{"id":2430,"date":"2014-03-02T08:55:37","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T08:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2430"},"modified":"2014-03-02T08:55:37","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T08:55:37","slug":"wolverine-and-the-x-men-42-graduated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2430","title":{"rendered":"Wolverine and the X-Men #42 – “Graduated?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The end of the road, then. \u00a0It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em>, which wraps up Jason Aaron’s run with two epilogue issues, in advance of next week’s (!) relaunch with Latour and Asrar.<\/p>\n

While Aaron may be sticking around over on\u00a0Amazing X-Men<\/em>, which shares a similarly relaxed attitude to sanity, this is more than just creator reshuffling. \u00a0Despite its name,\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em> was never really about Wolverine and the X-Men at all. \u00a0It was about the school. \u00a0Marvel finally got a book about the trainees to work – albeit by the slightly questionable device of marketing it as something else. \u00a0Unsurprisingly, the final issue goes for the ever popular graduation day theme – an excellent way of marking a symbolic turning point for some of the characters while leaving the school in place to grind happily on for the next creative team.<\/p>\n

The focus is – well, arguably, the focus is on the fact that it’s an artistic jam issue, with contributions from a bunch of artists who have contributed to the series over its run, naturally ending with a couple of pages by original artist Chris Bachalo. \u00a0The results are a little patchy, particularly on the opening pages, which really do look as though the deadline must have been unreasonably short. \u00a0But there are some strong sequences in here too, such as a lovely establishing shot of everyone arriving for the graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n

In story terms, though, this issue is mainly about Quentin Quire’s horror at the thought of graduation. \u00a0To him, it signifies that he’s been assimilated and has lost the rebel identity he prizes so much. \u00a0But ultimately he accepts his award, however ambivalently – and a series of flash forwards to the far future have a still-obnoxious Quentin helping to keep the school going when Wolverine is on the verge of throwing in the towel. \u00a0Ultimately the series comes down on the side of telling us that Quentin is growing up and deep down he knows this is a good thing, even if right now he sees it mainly as an inevitability he has to come to terms with.<\/p>\n

As well as making a nice resolution for Quentin’s arc over the course of this series, it’s a neat metaphor for the wrap-up of the book itself, which often adopted the sort of demented anarchism that he would have approved of. \u00a0Nobody could accuse\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men<\/em> of lacking its own voice, or of being in thrall to the X-books’ house style. \u00a0If anything, the biggest question mark over this book has always been its tendency to push absurdity too far and undercut its emotional core. \u00a0I remain thoroughly unconvinced about the Hellfire kids, for example, who had just drifted too far from any sort of recognisable human behaviour to work as characters even within this book’s frame of reference. \u00a0And their prominence over the course of this book’s run is a problem.<\/p>\n

But thankfully this final issue avoids most of those pitfalls and plays to the elements of Aaron’s run that worked the best. \u00a0It seems likely that this will go down as one of the more important X-Men runs, if only because of the work it’s done in establishing the tone and style of the school itself, something which seems set to be a feature of the franchise going forward (not least because there’s a school in the movies). \u00a0Between this and\u00a0Schism<\/em> itself, Aaron has left an impact on the X-Men, and one largely for the better. \u00a0The franchise is certainly in a \u00a0better state now than it was in the middle of the Utopia phase when everyone was sitting on a rock wondering about extinction. \u00a0Aaron has brought some joy back to the whole thing.<\/p>\n

An aside: as I’ve been switching to digital with each progressive X-book relaunch, this issue also has the dubious distinction of being the last one I’m buying in hard copy. \u00a0Digital may not be perfect – it still struggles to deal with double page spreads in particular – but the advantages of convenience, portability, easy access to back issues without filling a room with the damn things, and not having any adverts, all comfortably outweigh that. \u00a0If I really want a permanent hard copy to put on a shelf, I’ll buy the trade – but not on the first release, not at those prices.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s an unfortunate coincidence that my final print issue has a rather obvious printing defect in the form of a dirty great line running across the centre spread. \u00a0Or maybe it’s just karma. \u00a0Either way, this is the end of an era in more ways than one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The end of the road, then. \u00a0It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on\u00a0Wolverine and the X-Men, which wraps up Jason Aaron’s run with two epilogue issues, in advance of next week’s (!) relaunch with Latour and Asrar. While Aaron may be sticking around over on\u00a0Amazing X-Men, which shares a similarly relaxed attitude to […]<\/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-2430","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\/2430","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=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2431,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions\/2431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}