{"id":1267,"date":"2012-02-05T18:46:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-05T18:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2012-02-05T18:46:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-05T18:46:48","slug":"the-x-axis-5-february-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1267","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 5 February 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our main event this weekend, it would seem, is the Before Watchmen<\/em>\u00a0piece in the post below. \u00a0But we also have some X-books out this week, so let’s cover those.<\/p>\n

Before we start, fair warning: there’s a common theme with all five of this week’s books, which is that it’s the middle chapter of a storyline, and in most cases my views remain much the same as they were last issue. \u00a0But here we go anyway…<\/p>\n

Avengers: X-Sanction<\/em>\u00a0#3<\/strong>\u00a0– You may have seen that the early January sales charts are out, and DC took a clean sweep of the top 10. \u00a0As it turns out, X-Sanction<\/em>\u00a0tailed in somewhere around number 15, quite some way off being even Marvel’s top seller for the month. \u00a0Which, on the one hand, is maybe not a good sign for interest in the upcoming Avengers vs X-Men<\/em>\u00a0crossover that this book is supposed to be building to. \u00a0On the other hand, it could just be that Loeb and McGuinness aren’t the draw they used to be, and everyone knows that preludes are disposable, and so a lot of people decided to skip it. \u00a0After all, Fear Itself<\/em>\u00a0tie-ins didn’t do much business, but people still bought the regular series.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In this issue, Cable fights the Red Hulk for half the issue, and then we get a flashback where – to give it \u00a0its due – the story does indeed explain where Cable got all that convenient technology from the previous issue. \u00a0(Basically: same place he got the time machine.) \u00a0The upshot of all this is that Cable apparently infects the Red Hulk with his techno-organic virus – which, for some unfathomable reason, Ed McGuinness chooses to represent as little yellow lines coming out of the big guy, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to any visual that’s been used in this connection before. \u00a0Then Cyclops and Hope show up so that we can go through an extremely desultory reunion, and then more Avengers show up for more fighting. \u00a0There is dialogue like “This isn’t the way to solve anything.”<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that it remains a pretty mediocre series. \u00a0It’s far from terrible. \u00a0The plot holds together. \u00a0The motivations are at least there, even if the story merely waves vaguely in their general direction. \u00a0The art is easy on the eye, even though it lacks the spectacular element you might expect from McGuinness. \u00a0It’s ultimately okay<\/em>. \u00a0But it’s nothing special, even judged as the straightforward action story it aspires to be; and I don’t see it doing much to sell the crossover. \u00a0It’s just an unambitious, very middling comic.<\/p>\n

Uncanny X-Force<\/em>\u00a0#21<\/strong>\u00a0– Part two of the “Otherworld” arc, and I’m increasingly unsure about the choice of Greg Tocchini as artist for this arc. \u00a0In story terms, it’s pretty clear that Rick Remender is paying homage to elements from Excalibur<\/em>\u00a0and Captain Britain<\/em>. \u00a0We’ve got other versions of Captain Britain wandering around; we’ve got Psylocke wearing the Captain Britain costume she had for about two issues of a UK-only series in the early 1980s; we’ve got a cameo appearance by Widget. \u00a0We’ve even got broad comedy like Deadpool’s severed head still chattering away happily.<\/p>\n

All of which would seem to cry out for an artist who echoes the style most associated with those stories, namely Alan Davis – clean lines, primary colours. \u00a0Instead, we’ve got Tocchini’s very loose, almost sketchy work, which is often quite attractive in its own right, but doesn’t seem at all suited to the material. \u00a0Quite aside from his dissimilarity to the source material, he doesn’t seem at all comfortable trying to draw anything whimsical. \u00a0And there are points where the storytelling really does fall short – most obviously, a scene where the shape changer Meggan shows up in a different body and confuses everyone before changing to her regular form. \u00a0Remarkably, Tocchini has her simply changing appearance between panels<\/em>\u00a0so that the dialogue has to explain the joke. \u00a0That’s a serious misfire, and it appears in a sequence that already looks hideously rushed to start with.<\/p>\n

As for the story – well, the bits with Psylocke trying to rescue Fantomex from retroactive erasure are quite fun. \u00a0There are some good moments with the Excalibur<\/em> characters reacting to X-Force’s replacement Nightcrawler. \u00a0But the attacking army isn’t really working. \u00a0And the cliffhanger falls flat, unveiling a villain whom I… guess we’re meant to recognise? \u00a0Except I don’t. \u00a0I have no idea who he’s meant to be, and I’m just confused. \u00a0Right now, this arc is looking a bit glitchy.<\/p>\n

