{"id":254,"date":"2010-03-14T19:08:39","date_gmt":"2010-03-14T19:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=254"},"modified":"2010-03-14T19:08:39","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T19:08:39","slug":"the-x-axis-14-march-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 14 March 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast yet, then you’ll find it just one post down.\u00a0 This week’s reviews include the Mystic Hands of Dr Strange<\/em> one-shot, and the first issues of Ghost Projekt<\/em> and Green Hornet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And now, some other stuff that came out this week…<\/p>\n

Amazing Spider-Man<\/strong><\/em> #624<\/strong> – This is the final part of a Vulture arc by Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta.\u00a0 The general idea is pretty solid – Jonah has been framed as the creator of yet another supervillain, and Peter tries to clear his name.\u00a0 Of course, this is a Spider-Man story, and since no good deed goes unpunished, it all goes horribly wrong.\u00a0 All perfectly sound so far as it goes.\u00a0 The downside here is that the new Vulture isn’t a particularly interesting character – he’s one of those “transformed against his will\/out for revenge” types, and while the story tries to give him a background as a mob fixer, it doesn’t really seem to connect through to the character in the present.\u00a0 And I’m in two minds about Azaceta’s art; although clearly a strong storyteller and good with the character moments, there’s a slight awkwardness about his work that doesn’t feel quite right for a Spider-Man story.\u00a0 Not one of the stronger Amazing<\/em> arcs, then, but still perfectly acceptable.<\/p>\n

Batman & Robin<\/strong><\/em> #10<\/strong> – “The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here”, proclaims the cover.\u00a0 What, already<\/em>?\u00a0 Obviously we all know that he’s going to come back in the end.\u00a0 That goes without saying.\u00a0 But it feels way too early to be starting the build for that.\u00a0 Mind you, I don’t read the other Batman titles; perhaps if I had read three times the number of Dick Grayson Batman stories I’d feel differently about it.\u00a0 But… yeah, this is surely a multi-year storyline.\u00a0 Still, Morrison has a clever idea here – Bruce Wayne is lost somewhere in the past, and has been leaving messages in bits of Wayne Manor that previously seemed innocuous.\u00a0 So you get scenes of Batman and Robin trying to find clues in fireplace design.\u00a0 Andy Clarke’s art is entirely serviceable but, as usual, the Frank Quitely cover serves to remind us of what we’re missing.<\/p>\n

Cable<\/strong><\/em> #24<\/strong> – Effectively the final issue of the series – next month’s issue #25 is a flashback story guest starring Deadpool.\u00a0 So, Cable and Hope finally defeat Bishop, and make their way back to the present… except, actually, they don’t<\/em> do that last bit, because the grand return has apparently been reserved for the first chapter of X-Men: Second Coming<\/em>.\u00a0 Bad call, if you ask me.\u00a0 I’d have ended the series with the moment of their arrival, to at least give it that extra element of closure – it’d serve just as well as a teaser for the crossover.\u00a0 Anyway, that leaves the final issue to deal with Bishop, and that’s basically what we get – two years of build-up comes down to Cable and Bishop bouncing through time and the good guys finally getting the upper hand.\u00a0 It’s all fairly predictable, but in itself that’s not such a bad thing; the book’s spent two years building to this fight and now it’s delivering what it promised, which is fine.\u00a0 And there are some clever mechanics in here, such as Cable using time-jumps to try and get Bishop hit by subway trains.\u00a0 But for all that, the series ends up feeling decidedly inconsequential.\u00a0 Cable’s aged 17 years but doesn’t seem to have changed at all.\u00a0 Hope’s gone from a prop to a character, but that development doesn’t actually play much of a role in this story.\u00a0 The story would carry so much more weight if Bishop had been beaten in a way that wasn’t possible when the series started – by Hope using her newfound powers, or simply by Bishop underestimating her and getting himself killed as a result.\u00a0 In practice, Cable beats Bishop in a way that would presumably have worked back in issue #2.\u00a0\u00a0 Visually, the issue is all over the place, with a parade of fill-in artists (presumably, in fairness, because there’s a crossover waiting for this issue, and they have to get it out the door no matter what).\u00a0 Giancarlo Garacuzzo’s opening section is a bit like a sketchier Rick Leonardi, and isn’t bad at all, but Alejandro Garza’s 90s-throwback chapter is another matter entirely.\u00a0 And then we get some very rough pages by Denys Cowan to round the whole thing off.\u00a0 The issue does what it needed to do, but never elevates it to be truly satisfying.<\/p>\n

