The X-Axis – 8 July 2012
Two crossover issues this week, plus the comic you’ve all been waiting for – Jeph Loeb returns to Wolverine! May God have mercy on our souls.
Age of Apocalypse #5 – First up, though, Age of Apocalypse shifts gear by giving us what looks to be a single-issue story. The focus here is on the AoA version of Quentin Quire, who turns out to be a wildcard in that universe. He’s still a powerful telepath, but without anyone to teach him, it’s driven him a bit mad. The result is a character who mainly talks gibberish but, in an echo of the original’s iconoclastic pretensions, is steadily building a street-level following of other psychics who fall under his influence.
Alongside that, the story also gives Jean Grey something to do for the first time, as Prophet takes her out to try and talk Quentin into helping the resistance – on the perfectly reasonable logic that as an ex-telepath, she might be able to help him get a grip.
For my money, this is the book’s strongest issue by quite some way. It keeps the focus on those characters who actually have a personality; the more generic cast members are still around, but since we’re not asked to care much about them this issue, it’s not a problem. Fill-in artist Davide Gianfelice is also a big improvement; where regular artist Roberto De La Torre tends to produce pages that are self-consciously gritty but ponderous and lifeless, Gianfelice’s work here is more reminiscent of Rick Leonardi, and his characters have infinitely greater charisma. It’s really quite striking how much better this book is when the characters display some proper emotion; the regular art may look on the surface like it’s got the serious tone the book needs, but in fact it’s just suffocating the stories.
Avengers vs X-Men #7 – The X-Men set about hunting down the Avengers. As has become drearily familiar with this series, once again the book skims obliviously over what ought to be a major plot point, as the Scarlet Witch is apparently just with the Avengers again, because she just is.
Let’s be clear about this, since editor Tom Brevoort’s standard response to these sort of criticisms is to miss the point. The problem is not that this doesn’t make sense. It does make sense, in that you can fill in the gaps without too much difficulty. But it’s failing to deliver the pay-off of a long-running storyline. It’s like doing a romantic comedy that skips over the bit where the couple get together, just because we all know it’s going to happen. It doesn’t work. It’s a creative choice that’s just plain wrong.
Like other committee-written crossovers, there are bits in here that make you wonder how well any of this has been co-ordinated. Matt Fraction, scripting this issue, may well believe that somebody else was doing the big scene where Wanda rejoined the team. It’s abundantly clear that neither he nor his editor has any clue about the way Hope was set up for this story. The established reason for the Avengers to want Hope is that she has some kind of connection with the Phoenix Force. But this story says that her value is that she’s an expert on the topic. “I trained my entire life in anticipation of possessing the Phoenix,” she says.
No she didn’t. As Fraction and Brevoort would know if they’d actually read Uncanny X-Men, the X-Men didn’t tell Hope about the Phoenix Force, and she only found out about it from Sinister – a plot point that is reiterated in this week’s issue of Uncanny. Her desire to find out about the Phoenix was the whole bloody point of the storyline where she gets suckered in by Unit, who was offering her the answers.
This isn’t Fraction’s fault. It’s the editors’ job to keep him straight on these things, and he’s clearly trying to find something for Hope to do in this story. In fact, there are a couple of good ideas in this story – the Avengers deploying the Scarlet Witch as the one trick they’ve got that still freaks out the Phoenix Five, and Cyclops starting to lose the respect of his cohorts who just want to smash things up. One thing Fraction does handle well is the way the Phoenix Five are slowly losing their grip on reality, even in their dealings with one another. The issue also has excellent art from Olivier Coipel, who does some lovely action sequences.
But there are a lot of big problems with this series – the largely-absent public apparently siding with the X-Men for no adequately explained reason other than cheap story convenience, glaring continuity errors, plot points skimmed over. It’s an advertisement for why writing by committee is a bad idea.
Uncanny X-Men #15 – Meanwhile, over in tie-in territory, Kieron Gillen and Daniel Acuna are doing a rather better job of making things make sense. Wondering whether anyone was going to address the fact that Colossus is meant to be the Juggernaut? Well, this issue at least gives it a shot. Colossus tries to persuade Cyttorak to let him go, on the grounds that he’s taken on a second master just like Cain Marko did. Cyttorak says no, because the Phoenix is going to cause loads of lovely destruction, and besides, heroes have far more fights than villains do, which is also good for Cyttorak. It’s not a bulletproof explanation – wasn’t Cain pretty destructive during Fear Itself? – but it’s a solid attempt to acknowledge the point and address it.
