It’s a busy weekend here on the blog. \u00a0This week’s podcast is a couple of posts down, and there’s a wrestling preview just below. \u00a0But now, comics.<\/p>\n
Astonishing X-Men<\/em>\u00a0#46<\/strong>\u00a0– Greg Pak and Mike McKone’s fill-in arc is proving to be very much in the vein of the cancelled Exiles<\/em>. \u00a0Cyclops is kidnapped by X-Men from another earth, and finds himself leading a makeshift team composed of other captives from yet further parallel worlds. \u00a0So we’ve got a civilian schoolboy version of Nightcrawler, a military version of Wolverine, and such like.<\/p>\n This issue, Pak spells out the high concept. \u00a0It’s a world where the X-Men finally triumphed over the bad guys, only to find that the world was so horribly damaged by the battle that it needed special machines to keep it going. \u00a0By the magic of plot contrivance, those machines need to be powered by mutants sacrificing their lives. \u00a0And having run out of willing sacrifices on their own world, they’ve started harvesting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s a rather forced set-up, but there’s an interesting idea in there. \u00a0The alternate X-Men have evidently decided that they’re happy to throw a constant stream of mutants on the fire, and precisely why is left to implication. \u00a0It’s possible that they think it’s the lesser of two evils compared to the death of their entire planet, but it could also be that they simply regard the other worlds as less real. \u00a0Or maybe they’re just more loyal to their home world. \u00a0 Regardless, I like the fact that this version of Storm is allowed to be unrepentant and to have a go at taking the moral high ground.<\/p>\n I’m not quite sure how well it works as a Cyclops story. \u00a0I suppose you could argue that he’s being confronted with another version of the X-Men which has similarly taken an “end justifies the means” approach to their mission, but if that’s the idea, it doesn’t come across very clearly thus far. \u00a0Pak seems more interested in playing up Scott’s status as the natural leader of the group, which is maybe worth reasserting in the wake of Schism<\/em>, but I’m not sure it’s really going anywhere in this particular story.<\/p>\n Even so, it’s a serviceable action story with the pseudo-Exiles<\/em>\u00a0gimmick nicely played, and Mike McKone does good work with his variations on the standard character designs and trappings. \u00a0Perhaps inevitably, it does feel like a fill-in story, but it’s well told, and the concepts are reasonably interesting.<\/p>\n Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred<\/em>\u00a0#1<\/strong>\u00a0– David Hine and Shaky Kane’s follow up to last year’s Bulletproof Coffin<\/em>\u00a0miniseries is apparently taking a different tack, with six self-contained stories in the same pulp-throwback vein as the original series. \u00a0This one is supposedly closest in tone to the earlier run, and it does indeed maintain the established theme of the book’s invented Silver Age pulp heroes somehow escaping from their fiction and infecting the “real” world. \u00a0Well, the relatively real world, at any rate.<\/p>\n Specifically, this is either the origin story of the Shield, or an example of him escaping from one layer of fiction to another; Bulletproof Coffin<\/em>‘s innate surrealism means you could read it both ways. \u00a0But rather than just using that as an “anything goes” excuse to throw logic out the window entirely, David Hine’s story instead creates a world built on established plot devices and then pursuing them to their bizarre but somehow logical conclusion. \u00a0The ending feels like the story is folding in on itself, but still makes a perverse sense on its own terms.<\/p>\n Kane’s art has always been an acquired taste, but the superficial awkwardness conceals strong underlying storytelling, and perfectly complements the book’s general sense that something is subtly but profoundly wrong with its world. \u00a0Definitely not for everyone, but it absolutely achieves its goals.<\/p>\n Daken: Dark Wolverine<\/em>\u00a0#20<\/strong>\u00a0– The book may be cancelled, but through the magic of double-shipping, there’s still another three issues to go after this. \u00a0So with the Marcus Roston\/Heat storyline complete, it seems Rob Williams is being given a fair amount of space to tie up his storylines and (more to the point) do something to resolve his themes.<\/p>\n This issue returns to the Donna Kiel subplot which has been running in the background throughout the Heat arc. \u00a0Kiel is the FBI agent investigating Daken, and she’s an interesting character in a number of ways. \u00a0Our antihero Daken is plainly a murderous psychopath. \u00a0Donna, his opposite number, is a psychopath too, but one who actually functions in society. \u00a0While she’s equally obsessed with proving her own superiority, she channels that into her career instead of semi-random killing. \u00a0That makes her an interesting comparison with Daken, and it’s also led to the series presenting her as a possible love interest, on the logic that, hey, they understand each other.<\/p>\n So this issue sees Daken pursuing his interest (well, curiosity) in Donna. \u00a0He sees her as a kindred spirit who just needs to indulge those murderous impulses she must clearly have been suppressing all this time. \u00a0This makes sense, since a big part of Daken’s character is his need to believe that he’s a rational man in control of himself, and not just a psychopath who’s fooling himself into thinking that his murderous impulses are something more. \u00a0Unfortunately for him, while Donna may be wholly lacking in empathy, she has neither the same hang-ups, nor (it seems) the same violent urges – all of which is terribly threatening to Daken’s self-image.