{"id":10674,"date":"2025-01-04T20:52:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T20:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10674"},"modified":"2025-01-04T20:52:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T20:52:50","slug":"the-x-axis-w-c-30-december-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10674","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – w\/c 30 December 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #5. <\/strong>By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. I think this arc was more successful with the scenes about radicalisation of Paige’s brother. Once it gets past that, it finds itself in rather more familiar territory of grass roots violence, with the angle of budget cyborg enhancements. And right now, those two aspects don’t feel like they’re tying together properly, although I think the idea is meant to be that it plays into the path being self-destructive. Still, I do like the two plot threads coming together at the end of the issue, so maybe we’ll get a satisfying finish.<\/p>\n

X-FACTOR #6.<\/strong> (Annotations here.)<\/a> This is one of the stronger issues in the series, and it’s probably not a coincidence that it goes back to the Mutant Underground storyline from issue #2, which was also one of the stronger issues. X-Factor<\/em> has struggled throughout its run to find a tone that works for it, mainly because it keeps trying to work in broad comedy angles that aren’t very funny and undercut the more dramatic scenes. Perhaps the main lesson to take from issues #2 and #6 is that X-Factor<\/em> works best when it just plays the concept mostly straight. Jovius’ back story doesn’t really make sense in terms of Krakoa and its fall, but that doesn’t especially bother me, since it’s fairly clear that Bruin’s account is at best wildly incomplete. And the reveal of what he’s up to now does<\/em> work. As for the Mutant Underground itself, it remains an odd amalgam of amateur radicals and experienced moderates, but that feels like something with potential. Mainly, though, this is just an issue that has most of its focus on the aspects of the book that work, and character moments that play to Bob Quinn’s strengths on art.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

X-FORCE #7.<\/strong> (Annotations here.)<\/a> Well, this is a bit of a mess. Even looking past the fact that it seems to be based on a fundamental misreading of Rise of the Powers of X<\/em>, the idea that it’s setting up is very confusing and (to the extent that I understand it) not desperately interesting. Broadly, they seem to be going for “Rachel has resurrected herself imperfectly and needs fixing”, which is one of those ideas that doesn’t make sense on a mechanical level. How did she resurrect herself, if the Phoenix and the Five supposedly weren’t involved? If we’re acknowledging that the Five were involved, why she is any worse off than all the other people resurrected in the same story? Why does any of this make her overloaded with power? But it also doesn’t seem to have any resonance – what’s interesting<\/em> about the side effects of a flawed resurrection? What’s it about? If this is really a story about Betsy and Rachel being bound together as Betsy supports Rachel, weren’t there easier ways to get there? X-Force<\/em> was kind of winning me over last issue but, nope, this is losing me again.<\/p>\n

DEADPOOL \/ WOLVERINE #1.<\/strong> (Annotations here.)<\/a> The last thing the world needs is yet another Deadpool and Wolverine team-up, and god help us, we’re also getting a team book with both of them involved. But all that being said, if you’re going to do a straightforward action romp with Deadpool and Wolverine, this is a pretty decent one. It’s an extra-length first issue, and instead of using that space to make the plot more complicated, Benjamin Percy just writes some extended action scenes that give Joshua Cassara’s art more space to breathe. I’m happy with that. Now, sure, it maybe doesn’t speak volumes for the viability of a Deadpool \/ Wolverine team-up book that this is the second Deadpool \/ Wolverine team-up story in six months to use mind alteration to shut Deadpool up and stop him dominating the book. (Mind you, he did sustain a team-up title with Cable for years, so it can be done.) But it works here, so I can’t be too hard on it. Redesigning Stryfe’s armour is interesting – it says something about Liefeld’s design that you need to dial it back about 30% to make Stryfe fit the tone of a Deadpool comic, of all things. And it does make him look more at home here, but also more generic – his idiot flamboyance was maybe his most memorable trait, but maybe dialling it back leaves room for something else to come to the fore.<\/p>\n

CABLE: LOVE & CHROME<\/strong> #1. <\/strong>By David Pepose, Mike Henderson, Arif Priatno & Joe Sabino. This seems to be a miniseries about Cable getting caught up in a war in the far future, detached from anything to do with the rest of the Marvel Universe – generally a tough sell but hey, probably truer to the core of the character. The hook is simply for Cable to encounter a whole town of people with their own techno-organic infections, kept in check by their own local cures, and for one of them to be the love interest. Nice straightforward suff, and the real selling point here is Mike Henderson’s art. He’s got some great action sequences here, but also a suitably burly Cable with an unusual take on the metal arm, which looks cobbled together from parts – maybe more effective in reminding us that it’s more than just a fancy sleeve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #5. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. I think this arc was more successful with the scenes about radicalisation of Paige’s brother. Once it gets past that, it finds itself in rather more familiar territory of grass roots violence, with the angle of budget cyborg enhancements. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10676,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions\/10676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}