The main business of the story sees the Phoenix Five decide that they need to take down Sinister, since he was the one who told Hope about Phoenix, and therefore he must have some sort of interest in the topic. Naturally, the rest of the team find themselves pretty much surplus to requirements and are just left standing around to shrug their shoulders. I like the way the book has set up this story so that it has material for its tie-in stories without having to link too closely to the main story. And I also like the way the book manages to build Sinister is a serious threat to the team even though they’ve got the Phoenix Force on their side. It’s simply a matter of making them look just a little bit complacent and out of touch, and making Sinister look as if he’s thought this all through very carefully. Sinister comes across as though he’s not at all confident he’s going to win this one, but he does have a plan and it’s likely to be a better one than anything the X-Men could be bothered coming up with in their current condition.
A good issue which uses the crossover storyline to springboard a story of its own.
Wolverine #310 – And before you ask, no, issue #309 hasn’t come out yet. It’s coming out in two issues time, and it’s a fill-in issue. Why isn’t it shipping in order? Who the hell knows?
Anyway, this is the long awaited (but not long enough) return of Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi to do a sequel to their arc from a few years back, which was borderline gibberish and would never have been allowed out the door if it hadn’t had Loeb’s name attached to it.
Mercifully, this is better. It’s at least intelligible. By the standards of Loeb’s work in recent years, this counts as a return to form.
The story opens with the same Wolverine/Cloak sequence that already appeared in issue #300, which apparently was a trailer. Wolverine rescues Cloak from the top of the Empire State Building and Cloak reveals that he was left there by Sabretooth, who has captured Dagger. Cue the bit when they fall from the building, and Cloak saves them by teleporting away, which begs the question of why he didn’t just do that in the first place instead of waiting for Wolverine to climb the Empire State Building to rescue him. Such subtleties are not for the likes of Jeph Loeb.
But Wolverine then does something reasonably logical, which is to dig up Sabretooth’s body and make sure it’s still there. And it is. There also turns out to be a reason why Cloak and Dagger are in this story – Loeb wants to use Romulus, and the last time we saw Romulus, he’d been dumped into Cloak’s pocket dimension. For whatever reason, Sabretooth has forced Cloak to release him. Wolverine then goes to fight Romulus, who is holding Dagger prisoner. Since she’s apparently awake and able to use her powers, of course, you might have thought she’d just zap him and win the fight without much difficulty. But Dagger is here to be a damsel in distress – in fairness, one Loeb’s only using in the first place because he needs to get Romulus back into circulation – and so for the purposes of this story she and Cloak are ineffectual losers to be shoved aside once they’ve served their purpose. And in fairness to Loeb, this is often the lot of the guest star who no longer has his own book.
What follows is a fight scene with Romulus that ends with a mystery woman showing up to run the bad guy through with a sword, then tell Wolverine to go the Weapon X Facility before he passes out. Romulus will presumably be back later. Wolverine then heads to the Facility, and what do you know, it’s clone time. So that’s how Sabretooth’s back, apparently. The same way Marauders always come back from the dead. Not an enormous shock.
Loeb’s previous arc, which introduced Romulus, seemed to have him in mind as some sort of immortal alpha male wolf-creature. Daniel Way’s take on the character in Wolverine: Origins ignored that entirely in favour of making him a shadowy manipulator. Since Loeb has Romulus fighting Wolverine in chapter one, it seems fair to say he’s got no interest in Way’s approach. In theory I ought to disapprove of that, but since I found Wolverine: Origins‘s conspiracy storyline excruciatingly dull, I can’t say it honestly bothers me. A bigger problem is that the story has no particularly clear reason for why we should be caring about Romulus, beyond the fact that we’re told he matters. And given that Sabretooth’s been back in circulation for a while now, are the plot mechanics that bring him back really anything more than a continuity footnote at this stage? An explanation is welcome, sure, but it’s not going to carry a story on its own.
Still, it’s better than I’d braced myself for. Bianchi’s art is often beautiful, and he’s shaken off his earlier tendency to do ornate layouts at the expense of storytelling. The story is uninspired but vaguely coherent. It’s mediocre, but given Loeb’s track record, it could have been a hell of a lot worse than that. Only completists need apply, and there’s certainly nothing here to suggest that Loeb is in any danger of producing comics you’d actually want to read any time soon, but it’s nowhere close to the atrocity of his last effort.
