{"id":1071,"date":"2011-10-01T18:23:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T17:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2011-10-01T18:23:40","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T17:23:40","slug":"the-x-axis-1-october-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1071","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 1 October 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re looking for the podcast, it’s one post below<\/a>. \u00a0Meanwhile, once again, I’m going to split the X-books off from the rest of the new launches in an attempt to keep these reviews within some sort of manageable size…<\/p>\n

Astonishing X-Men<\/em>\u00a0#42<\/strong>\u00a0– The final chapter of Christos Gage and Juan Bobillo’s inexplicably scheduled “Meanwhile”, which has been running in alternate issues between chapters of Daniel Way’s wholly unrelated Monster Island arc. \u00a0For the life of me, I still can’t figure out why somebody thought that was a good idea, particularly in the title whose whole selling point is supposed to be that it has self-contained stories. \u00a0(You just need to remember only to buy every second issue.)<\/p>\n

I’m going to have to try and make time to re-read this arc, to see if the plot actually hangs together when you read it in one go. \u00a0The final issue kind of gets by on momentum, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it doesn’t entirely make sense, and that plot points from earlier issues have been quietly shoved aside now that they’ve served their function.<\/p>\n

Storm, Colossus, Beast and Agent Brand have all been infected by the Brood, which leaves Kitty and Lockheed to try and save the “newborn Brood” who’s relatively nice. \u00a0You’ll recall that the set-up in earlier issues was that, for ecological reasons, the Brood can’t just be wiped out, even though they’re murderous lunatics. \u00a0So the plan is to somehow use the anomalously compassionate infant to alter the rest of the species instead… somehow.<\/p>\n

And by the end of this issue, I’m really none the wiser about how the X-Men actually achieved anything along those lines. \u00a0The upshot is that the X-Men fight back against the Brood influence, the Brood agree to go home, the X-Men are cured, and SWORD is left to look after a bunch of Brood embryos who’ll presumably grow up to be raised differently… and do something or other. \u00a0I get the feeling that what Christos Gage really wanted to do here was write a story about Kitty and Lockheed having to race around a space station protecting a quirky alien baby, and in order to justify all that, he’s ended up constructing an entire storyline with no clear way of resolving it. \u00a0It’s all a bit unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n

Still, there’s some fun running-around-corridors stuff. \u00a0And the art seems to fit the tone of the story better than in earlier issues, with the Brood infant itself having a nice spindly look to it, teetering somewhere between cute and ugly. \u00a0I’m still not entirely sold on Bobillo’s Brood, or his odd rendering of the Beast (if you’re going to do a story where the characters are physically transformed, possibly best if they’re vaguely on-model to start with), but the storytelling in this issue is pretty good. \u00a0It’s a superficially decent issue, but I have a sinking feeling it’s going to collapse on a second read.<\/p>\n

New Mutants<\/em>\u00a0#31<\/strong>\u00a0– More of the book’s “Fear Itself” tie-in arc. \u00a0Following last issue’s detour to Hell-with-two-L’s, this time the team finally arrive in Hel to lend Dani a hand. \u00a0Unfortunately, Dani has already been eaten by a monster (which the art last issue kind-of-sort-of managed to convey, but not as clearly as you might want). \u00a0But luckily, this being a mythological kind of realm, being eaten whole by a monster does not necessarily portend anything worse than a re-enactment of Jonah.<\/p>\n

There’s a nicely done flashback to the Serpent’s defeat the first time round, but for the most part this is an extended action issue and it’s hard to avoid a sense that this storyline is being dragged out to make it fill a trade paperback. \u00a0Do we really need a whole issue just to cover “the team show up, Dani escapes and is reunited with them, and everyone regroups at Hela’s citadel”?<\/p>\n

The selling point here is really David LaFuente’s art, which, as previously noted, won’t be to everyone’s taste. \u00a0Frankly, this issue is a bit hit and miss. \u00a0The character design for Bonegrinder is inspired; the double-page spread of the Serpent’s first defeat is excellent; but there are also a couple of incredibly sketchy panels that make you wonder how hard the deadlines were pressing. \u00a0It’s never a good sign when virtual stick figures are talking. \u00a0I’m also not sold on LaFuente’s habit of doing sequences with no panel divisions at all, or panels laid out in weird, chaotic patterns; a lot of the time it just obscures what’s happening. \u00a0But on the other hand, his characters are wonderfully expressive, he does the best Warlock in years, and the closing panel is perfect. \u00a0On the whole, I like what he’s doing here, but I’m sure it will divide people.<\/p>\n

Wolverine<\/em>\u00a0#16<\/strong>\u00a0– So, Jason Aaron has spent a year tearing down his lead character and taking us to a place where Wolverine has thrown in the towel, given up, and gone to sulk in the mountains. \u00a0Obviously he can’t stay there. \u00a0The question is, how does Aaron write his way out of the corner? \u00a0More precisely, does it feel like the start of a new cycle? \u00a0Or does it just feel like a backtracking anticlimax?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the answer is emphatically “backtracking anticlimax”, as Aaron resorts to the old standby where Wolverine stumbles upon some villains who need beating (which even he acknowledges to be an unlikely coincidence), and then has a bunch of friends show up to encourage him to come home. \u00a0Which he does. \u00a0And that’s basically it.<\/p>\n

