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Feb 27

The X-Axis – 27 February 2011

Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 by Paul in x-axis

If you haven’t listened to our latest podcast yet, then it’s just one post below.  Reviews include Iron Man 2.0, Mission and Superman/Batman, so if you want more on those, download the show.

Meanwhile, it’s another classic week of scheduling from Marvel Comics.  From time to time Marvel claim that they try to avoid having everything ship at the same time.  Well, something’s clearly gone badly wrong this week, because Marvel have seen fit to ship all four ongoing X-Men titles in the same week – Astonishing X-Men #36, Uncanny X-Men #533, X-Men #8 and X-Men: Legacy #245 – plus the anthology title X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4.  And that’s not all!  The Legacy issue is chapter 1 of the “Age of X” crossover – and in the same week, Marvel have also shipped the second chapter, from New Mutants #22.

Nobody in their right mind could possibly have thought that this was a good idea, and my first thought was that this was some sort of rush to get material out for the February accounting period.  But no – looking at the solicitations, they really did intend most of this material to come out in the same week.  The exceptions are Serve and Protect #4 and Astonishing #36, both of which were meant to ship in the first week of February.  (Yes, that’s right – keeping up the title’s proud tradition of non-existence, the new creative team are three weeks late with their first issue.)

Amazing Spider-Man #655 – This is the aftermath of Marla Jameson’s death last issue.  Half of it is silent scenes of assorted characters attending the funeral, and most of the rest is a surreal dream sequence of Spider-Man guilt tripping.  It is, in short, a Very Special Issue, but also one of those issues where the creative team stretch themselves a bit more and show what they can do with the medium.  And wisely, the art for this issue has been assigned to Marcos Martin.  He’s consistently one of the best artists working in superhero comics, and the material here really allows him to show how good he is.  If you haven’t seen his work, then seriously, get this issue just so the point can be hammered home.  He’s in a whole different league from most of his contemporaries.  As for the story – well, it’s Peter on a guilt trip, and there’s nothing much new about that.  But that’s fine; this is more about restating the core ideas, and it does that very well.  Killing off Marla turns out to be a surprisingly effective move; she’s not been a major character in many years, but she’s enough of a fixture, and she’s closely enough connected to main cast members, for her death – or at least, everyone else’s reaction to her death – to carry some weight.  A very good issue.

Astonishing X-Men #36 – Now that is an ugly, ugly cover.  Which is odd, since the interior art is much more appealing.  Jason Pearson’s rather blocky take on Wolverine won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but there’s a crispness to the work, and the exaggerated expressions are used sparingly enough to be effective.

This is the first issue written by Daniel Way, and he’s running with the core team that he inherited from Warren Ellis – minus the Beast, who was written out of the X-books a year ago, but of course this title has only just caught up with that.  So it’s just Scott, Emma, Wolverine and Armor.  It’s basically a trip to Japan to fight giant monsters, which is an old trope, but that’s okay if it’s done well.  Roxxon Oil are trying to drill beneath Monster Island, and that goes about as well as you’d expect.  Meanwhile, the X-Men are in Japan to take Armor back for a funeral – Way has picked up on an old throwaway line that Armor’s force field is supposed to be powered by her dead ancestors, and decided to take it literally, asking what happens when a close relative dies.

I’ve not generally been a fan of Daniel Way’s work on the X-books, but this is quite decent.  It’s got a focus that’s often lacking in Uncanny‘s sprawling cast, and it even makes good use of Mentallo, a villain who’s been cannon fodder for years but whom Way rehabilitates pretty effectively in the course of an issue simply by writing him well.  Not bad at all.

Iron Man 2.0 #1 – See the podcast for more on this.  It’s a Jim Rhodes solo book, bringing the character’s status quo more or less into line with the Iron Man movies – in other words, he’s the US military’s Iron Man.  You can see the strings as the character is yanked into line with the films, but writer Nick Spencer more or less gets away with it, by taking the opportunity to wipe the slate clean on a character who’s been badly treated over the last few years, and by setting up some promising relationships between Rhodes and his new colleagues.  You only have to look at Spencer’s other work to see that he likes his high concept stories, and he indulges those tendencies here in devising the mystery that Rhodes is investigating.  Technically, it’s an issue heavy on exposition, but the idea is strong enough – and the execution finds enough opportunities for visual interest – that the book gets away with it.  The art’s rather inconsistent, with multiple artists being thrown at the pages (apparently, to be fair, because Barry Kitson’s been ill).  But it’s a solid first issue.

