It’s been a hectic week, so after skipping last week’s column, I’ve got something of a backlog to get through.\u00a0 Fortunately I have a couple of nice long train journeys to make this week, so I should catch up soon enough.\u00a0 But in the meantime, I’ll round up the recent X-books and a few other new releases.\u00a0 (And by the way, I’m far enough behind that I’m going to be reading some of these pretty much as I review them, but hey, that’s life…)<\/p>\n
Choker<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – New miniseries from writer Ben McCool and artist Ben Templesmith (though you’ll notice Templesmith’s name comes first on the cover).\u00a0 In a dystopian near future, embittered ex-cop Johnny Jackson is working as a private investigator, but gets his chance to return to the force if he can solve a case yadda yadda.\u00a0 It’s very much from the School of Warren Ellis.\u00a0 There are a couple of nice touches in here – officially regulated Police Brutality is a fun idea – but the story and characters are pretty familiar.\u00a0 Naturally, Templesmith does great dystopias, with a mixture of caricature and suffocating misery.\u00a0 Still, the whole thing wears its influences a little too visibly.<\/p>\n Dark Wolverine<\/strong><\/em> #83<\/strong> – Hmm.\u00a0 This is a Siege tie-in, which is a challenge for the writers because Daken has nothing to do with Asgard.\u00a0 Now, since they’ve spent the last few issues setting up subplots with other members of the Dark Avengers, I’d have expected the book to spend its time resolving those stories before the team implodes at the end of the crossover.\u00a0 But instead the book is approaching this the hard way, and trying to do a story where the Fates attempt to enlist Daken to put Asgard’s history back on track.\u00a0 Why Daken?\u00a0 Well, to be fair, he asks that question too, but the answer really boils down to “just because”.\u00a0 I do like the idea of Daken being so obsessed with self-determination that he refuses to play along with the embodiments of destiny, but the story can’t get away from the feeling that Daken is being lashed to a plot that has nothing to do with him.\u00a0 And I’m increasingly convinced that the book took a wrong turn in backing off from the early issues where Daken was a more ambiguous character – right now, there’s a dearth of even remotely sympathetic people in the book, which makes it hard to care.\u00a0 (Oh, and the story also depends on you knowing all that stuff about breaking the cycle of Ragnarok from a Thor<\/em> storyline five years ago, which may be confusing to readers who don’t know what the Norns are talking about.)<\/p>\n First Wave<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – The start of a six-issue mini from Brian Azzarello and Rags Morales, launching DC’s new pulp universe – basically, a world with Golden Age characters like the Spirit and Doc Savage, plus Batman.\u00a0 So, okay, it’s kind of about reconnecting superhero comics with their roots.\u00a0 I’m always a bit sceptical about trying to shoehorn unrelated characters into a single series, and this doesn’t really win me over.\u00a0 It’s one of those stories where a previously unmentioned character from another book shows up at the end and you’re meant to recognise them and go “Oooooh.”\u00a0 It also feels rather like a Doc Savage story with some other characters squeezed in.\u00a0 Inoffensive, but it doesn’t grab me.<\/p>\n Girl Comics<\/strong><\/em> #1<\/strong> – This, by the way, is one of the books I’m reading as I write this.\u00a0 So, let’s ignore the squirm-inducingly awful name and see if Marvel’s anthology by all-female creative teams is any good.\u00a0 Colleen Coover does a nice enough two-page intro, but the first actual story is “Moritat” (well, I think<\/em> that’s what it says) by G Willow Wilson and Ming Doyle, which soars completely over my head and crashes against the back wall in ugly fashion.\u00a0\u00a0 Bad start.\u00a0 Trina Robbins and Stephanie Buscema’s Venus story is a cute and stylish riff on updating the Golden Age series.\u00a0 Valerie d’Orazio’s 4-page Punisher story kind of makes its point in the first page, but it’s a great first page.\u00a0 Lucy Knisley’s Dr Octopus 2-pager is okay.\u00a0 Robin Furth and Agnes Garbowska do Hansel and Gretel with Franklin and Valeria Richards in full storybook style, and it’s beautiful stuff.\u00a0 Best thing so far.\u00a0 And… hey, Devin Grayson!\u00a0 There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.\u00a0 Well, she does a vignette with the Scott\/Jean\/Logan triangle, which is pretty decent, and Emma Rios’ art is lovely.\u00a0 So, bit of a mixed bag, but that’s standard for these Marvel anthologies.\u00a0 Really don’t get what that opening story was going for, though.<\/p>\n Nation X<\/strong><\/em> #3<\/strong> – Another anthology, and to give Marvel their due, at least they use these books as an opportunity to run a different style of work.\u00a0 Chuck Kim and Gabriel Hernandez Walta open with an Armor\/Danger story that picks up the obvious loose end of “Hey, isn’t anyone angry about having Danger on the island?”\u00a0 The story’s nothing to write home about, though at least it ties off the problem, but the art’s great, with good use of the visual hook of Armor’s powers.