shatterstar’s name. I’m still laughing at that one.
Astonishing is not worth anyone’s time. It’s not in continuity, it’s not original, it’s not interesting, and while it used to be worth ogling over Jiminez’s art, it’s not worth that anymore. It’d be sad, but there’s so many other X-books, why care in the first place?
And regarding Cable, if the plan all along was to wait until Second Coming, why have a ongoing at all? They could have told the same story, but with a much better pace and much less redundancy, in double or triple sized issues that came out ever 4 months or so. They would have paid the writer and artist(s) less, and they would have sold much better since they’d be more important. And you wouldn’t have ridiculous scenes like Cable letting Bishop live after the 21st time he’s tried to kill them.
“And regarding Cable, if the plan all along was to wait until Second Coming, why have a ongoing at all? They could have told the same story, but with a much better pace and much less redundancy, in double or triple sized issues that came out ever 4 months or so. ”
Or better yet, in a few pages of subplot every couple of issues, eventually giving them 2 issues of their own which would lead into them returning to the cast. Regardless of what Marvel seem to think, not EVERY fleeting story needs it’s own fucking title.
Survivor’s right, actally: they DID establish that Caliban was used to locate the earlier dead mutants, so they do have an explanation for why Selene never found a dud before now. So that’s fair enough.
Mike: If you mean the image in Hope’s eyes, they already did that at the end of “Messiah Complex.” So, yes, we really have spent two years waiting for a pay-off that pretty much everyone must have seen coming since early 2008.
The X-Men have their fair share of characters with convoluted backgrounds. Cable and Rachel Summers stand to mind immediately.
And does anyone know what Magma’s origin really is those days ?
Haha, I just looked up Magma on Wikipedia. Blimey!
I don’t mind a significantly (ie: more than a 6-issue, paced-for-the-trade sort of thing) drawn-out story, so long as it pays off and is interesting in the meantime. Captain America’s been doing a decent enough job of that for years now. The recent X-Factor Summers Rebellion thing – I didn’t seem to hate that nearly as much as everyone else did. Another “Messiah” story, Deadpool’s from Kelly’s run, took 25 issues to resolve itself and was a hell of a lot of fun while it got there – and is essentially the Deadpool tale of record. Cable’s big reveal, by contrast, was figured out through preview art two years ago before the series even started.
Anyway, I am hardly blowing anyone’s mind by pointing out that Cable seems to have been a pretty worthless series after all. I just feel like a real rube for having given this thing the benefit of the doubt for so long. Somehow its utter insignificance managed to sneak by largely unnoticed by me, as it magically wasn’t outright, offensively bad; just somewhere between lame and capable. And the art, after Olivetti, seemed to be done by guys who were giving it their best, even if it was pretty wonky at times.
I mean, there’s *effort* being put into the book, which always won it a few points. I can’t imagine this will stand up to even a second reading when all is said and done, though.
(Also, shouldn’t Cable be about 80 now?)
The end of the last Cable issue felt as if even the writers were rolling their eyes at Bishop’s hundreth one last chance at killing Hope. Most unfortunate that its devolved to that point (though I suppose it was never much more than that anyway).
X Factor, on the other hand, not only stood out as being quite excellent, but did me the service of reminding me that I need to go back and read the Madrox series which I missed the first time round.
I’ve more or less given up on Astonishing X Men at this point. I think that it is, for its measure, more dissapointing to me on a regular basis than Cable.
“I’ve more or less given up on Astonishing X Men at this point. I think that it is, for its measure, more dissapointing to me on a regular basis than Cable.”
The key difference being that AXM has long since stopped pretending to be important and can be taken as pure entertainment, on which level I think it works. Cable, on the other hand, is meant to be developing the character who is meant to be a big deal to the future of the X-books, meaning it fails.
@Mike
Between the techno-organic virus and his mutant DNA, I’m guessing they’re going for the idea that Cable has a greatly extended life span. Over in X-Factor, his father was still active well past the age of 100 (I don’t remember if they ever said his age, but his not-yet-born-in-the-present daughter was over 70).
ZZZ,
This is not nearly the first time I have seen “mutant DNA” used as an excuse for a character’s slow aging. When has this ever been established?
Character ages aren’t really something I care about, unless they’re tied into specific events and become problematic (Xavier in Korea and the Punisher in Vietnam, say), or they live alongside characters *from infancy till puberty* and don’t age a day.
In the case of Cyclops in recent X-Factors, I assumed it was because half his body was a robot. Ruby being 70 though, yeah… who can say?
They did say that Cyclops was alive at his age because he was “more machine than man” but the same excuse works for Cable – it’s how they explained him getting his throat slit in the most recent issue.
I’m not sure if any Marvel comic has ever made a blanket statement that mutants age more slowly (I doubt it, because I’m pretty sure most of them do age at a normal rate) but there are enough mutants of advanced age that but there are enouth mutants that live a long time that it’s something the writers can pull out any time they want. You basically have two ways to go on it: 1) the “just one of their powers” route – some mutants get superstrength, some get enhanced senses, why shouldn’t some get extended life spans?; it’s just something you don’t notice until they’re older or 2) “He’s just that tough,” going with the premise that, for example, an elderly Warpath will still be stronger and tougher than a normal human in the prime of life. A perfect example would be Supersabre, Stonewall, and the Crimson Commando – WWII vets with white hair and wrinkles who could give the X-Men a run for their money because their powers amped up their bodies more than age had worn them down.