X-Factor #239 – Havok and Banshee go to upstate New York where a little girl has conjured up an actual banshee. It’s not one the book’s stronger stories, and rather feels like a case of setting up villains for use later. The evil banshee is eventually defeated in rather straightforward fashion, and the main point seems to be to set up her sidekick Jezebel as a mystical villain of mixed allegiance who will presumably crop up in future stories – most likely those involving Rahne’s search for her own mystical child. But as a story in its own right, there’s not a tremendous amount going on here. And while Paul Davidson’s art is clear and serviceable, it’s also a little bit stiff and undramatic at times. There’s a nice little subplot with Guido trying to romance Monet, but otherwise it’s a middling issue.
My biggest issue with A vs X is the way they drew Hope. Isn’t she a late teenager by now, at least 15 or 16? It appeared that she was drawn to look 12 or 13. Not the first time I’ve seen this in an X-Crossover, as I remember Layla Miller being drawn quite differently from book to book when she went into the future with the Madrox clone.
(I sent a Formspring to Gillen asking about Hope’s age, but haven’t seen a response yet. If you’re reading this, Kieron, can you answer)
I am going to miss this version of Uncanny when everything gets shuffled around.
I’m behind on the Formspring! Sorry.
She’s 16/17 (I don’t believe there’s a definite answer, because of how she grew up – i.e. lost in the timestream where people haven’t been exactly counting off the days).
Her change in appearance is just artistic licence.
And while I’m posting, it’s worth reading the fine print of Cytty dumping Cain in the FI arc. What made him particularly furious was that the act of destruction was in specific homage to The Serpent – the scripture in his walk, etc. The Phoenix doesn’t come with any such issues, so bothers him less.
Demon lords are terribly capricious.
Much like Marvel’s editors.
Yup, that did occur to me as a possible distinction. The Phoenix Five aren’t *worshipping* Phoenix, they’re *using* it – at least in their own minds.
There are days when I think that introducing clones into the Marvel Universe was a godawful mistake. Putting aside the few times when it’s led to decent stories, it’s become a far too easy and cheap way to ensure that death doesn’t stick. Spider-Man clones. X-Men clones. Marauder clones. Sinister clones. When I saw what the big reveal behind Sabretooth was, I both groaned and facepalmed because as methods to bring someone back, it’s lazy and annoying. I wonder if any of the weird-ass clones from Sinister’s experiments will survive and escape so we can have brain damaged Gambit running around, or packs of Creeds.
I think my favorite clone excess was during Claremont’s ill-advised Neo period, where the Neo hunted down and killed seventeen (that’s a number from memory, don’t quote me on it) different Sinisters in seventeen different labs in order to exact revenge for something or other. You’d think they’d get bored after the first dozen or so.
All of Marvel’s resurrections should be explained with “a wizard did it”.
There’s a huge continuity error in Wolverine – when last seen in the Spider Island mini-series, Cloak and Dagger had switched powers. Also, the shock at Sabretooth’s “return” is complete nonsense seeing as he was in Japan with Mystique only a few issues ago and cloning him was a regular trick of Sinister’s.
Only mutant depopulation gets explained by ‘a wizard did it’ 🙁
At least the marauders clones are now long(ish) established canon and it’s not like any of them have any particular character to speak of, Sabretooth included. So they do well as disposable antagonists people can tear through.
And as I put in the last HtA thread, the current Scarlet Spider is great so that’s a +1 for the Spiderclones (not that it balances out all the negative stuff they created)
At least it’s not LMDs and anatomically correct Doombots 🙂
“cheap story convenience, glaring continuity errors, plot points skimmed over.”
That pretty much sums up this cross-over perfectly.
Was anyone asking for Romulus to return? Both the Loeb and Way versions of the character are both crap, and don’t really add anything positive to the Wolverine mythos.
Interestingly enough, one idea Claremont had was that there would be 2 Sabretooths, the original who was in those early non X-men stories like Iron Fist, and the one on the Marauders, who was a clone.
The Sabretooth return story is explicitly set several months ago. I assume it was originally intended to appear before the Jason Aaron stories where he appeared.