\u00a0 Grace Randoph and James Harren do a Magik\/Anole story (because we were all waiting for a Magik\/Anole story, weren’t we?), which kind of misses Anole’s character, but gets the current take on Magik rather nicely, with a clever play on the “character X learns an important lesson” story.\u00a0 And it looks fantastic.\u00a0 Chris Yost and Karl Moline do, of all things, a story about Madison Jeffries and Diamond Lil.\u00a0 This seems to be an attempt to give a proper send-off to a character who was casually killed off in the “Necrosha-X” crossover; it’s fine, but feels like it’s being done largely for the benefit of people who were reading Alpha Flight<\/em> twenty years ago.\u00a0 And finally, Corey Lewis does a typically hyperactive New Mutants story, which is, well, hyperactive but good fun.\u00a0 Not a bad strike rate.<\/p>\n Wolverine: Weapon X<\/strong><\/em> #11<\/strong> – Start of a new storyline, “Tomorrow Dies Today”, as Deathlok comes back from the future to kill some superheroes who don’t exist yet.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Wolverine has a drink.\u00a0 Once again, Jason Aaron’s got the right idea here – there’s a tricky balance to strike in having tongue firmly in cheek, but still keeping a bit of drama in there, and it shifts tone effortlessly when it needs to.\u00a0 The opening sequence, with a rookie superhero on his first night, is fabulous; so is Logan’s conversation with Steve Rogers, but for entirely different reasons.\u00a0 Ron Garney returns on art, and he’s perfectly suited for these stories.\u00a0 Great book.<\/p>\n X-Factor<\/strong><\/em> #202<\/strong> – This does seem an odd storyline to run immediately after a relaunch, as it appears to be more of an epilogue to the extended time-travel arc that came before it.\u00a0 I don’t quite buy the evil Reed Richards, either – there’s a nice idea that being Reed Richards is so much fun that you don’t really need<\/em> a wider plan than that, but it just doesn’t seem right for this particular character.\u00a0 Art’s a bit stiff at times, too.\u00a0 Mmm.\u00a0 It has its moments, of course – obviously it does, it’s a Peter David story, and he’s always above average – but it’s not my favourite issue.<\/p>\n X-Force<\/strong><\/em> #24<\/strong> – Right, then, let’s see if I’m following this right.\u00a0 The Vanisher has just teleported X-Force to Genosha, where Selene has revived a zombie army.\u00a0 Wolverine declares that they’re going to fight their way through said army in order to get into Selene’s castle.\u00a0 Everybody agrees that this is virtually suicidal, but that they must do it anyway.\u00a0 Now, can you see the glaring plot hole in this story?\u00a0 That’s right, nobody thinks of asking the Vanisher whether he could simply teleport<\/em> them into the castle, thus avoiding the need to suicidally fight a zombie army. And just in case any readers hadn’t spotted this point, which seemingly eludes the entire cast, the Vanisher actually does<\/em> teleport himself into the castle four pages later, which as far as I can see proves pretty conclusively that all the characters are morons.\u00a0 Yes, I realise they’re trying to get to the point where the Vanisher enters the castle alone, so that he can have his moment of heroism, but hey, set it up properly.\u00a0 And yes, I realise the idea is that he runs away and then has second thoughts – but they’re already planning their suicidal assault before<\/em> he leaves, so that doesn’t work.\u00a0 Unless I’m missing something, this one has plot holes beyond salvation.\u00a0 As for Clayton Crain’s art, well, it’s the usual tedious murk, I’m afraid.<\/p>\n X-Men Forever<\/strong><\/em> #18<\/strong> – Scott Summers has quality family time with his son.\u00a0 And since Nathan never turned into Cable in this reality, it’s time for another rendition of that old favourite, “The baddies kidnap Nathan, who is Very Important.”\u00a0 Solid enough, decent art, but nothing exceptional.<\/p>\n X-Men Legacy<\/strong><\/em> #233<\/strong> – The end of Legacy<\/em>‘s very loose “Necrosha-X” tie-in.\u00a0 When I say “loose”, I mean that it’s basically an unrelated Proteus story, and that Necrosha-X has been used to justify using Destiny, a character who died years ago and would otherwise have had to show up in a dream scene or something.\u00a0 But hey, that’s fine – if you’ve got two “back from the dead” stories going at once, by all means lash them together.\u00a0 This issue… well, the X-Men fight Proteus.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the new direction of Rogue acting as a mentor for the junior X-Men, but it’s a good fight issue, it makes great use of Magneto, and Clay Mann’s artwork is strong, so I’m not complaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been a hectic week, so after skipping last week’s column, I’ve got something of a backlog to get through.\u00a0 Fortunately I have a couple of nice long train journeys to make this week, so I should catch up soon enough.\u00a0 But in the meantime, I’ll round up the recent X-books and a few other […]<\/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-245","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\/245","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=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}