{"id":1963,"date":"2013-06-02T21:33:42","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T20:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1963"},"modified":"2013-06-02T21:33:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-02T20:33:42","slug":"the-x-axis-2-june-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1963","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 2 June 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a busy week, with\u00a0X-Men<\/em> relaunching,\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em> kicking off its next major storyline, and\u00a0Savage Wolverine<\/em> wrapping up Frank Cho’s arc.<\/p>\n

Well, kind of.<\/p>\n

It’s also a podcast weekend, so don’t forget to check one post down for reviews that include a fuller discussion of\u00a0X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gambit<\/strong><\/em> #13<\/strong> – Hmm. \u00a0This book is on its way to imminent cancellation, and so naturally enough, it’s in wrap-up mode. \u00a0The \u00a0lengthy Joelle arc ended last month, but seemed to be setting up a cliffhanger where Gambit’s thievery-related sidekick Fence had been killed by Tombstone, or something to that effect. \u00a0In this issue, Tombstone’s nowhere to be seen; instead, it’s an issue of Gambit trying to help his friend by stealing technology from Tony Stark’s apartment – which is going to help, apparently, because Fence is a cyborg, so, yeah, technology.<\/p>\n

That’s all fine, and it gets the book back to its usual heist formula, something it does quite well. \u00a0And if you’re wondering why Gambit doesn’t simply ask<\/em> Iron Man for help, the final page kind of has an answer for that too, even if the art is rather confused. \u00a0(Surely Gambit left that thingummy on the\u00a0outside<\/em> of the building?) \u00a0Iron Man himself is off in\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>\u00a0right now, so Jim Rhodes shows up to investigate, and we get Gambit having a brave stab at piloting some stolen Iron Man armour. \u00a0Yes, we’re asked to believe that he can power it entirely with his own powers, and that this somehow avoids him having to switch it on and have to deal with the security controls, and yes, that’s objectively ridiculous even by superhero standards, but for whatever reason, I’m willing to let the book have that one.<\/p>\n

But… why does the cover have him fighting somebody in the Iron Patriot armour, which doesn’t appear in this issue at all? \u00a0The solicitations don’t shed any light on it – the book shipped two issues in May, and the shared solicitation copy all relates to issue #12. \u00a0Still, this has signs of last minute changes of direction. \u00a0Considering which, it’s really surprisingly okay.<\/p>\n

Savage Wolverine<\/em> #5<\/strong> – This, in contrast, isn’t.<\/p>\n

It’s the final issue of Frank Cho’s run, which has not been unproblematic, but at least has hitherto displayed enough basic coherence to suggest it was heading somewhere. \u00a0Wolverine is mysteriously transported to a hidden island where he meets up with Shanna the She-Devil, also trapped there. \u00a0There’s some sort of anti-technology field that prevents them calling for help, so they set out to get rid of it. \u00a0Meanwhile, Amadeus Cho also randomly shows up on the island, meets the locals, and establishes that the field is also holding Something Terrible, so it\u00a0mustn’t<\/em> be brought down. \u00a0Everyone converges on the Important Temple, at which point the Hulk shows up for no apparent reason. \u00a0Oh, and somewhere in here, Shanna was mystically revived with a power-up.<\/p>\n

So! \u00a0We’re clearly heading towards a big showdown in which a different solution is found and there’s some sort of pay-off for everything that went before.<\/p>\n

But, no, we’re not. \u00a0What\u00a0actually<\/em> happens: there’s a big fight, the Something Terrible escapes, it flies off into space and reports back to its boss, who’s apparently going to invade the earth at some point. \u00a0The end.<\/p>\n

No, seriously,\u00a0that’s it.<\/em> \u00a0That’s how it ends.<\/p>\n

If you’re wanting an explanation of why everyone was teleported to this island in the first place, the answer is apparently the throwaway line of dialogue in issue #3 where the local priest suggested that the Something Terrible something just brings people to the island in the hope of getting himself freed – though he must be doing so at quite a rate if this story is anything to go by. \u00a0There never seems to be any particular reason for selecting the Hulk, or Wolverine, or Amadeus Cho, all of whom are in basically interchangeable roles that could have been played by anyone. \u00a0Shanna does get her power-up, but it plays no real part in the finale. \u00a0And then it just kind of stops.<\/p>\n

The book even has the nerve to pause so its characters can laugh at Cho’s jokes (which aren’t funny).<\/p>\n

If this was the middle chapter of a twelve-issue arc, it would be just about acceptable, since you’d assume that some sort of actual resolution was still in the offing. \u00a0But as the conclusion of a story, in Cho’s final issue on the title? \u00a0Abysmal. \u00a0It’s the sort of issue that leaves me genuinely annoyed at having my time wasted.<\/p>\n

Uncanny X-Force<\/em> #5<\/strong> – In which the story pauses for an issue so that Sam Humphries can try to explain what he’s doing with Bishop – admittedly, a character in need of fairly drastic work to rehabilitate him following his inexplicable misuse in\u00a0Cable<\/em>. \u00a0If you were thinking that the whole of that storyline was going to be written off as mind control, then apparently not; this issue has him stranded in the far future, apparently returning to sanity, taking up yet another new career as a Revenant hunter, and\u00a0then<\/em> being taken over by the main Revenant (which is the owl persona) and… well, that bear thing.<\/p>\n