In FEAR ITSELF with the Uncanny tie in I kind of felt that the Juggernaut decision was influenced by Magik wanting those powers near her.
The moment with Namor and Emma seemed weird to me and has me wondering if she won’t be returned to a villian at the outset of this.
I think there could be great story potential for teenage Jean and Emma (the white queen jealous of a teenage girl. ) but Emma will most likely get the shunt or become the woman that is randomly banged by whatever character Bendis wants to seem cool.
@Donnacha DeLong: I would guess that since this Wolverine arc is set in the past–Sabretooth having already appeared in WatX and elsewhere–that it must also predate Spider Island, given the state of C&D’s powers.
I have two questions.
1) I haven’t been reading the comic, is there a reason why Magik can’t just stab Colossus with her magic-busting sword and get rid of the Jugganaut hoodoo? This is a serious, non-snarky question and I’m sure there is an answer, which is why I’m asking.
2) Wasn’t it a big thing that Mr Sinister couldn’t clone Sabretooth because his healing power messed it up? Also why She-Wolverine is called X-23 and not X-1. (ok this one is a bit snarky)
”I trained my entire life in anticipation of possessing the Phoenix.”
You know who could accurately say that? Feron, in Alan Davis’ run on Excalibur. There’s another potential Phoenix host besides Rachel who’s been absolutely sidelined. I doubt anyone’s missing Feron from this storyline, but let’s be honest: he’s probably better prepared to be Phoenix than Hope is, or thinks he is.
Thanks, Kieron.
The only good clones in comics are the Paul Kirk Manhunter clones. :>
Personally, I actually think Cyttorak refusing to take his power back worked in the story – taking away the power was a punishment for Cain, NOT taking it away is a punishment for Piotr. Even if Cyttorak were equally displeased with each of them, it would make sense to treat them differently.
@Si – I think Cyttorak’s just too strong for Magik to kick him out. I know they’ve always talked like her Soulsword was literally invincible against magical effects, but it makes for a much better story to not give a main character an “I win” button when fighting magical foes (especially when attracting magical foes is the character’s main plot function).
I mean, Fear Itself wasn’t exactly a rousing success, but having every issue end with Magik teleporting in and stabbing one of the Chosen until the final issue where she teleported in and stabbed the Serpent would have been even more repetitive and anticlimactic than what we got. For that matter, she would have depowered Cain Marko years ago if she could.
And don’t remember that detail about Sabretooth but I DO remember him dying and coming back with the other Marauders at least once shortly after the Mutant Massacre, so I’m pretty sure any story claiming that he can’t be cloned would be an error in contradiction of what had previously been established. And I’m pretty sure there were 22 attempts to clone Wolverine before they got it right with X-23.
Wasn’t Fraction still writing Uncanny when Hope first appeared in it?
@Si – I was thinking the same thing, that Sabretooth had been explicitly excluded from the set of cloneable Marauders. I presume it had something to do with him being Wolverine’s archnemesis and not wanting to undermine ol’ Sabes’ status as the real deal.
That said, that notion has already been violated in the past, so why cling to it now?
Still enjoying AvX but I was also really perturbed by Hope’s declaration re: training for the phoenix, as well as Wanda’s sudden reappearance. But can anyone tell me what’s happened to Cable? I know X-Sanction was absolute dreck, but shouldn’t bringing Cable back in play at least be addressed somehow? I don’t think writing by committee is inherently going to produce this kind of uncoordinated work, but perhaps the writers need to actually be in the same room, or the head writer/editors need to actually do, well, some editing.
I enjoyed this issue of X-Factor as well. At least when PAD has these slightly sub-par issues they tend to be in rather short story arcs. (Except the whole Rahne child-birth arc which I’l admit dragged on a bit)
Argh! You mean not only do we have to suffer Loeb bring back Sabertooth, but we have to put up with more Romulus stories too? Hell, why don’t Marvel just go for the gusto, and ressurect Daken too so we can have a trifecta of poorly-written Wolverine antagonists that no one gives a shit about anymore (after which “Rulk” can go and smash them all because he’s “cool.”) Also, I too could have sworn I read something about Sabertooth not being able to be “cloned” anymore (which I presume, is to explain why Sabe got to go on his own missions instead of being reduced to 3rd-rate lackeys like the Mauraders were.) Of course we ALREADY saw cloned versions of Creed (The X-force that came before Uncanny) well before Loeb’s little retcon so, yay continuity and consistancy?