Uncanny X-Men<\/em>\u00a0#6<\/strong>\u00a0– This is a Greg Land comic. \u00a0But oddly enough, it’s also the second straight issue of Land’s Uncanny X-Men<\/em>\u00a0to ship alongside another X-book which was far more visually irritating. \u00a0Sure, his art has an overly airbrushed feel, his photo-referencing results in characters having inconsistent faces, and his facial expressions all too often veer between stagey and blank. \u00a0But to give him his due, it’s rarely hard to follow the action. \u00a0And whether by accident or design, the “Tabula Rasa” arc also prevents him from going overboard on the photo reference, since the whole thing takes place in a fantasy world of weird-looking creatures. \u00a0So while it could be a lot better, it’s entirely readable.<\/p>\n

This issue continues following through the premise of the time bubble to its logical conclusion. \u00a0The villain, it turns out, is one of the last survivors of an advanced race who got wiped out by an extremely protracted nightfall. \u00a0The water creatures are out of their minds with panic because, for the first time ever, the river is flowing. \u00a0And so on. \u00a0It takes a bit of goodwill to believe that such a small pocket ecology could actually have survived for all this time, but the story has a fair stab at addressing that head on.<\/p>\n

The question of Psylocke trying to blur over her own involvement in creating Tabula Rasa rather goes on the back burner here, as the focus shifts to the locals, and a good old fashioned origin flashback for the bad guy. \u00a0Personally, I’d have preferred a bit more balance in terms of the focus on the guests and the regular cast, but there are interesting ideas in here, and it’s a good solid “hidden world” story.<\/p>\n

X-Club<\/em>\u00a0#3<\/strong>\u00a0– Well, talk about throwing away a cliffhanger. \u00a0Last issue, Dr Nemesis was at the bottom of the ocean when his oxygen cable was cut! \u00a0How will he get back to the surface? \u00a0Well, he, uh, just will. \u00a0God, that’s weak.<\/p>\n

That aside, this issue is mainly a case of keeping the various plates spinning. \u00a0Madison is still flakey but gets to make contact with an artificial intelligence. \u00a0Danger finds out why she’s acting all weird. \u00a0Dr Nemesis is still infiltrating the bad guys’ base. \u00a0And Kavita is the sensible one. \u00a0It’s more of the same, basically, and there’s not much more I really have to say about it.<\/p>\n

X-Factor<\/em>\u00a0#231<\/strong>\u00a0– Part three of “They Keep Killing Madrox” returns to Madrox as he bounces his way through alternate worlds. \u00a0This time, it’s a world where M-Day wiped out most of the ordinary humans, and the Sentinels protecting the survivors are all giant versions of Iron Man. \u00a0We kind of get an explanation of what’s going on with Madrox – kind of – but most of the issue is actually about an unresolved conflict between alternate versions of Captain America and Iron Man.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned explanation is that parallel worlds are coming together and Madrox is, for some reason, getting a “preview” of it. \u00a0And Mr Tryp knows about it but isn’t responsible for it. \u00a0And that’s pretty much the sum total of plot advancement in this issue, unless the details of this parallel earth turn out to be significant in some way. \u00a0I can only assume that they will be, since I can’t imagine Peter David would be wasting this much space on them unless it was set-up for something, but it’s not yet apparent how or why they might turn out to be significant.<\/p>\n

Even assuming that it does indeed turn out to be vital set-up for future stories, it’s not the strongest of issues. \u00a0Iron Man as a vaguely suspect defender of the remaining humans works well enough; but Captain America as a psychotic Deathlok just comes across as rather arbitrary, and not especially interesting in its own right. \u00a0But David always writes sharp dialogue, and artist Emanuela Lupacchino does a solid job with the character redesigns and with the scale of the giant Iron Man suits.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our main event this weekend, it would seem, is the Before Watchmen\u00a0piece in the post below. \u00a0But we also have some X-books out this week, so let’s cover those. Before we start, fair warning: there’s a common theme with all five of this week’s books, which is that it’s the middle chapter of a storyline, […]<\/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-1267","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\/1267","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=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}