Which might still have been fine, if there was any sense that Wolverine had been changed by his experiences and was going to come back a changed man, or even a man who was going to try to change. \u00a0And I think Aaron was going for that, but he doesn’t land it, perhaps because the story is missing any concrete sense of how<\/em>\u00a0Wolverine will be different this time round.\u00a0 There’s an odd closing segue to a battle-scarred Wolverine on Utopia which only really makes sense if you recognise it as leading into Schism<\/em>\u00a0#1, and perhaps that’s what Aaron had in mind: Wolverine’s experiences in this arc justify the stance he’s taking in that book, explain why it’s coming to a head now, and reconcile any inconsistencies with his behaviour in the past. \u00a0But if that’s the idea, it’s been downplayed to the point of invisibility in Schism<\/em>, and it’s only vaguely alluded to here.<\/p>\n

There’s some very nice art from Goran Sudzuka, and I like the minimal, stark colouring of the snow-bound scenes at the start. \u00a0 \u00a0The talking head cameos from other characters are well drawn as well, even if they do veer a bit close to Bendis territory. \u00a0The weirdos getting children to fight wolves… that hovers on the brink of being too broad, but I think the art pulls it off. \u00a0There’s good stuff in here, and the story could very well work better in hindsight if later issues can provide the sense of a fresh start which is missing here. \u00a0The fundamental problem, I think, is that for this story to work, it needed to hit “new day dawning”, and it misses and hits “here we go again”. \u00a0That can be cured by later issues; let’s hope.<\/p>\n

Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em>\u00a0#10<\/strong>\u00a0– No sign of this in the December solicitations, I see. \u00a0Has it been canned with issue #12? \u00a0It wouldn’t surprise me, since it sells in the same range as Heroes for Hire<\/em>. \u00a0Can’t say I’ll miss it, either.<\/p>\n

But in fairness, this is one of the book’s better issues. \u00a0Issue #9 may have been a tiresome exposition-fest, but it does bring Charlie Huston to a nice scene to start this issue. \u00a0Wolverine and two obscure 70s space-opera characters, Monark and Paradox, are supposed to be going after Contagion, the villain from the first arc. \u00a0Wolverine’s been infected by something horrible; Monark has to cure him with his nanotech powers; so far so routine. \u00a0But the bit with Monark’s body starting to dissipate from the effort, and Paradox hugging him as he reboots, really does work; perhaps because it’s one of the moments where the book stops trying to be edgy and just allows some emotion to show through.<\/p>\n

And there’s another strong sequence near the end, where the heroes confront Contagion again and Juan Jose Ryp draws a very good slo-mo silent action sequence – again, not one that plays into the book’s gimmick, but just a nice piece of visual storytelling with some dynamic panels. \u00a0Beneath it all, there’s a half-decent book trying to get out here.<\/p>\n

The fact remains, though, that Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em>\u00a0is a title which gets better the further it strays from its remit – which would suggest that the book remains essentially misconceived. \u00a0And the closing pages don’t really work; I have no clear idea what Contagion is doing to Paradox, and as hooks go, “Come back next month for me to deliver an expository monologue” is not the best. \u00a0But there’s something to this issue, I’ll give it that.<\/p>\n

X-Men Legacy<\/em>\u00a0#256<\/strong>\u00a0– The Grad Nan Holt storyline is starting to come together. \u00a0So far, we’ve had two bunches of crazies shooting at one another in vastly counterproductive ways; with this issue, Mike Carey give us the reason why. \u00a0As you could probably have guessed from Havok and Polaris’ behaviour in the last issue, mind control is involved – but I like the idea that Friendless is just having to nudge the leaders and everyone else kind of goes along for the ride.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this still isn’t Mike Carey’s best work on the title, by any means. \u00a0Friendless’ origin flashback lays it on with a trowel, and I’m not sure how it fits with the Grad Nan Holt’s supposed status as a slave race prior to their rebellion. \u00a0The news that there are “close to a billion people” on the space station seems to come entirely out of nowhere; where the hell are they all? \u00a0The freebooters don’t seem to be here for any reason other than to let Mike Carey write them again before he leaves the book. \u00a0And it ends with one of those “the only way to save the world is by doing something unbelievably dangerous and contrived” scenes where the strings are all too obvious.<\/p>\n

But the freebooters do get some nice dialogue. \u00a0Magneto and Polaris get some promising scenes where Carey manages to work in some of the subtext from their underdeveloped relationship. \u00a0Frenzy’s being used well. \u00a0And artist Steve Kurth is having a good month, even though somebody really needs to tell him that the Shi’ar have feathers, not hair. \u00a0All in all, it’s okay; but it’s not at the level we know Carey can reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re looking for the podcast, it’s one post below. \u00a0Meanwhile, once again, I’m going to split the X-books off from the rest of the new launches in an attempt to keep these reviews within some sort of manageable size… Astonishing X-Men\u00a0#42\u00a0– The final chapter of Christos Gage and Juan Bobillo’s inexplicably scheduled “Meanwhile”, which […]<\/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-1071","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\/1071","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=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1072,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}