The stop-start world of Marvel scheduling gives us a nice quiet week this time. \u00a0Three X-Men titles, and two of those are part of the big event…<\/p>\n
Wolverine and the X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #12<\/strong> – This is one of those books that you can feel struggling to assert its identity in the face of a crossover. \u00a0The plot is basically written in the margins of Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> – the X-Men are hunting down the Avengers and this book is doing it from the perspective of Rachel Grey.<\/p>\n Jason Aaron clearly understands that if you’re going to do a Phoenix crossover in a book where the main cast includes Rachel Grey, at some point you’re going to have to address the fact that she’s a former host. \u00a0That’s presumably why we’re getting a whole issue about her. \u00a0Unfortunately, the moment you acknowledge Rachel as a former host, you blast the plot of the wider crossover to smithereens, since it begs the question of why everyone outside the X-Men is ignoring the fact that the Phoenix has been here before and caused no real trouble at all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That might be why Aaron instead ends up doing a story about Rachel finding herself falling back into her old Hound role as she helps to hunt down the Avengers – a perfectly valid Rachel Grey story but one that largely ignores the plot problems that she poses. \u00a0I’ll come back to this in relation to\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em>, but essentially there’s a problem with the X-Men getting too enthusiastically on board with Cyclops’ anti-Avenger crusade. \u00a0This story handles it better, I think, because even though Rachel’s portrayed as a true believer throughout, it’s still a story that stresses her discomfort with being cast back as a hunter, in any context.<\/p>\n More subtly, there’s a nice scene where Rachel discusses her reservations with Cyclops, and belatedly throws in the question of whether the Phoenix ever mentions her. \u00a0Cyclops’ response – “The Phoenix loves you, Rachel, just as it loves us all” – is hardly likely to be what she was hoping to hear, but the story cuts away before we see her reaction. \u00a0That’s a nice way of trying to turn the situation to the story’s advantage; Rachel ought to matter to this story, she\u00a0feels<\/em> she ought to matter, and the fact that she’s stuck on the margins of the plot is made a feature in itself. \u00a0It’s a good moment, in a scene which is well played by Chris Bachalo.<\/p>\n But the focus remains resolutely elsewhere, and there’s a whole “we’ve got to prepare these kids for the apocalyptic future” angle which begs the question of why Rachel chose Wolverine’s side in the schism. \u00a0Still, there are some nice ideas here about Rachel’s character and a noble effort to make the best of a troublesome plot hole that the main\u00a0Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> series emphatically doesn’t want to think about.<\/p>\n The book has other issues, though. \u00a0It’s never entirely clear why Kid Gladiator is out hunting for Avengers with the rest of the team in the first place, other than that the story needs to give him something to do to lay the way for Gladiator himself to arrive at the end. \u00a0The Beast is shown here as a loyal Avenger, flatly contradicting a scene in\u00a0Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> itself. \u00a0That’s not Aaron’s fault, but it’s dreadful editing. \u00a0Keeping track of who’s on which side shouldn’t be that much of a challenge, especially given that only a handful of characters have any choice to make.<\/p>\n And I’m really uncomfortable that both this title and\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> have pretty much cast aside the whole “schism” set-up between issues without really addressing\u00a0anything<\/em> that goes with that. \u00a0This ought to be a major plot development for the series, but it’s being entirely glossed over in a way that’s either poorly co-ordinated (everyone thinks somebody else is covering it) or just plain lazy. \u00a0You\u00a0can’t<\/em> set up a central conflict like the schism and just throw it away this casually; with a committee of writers behind this whole event, you’d think somebody would have spotted something as basic as that, but evidently not. \u00a0Perhaps that’s because it works in the context of the crossover, but it’s hopeless in the context of the X-Men titles, since it kneecaps their central storyline and treats it as utterly disposable. \u00a0Call me old fashioned, but I like my stories to end rather than randomly stop.<\/p>\n X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #31<\/strong> – Meanwhile, outside the crossover entirely, Brian Wood and David Lopez are apparently still telling stories set when anyone gave a toss about the schism. \u00a0How quaint.<\/p>\n This series has quite a few things going for it. \u00a0Since it features just the one team of X-Men, it avoids the sprawl that’s plagued the other X-Men titles in recent years. \u00a0The art is absolutely beautiful; Lopez is given a lot of expository conversation to illustrate in this issue (I make it that there’s eight pages that really boil down to characters explaining the plot to one another) but his characters are so graceful that the pages are still worth admiring. \u00a0And it’s a series that gives Storm a proper role that takes advantage of the years of work that were put into making her a leader figure in the first place.