{"id":2835,"date":"2015-02-02T22:41:24","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T22:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2835"},"modified":"2015-02-02T22:41:24","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T22:41:24","slug":"all-new-x-factor-vol-3-axis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2835","title":{"rendered":"All-New X-Factor vol 3 – “Axis”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t panic. \u00a0Take deep breaths. \u00a0This is the last Axis<\/em> story we have to cover.<\/p>\n

Actually, only three of these issues – #15-17 – are Axis\u00a0<\/em>tie-ins. \u00a0Before that, we have a couple of issues in which\u00a0Quicksilver rebuilds\u00a0his relationship with Luna (which is basically Pietro taking a bit of responsibility and winning back some trust), and Lorna builds some bridges with Wanda (just in time for Axis\u00a0<\/i>to retcon away the relationship that makes that story worthwhile, so that’s odd). \u00a0And after the tie-in, well, it’s cancellation time.<\/p>\n

Which is ironic, really, because the whole point of doing\u00a0Axis<\/em> tie-ins on low-selling books is supposed to be to help boost sales. \u00a0And it does, but 99% of the time it works only for the duration of the crossover, before sales go straight back\u00a0where they came from. \u00a0So yes, if the goal is to shift a few extra copies before the book turns blue and falls over, it works. \u00a0If the goal is to extend the life of the series, it’s generally\u00a0ineffective.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Axis<\/em> tie-in itself is mildly diverting. \u00a0Peter David bypasses the inversion\u00a0gimmick entirely – a wise move, but then it’s not as if it affected any of his regular cast, except arguably\u00a0Havok. \u00a0Instead, he goes with the initial hate wave, and has X-Factor (who are shielded by Serval’s technology) trying to stall\u00a0the US government from starting a nuclear war until\u00a0things calm down.<\/p>\n

This is one of the few hate wave stories\u00a0which isn’t entirely people running\u00a0around yelling at one another. \u00a0Perhaps that’s driven by the imperative of actually trying to squeeze three issues out of it,\u00a0since god knows there’s some rioting going on too, but\u00a0it’s nice to see at least\u00a0some of the affected people still capable of\u00a0engaging in a modicum of tactical thought. \u00a0After all, the\u00a0crossover does seem to be confusing\u00a0hate with\u00a0rage. \u00a0There’s a lot of people out there in the world who are really big on hate, but that doesn’t mean they spend their days in a state of constant incoherent screeching. \u00a0They’re still perfectly capable of practical planning. \u00a0Mind you, it’s not like\u00a0Axis<\/em> was ever going for subtlety.<\/p>\n

With that out of the way, we transition into the wrap-up arc. \u00a0Or at least, the crash landing. \u00a0There are various ways of ending an ongoing\u00a0series, and in recent years the most popular has been to try\u00a0for a sense of resolution. \u00a0In the old days, cancellations\u00a0were\u00a0often so last-minute that\u00a0they led to horrendously compressed final issues, but that doesn’t seem to happen as much any more (possibly because everything gets commissioned in\u00a0collection-friendly blocks). \u00a0So I’ve become used to cancelled series having some sort of ending.<\/p>\n

All-New X-Factor<\/em>\u00a0takes a different route, one that’s rather less common. \u00a0It devotes its last few issues to\u00a0explaining the mystery about what Serval boss Harrison\u00a0Snow is actually trying to achieve,\u00a0at which point everyone piles into the narrative lifeboats and sets sail for the good ship\u00a0Spider-Man 2099<\/em>, where\u00a0it seems the story will be continuing. \u00a0Snow, in short,\u00a0turns out to be a time traveller from the 2099\u00a0era who is\u00a0using his future technology to build a company and recruit superheroes in a vaguely explained plan to avert the rise of Alchemax.<\/p>\n

I’m guessing that this was indeed the original plan, and not merely a\u00a0rewrite to justify exporting Snow (and X-Factor, who are still together at the end of the last issue) to David’s other book. \u00a0Events in\u00a0Spider-Man 2099<\/em>\u00a0have already established that Snow’s plan is messed up\u00a0because of the damage already caused to the timeline, but\u00a0it seems like a natural twist to try and tie the books together and\u00a0build on their respective audiences. \u00a0Moreover, anything involving the 2099 timeline is presumably going to feed into\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em> at some point. \u00a0Which means there’s a bigger agenda here and the Serval plot simply can’t be wrapped up now, just because\u00a0All-New X-Factor<\/em> happens to have died.<\/p>\n

Perhaps inevitably, this feels like a series that never really got to grips with the full potential of the corporate superhero concept. \u00a0In a sense, once you’ve decided that Snow isn’t simply an ethically dodgy profiteer but a time-traveller endeavouring to alter history, you’ve already deviated\u00a0from the stated premise. \u00a0And despite Serval being set up as some sort of Google analogue, it\u00a0never really felt terribly like a corporation, as opposed to some sort of quasi-military techno-facility. \u00a0What does Serval actually\u00a0do<\/em> to make a profit? \u00a0It’s never been entirely clear. \u00a0Maybe this was the joke – that real world internet companies have no intelligible business plan either so\u00a0it’s very easy to pass yourself off as one.<\/p>\n

Granted, if David had gone for the\u00a0familiar tropes of the well-meaning heroes butting heads with their profiteer sponsor, that would have worn thin pretty quickly. \u00a0But\u00a0it feels like the eventual\u00a0explanation of what Serval was up to has dragged us\u00a0a bit too far in the other direction. \u00a0This was always a fairly atomised book, with a bunch of\u00a0individual subplots (many of them quite good) all\u00a0being held together by Serval. \u00a0As a motivation, “they’re\u00a0trying to sort out a problem from a different book entirely” is less than satisfactory. \u00a0And the individual\u00a0team members get a bit lost in the shuffle,\u00a0with\u00a0the final issues seemingly giving up on trying to offer them any\u00a0personal pay-off – Danger excepted, as a subplot about her pursuing humanity does get a pay-off.<\/p>\n

The result is a rather strange read, which leaves most of its characters floating around hoping for their stories to be picked up in due course. \u00a0If the intention is to steer readers towards David’s other book, then this lack of resolution may actually be a smart move commercially. \u00a0But\u00a0read on its own,\u00a0All-New X-Factor<\/em> winds up as a book that just peters out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t panic. \u00a0Take deep breaths. \u00a0This is the last Axis story we have to cover. Actually, only three of these issues – #15-17 – are Axis\u00a0tie-ins. \u00a0Before that, we have a couple of issues in which\u00a0Quicksilver rebuilds\u00a0his relationship with Luna (which is basically Pietro taking a bit of responsibility and winning back some trust), and […]<\/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-2835","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\/2835","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=2835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}