{"id":3786,"date":"2017-06-01T22:51:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T21:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3786"},"modified":"2017-06-01T22:51:32","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T21:51:32","slug":"weapon-x-1-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=3786","title":{"rendered":"Weapon X #1-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it’s this again, is it? \u00a0In the X-books’ “back-to-basics” relaunch, I can’t say I was especially enthused to see\u00a0Weapon X\u00a0<\/em>trotted out again,\u00a0with\u00a0the teaser\u00a0story apparently setting up\u00a0the old routine of baddies forcing people onto a team.<\/p>\n

In fact, it’s not quite so clear that the book really is heading in quite that direction. \u00a0The core\u00a0group here is Lady Deathstrike, Logan, Sabretooth, Warpath and Domino. \u00a0We already saw Deathstrike getting carted off in\u00a0X-Men Prime<\/em>. \u00a0But\u00a0now that the series is underway, what actually seems to be happening is that Weapon X want to capture these guys in order to copy their powers\u00a0and use them to improve Weapon X’s own home-grown cyborgs.<\/p>\n

And that’s a different set-up, to be sure. \u00a0It seems to be more a book about characters who are\u00a0fighting<\/em> Weapon X. \u00a0Quite how this fits with what we saw in\u00a0X-Men Prime<\/em> is less apparent; that scene, where Deathstrike was captured, did seem to be pitching her a job. \u00a0The enigmatically indestructible Carla, who was the most memorable thing about that segment,\u00a0gets a couple of cameos, but her role here is relatively minor.<\/p>\n

Instead, with a few cut-aways to what’s going on inside Weapon X, this is\u00a0largely about the hunted. \u00a0It’s a strange way to open a series – I’m\u00a0treating this as an opening arc because\u00a0the next issue is part of “Weapons of Mutant Destruction”, a random-seeming\u00a0crossover with\u00a0Totally Awesome Hulk<\/em>. \u00a0But relatively little is\u00a0resolved by the end of these three\u00a0issues – Deathstrike and Warpath are captured, Logan and Creed are at large and have joined up with Domino. \u00a0It doesn’t feel like a story that’s\u00a0ready to feed into a crossover, but we’ll see how it pans out.<\/p>\n

The trope of killer\u00a0cyborgs disguised as normal people has been done before in the X-Men, and I can’t get that worked up about seeing it again. \u00a0More interesting is Greg Pak’s take on Logan and Creed, who are given a sort of love-hate relationship that\u00a0sounds as if it shouldn’t work, but kind of does. \u00a0When we last saw Creed, at the tail end of Cullen Bunn’s\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em>,\u00a0his “good” persona was starting to slip. \u00a0That’s not explicitly picked up on here, but (intentionally or otherwise)\u00a0his state of mind is somewhat ambiguous; he’s reasonably well behaved but also more aggressive than we’ve seen in a while. \u00a0Then again,\u00a0it’s not like he isn’t being provoked.<\/p>\n

At any rate, the basic hook is that Logan deliberately leads the pursuing cyborgs to Creed\u00a0so as to force Creed to help him out,\u00a0which amuses Logan and infuriates Creed. \u00a0It’s a reversal of the\u00a0original relationship where Creed was always one step ahead; this time Logan\u00a0has the upper hand. \u00a0I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. \u00a0Traditionally, these two guys absolutely hate one another. \u00a0But\u00a0if you’re writing a version of Sabretooth who’s violent but not noticeably sadistic or vindictive, the door is somewhat open to tweak that relationship into more of an old couple. \u00a0It shouldn’t work… but\u00a0for the moment Pak seems to be getting away with it.<\/p>\n

Artist Greg Land is not\u00a0a name I\u00a0greet with open arms. \u00a0And certainly, when Carla does show up for a scene in issue #3, he can’t pull off the passive-aggressive\u00a0smugness that we saw in\u00a0X-Men Prime<\/em>. \u00a0Still, this is some of his better work –\u00a0there are some decent action sequences, and the vacant smiling is largely confined to\u00a0disguised Weapon X agents who are meant to be slightly off-kilter anyway.<\/p>\n

And he’s a curious choice for a\u00a0Weapon X<\/em> relaunch. \u00a0Previous incarnations have tended to overdose on\u00a0moody grit. \u00a0But\u00a0you don’t get much less grim than Greg Land. \u00a0Whatever else\u00a0might be said\u00a0about his work, it’s relentlessly sunny. \u00a0And in fact, there’s a lot of broad daylight and beautiful landscapes here. \u00a0It’s a strange kind of\u00a0Weapon X\u00a0<\/em>book, where, yes, there are murder robots and suspension tanks, but the\u00a0weather is\u00a0nice and\u00a0even the\u00a0Weapon X staff are preoccupied with picking up the kids from school. \u00a0It’s backed away from a lot of the cliches that grated in earlier versions. \u00a0Somewhat to my surprise, Greg Land plays rather well into that choice.<\/p>\n

(Except that he can’t\u00a0do Carla.)<\/p>\n

An odd book, but a better start than I was braced for. \u00a0Going straight into a crossover from here sure seems a\u00a0weird call, though…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it’s this again, is it? \u00a0In the X-books’ “back-to-basics” relaunch, I can’t say I was especially enthused to see\u00a0Weapon X\u00a0trotted out again,\u00a0with\u00a0the teaser\u00a0story apparently setting up\u00a0the old routine of baddies forcing people onto a team. In fact, it’s not quite so clear that the book really is heading in quite that direction. \u00a0The core\u00a0group […]<\/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-3786","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\/3786","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=3786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3788,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3786\/revisions\/3788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}