{"id":1550,"date":"2012-09-02T18:48:30","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T17:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2012-09-02T18:48:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T17:48:30","slug":"the-x-axis-2-september-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1550","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 2 September 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

More catch-up, more new books…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AvX: Versus<\/strong><\/em> #5<\/strong> – Considering that it literally is just a bunch of fight scenes – and you can’t accuse Marvel of false advertising on that one – it’s remarkable that this book has sold as well as it has. \u00a0I can only assume that the upcoming anthology\u00a0A+X<\/em> is the result of somebody lobbying to keep the book around. \u00a0In a way, this makes sense.<\/p>\n

Of course, the problem is that\u00a0AvX: Versus<\/em> mostly hovers somewhere between tedious and utterly pointless, because writing a remotely interesting story based\u00a0entirely<\/em> on a fight scene is not easy, and frankly, pure undiluted action sequences don’t play to the strengths of a lot of these creators. \u00a0I’m reminded somewhat of the “Nuff Said” month from a few years back, where creators were asked to do entirely silent issues for a month. \u00a0Gimmicky as it was, the limitations should have been an interesting creative challenge. \u00a0For the most part, the results showed that the creators were simply defeated by them. \u00a0AvX: Versus<\/em> has had much the same problem.<\/p>\n

This issue’s first story – Hawkeye versus Angel, by Matt Fraction and Leinil Francis Yu – is an utter misfire. \u00a0It’s not very interesting as a fight scene to start with, but the major problem is that nobody seems to have told Fraction or his editor anything about the Angel’s current status. \u00a0Understandably looking for some sort of hook to hang the thing on, Fraction opts for class war. \u00a0If you’ve got to come up with some sort of personal friction between these two, that’s not a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Except it doesn’t work at all with the current version of Angel, who had his entirely personality wiped a year or so back, and is now a naive amnesiac who thinks he’s a real angel. \u00a0Fraction is either utterly unaware of that storyline, or he simply ignores it. \u00a0And that doesn’t work. \u00a0It’s not just a current plot in another book; it’s his\u00a0entire status quo<\/em>. \u00a0The script should simply have been bounced.<\/p>\n

Jason Aaron and Tom Raney have something more interesting to work with, in the Black Panther and Storm. \u00a0I’ve never regarded the marriage of those characters as anything other than a heavy-handed exercise in pairing up African characters, because hey, if you come from the same continent, you must have a tremendous amount in common, right? \u00a0It’s not quite clear yet whether their break-up in\u00a0Avengers vs X-Men<\/em> is being viewed as a set-up for a later story, or whether the crossover is simply being used as an opportunity to bury a bad idea. \u00a0But it was given enough publicity that it does deserve some kind of proper send-off, and this story kind of attempts to do that, or at least to sell us on the idea that their divorce is sad.<\/p>\n

It’s not really successful; much like the marriage itself, there’s a sense that this is happening merely because somebody has decided it should, not because it emerges in any sort of organic way from the characters. \u00a0But Aaron does his best with it. \u00a0As for the art, extended fight scenes aren’t really Tom Raney’s best area, and some of this story looks downright awkward.<\/p>\n

Gambit<\/strong><\/em> #1-2<\/strong> – This launched while I was on holiday, so let’s cover both issues now. \u00a0James Asmus and Clay Mann are the creative team for this latest attempt at a\u00a0Gambit<\/em> series. \u00a0Although he’s not been used much in the X-Men titles lately, Gambit remains a character who ought in theory to be well suited to a solo book. \u00a0As a thief, he’s got plenty of opportunities to go off and do his own thing separate from the other X-Men, and when written correctly, he’s got the charisma to work as a solo lead. \u00a0In practice, though, he’s never sustained his own series for more than two years. \u00a0Perhaps that just means the formula is still to be properly worked out.<\/p>\n

These first two issues make unambiguously clear that this book puts the focus on Gambit’s thievery capers, a part of his life that he\u00a0<\/em>understandably keeps separate from the X-Men – in part for plausible deniability, in part because they wouldn’t approve. \u00a0Of course, since Gambit is<\/em> a hero, the story has to give him the Robin Hood defence of only robbing bad guys – but it doesn’t shy away from the fact that Gambit is doing this mainly because he’s a kleptomaniac.<\/p>\n

More boldly, the book steers clear of any established Marvel Universe characters. \u00a0The main villain is a criminal collector we’ve never seen before; the main supporting character is a mysterious woman who keeps crossing Gambit’s path and won’t identify herself. \u00a0By the flexible standards of the Marvel Universe, it’s a relatively grounded book – there’s ridiculous high-tech floating around, but it’s mostly being pursued by people who seem relatively normal. \u00a0I think that’s necessary if you’re going to do Gambit as a thief; that sort of caper story works best when it’s got some degree of grounding the real world.<\/p>\n

Mann’s art is always nice and clean, and he does good action sequences that help to get across the heist scenes. \u00a0It’s a solidly above average Gambit series, and one with the potential to go further. \u00a0That said, the market is saturated with X-books, it’s been a while since Gambit was pushed as a big deal, and I’m not sure this has the stand-out hook that it may need to find an audience these days. \u00a0But fans who do check it out are likely to be pretty satisfied by it.<\/p>\n

New Mutants<\/strong><\/em> #47-48<\/strong> – The first two parts of “Fight the Future”, which is essentially just a continuation of the previous storyline. \u00a0In fact, it’s quite blatantly the second\u00a0half<\/em> of the previous storyline, so why it’s being billed as a separate arc, I don’t understand.<\/p>\n

