It’s middle chapter week for the X-books!<\/p>\n
Uncanny Avengers<\/em> #6<\/strong> – Well, except for this, which is more of a prologue. \u00a0In fact, the Avengers don’t even appear in it. \u00a0Instead, it’s an issue of set-up from the 11th century, with Kang (well, Rama-Tut, but it’s the same character) trying to alter the course of history by getting Apocalypse to kill Thor and a chap called Logan who is one of those conveniently recognisable ancestors that characters tend to have.<\/p>\n It’s basically Kang (in his various guises) manipulating assorted characters into doing things the significance of which will not doubt become clearer as we go on. \u00a0At this stage, Remender is mainly going for the idea that Kang is outwitting and manipulating his opponents because, as a time traveller, he’s playing by different rules from everyone else. \u00a0There’s nothing greatly new there, but it’s always worth taking the time to re-establish every now and then. \u00a0Kang does, after all, suffer from the problem of being an A-list villain who’s been losing consistently for fifty years; his credibility needs a polish now and then.<\/p>\n I assume Remender is playing to some extent off Jason Aaron’s portrayal of the reckless medieval rookie Thor from the character’s solo series – I’m planning to read that in trade, but I recall the set-up is meant to involve taking advantage of the character’s immortality to do stories in past, present and future. \u00a0Remender likewise takes advantage here of both Thor and Apocalypse being immortal characters; both behave very differently here, with Thor hopelessly immature and Apocalypse still apparently trying to carry out the Celestials’ mission, but they’re recognisable as much earlier versions of the characters.<\/p>\n Stories like this ultimately stand and fall on how well the manipulations hold up when the plot is fully revealed, but Remender’s doing enough here to buy goodwill while we wait to see where this is heading.<\/p>\n Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #4<\/strong> – Remarkable. \u00a0Much of this issue is simply a repeat of Cyclops’ team’s visit to the Jean Grey School from\u00a0All-New X-Men<\/em>, but told from Emma Frost’s perspective. \u00a0And that’s fine, because only the broad strokes get duplicated. \u00a0The focus here is on Emma persuading the Stepford Cuckoos to come with her, which was entirely off-camera in the other story.<\/p>\n No, what’s baffling is that\u00a0All-New X-Men<\/em> built up to a big cliffhanger about which other character would go with Cyclops. \u00a0But in this issue it’s just casually revealed to be Angel (the Silver Age version), in a way that seems to assume we already know from the other series. \u00a0And these books share a writer and editor. \u00a0The left hand, it seems, doesn’t even know what the left hand is doing.<\/p>\n What of Bendis’ treatment of the Cuckoos, then? \u00a0Unusually, instead of playing up the original “scary identical girls who act in unison” angle, he’s going back to their origin story from the\u00a0X-Warsong<\/em> miniseries, and trying to do something with it. \u00a0Warsong<\/em> has largely been ignored by subsequent writers, probably because it was rubbish. \u00a0But it did establish, for better or worse (mainly worse), that the Cuckoos are clones of Emma. \u00a0So be it.<\/p>\n This wasn’t a very interesting idea when it was first introduced, but it has rather more potential now. \u00a0Bendis is writing Emma as a surrogate mother figure for the girls. \u00a0But of course her authority is now horribly compromised by having screwed up her life and lost control of her powers, while the girls now have the upper hand in the relationship. \u00a0There’s something in that, and I can see it working.<\/p>\n The other major development in this issue is that Magik is having periodic seizures where loads of hellfire appears around her. \u00a0Presumably this is the echo of what was originally solicited as a story about why Magik is the only character\u00a0not<\/em> to have her powers screwed up by the Phoenix Force, though it’s relegated here largely to the status of a subplot, albeit a nicely timed moment.<\/p>\n We return, of course, to the now familiar refrain in my commentary on Bendis’ X-Men comics. \u00a0There are some worthwhile ideas here for character subplots, but man cannot live on subplot alone. \u00a0We need a central driving story, and we need to get to it quickly.<\/p>\n Wolverine<\/em> #2<\/strong> – Before I start: the recap page really needs work. \u00a0It dutifully summarises what actually\u00a0happens<\/em> in the previous issue, but completely fails to mention the clear implication that anyone who picked up the gun fell under mind control from some outside force. \u00a0And that was the key story point. \u00a0A weird thing to omit, to put it mildly.<\/p>\n Anyhow, yes, it’s mind control, a point which becomes clear pretty quickly. \u00a0Much of this issue features Wolverine going after the kid with the blaster. \u00a0The kid soon drops even the pretence of being anything other than an alien consciousness, and the story develops into the kid toying with Wolverine to try and figure him out. \u00a0Quite what the aliens are after isn’t really suggested with any great clarity here – instead the story reverts to the old standby of wheeling out the Watcher to officially certify events as Tremendously Important, which admittedly hasn’t been done in a while, but could still use another few years in the deep freeze.<\/p>\n I’d have preferred to see a bit more development on that front – really, issue #2 ends up simply elaborating on the point that Cornell and Davis already made in issue #1. \u00a0But at this stage, at least, the execution is strong enough for the book to get away with it. \u00a0Davis remains one of the best superhero artists, who can sell a set-piece or an emotional beat perfectly. \u00a0And Cornell has successfully taken the character back to basics by doing a story that gets him away from the awkward role of mainstay elder statesman that he seems to have grown into, and plays more to his strengths as a solo hero. \u00a0If the series doesn’t yet seem to have any big ideas in mind, it does offer quality craftsmanship, which is more than enough for now.<\/p>\n X-Treme X-Men<\/em> #13<\/strong> – Continuing the “X-Termination” crossover, in which cosmic giants of no particular specification wander around threatening to destroy multiple universes or something. \u00a0This is the crossover of the walking dead, with two of the three participating titles already scheduled for cancellation, and nobody particularly bothered about pairing up wildly discordant art styles on the same issue, from artists who are either very rushed or just not ready for prime time. \u00a0(Not that X-Treme X-Men<\/em> is prime time, though, if we’re being honest.)<\/p>\n Since the villains are just forces of nature, there’s not a great deal to the story beyond characters teaming up in unusual permutations and looking very worried. \u00a0X-Termination, it seems, is from the\u00a0Ultimatum<\/em> model of finality – if you can’t have a dramatically satisfying resolution, at least you can kill everybody in sight and declare the story over. \u00a0Greg Pak, on this issue, at least tries mightily to sell the idea that we’re witnessing a heroic sacrifice from young Kurt, but it’s more the affection generated for the character in earlier issues that lends it some weight. \u00a0Frankly, at this stage, I’d have preferred Marvel to just cancel\u00a0X-Treme<\/em> and\u00a0Age of Apocalypse<\/em> rather than tack this clumsiness onto the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s middle chapter week for the X-books! Uncanny Avengers #6 – Well, except for this, which is more of a prologue. \u00a0In fact, the Avengers don’t even appear in it. \u00a0Instead, it’s an issue of set-up from the 11th century, with Kang (well, Rama-Tut, but it’s the same character) trying to alter the course of […]<\/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-1877","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\/1877","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=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1880,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}