About AvsX 7, not only is the explaination given for Hope’s kidnapping false, it kinda contradicts the reason the Avengers wanted to contain Hope way back in Round 1, that if someone as accomplished as Jean Grey couldn’t handle the Pheonix, then why would some impudent brat know about it? Cable simply trained her to be a soldier.
I’m just impressed that somebody else here remembers Feron.
I do! And Kylun and Cerise and all the awesome that was Davis’ second Excaliber run.
“but Emma will most likely get the shunt or become the woman that is randomly banged by whatever character Bendis wants to seem cool.”
Lol! So true. Instead of propping up your character by having he/she kick Wolverine’s ass, have him/her fcuk Emma. God, I am dreading Bendis’ arrival to the titles.
(Sorry if this is a double post, but my computer went wonky on me and I don’t think my last attempt to post went through)
@wwk5d – I dunno, Bendis is always looking to prop up Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones, so…
You know, if you want to be really, really charitable, you could take Hope’s comment to mean not that she’s literally been training for the Phoenix, but more of an “I’ve been training for something big all my life and I never really know what; now that training is finally going to pay off.” Like the way someone might say “I’ve been saving up for this trip for months” when they’ve really just been putting away a little of each paycheck for months and only now decided to use that money for a trip.
The problem is, the general level of continuity that we’ve seen so far makes me unwilling to believe that that’s what they actually intended Hope to mean. This is the big problem with sloppy editing: they lose the benefit of the doubt and no one’s willing to fanwank the stuff that could easily be fanwanked.
ZZZ – Thanks, you talk good sense about Juggernaut. I don’t think the sword has ever been shown to have limits before, but it really should have some. Actually you’ve jogged my memory a bit, when used against demons and stuff I think it caused wounds like a real sword. So I suppose if she stabbed her brother it might take away the spell but it would also kill him. So there’s that as well.
After Mutant Massacre Sabretooth fell off a cliff and vanished. Wolverine even said that without a body, he’d asuume Sabretooth was stil alive. I don’t think he died any time soon after that. Though there was a scene of Sinister choking him with one hand, holding him up in the air – a scene so awesome that was subsequently used by every single BadAss villain for years after even if it didn’t fit the scene. “White with two sugars,” (choking his toady) “oh and do you have any of those chokky bikiies left?”
Davis´ second run on Excalibur was great. He could do his own story, something which would be impossible today.
I always thought Emma not very interesting when she was introduced back then but one could argue that she got a lot of development over the years. She became enjoyable. wwk5d is right, it would be a small miracle if especially Emma survives the coming changes.
AvX: I don´t read it, but generally speaking I would think that the writer is as much responsible for such faults as is editorial. It is not that difficult to get your basic facts straight and keep them consistent. The basic craft of writing a serial in a shared universe.
Andy, the only way for a writer to coordinate that stuff would be to call all the other writers – something the editor has already done and continues to do. That’s why the writer should only have to speak to his editor to get all the facts straight.
“The Sabretooth return story is explicitly set several months ago. I assume it was originally intended to appear before the Jason Aaron stories where he appeared.”
What he said. I get the impression that Marvel was waiting until it was finished before publishing the arc (a novel idea). Hence, being several months behind the “current” continuity.
It would have been nice, and somewhat helpful, if the editor provided a note (like, say, on the first page) explaining when the story, roughly, takes place. Then, we might’ve been a little more forgiving about some of the glitches.
I didn’t think that “X-Sanction was absolute dreck” – to paraphrase Paul, by Loeb’s standards it wasn’t too bad; but I was a bit baffled by what happened to Cable at the end. It looked like he would still lie cured but comatose on Utopia, but on the final page when he was telepathically talking to Scott, he seemed to speak from the future; so my intuitive explanation was that Blaquesmith had time-slided away with Cable after Hope cured him. But no one ever mentioning what happened is editorially disastrous.
“You know, if you want to be really, really charitable, you could take Hope’s comment to mean not that she’s literally been training for the Phoenix, but more of an “I’ve been training for something big all my life and I never really know what; now that training is finally going to pay off.” Like the way someone might say “I’ve been saving up for this trip for months” when they’ve really just been putting away a little of each paycheck for months and only now decided to use that money for a trip.”
