{"id":2611,"date":"2014-07-01T23:05:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T22:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2014-07-01T23:05:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T22:05:19","slug":"dirty-tricks-x-force-1-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2611","title":{"rendered":"“Dirty Tricks” – X-Force #1-6"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first volume of the new\u00a0X-Force<\/em> will likely read better as a collection, but for not for the usual reasons. \u00a0By no means is it paced for the trade;\u00a0quite the opposite, it’s carefully structured as a serial,\u00a0with issues containing their own self-contained side mission or character study, all contributing to a larger story.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #1 was a bit underwhelming on release, and it’s only in the light of the later issues that the book starts to pick up. \u00a0Luckily for me, completism compels me to stick around\u00a0long enough to discover that fact.<\/p>\n

Coming off a successful run on\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em>, Si Spurrier always seemed an odd choice\u00a0to write X-Force. \u00a0It’s not merely that\u00a0Legacy<\/em> was\u00a0a quirky, offbeat title;\u00a0more that\u00a0the title’s attitude to conventional superheroes (strictly, Legion’s attitude, but the book\u00a0largely seemed to share it) hardly suggested a writer who was dying to write a book about\u00a0large men with larger guns.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0as this run progresses, there turns out to be a ton of ideas floating around, both for individual characters and the story as a whole. \u00a0And as with\u00a0Legacy<\/em>, there are also a few things that don’t work. \u00a0Some cases might actually be deliberate; others\u00a0may just be\u00a0lapses of clumsiness.<\/p>\n

There are quite a few problems with issue #1. \u00a0Spurrier’s basic idea is to set up a load of mysteries and then reveal them over the course of the first arc, until the full details of the set-up are revealed. \u00a0Trouble is, that means most of the interesting and intriguing stuff doesn’t get revealed until later. \u00a0The first chapter does clearly set up\u00a0many of these plot threads, but doesn’t do such a\u00a0good job of explaining why we ought\u00a0to care about them. \u00a0It starts with\u00a0Cable,\u00a0Marrow and Psylocke rescuing\u00a0Fantomex from a big Chinese guy who’s never mentioned again. \u00a0During that, we get\u00a0flashbacks to some exposition about the “Alexandria Incident”. \u00a0This, we’re told, is a massive explosion at a “defence symposium” which has killed 3,000, with a mutant in the middle. \u00a0This, apparently, is a game-changing event; Cable wants to know who was behind it, and Marrow was apparently picked up in the wreckage.<\/p>\n

Cable also gives us some spiel about how mutants need a “dirty tricks crew”\u00a0just like other countries have; this, by all appearances, is set up as the book’s high concept, though the story immediately throws in the fact that Hope is now in a coma for reasons as yet unexplained. \u00a0Returning to the present time frame, Fantomex gives X-Force a lead on\u00a0the whereabouts of a mutant being held prisoner and\u00a0used as a weapon; the team then spend the rest of the book rescuing her. \u00a0Oh, and along the way, we establish that Marrow has somehow got her powers back.<\/p>\n

So quite a lot going on in just that first issue. \u00a0But it doesn’t really work. \u00a0Two half-formed action set-pieces and an exposition scene don’t quite gel as a story; and there’s not enough context\u00a0to really know what’s supposed to be at stake in the action scenes. \u00a0That context gets filled in rapidly over the following issues, though. \u00a0The initial high concept of “black ops crew for the mutant nation” is not desperately interesting; fortunately, it too recedes in importance\u00a0as\u00a0we find out more about\u00a0what’s actually at stake for the individual characters. \u00a0And the\u00a0Alexandria Incident doesn’t register as\u00a0a plausible game-changer, given the sort of things that happen quite routinely in the Marvel Universe. \u00a0This, of course, is a problem with the\u00a0accrued history of the Marvel Universe generally, and writers deserve a degree of leeway here, in order that the universe can continue to function as a recognisable version of the real world at all;\u00a0but even\u00a0in that spirit,\u00a0it’s hard to see why this explosion would have the impact that Cable is claiming for it.<\/p>\n

But the story that actually emerges over the next few issues doesn’t turn on the Alexandria Incident being a game-changer at all. \u00a0It does, however, turn on\u00a0most of the characters being directly affected by the Incident – Cable and Hope were at ground zero, Marrow and\u00a0Fantomex were found in the\u00a0wreckage. \u00a0It becomes clear fairly quickly that Cable’s\u00a0real priority is to track down the villain responsible in the\u00a0hopes of uncovering a\u00a0cure for Hope;\u00a0there’s a clever twist in issue #6 which\u00a0expands on\u00a0that, but the basic point remains the same. \u00a0By the end of these six issues,\u00a0it’s plain\u00a0that Cable’s blather about the mutant nation isn’t the real motivation for anyone\u00a0in the cast, and doubtful whether it was ever anything more than a pretext\u00a0for action in the first place.<\/p>\n