So yes,\u00a0Cable<\/em> apparently still counts – though his behaviour in that series is raised by the other characters, who describe him as “psychotic”, so maybe we’re going for a combination of mind control and mental illness to restore Bishop to viability.<\/p>\n

As for the bear, this issue\u00a0does explicitly bill it as “the demon bear”, which seems a bit odd. \u00a0Unless it’s a massive coincidence, this appears to be a reference to a\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> storyline from the early 1980s, which the series has yet to explain to readers under the age of 30, and which has no apparent connection to any cast member. \u00a0(The demon bear was the arch-enemy of Dani Moonstar, basically.)<\/p>\n

I’m kind of confused about where all this is meant to be heading, to be honest.<\/p>\n

Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em> #30<\/strong> – This is the prologue to “The Hellfire Saga”, a storyline that Marvel have actually promoted with a few house ads. \u00a0(Not that I see many of the house ads these days, since I’m now getting most of my books digitally. \u00a0No great loss.)<\/p>\n

This book has a tendency to veer from lunacy to more conventional plotting, and this issue sees the book in one of its more conservative modes – even though it’s setting up a story involving the Hellfire kids, perhaps the most ludicrous high-profile villains in Marvel today. \u00a0It’s an array of subplot scenes shuffling assorted characters into place for the main story. \u00a0So Beast tries to enlist Xanto Starblood (you know, the alien scientist who wanted to kill Broo) to cure Broo. \u00a0That doesn’t go particularly well, as Starblood not unreasonably points out that Broo seems like a fairly ordinary and healthy Brood to him, and then does a runner with the Club.<\/p>\n

Idie, it turns out, knows perfectly well that the Hellfire kids are trying to manipulate her, and she’s trying to infiltrate them. \u00a0That’s a relief, since she was in danger of coming across as a complete idiot. \u00a0Quire finds this out, but ends up being mistaken for a traitor by the X-Men, so of course he ends up having to try and rescue her himself, which means he has to switch sides too. \u00a0As for the actual traitor, that picks up on a background subplot we’ve all kind of been ignoring for a while.<\/p>\n

Pasqual Ferry (with a couple of assistants) provides the art for this issue. \u00a0I’ve seen more dynamic work from him, and his Quentin Quire looks about thirteen, but it’s still good clean work that fits the story, and with nice expressive characters.<\/p>\n

Issues like this aren’t really stories in their own right, so time will tell how many of these things pan out; I still have reservations about whether the Hellfire kids are sufficiently viable as\u00a0proper<\/em> villains, rather than comic relief, to be taken seriously in a main role. \u00a0Put another way, the baseline of Weird has to be set pretty high for those characters to work, possibly higher than it is in this issue. \u00a0Much as I like this book, after thirty issues it still hasn’t sold me on the brats, and if we never see them again after this storyline, I won’t miss them.<\/p>\n

X-Men<\/em> #1<\/strong> – I’m not going to repeat everything we said in the podcast, but here are the key points. \u00a0Despite its seemingly unqualified title,\u00a0X-Men<\/em> is plainly the D-title at best, behind\u00a0Uncanny, All-New<\/em> and\u00a0Wolverine &…<\/em>, but by putting Olivier Coipel on it, Marvel are at least giving it a shot. \u00a0Brian Wood was already on the book before the relaunch, but this does appear to be a clean start. \u00a0And that’s good, because while those earlier issues had a lot of good material, they were dragged down by a central concept I never bought into. \u00a0Now we can put that aside and move on.<\/p>\n

The promotion suggested this would be “the female X-Men title”, and there are clear signs of that in the issue – a storyline that involves a male-versus-female battle between villains, and a roster nobody would choose if they weren’t consciously aiming for an all-female roster. \u00a0(Two telepaths? \u00a0Four characters who are already being used in other books?) \u00a0But Wood’s editorial expressly disavows that as the central concept; instead, it seems his focus is on making this the trad X-Men book, for long-time readers who want a familiar cast (you’ll note Warbird isn’t in this issue) and a more conventional team-book feel that isn’t to be found in the other titles. \u00a0It’s not a priority I’d have expected from Brian Wood, but it’s the one we’ve got.<\/p>\n

So this is an issue devoted to bringing Jubilee back into circulation – the fact that she’s a vampire is glossed over – and setting up John Sublime and his long-lost “sister” as the villains for the first arc, giving it the connection to X-Men history that it’s going to need if it’s taking this route. \u00a0Wood’s good with establishing the character voices, and Coipel’s always a strong artist for a solidly traditional-yet-modern superhero title. \u00a0There are more than a few niggling plot holes – how exactly\u00a0did<\/em> Jubilee get that baby onto the aeroplane, for example? – but on the whole it’s a sound first issue that turns out to be less gimmicky than the promotion had suggested it might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a busy week, with\u00a0X-Men relaunching,\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men kicking off its next major storyline, and\u00a0Savage Wolverine wrapping up Frank Cho’s arc. Well, kind of. It’s also a podcast weekend, so don’t forget to check one post down for reviews that include a fuller discussion of\u00a0X-Men. Gambit #13 – Hmm. \u00a0This book is on its […]<\/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-1963","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\/1963","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=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}