Continuing our catch-up programme, here’s the other X-Men titles that shipped over the last few weeks…<\/p>\n
Astonishing X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #52<\/strong> – With the big publicity event completed, the series gets back to dealing with the main storyline. \u00a0Which isn’t necessarily for the best, because the actual story – heroes are attacked by people manipulated by anonymous mind-controller – isn’t actually all that interesting. \u00a0This issue shifts the emphasis to Karma and covers events from her perspective. \u00a0As you undoubtedly figured out for yourself, she hasn’t really turned evil (and the book clearly doesn’t really expect you to have thought otherwise).<\/p>\n Writer Marjorie Liu’s angle on Karma is that she’s kind of buckling under the pressure and wants out, which both seems to come out of nowhere, considering that Karma hasn’t been much used recently, and also isn’t especially interesting. \u00a0There’s some good dialogue in her scenes with Kitty and Logan, but no particularly memorable ideas to underpin it all. \u00a0Couple that with a generic villain doing manipulative things that aren’t especially interesting for reasons that aren’t really hinted at, and you’ve got a story that’s almost instantly forgettable. \u00a0The art’s perfectly sound, and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s flashback scenes have some very nice moments, but there’s really nothing much going on here.<\/p>\n First X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – Sorry, can I just pretend this didn’t happen?<\/p>\n No?<\/p>\n Okay…<\/p>\n First X-Men<\/em> is a continuity implant miniseries in which Logan, apparently back before he got the adamantium, forms a team to help mutants. \u00a0So they’re the X-Men before the X-Men, you see. \u00a0Which gives you a group composed of the future Wolverine, the future Sabretooth, a couple of new characters, and Magneto.<\/p>\n I cannot begin to tell you how little enthusiasm I have for that sort of premise. \u00a0On the other hand, it\u00a0is<\/em> a Neal Adams book, and in his prime, Neal Adams was one of the greats. \u00a0Admittedly, he’s mainly responsible for the story here, and writing was never his strong point. \u00a0But his work on the X-Men back in the 1960s was seminal, and there are still some good sequences of storytelling in here.<\/p>\n But as a story – well, why? \u00a0What’s the point? \u00a0I was utterly baffled when this thing was announced and I’m no less baffled after reading the first issue. \u00a0It’s a continuity trainwreck, but that wouldn’t be a big deal if it seemed to have something to say. \u00a0And yes, there are a couple of interesting character ideas in here. \u00a0Magneto’s Nazi-hunter phase remains a relatively underused part of his back story. \u00a0Xavier flatly refusing to get involved is more questionable, but you can make a case for it, given that this is before he has his epiphany while fighting Amahl Farouk, and at a time when he’s still expecting a quiet life.<\/p>\n But Sabretooth has to be wrenched way out of any sort of character he’s ever had in order for his role here to make any sense at all. \u00a0And the book’s token female character is completely generic.<\/p>\n It’s not a completely awful comic, but it is a seemingly pointless one that just complicates and dilutes the franchise. \u00a0I truly have no idea why it exists or what it’s meant to be achieving.<\/p>\n X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #33-34<\/strong> – The final part of “Blank Generation”, and the first chapter of “Subterraneans”. \u00a0As it happens, the one leads rather smoothly into the other, since “Blank Generation” doesn’t really end so much as stop. \u00a0It’s evidently a storyline intended to set up future storylines, as the X-Men finally track down David Michael Gray and confront him. \u00a0He promptly pulls out a gun and blasts his own head off, no doubt to resurface in a new body down the line. \u00a0Everyone then kind of stands around for the rest of the issue and reflects on the meaning of it all.<\/p>\n There’s a lot to like in Brian Wood and David Lopez’s work, but this story arc really does have some fundamental problems. \u00a0First and foremost, the whole thing hinges on the concept that the discovery of ancient (or rather, medieval) mutant DNA is a Really Big Deal. \u00a0So far as the X-Men are concerned, it’s not just something of practical use; it’s… well, we’re asked to accept that it’s “huge” and “changes our very identity”. \u00a0And for the life of me I do not understand why I’m meant to think that.<\/p>\n I have a horrible feeling I’m being terribly soulless here, but I honestly don’t get what the big deal is supposed to be. \u00a0Characters seem to be acting as if the existence of medieval mutants is some kind of revelation, but it isn’t – the X-Men already know there were mutants as far back as ancient Egypt. \u00a0And if you want to leave that aside and take the story completely on its own terms, it never really explains what the characters previously believed and why this new information changes anything. \u00a0Besides, even if the X-Men didn’t previously know that mutants went back that far, why would they be surprised to learn it? \u00a0I really don’t understand what the story is going for.