{"id":3576,"date":"2016-10-20T22:30:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T21:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3576"},"modified":"2016-10-20T22:30:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T21:30:23","slug":"civil-war-ii-x-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3576","title":{"rendered":"Civil War II: X-Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh, it’s one of\u00a0those<\/em> miniseries. \u00a0Event Crossover: Non-participating Series.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Never a dull\u00a0moment with those. \u00a0Remember\u00a0World War Hulk: X-Men<\/em>? \u00a0Me neither. \u00a0I\u00a0mean, I\u00a0remember it existed, obviously. \u00a0Don’t remember a thing about it beyond that. \u00a0Imagine it probably had some Hulks.<\/p>\n

Turns out, though, that this one isn’t quite such blatant filler as\u00a0usual. \u00a0It’s written by Cullen Bunn,\u00a0the regular writer of\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em>. \u00a0It’s the first X-Men title since the relaunch to feature both Magneto’s and Storm’s teams\u00a0with any sort of\u00a0extended interaction. \u00a0\u00a0It mildly advances\u00a0the\u00a0Magneto\/Psylocke storyline in\u00a0Uncanny<\/em>\u00a0(not that you’re missing anything). \u00a0And it’s\u00a0bringing the Inhumans proper – rather than just the Terrigen Mists – into\u00a0an X-Men book, to start the build for the upcoming\u00a0Inhumans vs X-Men<\/em> stuff.<\/p>\n

All of which, there’s no denying, is a lot more content than you normally get in one of these books. \u00a0If nothing else, the mere fact\u00a0that the X-Men teams have been kept apart for this long means that there’s a bit of weight in just seeing them interact again.<\/p>\n

Civil War II<\/em>, then. \u00a0I already talked about this series when\u00a0I looked at the\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> tie-in arc<\/a> a couple of weeks ago. \u00a0It’s a perfectly serviceable concept, and while anyone reading\u00a0loads of tie-ins has\u00a0most likely seen it beaten to death by now, there’s nothing wrong with it when you’re just reading two. \u00a0I\u00a0haven’t read the\u00a0core series, I have no intention of reading the core series, I do not care about it in the slightest. \u00a0This is not a huge problem for either of the X-Men tie-ins, which simply require you to know something that can be explained in one panel: the Inhumans have got a new member called Ulysses who can predict the future, and some of the heroes\u00a0want to take pre-emptive action based on\u00a0what he sees. \u00a0Beyond that, the mechanics of the\u00a0Civil War II\u00a0<\/em>story are neither here nor there.<\/p>\n

This book\u00a0has two main goals: first, to lay some groundwork for the Inhumans\/X-Men crossover to come, and second, to justify its existence as a\u00a0Civil War II\u00a0<\/em>tie-in by making something of Ulysses. \u00a0These two goals are\u00a0at least consistent, since the Inhumans feature in both. \u00a0On top of that,\u00a0Bunn throws in a degree of tension between the two X-Men teams, since\u00a0that\u00a0Civil War II<\/em> banner has to earn its name – but fair enough, there’s not much point in having a Magneto-led X-Men team if it’s going to do exclusively things Storm is fine with. \u00a0And a couple of characters we haven’t seen in quite a while – Rachel Grey and Gambit – are brought back in major roles. \u00a0There’s a lot going on here, and the book sets itself a challenge in juggling all these threads.<\/p>\n

It kind of succeeds in that\u00a0– it is nice to see these guys again, and the interaction between the two teams is reasonably well handled, with Storm torn between trying to give Magneto the benefit of the doubt, and recognising that this is probably a recipe for disaster because it’s Magneto. \u00a0The central idea is that, on discovering that the Inhumans have got a boy who can see the future, Magneto immediately jumps to the conclusion that this is going to be a Bad Thing For Mutants, because Magneto thinks everything is a Bad Thing For Mutants. \u00a0And, as usual, he has something of a point: the Inhumans are responsible for the Terrigen cloud, and while they may pay lip service to regretting the consequences for mutants, they persist in treating the cloud as if it was, on balance, a very good thing.<\/p>\n

So Magneto, not unreasonably, concludes that the mutants and the Inhumans have starkly opposing interests that are bound to lead to a big conflict. \u00a0And from there, he jumps to the much more dubious conclusion that the Inhumans are out to get him and will therefore either exploit Ulysses’s predictions to get the upper hand on mutants, or exploit\u00a0his reputation by using false prophecies to manipulate\u00a0people into acting against mutants. \u00a0This bit is paranoia,\u00a0but\u00a0there’s a\u00a0muted undercurrent which harks back to Bunn’s much more enjoyable\u00a0Magneto<\/em> solo series from a couple of years ago: the whole idea of Ulysses’ predictions play rather too neatly into Magneto’s fatalistic and apocalyptic mindset. \u00a0Magneto is big on destiny and in some ways Ulysses serves as confirmation;\u00a0in a nicely understated parallel, plenty of characters spend the series (correctly) predicting Magneto’s own actions without any recourse to Ulysses at all, simply because\u00a0they all know deep down that\u00a0he’ll never fundamentally change.<\/p>\n

