{"id":1983,"date":"2013-06-16T19:02:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T18:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2013-06-16T19:02:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T18:02:44","slug":"the-x-axis-16-june-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1983","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 16 June 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m still waiting for the books that I get by mail order – which, this week, means\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em> #31 and\u00a0Astonishing<\/em> #63. \u00a0But that still leaves the other three titles that I’m getting digitally –\u00a0Wolverine, Savage Wolverine<\/em> and\u00a0Uncanny X-Force<\/em> – so let’s cover them.<\/p>\n

It’s also a podcast weekend, so check two posts down to hear Al and me talk about\u00a0Superman Unchained, Six-Gun Gorrilla<\/em>, and\u00a0True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Savage Wolverine<\/strong><\/em> #6<\/strong> – Now into its second storyline, by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira. \u00a0Since the September solicitations have Jock doing the book, it seems this is going to be Wolverine’s\u00a0Legends of the Dark Knight<\/em> title. \u00a0Or, if you prefer, it’s basically a string of miniseries unified under a single banner.<\/p>\n

An editor’s note says this story takes place “a while back” – by which they evidently mean “before Dr Octopus became Spider-Man” – which is hardly surprising given the lead-in time for Joe Madureira comics. \u00a0Over at CBR this week, Axel Alonso’s comments on this series rather suggest it was originally intended to go somewhere else (“it just so happened that Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira had begun to collaborate on a Wolverine story featuring Spider-Man and Elektra that was perfect from the series”). \u00a0To me, that rather sounds as though this started off life as an\u00a0Avenging Spider-Man<\/em> arc before drifting into scheduling oblivion and eventually re-emerging here. \u00a0Then again, it’s not like Spider-Man has a great deal to do in this story; it might as well be in this book.<\/p>\n

So, the plot: Elektra tries to retrieve Bullseye’s body from the US government, but it turns out to be missing already. \u00a0It turns out that a faction of the Hand already has it, and they’ve sent it after the Kingpin as one of those rather arbitrary “prove you deserve to be leader” rituals that make such good plot drivers. \u00a0And Elektra enlists Wolverine to help, only for Wolverine to find out he’s working for the Kingpin.<\/p>\n

Considering what we’ve had in this book to date – and it’s status as a rotating-creator anthology title – it’s a surprisingly continuity-heavy affair. \u00a0But Wells does keep his eye on the characters; the theme of this team-up is evidently meant to be Spider-Man’s slightly awkward relationship with the more hardcore, violent heroes out there. \u00a0To make that work, of course, Wells has to play up the idea of Wolverine as the out-of-place loose cannon of the Avengers, in a way that can’t help seem a little forced considering that he’s been a largely uncontentious member of that team for eight years now. \u00a0But then again, it’s a dynamic that they probably should always have been putting more stress on.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure it’s really a Wolverine story, but then it doesn’t seem to have started life as one. \u00a0As an all-purpose Marvel Universe team-up, it’s pretty enjoyable stuff, and a nice change of pace from the first arc.<\/p>\n

Uncanny X-Force<\/strong><\/em> #6<\/strong> – This is meandering a bit, isn’t it? \u00a0Six issues in, the characters are still engaged in the same exercise of running around Los Angeles, without any particular clear sense that this is heading somewhere. \u00a0This issue consists of Psylocke and Wolverine discussing the plot telepathically, while (in a series of flashbacks) we get to see yet more racing around. \u00a0Cluster wants Psylocke to help rescue Fantomex; she says no. \u00a0Then there’s some fighting with Spiral, which sets up the reasonably interesting idea that they’re both damaged souls who have something in common, even if it was Spiral who did the damage to Psylocke. \u00a0And at the end Psylocke decides to go after Fantomex after all.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of interesting ideas in this series, but I feel sure there’s a clearer, more streamline version of this story in there trying to get out. \u00a0It’s all rather messy right now. \u00a0And despite dutifully explaining past continuity at the start of the series for most of the characters, it still really hasn’t said anything much about the apparently-vitally-important Demon Bear, who comes from a thirty-year-old storyline that surely can’t be common knowledge to today’s audience.<\/p>\n

We’ve apparently now lost Ron Garney, and instead we’ve got art divided between Adrian Alphona and Dexter Soy. \u00a0Alphona’s more delicate, slightly cartoonish figures work perfectly well for what he’s asked to draw – which is a symbolic psychic landscape of antipodean sheep-farming. \u00a0As for Soy, his work here is a considerable improvement from what I saw of him on\u00a0Captain Marvel<\/em> – largely because the murk has been jettisoned. \u00a0His first page is a true mess, but it picks up from there, and winds up as a reasonable attempt to continue the book’s established look.<\/p>\n

There’s something in here, but it really does need a bit more structure to help it get out.<\/p>\n

Wolverine<\/strong><\/em> #4<\/strong> – Having voiced my irritation at\u00a0Savage Wolverine<\/em> ending its first arc with a non-ending, I’d be remiss not to acknowledge that a very similar point could be made here. \u00a0Wolverine foils the mind-controlling alien guys’ immediate plot – which seems to involve detonating a bio-weapon over Manhattan – but we never do find out who they were or what was behind it all.<\/p>\n

There are two big differences, of course. \u00a0First, this issue does at least provide some degree of resolution by letting Wolverine defeat the immediate scheme. \u00a0And second, Paul Cornell is staying on this book (plus, he’s written enough good comics to build plenty of goodwill), which means that when he does something like this, I trust that it’s heading somewhere. \u00a0It’s clearly a deliberate choice – SHIELD do offer an explanation, which boils down to “oh yeah, it was Dr Doom”, but that’s presented as so clearly unsatisfactory that we’re evidently not meant to take it at face value. \u00a0(The fairly obvious implication is that the mystery consciousness has got into SHIELD and is itself responsible for putting forward this completely arbitrary theory.)<\/p>\n

Now, that being said – I can’t help feeling that when this storyline began, the focus was very much on the mystery of who the villains were. \u00a0The specific scheme that Wolverine actually thwarts maybe emerged a little too late on, or wasn’t given quite enough prominence, for this issue to feel like a truly satisfying conclusion. \u00a0But Cornell does write a good solo Wolverine, with some inventive action sequences that make good use of his powers. \u00a0And with Alan Davis drawing, it’s beautifully clear.<\/p>\n

And the flipside of a first arc which leaves its major storyline dangling is that Cornell evidently has some longer-term plans for this book (ones that don’t rely on trawling through the character’s old continuity, either). \u00a0As an issue in its own right, it doesn’t quite nail it, but it gives plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m still waiting for the books that I get by mail order – which, this week, means\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men #31 and\u00a0Astonishing #63. \u00a0But that still leaves the other three titles that I’m getting digitally –\u00a0Wolverine, Savage Wolverine and\u00a0Uncanny X-Force – so let’s cover them. It’s also a podcast weekend, so check two posts down […]<\/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-1983","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\/1983","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=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}