The Mission #1 – Again, see the podcast.  This is also high concept stuff, but it’s not very good high concept.  What would you do if an angel asked you to kill someone?  Turn it into a rather leaden movie pitch, apparently.  It’s competently done, but it’s a pretty transparent case of running stock characters through a premise which is developed in a rather cliched way.  Give it a miss.

Uncanny X-Men #533 – Part four of “Quarantine”.  And this really isn’t working.  I like the concept of Lobe; he’s a villain who doesn’t hate mutants at all, he just wants to make money off them.  As the story openly acknowledges, he’s a development of the U-Men concept from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, but with the cultist overtones replaced by rapacious capitalism.  That’s a good idea, and there ought to be some decent stories in it.

But structurally, this arc is a bit of a mess.  The Collective Man subplot seems to have vanished; the Emma/Shaw stuff seems completely disconnected from everything else.  As for Lobe, his plan doesn’t really make sense.  He’s got a designer drug which can give people mutant powers; he wants to make loads of money from it; and he point of the plague is to blackmail the X-Men into signing over the rights to their powers.  But for this to work, you’ve got to accept an awful lot of implausible ideas – not least that Lobe has some hope of running a semi-legitimate business based on this drug if only he gets the X-Men’s signature, and that a significant number of people in mutant-hating America would actually buy the thing.  The story doesn’t sell me on either of these things, not least because the potential customers we do see are such ciphers.  And if the licence is so important, why is he publicly handing out the drug anyway?  There’s a decent premise at the core of this, but there are too many logic problems for the plot to hang together.

X-23 #6 – The concluding part of “Songs of the Orphan Child”, and credit where it’s due – Marjorie Liu has found a way to make Miss Sinister work.  The character has always struck me as one of the less successful aspects of Mike Carey’s run on X-Men: Legacy; she’s supposed to be the result of a botched attempt by Mr Sinister to transfer his mind to a replacement body upon his death.  This might have been intended as a way of giving the character a clean slate, but the practical result was to take an already convoluted character in Mr Sinister, and glue a further layer of complication over the top.  Liu’s elegant solution is to make the “botched mind transfer” into the character’s central concept, so that she’s now a clearly distinct character whose main concern is to avoid (at any costs) Sinister completing his takeover of her mind.  That gives her the motivational hook she was lacking, and it’s a successful development.  On one view, what we have here is really a Miss Sinister story with X-23 standing around watching, but it plays closely enough into this book’s core theme of identity that the story works.  And it’s nice to see X-23 being steered away from maudlin grim-and-grittiness into something with a wider canvas; the character is mopey enough that she needs something else to play against.  There’s some really nice art in this issue, too, even if the book is split between two artists.  Overall, a successful arc.

X-Men #8 – Part 2 of “To Serve and Protect”, an odd name for a storyline given that it’s also being used for an unrelated anthology miniseries.  Continuing the guest-star-team-up motif, this is basically the X-Men and Spider-Man teaming up to face… well, not the Lizard himself, so much as the community of lizard people under New York.  It’s a sequel to the recent Amazing Spider-Man arc “Shed”, in other words, with Chris Bachalo returning on art.  As usual, it’s a mixture of impressive visuals with sporadic confusion, but the good outweighs the bad.  Like Astonishing, the story benefits from keeping the cast small – just Wolverine, Storm, Gambit and Emma in this story – and it’s a well-written team-up story.  Nothing earth-shattering, but perfectly fine.