(By the way, that should have said “…how they explained him SURVIVING getting his throat slit…” The first sentence of my second paragraph also bears the obvious signs of my rewording it without completely erasing the original wording. And for the record, I have no idea whether it’s “Supersabre” or “Super Sabre” or “Super Saber” or “Supersaber” and I was too lazy to look it up. I do, however, remember that he didn’t actually use swords, which puts me one up on someone on the current X-Force creative team)
I prefer “mutants of advanced age” to “mutants that live a long time,” if you wanted to know.
And isn’t Dum Dum Dugan another one of those (admittedly non-Mutant) Second World War guys who are inexplicably still kicking, or has that been retconned? I can’t think of an explanation for his continued youth.
I could be crazy, but I recall sometime in the mid-90s a one-shot that detailed Reed and Ben’s WWII adventures. The 90s! (again, this issue might not have actually existed)
And I have no problem with Cable’s slowed aging. He’s like the comforting father figure of 90s characters. It just needs to be acknowledged the older Hope gets.
That was the Before The Four thing, wsn[t it? The one with Laura Craft and Ser-g-geant Fury. Chalk that up to somebody celebrating the sliding timeline!
I, too, was under the impression that some mutants had relatively longer life-spans – not counting the ones that die and come back and die and come back.
Wasn’t Original Awesome Mullet Bishop’s Future Gambit Witness a life-parasite, as well as a letchy old codger? I’m sure I remember a horrendous over-etched image of him in his knickers head-groping two young ladies and drinking their milkshale?
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Liam: I wish you hadn’t mentioned the Magma page on Wikipedia. I read the issue she was introduced in when it first came out, and missed almost all that other stuff mentioned on Wikipedia. I was much happier just remembering her original origin….
Well, the thing about Magma’s original origin is that it feels like there should be a time-skip involved somewhere. A Roman colony in Brazil based around technology that hasn’t advanced since the Roman Empire fell?
AIUI, that’s what led Nicieza to zap it away when he was given the chance. And Claremont’s attempt to handwave away the retcon didn’t take account of the fact that the Nova Romans dispersed…
I missed out a bit there because of indjudicous editing. I meant to say “based around A CULTURE AND technology that hasn’t changed since the Roman Empire fell”, not just tech.
The idea of Nova Roma was originally supposed to be that its culture had become a hybrid of the Roman Empire and the local population, but (as the NEW MUTANTS letters page admitted a few months later) that simply didn’t come across on the page.
The New Amsterdam / New Netherlands mixup is most probably due to a misreading of the Wikipedia article for New Amsterdam, whose 2nd paragraph begins as follows:
“The town outside of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in the New Netherland territory (1614 – 1674)…”
This sentence is so poorly written, that without further investigation, one could easily infer that the dates given refer to New Amsterdam rather than New Netherland.
So, put the blame where it’s due: on Wikipedia!
Basically, I’m pretty sure the line of reasoning went as follows:
1. DS wants Cable and Hope to materialize in New York (Manhattan) in its first year.
2. DS knows that New York (Manhattan) was once called New Amsterdam.
3. DS enters “New Amsterdam” in wikipedia.
4. A cursory glance at the returned page seems to yield a founding date of 1614.
(Further reading of the wikipedia entry would have shown that NA was founded in 1625.)
5. DS uses the 1614 date in his script.
Thus, it should be obvious that the script for Cable #21 intends the setting to be New Amsterdam, and it’s merely the date that’s wrong…as opposed to the geographical location.
If any writer’s research only extends as far as glancing at wikipedia, I’m blaming the writer for the mistake (and I die a little inside).
Even that theory assumes that they didn’t actually read the whole article, which is tolerably clear.
* X-Factor #200 was phenomenal, as everyone seems to be saying. I particularly like the opportunity it presents for a skewed take on the MU’s various franchises; Madrox’s reaction to the idea that the FF’s two-year-old child is a supergenius, for example, does something with that concept that the mainstream FF book (with insane genius super-science as part of the status quo) can’t pull off. Screw Peter Parker and his unwanted harem, Madrox is the MU’s everyman.
* Why don’t time-jumping mutants with those “M” or “hound” tattoos ever just get laser surgery? It would’ve made Rachel’s life easier, for one thing, and Madrox isn’t exactly inconspicuous enough to work as a detective nowadays.
* Has Necrosha managed to give Selene some sort of interesting motivation yet? I’ve always had a huge problem with the character in part because she’s a Doctor Strange villain stuck in the wrong franchise, but also because she seems to be an essentially motiveless embodiment of Claremont’s fetishes for dommy women and mind-control. I simply have no sense of who the character is or what she wants, and that makes stories that feature her a miserable chore to read.
* Magneto’s tie to World War II is still the most problematic one, despite the de-aging handwave from way back in Claremont’s first use of the character; at a certain point, it’s going to become impossible to explain how he lived long enough to be rejuvenated. We already have the difficulty of a possible septuagenarian fighting the original team to a standstill.
* Re: Dum-Dum Dugan: He’s not the only one around, as Gabe Jones and a few of the other WWII soldiers from Fury’s past still turn up regularly in books like Secret Warrior. It’s never been explained in the comics, but pretty much every reader I’ve ever met assumes that Nick Fury gave the other Howling Commandoes the same serum that keeps him young.
Never mind lasers: none of these people seem to have heard of concealer!
Yes I know what it is.
Yes I own a stick.
Because a spider bit me above the eye the day I was due to be photographed for the paper.
No the irony hasn’t escaped me.
*phew*
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