Alongside that main story, we have some genuinely interesting takes on Marrow, Psylocke and Fantomex. \u00a0There is in fact a proper reason why\u00a0Marrow suddenly has her powers back,\u00a0which both ties into the main plot, and sets up a new angst point for\u00a0her. \u00a0Admittedly,\u00a0it’s a particularly melodramatic angst point, and the first part of the reveal is likely to prompt groans. \u00a0But\u00a0it’s quickly followed by a second part, all the more effective because you think you’ve already had the reveal – and that one \u00a0says a lot more about the character, and how desperate she was to get her powers back. \u00a0(It’s telling, also, the rest of the team seem to already know about what Marrow learns; they don’t tell her, by all appearances, because they want to\u00a0keep using her as a weapon and don’t want her whimpering in a corner. \u00a0Hardly heroic behaviour, but I assume that’s the point.)<\/p>\n

Psylocke has spent\u00a0the last few years as damaged goods, with\u00a0repeated variations on stories about\u00a0her loss of identity. \u00a0Spurrier finally moves her on to something else;\u00a0the idea here is that she’s\u00a0become addicted to killing, and\u00a0signed up with X-Force as an outlet which she can’t quite convince herself is a\u00a0morally justifiable one. \u00a0It’s\u00a0something to work with, and\u00a0finally gives the character some much needed direction. \u00a0And his take on\u00a0Fantomex revisits\u00a0an old Grant Morrison line about Fantomex being unable to conceive of anything greater than himself. \u00a0Taking that literally, the\u00a0book asks the obvious question: how does Fantomex deal with being surrounded by people who\u00a0are just plain more powerful than him, or who can do things he can’t? \u00a0The answer, naturally, is “very badly”, but again\u00a0Spurrier follows that train of thought to its logical conclusion and beyond, pointing to promising\u00a0new\u00a0stories for him.<\/p>\n

Against all of that, the book takes an odd tack with its villain. \u00a0Volga is an evil\u00a0arms dealer who’s built up hi-tech gimmickry\u00a0through a mixture of his own scientists and raiding\u00a0parallel worlds. \u00a0That’s all pretty conventional. \u00a0But\u00a0he’s played unambiguously as a one-dimensional comedy figure. \u00a0He’s powerful, to be sure,\u00a0because he’s the Big Bad and he’s got to run rings around the team in the early months of the season; but he’s also an exaggerated comedy foreigner who talks in broken English and who speaks almost entirely about Business. \u00a0The message is clear: this thing is not a character to take seriously.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t seem like it should work, but Volga’s sheer incongruity\u00a0is surprisingly effective. \u00a0We’re not being invited to take him seriously as a human being, but we are being invited to take him seriously as a threat; and\u00a0if you’re not going to\u00a0worry about the villain’s inner life, you may as well crank him up to 11. \u00a0He works as comic relief, but\u00a0given what’s at stake for the heroes, there’s also something almost offensive about the fact that they’re facing a villain who isn’t taking this more seriously.<\/p>\n

So there’s a lot that’s good in these six issues –\u00a0it’s just that\u00a0this only really becomes apparent towards the back half of the story.<\/p>\n

What there isn’t, is a consistent artist. \u00a0Rock-He Kim was originally announced as the\u00a0regular artist. \u00a0His digital painting\u00a0on the first issue is lucid enough but isn’t desperately great; there are\u00a0too many moments of characters just sort of lost in deadening\u00a0expanses of space. \u00a0That’s a little surprising given that he’s apparently a storyboard artist, and it has to be said that it\u00a0gets a lot better over the next two issues. \u00a0But it’s a step up with\u00a0issue #4 when\u00a0Jorge Molina takes over. \u00a0Instead of the digital painting, we’re suddenly onto clean\u00a0line work and more dynamic layouts. \u00a0It looks very good on issue #4,\u00a0which is the Fantomex issue. \u00a0Issue #5 is a bit more cramped but still solid. \u00a0Issue #6\u2026 well,\u00a0a big\u00a0chunk of that has a\u00a0“security camera footage” conceit which doesn’t work in the slightest, because the camera angles don’t look remotely\u00a0appropriate. \u00a0I’m not sure this is Molina’s fault, so much as a scene that has to be compromised somewhat to work on the page. \u00a0It seems we’ll be back with Kim\u00a0for issue #7; I’m not altogether convinced that cutting in and out of his\u00a0style is going to be the best move for the book in the long run.<\/p>\n

Still. \u00a0After\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em>, I had reasonably high hopes for this series, and I certainly considered the first issue a disappointment. \u00a0But it picks up. \u00a0It picks up a lot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first volume of the new\u00a0X-Force will likely read better as a collection, but for not for the usual reasons. \u00a0By no means is it paced for the trade;\u00a0quite the opposite, it’s carefully structured as a serial,\u00a0with issues containing their own self-contained side mission or character study, all contributing to a larger story. But\u00a0X-Force #1 […]<\/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-2611","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\/2611","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=2611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2612,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions\/2612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}