{"id":386,"date":"2010-06-27T17:05:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T16:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=386"},"modified":"2010-06-27T17:05:25","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T16:05:25","slug":"the-x-axis-27-june-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=386","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 27 June 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’ve been writing this, the England\/Germany match has been under way. \u00a0Will England still be in the competition by the time I finish writing this? \u00a0No. \u00a0No, they won’t. \u00a0 Still, at least the BBC will have got all the weeping and flagwaving out of its system for another couple of years. \u00a0It’s all a terrible injustice. \u00a0I blame God, who stubbornly refuses to make the English better at football.<\/p>\n

We’ll get to the comics in a second, but first, a couple of items of prior business.<\/p>\n

First, if you live in Britain and you haven’t seen Anvil: The Story of Anvil<\/a><\/em>, then you really should. \u00a0Luckily for you, BBC4 are showing it on Monday at 10pm.<\/p>\n

Second, a word about Crimefighters<\/a><\/em>, which I saw at the Edinburgh Film Festival on Friday. \u00a0It’s a superhero comedy from the makers of the web serial Zomblogalypse<\/a><\/em>, shot in York on a microscopic budget of \u00a37,000. \u00a0(No, not New York. \u00a0York.) \u00a0The “three friends become superheroes to battle mysterious crimewave” pitch makes it sound like Kick-Ass<\/em>, but it’s more a sort of superhero B-movie with mock-noir overtones.<\/p>\n

And it’s very entertaining. \u00a0The acting, admittedly, is a bit patchy. \u00a0On the other hand, though, it’s got a genuinely good script, heavy on the Joss Whedon influence but carefully plotted. \u00a0And it’s rather well filmed too. \u00a0It earns the goodwill to get away with the moments when it looks a bit DIY – something which fits the concept anyway, in small doses. \u00a0Plainly a bit more money wouldn’t have gone amiss, but the bottom line is, I laughed.<\/p>\n

The reason why it’s worth mentioning is that the Picturehouse chain – that’s the Cameo, if you live in Edinburgh – are actually screening it over the course of July, so Britain readers have a rare chance to see it in the cinema. \u00a0The dates and participating cinemas are on their website<\/a>. \u00a0(There’s an official trailer there too, though for what it’s worth, I don’t think it really gets across what works about the film – partly because it takes longer than 2.5 minutes to tune into its wavelength, but partly because it doesn’t use the best bits anyway.)<\/p>\n

And now, on to this week’s comics.<\/p>\n

Amazing Spider-Man<\/em> #635<\/strong> – Part two of “Grim Hunt” and… yeah, after all that build-up, this really isn’t doing it for me. \u00a0At this point it’s looking worryingly like an attempt to feed J Michael Straczynski’s ill-conceived “spider-totem” idea into a blender with “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, the end result being a story which features a ton of uninspiring D-list characters but doesn’t seem to be about anything in particular. \u00a0Lovely art by Michael Lark, a nice feint with Ezekiel. \u00a0So there’s a few good moments. \u00a0But really, it just feels like the trappings of a decent story applied to the plot of a mid-nineties crossover.<\/p>\n

Avengers<\/em> #2<\/strong> – You know, the more I think about it, these new Avengers team line-ups are downright weird. \u00a0If the idea of New Avengers<\/em> is to have Luke Cage’s renegade Avengers team work independently because they don’t want to be under the thumb of the regular Avengers, why are half of them on both teams? \u00a0And why is Spider-Woman on this team rather than Luke’s? \u00a0Anyway… this issue brings Noh-Varr into the cast, mainly so that he can share his alien super-tech with our heroes. \u00a0If nothing else, this does explain why Bendis brought Noh-Varr into the cast of Dark Avengers<\/em> only to write him out almost immediately – at least it raised the guy’s profile a bit. \u00a0That said, while Grant Morrison’s original conception of Noh-Varr as a sort of cosmic brat was always going to wear thin after a while, he’s ended up being mellowed into a rather bland character, so there’s a bit of work still to be done. \u00a0The story isn’t exactly racing forward – it’s sort of a lurch form one exposition scene to another – but Romita’s finding some fun stuff to draw in there, and the time-warp stuff looks great.<\/p>\n