<\/p>\n As for the story, though, I’m not quite sold. \u00a0The basic idea here is that baddies have discovered “samples of ancient mutant DNA” – from the sound of it, mutant neanderthals or some such thing – and have been using it to make genetically engineered weapons. \u00a0That’s a decent starting point. \u00a0But the story then wants us to accept that Storm wants to keep this quiet, not just from the general public (fair enough, more people might try weaponising it), but also from the rest of the X-Men, because… uh, because it’s going to divide them further… somehow. \u00a0I don’t get really get what’s supposed to be the problem here, and the story certainly doesn’t sell me on it. \u00a0And of course it doesn’t help that Wood’s trying to build his story around the schism at the same time that the other X-Men titles have decided to ignore it completely without any explanation.<\/p>\n Plus, it really does look as though nobody told Brian Wood that Colossus is supposed to be the Juggernaut right now. \u00a0Considering that the book has a relatively small core cast, the failure to mention in any way a major storyline that’s altering the personality of one of those characters is frankly inexplicable.<\/p>\n Still, beautiful art, and if you can ignore the bit about keeping the other X-Men in the dark, the story works pretty well on its own terms.<\/p>\n X-Men: Legacy<\/strong><\/em> #269<\/strong> – This is an Avengers vs X-Men\u00a0<\/em>crossover, and it seems to be starting a Rogue\/Ms Marvel arc. \u00a0In theory that’s a good idea, given their shared history. \u00a0But I’m not so sure that this is the way to play it.<\/p>\n The plot in a nutshell: Rogue is helping the X-Men to remake the world, because, you know, Schism’s apparently over because the crossover says it is. \u00a0She’s on her own in New Orleans when Ms Marvel lures her into an ambush, and even though it’s pretty obvious that Ms Marvel wants to talk, Rogue fights back and defeats her. \u00a0Then Magik shows up to take Ms Marvel off to the holding prison for captured Avengers – which turns out to be a chunk of Limbo full of demons. \u00a0Rogue is appropriately shocked and, judging from the cover of next issue, will presumably be going in to rescue Ms Marvel after all.<\/p>\n Leave aside the casual dismissal of the central storyline of the last year and you’ve still got two major difficulties here. \u00a0Number one, Ms Marvel’s explanation for approaching Rogue is “I know you better than any of the other X-Men.” \u00a0What? \u00a0Since when? \u00a0The characters are linked by one major story, but they barely know one another. \u00a0“I came after you because I thought I’d get under your skin” – yes. \u00a0But “we’re good friends”? \u00a0Surely not.<\/p>\n Number two, this phase of Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> makes all the X-Men look like dimwits. \u00a0It’s a necessary evil for the sake of the bigger story but it still causes problems for stories like this that have to build an entire issue around it. \u00a0Anyone with the faintest understanding of how stories work knows that it’s clearly all going to go wrong – the final act has to come from somewhere – but for plot purposes the X-Men have to completely ignore that possibility and wholeheartedly commit to a programme of global reconstruction driven by five people possessed by a cosmic entity that the X-books have for years regarded as a by-word for “ominous”. \u00a0Granted that Rachel provides some in-story justification for believing that the Phoenix can be controlled by its host, you’d still think a bit of caution would be in order, particularly when its hosts include the demon sorceress kept locked in the brig for everyone’s safety, and the guy who’s already the Juggernaut. \u00a0But no.<\/p>\n So when Rogue learns that Magik is doing morally dodgy things\u00a0and is surprised<\/em> – well, she looks like the biggest moron imaginable. \u00a0Sure, sometimes it’s necessary for characters to do stupid things to advance the plot. \u00a0It can work with a bit of sleight of hand, or where the story gives the characters a reason to be wrong. \u00a0Neither of those apply here. \u00a0So when Rogue fails to spot something that even the dimmest reader will have figured out halfway through the first scene, you’ve got a big problem, and one that kills the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The stop-start world of Marvel scheduling gives us a nice quiet week this time. \u00a0Three X-Men titles, and two of those are part of the big event… Wolverine and the X-Men #12 – This is one of those books that you can feel struggling to assert its identity in the face of a crossover. \u00a0The […]<\/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-1470","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\/1470","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=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}