<\/p>\n After the slightly wonky resolution to the previous storyline, it’s good to see the book getting back to this kind of story, which is what it does best. \u00a0Guest artist Alessandro Vitti marks a change of visual style to something a little more detailed, but I think it works fine for a story like this, and he gets the character moments. \u00a0I’m not so sure about the muted colouring, which reminds me of the period when Vertigo seemed convinced that drowning the page in sepia was the best way to show that serious drama was in the offing. \u00a0Here, it’s more grey, but same difference.<\/p>\n In a subplot, the story also suddenly establishes that the mystery crime lord of Los Angeles is Count Nefaria, apparently so that Daken can fight him in a future issue. \u00a0I gather that Nefaria’s role in the LA underground was established over in Moon Knight<\/em>, but even if you know that, Daken’s sudden and largely unexplained knowledge of this (“I finally got some intel…”) is clumsy.<\/p>\n But that aside, this is a return to form after the flawed wrap-up of the previous arc.<\/p>\n Secret Avengers<\/em>\u00a0#21.1<\/strong>\u00a0– We reviewed this on the podcast, but it seems worth mentioning, since it’s the first issue by writer Rick Remender, who’s been doing great work over on X-Force<\/em>. \u00a0Unfortunately, this issue doesn’t hit the mark in the same way.<\/p>\n Remender tends to shift his style for each book, and with Secret Avengers<\/em>\u00a0he generally seems to have wound up with an 80s Marvel house style. \u00a0Captain America and Hawkeye go on a mission to one of those made-up countries full of criminals, apparently mainly so that Captain America can test Hawkeye’s suitability to lead the new Secret Avengers roster. \u00a0Cue the running around and fighting. \u00a0The key dynamic is meant to be about Hawkeye proving his suitability, though the issue also introduces a new version of the Masters of Evil. \u00a0And they seem quite good fun; I particularly liked the new Princess Python, who now comes accompanied by a ludicrously, ridiculously oversized psychic snake.<\/p>\n But Hawkeye’s demonstration of his covert-ops skills is glossed over despite being a theoretically key plot point. \u00a0The opening exposition scene is painfully clumsy. \u00a0And the whole thing seems premised on the highly questionable idea that anyone still doubts Hawkeye’s leadership skills, even though the character has been consistently cast in leadership roles since the 1980s. \u00a0If you want to revive the Cap\/Hawkeye dynamic of the late 1960s, the Ultimate Universe is just down the hall. \u00a0But in the mainstream Marvel Universe, it just doesn’t fly; it involves ignoring something that’s been a core part of Hawkeye’s depiction for a quarter-century or more.<\/p>\n Given the expectations raised by Remender’s other work, this is a disappointing first issue. \u00a0It’s by no means horrible, and the book could quite easily get on track next month, but it’s not up there with X-Force<\/em>\u00a0by any means.<\/p>\n X-Men: Legacy<\/em>\u00a0#261<\/strong>\u00a0– Following his Point One issue from a couple of weeks ago, Christos Gage gets his run properly underway by kicking off an Exodus story. \u00a0With five books a month to fill, and M-Day placing a limit on the creation of new mutant villains, it’s understandable that writers must find themselves rifling through the list of surviving mutants to see who might be worth a go. \u00a0But Exodus is something of a challenge; as originally conceived, he was a fanatic who regarded the rise of mutantkind as a quasi-religious calling. \u00a0He doesn’t readily fit into a post-M-Day Marvel Universe, except perhaps as someone searching for a way to reverse it.<\/p>\n Mike Carey addressed that problem back in the first Legacy<\/em>\u00a0arc by having Professor X tell Exodus and his remaining followers that they were indeed relics of a bygone era who should just throw in the towel. \u00a0Adopting the X-books’ party line, Xavier argued that with so few mutants remaining, it was simply pointless for them to do anything but stick together.<\/p>\n Christos Gage follows through the logic of that. \u00a0Born fanatic that he is, Exodus has now become utterly convinced that Xavier<\/em>\u00a0was right – from which it follows that the schism is a catastrophe which must be reversed at all costs. \u00a0By force, if need be. \u00a0Or by just getting obstinate people out of the way. \u00a0That’s a potentially interesting angle, though it also appears to lead to the two X-Men teams having to appear together, and I’d have held off on that for quite some time to come. \u00a0Still, it’s a good use of Exodus, and one that follows very naturally from his last appearance.<\/p>\n I’m not quite so sold on the way the story uses the students. \u00a0Kid Gladiator is such an over-the-top comedy character that he feels a little out of place in this book. \u00a0And though I like the idea of the kids deciding that Blindfold is some sort of curse who should be shunned, surely the perennially reasonable Anole is the wrong character to do it with. \u00a0Generally speaking, in fact, Gage hasn’t got Blindfold’s voice right; much of what she says in this issue is rather direct exposition with some vocal tics thrown in.<\/p>\n But those are subplots, and the main story works well. \u00a0David Baldeon’s a good superhero artist, and he’s giving a bit of life even to the background students, which is important in a book like this. \u00a0Overall, a good start to Gage’s first arc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s a busy weekend here on the blog. \u00a0This week’s podcast is a couple of posts down, and there’s a wrestling preview just below. \u00a0But now, comics. Astonishing X-Men\u00a0#46\u00a0– Greg Pak and Mike McKone’s fill-in arc is proving to be very much in the vein of the cancelled Exiles. \u00a0Cyclops is kidnapped by X-Men from […]<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","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\/1260","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=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}