X-Men: Legacy #245 / New Mutants #22 – The first two parts of “Age of X”, which is being published as a crossover between these two titles – though as yet, it’s far from clear what it’s doing in New Mutants, since thus far it’s a Rogue story through and through.  It’s an alternate reality story, the hook being that Charles Xavier didn’t bring the X-Men together, and the disorganised mutants took a hammering from anti-mutant forces until finally coming together for a last stand.  The dystopian stuff is perhaps the least interesting part of it; the real story lies in figuring out what actually happened in this world (since it’s pretty clear that the party line is not entirely true), and why the story is being told at all (it’s also pretty clear that this isn’t just a random excursion to a parallel world, but beyond that, it’s a bit of a mystery so far).

Carey does a great job developing those aspects of the story, and he’s clearly also put a lot of work into figuring out how some of the characters develop when formative events turn out completely different for them.  Cyclops, for example, is a character who’s been defined by his leadership position since 1964 or so; instead of putting him into an equivalent position in this world, Carey is going the other way and asking how he might have turned out if he’d never had that role.  Other points are hinted at more subtly simply by bringing on characters whose very existence doesn’t quite square with the official version of history, and leaving it to the readers to figure that out for themselves.  For example, if Xavier was never around, what are Legion and Danger doing here?  This sort of thing depends on the readers being reasonably familiar with the characters, since obviously the cast can’t point it out, and arguably it makes the story a little less accessible to casual readers, but sometimes that’s a worthwhile trade-off because it’s just inherent in the story.

I still have reservations that the fortress-under-siege stuff is a bit heavy handed, but Clay Mann and Steve Kurth’s pencils stop the tone from being too bleak, and everything else works well enough that I’ll give Carey the benefit of the doubt on this point.

X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4 – Final issue of the anthology mini.  The Anole/Rockslide story wraps up much as you’d expect, but there’s nothing wrong with doing the predictable ending when it’s satisfying.  It’s been a simple story, but a nice little outing for two underused characters.  Elsewhere, Kathryn and Stuart Immonen send Hellcat and Gambit on a date, which isn’t a story so much as an entertainingly chaotic sketch.  Jed McKay and Sheldon Vella’s “Disco Highway” is a gleefully ridiculous story with Dazzler and the Daughters of the Dragon in a game of cosmic roller derby (“At stake is some poorly-defined cosmic prize offered by the Grandmaster…”) which has a great MODOK gag, though it kind of peters out on the last page.  And “Unforgettable” is a Hercules/Psylocke team-up by James Asmus and multiple artists – yes, on an eight-page story – which is basically a cute gag about Hercules’ clumsy womanising, one that the artists sell very nicely.

Bring on the comments

  1. JD says:

    I’m giving Marvel the benefit of the doubt regarding Astonishing X-Men‘s scheduling : presumably they waited for the last issue of Xenogenesis to ship.

    But yeah, the four main titles the same week ? Yikes.

  2. GM says:

    I love when there’s a bunch of books published on the same week. Gives me lots of relaxing reading time that night instead of just a handful of minutes.

  3. Maxwell's Hammer says:

    I rather appreciated getting two chapters of “Age of X” this week. These big crossover stories read better in bigger chunks, and I kind of hope ‘Legacy’ and ‘New Mutants’ are released simultaneously for the rest of the crossover.

  4. Marc says:

    Plus, there’s the scene in New Mutants where Legacy runs across the Xavier-looking dude in the jail, takes his power, and mind-jacks everyone.

    For a world of “No Xavier”, there’s a lot of Xavier-derived stuff running around.

  5. Daibhid Ceannaideach says:

    I can sort of buy that the mutant-hating public would be interested in having mutant powers themselves — this wouldn’t make them mutants, you understand, just give them a level playing-field with the damn muties. The bit about the X-Men signing over the “right” to their powers doesn’t make much sense, though.

  6. Kenny says:

    I wonder how exactly Armor knew her relatives were dead, since I didn’t get it after reading the story. I just got it from reading your reviews. Thank you!

  7. Cory says:

    A friend of mine pointed out a lot of odd, but consistent, plot points in Age of X to support his theory about what’s going on in X-Men Legacy and New Mutants. At first I wasn’t too convinced, but it’s starting to add up once I noticed the Legion connection.