Dark X-Men<\/strong><\/em> #5<\/strong> – Another final issue, as Nate Grey gives the Dark X-Men their chance to turn on Norman Osborn and save the day.\u00a0 You can imagine how well that works out for him.\u00a0 It’s a strange ending, this, and I might try and come back to the series at more length if I get a chance.\u00a0 Basically, in the place where you’d expect the faux X-Men to make their big moral decision – or at least, everyone except the Dark Beast, who’s a sociopath – none of them ever quite get around to it.\u00a0 And their very failure to fulfil their role as protagonists then becomes<\/em> their big moral decision.\u00a0 It’s an odd way to finish the series, though it comes across better than you might expect – partly because Cornell has used Nate Grey as a sort of parallel hero, who does put up the required fight, so that the story doesn’t just peter out.\u00a0 But for the title characters, the story ends with a deliberate anticlimax.\u00a0 It’s hard to figure out whether this is an audacious way of pursuing their “not real heroes” status to the logical conclusion, or just a case of nobody being quite sure where they want the characters to go next; I suspect re-reading the whole series might shed some light on that.\u00a0 Interesting, though, and I think it more or less works.<\/p>\n

S.W.O.R.D.<\/strong><\/em> #5<\/strong> – The final issue of the prematurely cancelled series.\u00a0 An Abigail Brand ongoing title always seemed a bit optimistic to me, but to be honest, I was betting it would at least last the year.\u00a0 Between this, Dr Voodoo<\/em> and Fantastic Force<\/em>, quite a few Marvel titles have fallen at the first hurdle lately (Spider-Woman<\/em> isn’t contining beyond its first arc either, though they’re claiming it’s on hiatus).\u00a0 There’s a risk in this; you can get into a vicious circle where readers become convinced that most new titles will be strangled in the crib, and thus become even less likely to invest in them.\u00a0 Anyhow, in this final issue, Hank and Abigail naturally thwart the invasion, get rid of Gyrich, and ensure that all is right in the world.\u00a0 It’s a real shame that we won’t get to see more of the book’s take on Lockheed, or the Unit android, which gets to give a lovely speech at the end explaining why it didn’t take the opportunity to side with the invaders.\u00a0 I’m still a bit lukewarm about Steven Sanders’ art, which is wildly off-model for one of the lead characters, and doesn’t quite have the punch to pull off the “prisoners fight back” double page spread with all the guest stars (shouldn’t there be more of them?).\u00a0\u00a0 Then again, his Death’s Head and Unit are great, and his Beast does have expression.\u00a0 A shame this book won’t get to explore the potential in all of its ideas, but it does at least work as a strong five-issue miniseries.<\/p>\n

Wolverine: Mr X<\/strong><\/em> – This month’s random Wolverine one-shot gives Frank Tieri a chance to revisit Mr X, a villain from his Wolverine<\/em> run who’s since been picked up as a member of the Thunderbolts.\u00a0 And actually, this is the sort of story that does make sense as a one-shot.\u00a0 It ties up a loose plot thread about why Mr X isn’t worrying about his arch enemy any more, and it wouldn’t really feel at home in the current regular Wolverine title (let alone in Thunderbolts<\/em>).\u00a0 Now, that said, I always found Mr X a rather one-dimensional villain – putting him in the Thunderbolts set-up where he isn’t in control has helped bring out other sides to him – and his “proving he’s the best” schtick wears thin rather quickly.\u00a0 There’s a nice enough idea that the best way to torment Mr X is not<\/em> to fight him, since all he’s really interested in is proving that he can win.\u00a0 But I can’t help feeling that you’d have to kill an awful lot more people than this before X would believe that Wolverine really wasn’t prepared to fight him no matter what.\u00a0 He throws in the towel far too quickly.\u00a0 Wouldn’t he just kill all the hostages anyway to see if Wolverine’s bluffing?\u00a0 What would he have to lose?\u00a0 It’s a fine concept, I just don’t think it’s set up convincingly enough.<\/p>\n

X-Men Forever<\/strong><\/em> #19<\/strong> – Nick Fury and co attack the Consortium’s HQ, which in good old-school style is conveniently and pointlessly located beneath a major landmark.\u00a0 I applaud their dedication to tradition.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Kurt and Rogue have swapped powers, and Jean is having some angst-ridden melodrama.\u00a0 It’s X-Men Forever<\/em> – you know the drill by now.\u00a0 Not exactly the deepest or the most original comic, but that’s not really the point; X-Men Forever<\/em> exists to be an 80s throwback, and on that level, it’s good satisfying entertainment, playing to Claremont’s strengths and relatively light on his weak points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast yet, then you’ll find it just one post down.\u00a0 This week’s reviews include the Mystic Hands of Dr Strange one-shot, and the first issues of Ghost Projekt and Green Hornet. And now, some other stuff that came out this week… Amazing Spider-Man #624 – This is the […]<\/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-254","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\/254","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=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}