<\/p>\n Issue #34 sees the team trying to recover the missing DNA sample from a group of cultists. \u00a0For the purposes of this story, it’s apparently “all anyone needs to destroy the mutant race”, though again, I have not got the faintest clue why that’s supposed to be the case. \u00a0Still, the DNA is more of a macguffin in this story, so it’s not so essential to buy into its inherent importance. \u00a0And there’s plenty in this issue to like – a well executed silent opening sequence of the sample being transported to its new owners through a string of couriers, and some good comedy with Domino attempting to infiltrate the cultists but not really being able to conceal her contempt for their stupidity for more than a panel at a time. \u00a0(They’re also apparently blind, since nobody thinks there’s anything unusual about that massive mark on her face.)<\/p>\n Roland Boschi’s art excels in the opening silent sequence, but there’s also some great character work here; I like the angular style of his characters and the way he handles the scenes on the cultist ship. \u00a0And it’s a nice change of pace that the guy in charge of the cult appears to be a deluded true believer just like all the others; there’s no hidden agenda here, he’s just nuts too. \u00a0A good issue, and one that plays more to the strengths of Wood’s run so far.<\/p>\n X-Men: Legacy<\/strong><\/em> #271<\/strong> – With Rogue banished to an alien world to get her out of the way,\u00a0X-Men: Legacy<\/em> is now out of the\u00a0Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> crossover, and can get back to its own stories. \u00a0The idea here is that Rogue finds herself on one of those wartorn fantasy worlds and obviously needs to get back home. \u00a0That means forming some sort of alliance with one of the local armies, and fortunately, they think she’s tremendously powerful and very useful to them. \u00a0Unfortunately, that’s because she’s still got Ms Marvel’s powers from when she copied them last issue – and she won’t have those for long.<\/p>\n Okay, yes, this story seems to work on the basis that when Rogue copies powers, she keeps them until she’s used them up. \u00a0I could have sworn that for thirty odd years the deal had been that they faded after a certain amount of time. \u00a0But whatever. \u00a0There’s been a bit of tinkering with her powers in the last couple of years that might just about justify this if you squint, and besides, it serves the plot well.<\/p>\n It’s a good set-up, and it’s coupled with some good comedy with Rogue attempting to keep the adulation of the locals in check. \u00a0The usual story, these days, would be that Rogue has stumbled into the wrong camp and has hooked up with the baddies by mistake, but Gage doesn’t seem to be going there – or if he is, he’s doing a more convincing job than usual of misdirecting us. \u00a0A fun little story and a nice return to focussing on Rogue in her own title.<\/p>\n X-Treme X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – Boy, this came out ages ago. \u00a0As has been widely observed, this sequel to Greg Pak’s recent\u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> arc is essentially\u00a0Exiles<\/em>. \u00a0The various X-Men who were left on the other Earth at the end of the story do indeed save the world by shunting their people to a new world. \u00a0That, it seems, screws up the multiverse a bit, and “awakens” a bunch of bad guys who must now be hunted down and stopped. \u00a0So they jump from world to world fighting the local version of the threat.<\/p>\n Dazzler gets added to the cast thanks to our X-Men finally managing to open a portal back to the other team’s world. \u00a0Nobody’s been using Dazzler much in a while, and this story plays her as a bit of a B-lister even in the eyes of the other X-Men. \u00a0But she’s a character I’ve always liked, and she’s a good choice to round out the cast here as the reliable veteran who sees everything from the readers’ perspective.<\/p>\n The hook is a weird one. \u00a0All the multiversal threats that have to be fought are, we’re told, evil version of Charles Xavier – though the one we see in this issue is more of a Cthulhu-esque squid thing. \u00a0I’m curious to see where that’s going to take them. \u00a0The risk here is either it gets terribly repetitive, or the variations on the theme become so extreme that it might as well not be Xavier in the first place. \u00a0At first glance it doesn’t seem like a set-up that would be easy to sustain, but since it’s Greg Pak, I assume he knows what he’s doing here. \u00a0After all, the team only have to fight ten of them – we’re presumably looking at a change of direction about a year in.<\/p>\n I do wonder about the wisdom of billing something like this as an X-Men comic, since it really is essentially New Exiles<\/em>; it’ll sell better with the X-Men name, of course, but in the long run this sort of thing surely has to dilute the brand. \u00a0Given their approach to both the X-Men and the Avengers at the moment, Marvel plainly couldn’t care less about diluting the brand, but I find it very hard to believe that that won’t come back to haunt them.<\/p>\n Still, whatever it’s called, this is an entertaining book with a likeable cast. \u00a0It should be a fun read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continuing our catch-up programme, here’s the other X-Men titles that shipped over the last few weeks… Astonishing X-Men #52 – With the big publicity event completed, the series gets back to dealing with the main storyline. \u00a0Which isn’t necessarily for the best, because the actual story – heroes are attacked by people manipulated by anonymous […]<\/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-1535","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\/1535","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=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1536,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}