    1.) Almost all of those imprisoned are fairly powerful telepaths. Other characters tend to be telekinetics or mild telepaths.

    2.) Almost all of the characters featured in the story were present on Utopia at the time of the “white flash” in X-Men Legacy, and they typically only referenced characters who weren’t.

    3.) Cyclops/Basilisk found a dog tag on a dead soldier that has the same name and ID as another killed soldier from some time prior.

    4.) Legion appeared in X-Men Legacy’s prelude to Age of X as a plot point, and Charles points out the flaw in the way the X-Club is treating his multiple personality disorder.

    5.) A fairly healthy and sane Legion also appears in Age of X. He’s given a noticeable amount of page time, as well.

    So, basically, the theory at this point is this: Due to the way the X-Club was treating Legion, an after-effect has caused Legion to create this alternate reality or manipulate the current reality into this Age of X world, utilizing the island and its inhabitants (or possibly limited to the island and its inhabitants). The telepaths are confined because they could conceivably determine the truth. Cyclops/Basilisk found the same dog tag twice because the soldiers are simply throwaway creations and not real people, so little detail and creativity was put into their manifestations.

    I’m still not 100% convinced this is what’s going on, but it sounds fairly plausible. What do you guys think?

  8. Jeff says:

    I thought Amazing was fantastic. Martin was born to draw Spider-Man. His figures remind me of the best of Ditko and Romita Sr combined. And Slott’s love for all things Spidey really comes through on the page. Great issue.

  9. Maxwell's Hammer says:

    Cory…good theory…it would also explain why ‘New Mutants’ is tied into the crossover, as Legion has been a pretty significant supporting character in that book since its relaunch…

  10. alex says:

    weird that Marvel had so many wordless books this week — Spidey, FF and Thor all had long stretches of no dialogue.

    Of course, weirder was 3 books from Big Two with death themes or death covers, just a day after Dwayne’s death.

  11. Cory says:

    Also, the title ‘Age of X’ was intentionally created to be similar to ‘Age of Apocalypse,’ the latter of which was a time line caused by Legion. Mike Carey is pretty good at referencing continuity, as well as leaving clues and hints for the observant reader.

  12. Thom H. says:

    So the big question is: Who is X? X is enforcing the rules in this new universe, but we’ve never met him/her. Do you think it’s Legion? Or one of his personalities? I have no theories, but I’m enjoying the story so far.

  13. Jon says:

    I think the Legion theory could hold up cause there are a couple other subtle hints laying around.

    1)Blindfold is quite distinctly in a normal continuity X-Men costume.

    2)Blindfold’s reference to amputations. Both Karma and Hellion have the same amputations as normal continuity, which is just a bit to convenient to have happened in an alternate timeline.

    So, so it would made sense if all this was really a little pocket reality focused on everyone in Utopia.

    I have a question though, am I the only one that couldn’t figure out who all the telekinetics were? I recognized Legion and Hellion, Psylock, but not the ponytail or the phoenix ladies. (…although the pheonix could be Hope, since she seems to be connected to the Phoenix Force…)

  14. Jon says:

    @Thom
    I assumed X was the Cypher/Warlock composite being, unless I read that wrong.

  15. Thom H. says:

    @Jon
    I don’t think that’s the case. X names Warlock at one point, not to mention they have distinctly different speech patterns.

    (As an aside: What is Warlock’s halting speech pattern about? The first thing I thought was that Warlock is animating Doug’s dead body. Creepy!)

    Also, I assumed the red-ponytailed telekinetic was Rachel Summers and the Phoenix is Jean Grey, although both of those guesses could be waaay off.

  16. diru says:

    One bit of weirdness w/ the AoX speculation: Chamber is not on Utopia, not powered and in his Apocalypse-lite body and Jubilee is similarly not powered and is now a Vampire, but in AoX both are present in traditional forms. Seems a little incongruous.

  17. clay says:

    Just wanted to 2nd (3rd?) Marcos’ outstanding art in ASM. I was simply floored as I read that issue. He’s in the same league as Frank Quitely and JH Williams.