You know, this is precisely how I read it. Not that I think it was meant like this by Fraction, Brevoort or Alonso, sadly. It’s just that while I agree with everything Paul said about the editorial quagmire, I still want to like AvX. The event resonates with me on an emotional level, so I’m actively trying to twist all these continuity failures into a way they could make sense. Which means it’s a failure and a success at the same time, I guess.
With AvX #7, it becomes clear that the Phoenix Five are affected in different degrees by the Force. Emma and Namor are already in full-blown god complex, while Scott and Peter still retain their moral compass – which in Scott’s case wasn’t working that well even before AvX -, while Illyana is suitably enigmatic. We’re probably going to see a Scott/Peter vs. Emma/Namor throwdown at the end, and I’m reasonably sure Emma is going to be the “fatality” of AvX #11.
As for the Scarlet Witch: after she was thrown out in no uncertain terms by the Vision in AvX #0, and then suddenly appeared on Utopia in #6, I thought she was there as a third party, taking Hope away from both X-Men and Avengers. Which I would have liked. When I realized she’s with the Avengers again, it was a major WTF? moment.
“There’s a huge continuity error in Wolverine – when last seen in the Spider Island mini-series, Cloak and Dagger had switched powers”
The previous time their powers were reset to the ones they had in the Official Handbook, it was dealt with in a line of dialogue: ‘… since our original powers were restored during our misadventures in Cleveland…’ – they must have been back to Cleveland again, obviously. Simple!
Cleveland is the epicenter of continuity fixes, apparently.
“Cleveland is the epicenter of continuity fixes, apparently.”
Old wrestling fans will remember cactus jack’s continuity busting adventures in Cleveland in the mid 90s.
the only way for a writer to coordinate that stuff would be to call all the other writers – something the editor has already done and continues to do.”
Or he can read the scripts of the others which will surely be circulated when they are done. Also in a maxi-series written by comitee like this surely there will be a synopsis worked out beforehand which breaks down the story and establishes the major plot points. So every writer is on the same page.
Of course an editor should catch major inconsistencies.
Here’s something a little different…how Claremont and Cockrum began the whole Phoenix storyline, and C & C and Byrne’s original plans for the character…
http://uncannyxmen.net/showarticle.asp?fldAuto=2683
“Or he can read the scripts of the others which will surely be circulated when they are done.”
You don’t really know how the publishing process works, do ya?
“You don’t really know how the publishing process works, do ya?”
No, not really. I mean, I do work in publishing for, let´s see, 20 years and people I know do work in comparable european industries, but what do I really know? Different countries different customs, right?
Just had a thought. With Paul getting hitched, can we have Al do the X axis reviews while Paul is away?
Marvel policies may have changed since the 80s, but writers used to able to read scripts for comics before they were published.
There’s an industry story of Chris Claremont getting the idea of the Brood’s “space whale” starships by reading a script of an upcoming ROM the Space Knight Annual. Since the X-men were a bigger property, the X-men story was published first so it made it look like the ROM writer got the idea from Claremont.
Marvel also used to make at least the attempt of coordinating books and sharing a universe.
When that went out the window, what reason did writers have left to read each others scripts, or even to ask what others were doing?
“Just had a thought. With Paul getting hitched, can we have Al do the X axis reviews while Paul is away?”
even better, have Kieron do the X-Axis. :>
Oddly enough, I’ve got some X-book related criticism dropping later today. But I could totally do it.
UNCANNY X-FORCE: NOT AS GOOD AS UNCANNY X-MEN.
WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN: NOT AS GOOD AS UNCANNY X-MEN.
UNCANNY X-MEN: NOT AS GOOD AS IT USED TO BE.
etc.
You’ve got the job! You should do a wrestling post if there’s a ppv over Paul’s honeymoon as well.
I’m with the “Kieron should guest on HtA/X-axis”. I’m sure he’s totally objective.
Seeing the proliferation of Keiron Gillen’s posts in the majority of comic blogs I browse makes me wonder if he based his reimagining of Sinister on himself and he’s made a horde of Keiron clones to help him create the perfect internet comics community..
First stop…take over the X-Axis reviews! 🙂
Can’t wait until Kieron Gillen takes over the charts posts, too (soon to be illustrated by Jamie McKelvie instead of embedded YouTube videos)