Where do we stand with the Inhumans and the X-Men right now? \u00a0This seems like an opportune moment to go on a diversion and look at the sales figures. \u00a0 Have you seen the sales figures lately?<\/a>\u00a0 For a start, Marvel is currently losing the battle to DC’s Rebirth,\u00a0to the extent that\u00a0Civil War II\u00a0<\/em>was the only\u00a0Marvel Universe title in the top 20 for September. \u00a0(Yes, some of the DC books are returnable – but the ones which aren’t returnable any more\u00a0are holding up, so it doesn’t seem to be massively exaggerating the position.) \u00a0The highest selling X-book in September – at least through the North American direct market – was, surprisingly,\u00a0Old Man Logan<\/em> at number 57, with estimated sales at about 47,000. \u00a0Extraordinary\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Uncanny<\/em>\u00a0were a little way behind that, with estimated sales at around 40,000. \u00a0All-New\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> come in at about 35,000, along with this book. \u00a0Which isn’t\u00a0great by historical standards, but there you are.<\/p>\n

And the Inhumans…<\/p>\n

[Scrolls down]<\/p>\n

Well, there’s\u00a0Uncanny Inhumans<\/em> at number 96, with estimated sales of 26K. \u00a0And\u00a0the second Inhumans book,\u00a0All-New Inhumans<\/em> is at…<\/p>\n

[Scrolls down]<\/p>\n

… it’s at …<\/p>\n

[Scrolls down]<\/p>\n

… oh, there it is at number 137, with estimated sales of 15,489. \u00a0Meanwhile, the movie keeps\u00a0getting pushed back, and the Inhumans have shown up on\u00a0Agents of SHIELD<\/em> instead.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not averse to Marvel\u00a0trying to build a franchise by picking a concept (even I’d prefer it to be a genuinely new one) and persisting it with it in the face of initial\u00a0resistance. \u00a0It’s not even that the two Inhumans\u00a0<\/em>titles are especially bad. \u00a0From reading them on\u00a0Marvel Unlimited, they’re perfectly decent books.<\/p>\n

But we long since passed the point where it was transparently clear that the Inhumans weren’t catching on and where the main question came to be how long Marvel would drag this out. \u00a0The decision to build their summer crossover\u00a0around the Inhumans – and then\u00a0see it squashed flat by DC Rebirth – would be the last straw for\u00a0some publishers. \u00a0But\u00a0then\u00a0lead-in times mean that\u00a0major directional changes for the Marvel Universe take an age to feed through, so we’re stuck with the bastards for the foreseeable future whether we like them or not, and the X-Men are heading for an extended crossover whose main – perhaps\u00a0exclusive – interest lies in\u00a0whether it will be used to finally\u00a0draw a line under the whole fiasco. \u00a0You’ll note Marvel are already hyping a line-wide relaunch called\u00a0“ResurrXion” which comes\u00a0after<\/em> the\u00a0Inhumans crossover, which sure seems\u00a0intended to\u00a0prompt speculation along those lines. \u00a0But time will tell.<\/p>\n

At any rate. \u00a0For all that there are a few vaguely interesting ideas lurking in this book, and a lot of Stuff Going On, it ultimately\u00a0feels anticlimactic. \u00a0For one thing, Andrea Broccardo\u00a0is a perfectly solid storyteller, really quite good with the character work, but I find the art\u00a0lacking something in scale and\u00a0grandeur when it comes to the big set pieces. \u00a0So the bit where Magneto finally confronts a nervous, awkward-looking Ulysses is really pretty good, but the\u00a0X-Men versus X-Men fight scene\u00a0(which turns out to be a red herring anyway) is clear but it’s lacking something. \u00a0The double page spread of Ulysses’s vision of the X-Men tearing each other apart is\u00a0fine\u00a0<\/em>but you want it to step up a gear. \u00a0There’s plenty of smaller moments that I like;\u00a0Broccardo feels like he’d be better served on a less action-oriented book that would play to his strengths.<\/p>\n

For another, the bottom line is that it’s a story\u00a0which exists to trail an upcoming story, and where the plot is ultimately that Magneto decides to go home and everyone calls it a day. \u00a0That’s underwhelming, despite Bunn’s best efforts to sell us on the idea that\u00a0seeing Ulysses’s vision of the mutants tearing each other apart has given Magneto an epiphany – especially since the story promptly undercuts that by insisting that the big fight is still coming in\u00a0the not too distant future. \u00a0Which it is. \u00a0Which\u00a0is\u00a0the real reason why it can’t happen here.<\/p>\n

Still, if you’re reading the line with an interest in its overall direction, this is actually a book you’ll want to have read, and it’s certainly got a lot more to offer than the throwaway\u00a0stuff that normally appears in event tie-in minis. \u00a0But\u00a0sitting in the margins of one story, and\u00a0with a remit to trail another, it never\u00a0quite finds a way to satisfy on its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh, it’s one of\u00a0those miniseries. \u00a0Event Crossover: Non-participating Series.\u00a0\u00a0Never a dull\u00a0moment with those. \u00a0Remember\u00a0World War Hulk: X-Men? \u00a0Me neither. \u00a0I\u00a0mean, I\u00a0remember it existed, obviously. \u00a0Don’t remember a thing about it beyond that. \u00a0Imagine it probably had some Hulks. Turns out, though, that this one isn’t quite such blatant filler as\u00a0usual. \u00a0It’s written by Cullen Bunn,\u00a0the […]<\/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-3576","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\/3576","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=3576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3577,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3576\/revisions\/3577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}