Cypher has learned that in the future (well, one possible future, but for present purposes,\u00a0the<\/em> future), he becomes a well-meaning world-conquering bad guys. \u00a0He’s not very happy about that thought, and the rest of the group are trying to be supportive while obviously wondering whether his reaction has set him on the road to making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. \u00a0It also turns out that the group haven’t actually got back to their own present day at all; the previous issues have screwed up the timeline so that they’re now in a world which\u00a0broadly resembles the regular Marvel Universe, but on closer inspection turns out to have all sorts of little discrepancies.<\/p>\n

I like the basic idea of Cypher’s reaction, which seems to go a long way towards humanising a character who was in danger of becoming a power demo. \u00a0The rest of the cast’s response to him is nicely played as well. \u00a0There’s also a nice angle with the New Mutants having to try and dry out the local version of Dr Strange before they can enlist his help. \u00a0And I really do like the art from Felix Ruiz, whose work on these issues seems to be influenced by Bill Sienkiewicz’s art on the original series – no bad thing.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, issue #48 rather deteriorates into characters wandering around and things happening rather arbitrarily. \u00a0When the Hellions show up – apparently picking up from their zombie appearance from the “X-Necrosha” storyline – there really doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to it, despite a few pages of foreshadowing.<\/p>\n

But a decent enough concept overall, and it looks good.<\/p>\n

X-Force<\/strong><\/em> #28-30<\/strong> – Wow, they’re churning this book out, aren’t they? \u00a0Three issues since the last time I wrote about it.<\/p>\n

“Final Execution” hasn’t been my favourite storyline; the Brotherhood haven’t particularly grabbed me as villains, since they’ve been positioned as just a bunch of villains teaming up for revenge, which is all a bit familiar. \u00a0Using Daken doesn’t inspire me much either, as the character was given a reasonable send-off at the end of his own series that played cleverly off his own dubious reception – he was probably best left there.<\/p>\n

But issues #28-29 are very good issues, with the remaining members of X-Force taking refuge in the future and discovering a timeline where they’re running the show and cheerfully killing criminals before they can do anything. \u00a0It’s the old\u00a0Minority Report<\/em> idea, but it works rather well in this story by positioning it as the logical extension of what the title characters are already doing. \u00a0Aside from giving the characters something to think about, it also subverts the book’s own portrayal of the black ops squad as basically the good guys. \u00a0This builds to Psylocke trying to kill herself in order to avert the timeline, and some of the cast pushing back against the moral argument the story is facing them with. \u00a0Ultimately the future X-Force appear to\u00a0win<\/em> the argument – as they point out, “we’re still here, aren’t we?” \u00a0This is the sort of thing that makes Remender’s take on an old idea more interesting; we’ve all seen this premise before, but Remender is pushing the other side of the argument.<\/p>\n

Issue #30, meanwhile, picks up on Evan\/Genesis, who’s being held prisoner by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. \u00a0As near as I can figure out, the idea is that they’re trying to provoke him into being Apocalypse again, in order to… well, prove some kind of point. \u00a0That sort of fits in with Daken’s established interest in trying to reject what he sees as the artificial distinction between hero and villain, and some of the scenes are well written from Evan’s standpoint. \u00a0I’m still not feeling the bad guys, though, who seem to be just pushing the story where it needs to go.<\/p>\n

The art – from Julian Totino Tedesco and Dave Williams – remains consistently excellent. \u00a0Marvel are doing a great job of choosing artists for this book whose work isn’t just interesting, but also gives the title a degree of grace and beauty that plays nicely against the darkness of the story. \u00a0It’s not just good art to look at, it’s got a tone that brings another dimension to the book.<\/p>\n

Wolverine and the X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #15<\/strong> – One of those crossover issues where a bunch of people have little character scenes against the background of the event, but they don’t actually add up to a story for this book. \u00a0Still, there are good moments in here, in the individual scenes. \u00a0Wolverine’s back in charge at the school, and most of the saner X-Men are now living there too – this issue at least finally makes something of the reintegration, which has been egregiously missing from most of the X-titles hitherto. \u00a0Xavier’s back, and gets a little of his old authority (or at least respect) as well. \u00a0Kitty and Iceman’s subplot is nudged forward, as is Husk and Toad’s, and Kid Gladiator’s, and Warbird’s. \u00a0And Angel’s.<\/p>\n

In fact, there’s a lot being done to keep the book’s ongoing stories moving, which is nice to see in the midst of a crossover.\u00a0But it remains essentially a bunch of unrelated scenes rather than a cohesive story, and artist Jorge Molina – while perfectly adequate – isn’t the most memorable artist the book has had. \u00a0It does the job.<\/p>\n

X-Treme X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #2<\/strong> – Oh crikey. \u00a0The first issue of this\u00a0Exiles<\/em> relaunch didn’t strike me as too bad, but this is a bit of a mess. \u00a0The X-Men have arrived on a world where the local “gods” are a bunch of X-Men who seem to be mad and evil. \u00a0Dazzler wants to fight back, Emma and Xavier want to play along and not get killed.<\/p>\n

It’s not very good. \u00a0The bad guys are totally one-dimensional, there’s a disproportionate focus on Dazzler in what’s meant to be a team book, and some of the art in the closing five pages is really downright bad. \u00a0(Page 16 panel 1 boasts a clumsy rendering of Sabretooth and a Dazzler who appears to have suffered several fatal bone fractures.) \u00a0There are some quite amusing bits of dialogue, but the story as a whole is distinctly heavy handed. \u00a0Disappointing, really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More catch-up, more new books… AvX: Versus #5 – Considering that it literally is just a bunch of fight scenes – and you can’t accuse Marvel of false advertising on that one – it’s remarkable that this book has sold as well as it has. \u00a0I can only assume that the upcoming anthology\u00a0A+X is the […]<\/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-1550","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\/1550","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=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}