    Emotionally, the issue was very effective, especially for a long-time Spidey fan like me. For the dream sequence, at first I thought Slott was playing “Spot the Continuity Reference,” but then I started wondering if he’s dropping subtle hints about upcoming storylines.

  18. Mike says:

    Is Martin unable to do a monthly book? I’ve only seen him on Spidey for a few issues at a time. It would be great to see him working long-term on a high-profile book.

  19. kelvingreen says:

    For the dream sequence, at first I thought Slott was playing “Spot the Continuity Reference,” but then I started wondering if he’s dropping subtle hints about upcoming storylines.

    “I wouldn’t change a thing… can you say the same?”

    That’s certainly ominous, but probably not in the way I’d hope.

  20. clay says:

    My first thought Charlie, from Spider-Man vs. Wolverine. Why bring her up if you don’t have plans to use her? (Well, not *her*, but her storyline, unless Slott is getting into some very creepy territory.)

    Peter killing that woman, even by accident, is an event that should have loomed much larger in his history than it did. The fact that it was more-or-less buried as a plot point has always bothered me, and I’d guess it’s bothered Slott as well.

    (Sally Avril and Nathan Lubinsky, on the other hand… well, that’s just Slott showing off his comic book collection.)

  21. Dude says:

    Uncanny is a royal mess. I kind of lost appeal for Astonishing, for its utterly slow pace. And none of the denotations of the x-verse are really doing anything avant-garde with the mutants, apart from a select few.
    Carey’s work in Age of X is the only one turning out to be pretty impressive.

    The Legion Hypothesis is sound. Especially considering early teasers purposefully made us feel like the Legion character was the morlock Beserker. All things point to him having a hand in this.

    I don’t mind the focus on Rogue/Legacy/Reaper. Though I am looking forward on seeing this alternate New Mutants’ involvement. And am also very intrigued in finding out who X is.

  22. Andrew J. says:

    Maybe Marvel knows that the script or artwork is going to be turned in late, so they don’t bother soliciting it until the last week. It’s the only logical explanation.

    This is the first time I’ve enjoyed Uncanny in years, thanks to Kieron Gillen’s script. Maybe I’m so ready for Fraction to leave that I’m ignoring the plot mechanics and just riding it out. C’mon, how can you deny lines like:

    Waitress: Phoenix martini, sir?
    Lobe: Not before a speech. They always come back on me.

  23. Maxwell's Hammer says:

    I still believe my distaste for ‘Uncanny’ stems more from Land’s art than from Fraction’s writing. It’s no coincidence that the only enjoyable issues (in my opinion anyway) are the Terry Dodson issues. Something about them was just more coherent and more fun to read.

    Although Fraction does sprawl a bit more than he needs to.

  24. Cory says:

    My biggest problem with Fraction stems from the lack of character work and the endless storylines he starts but just sort of forgets about or brushes under the rug. I mean, I get that he’s trying to do a large, rotating cast, and I understand that he wants to juggle numerous storylines at once, but uh… He’s pretty much just writing a series full of false starts starring ciphers. Every now and then he tries to write a self-contained issue (like with the X-Club going back in time) that works out great, but in general I can’t figure recall what most particular arcs are about or who it’s supposed to be starring.

  25. The original Matt says:

    Uncanny was just a horrible comic with Fraction/Land. I haven’t touched it since mid nation-x.

  26. Argus says:

    Loved the Age of X issues. Every character gets a moment to shine, the art is lovely, and I like that theory about Legion being somehow responsible. I agree the “mutants hunted to verge of extinction/last stand” theme is a bit done to death, but the execution is great and I like the central mystery. Carey really is excellent and you can tell he is interested in the characters.

    The scene with Legacy/Tempo was especially touching. I’m liking nympho Pixie/”Nightmare” (indeed all the character redesigns). Also, I think from reading interviews that the final Telekinetics are meant to be Unuscione from the Acolytes, and Revenant is/maybe isn’t Jean Grey (it’s not clear to the characters themselves).

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