Green Arrow<\/em> #1<\/strong> – Another “Brightest Day” tie-in book, the justification this time being that whopping great forest that was dumped in the middle of Green Arrow’s city in Brightest Day<\/em> #1. \u00a0It turns out that there’s a point to this, and the forest is actually central to the set-up for this new series. \u00a0Writer JT Krul \u00a0certainly has the right idea – de-emphasise all the continuity baggage and get back to the central idea of the character. \u00a0So now he’s Robin Hood, hiding out in a magic forest in the centre of a corrupt modern city, and venturing out from time to time to take on The Man. \u00a0In theory, that’s actually quite a good idea for the character. \u00a0Even the fact that he used to be an industrialist fits with the version of the Robin Hood myth where he’s a nobleman. \u00a0The problem with this book lies more in the one-dimensional execution, where everyone in power is relentless and unambiguously evil, and all the homeless people are magnificently loveable. \u00a0To be fair, the story of Robin Hood isn’t exactly noted for its political nuance either, and if they’re aiming for a slightly younger audience, then you can’t really criticise it too much for being superficial. \u00a0After all, nobody really wants to read the Sheriff of Nottingham as a troubled family man. \u00a0So, yes, I get what they’re going for here… but it’s still a bit simplistic to hook me.<\/p>\n

Sea Bear & Grizzly Shark<\/em> #1<\/strong> – A classic example of something that seemed like a good idea over a few drinks, being worked up into an actual one-shot. \u00a0Ryan Ottley and Jason Howard split the book, Howard taking the mysterious Sea Bear, while Ottley takes on the terrifying Grizzly Shark. \u00a0The risk with these things is that sometimes the idea is funnier than the comic, and to be honest, there’s a bit of that here. \u00a0The Sea Bear story is pretty much a straightforward monster-hunting-revenge pastiche which happens to plug the eponymous Bear into the monster role. \u00a0It’s okay, but it doesn’t really take the joke much further. \u00a0Grizzly Shark works better, though – partly because of the beautifully ludicrous visual of a shark swimming through the trees, and partly because it gets plenty of material out of the Shark biting people (and, in some cases, their beautifully incongruous reactions). \u00a0The package doesn’t quite live up to the promise of that title (how could it?), but it’s still pretty enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Thunderbolts<\/em> #145<\/strong> – The second issue of the book’s new direction, and it turns out that last issue’s cliffhanger was a feint. \u00a0Which is a bit disappointing, to be honest, but maybe it’s laying the ground to do something more with Zemo in due course. \u00a0This issue, the team go on their first proper mission, which is a nice basic one – it’s not really about the story, it’s about setting up the team dynamic (or lack thereof). \u00a0Not quite sure about Parker’s take on the Juggernaut – I know it was a Chuck Austen story, but he did<\/em> reform pretty emphatically, didn’t he? \u00a0And to be honest, I could have used a little more plot in this issue, given that we’re two chapters in. \u00a0But I’m still interested to see where Parker’s going with his cast, and \u00a0I like the rough energy of Kev Walker’s art.<\/p>\n

Wolverine Origins<\/strong><\/em> #49<\/strong> – This would be the first half of a two-part epilogue, which looks as though it’s mainly going to be Wolverine musing about how he needs to move on from the cycle of tedium in which he’s been trapped for the past four years. \u00a0I’m with you there, mate. \u00a0Second half of the issue is a tedious dream sequence, so presumably he’ll be coming to terms with things next issue in symbolic fashion. \u00a0Nice cliffhanger, though, unless the resolution is “it’s only a dream”, in which case it’s a lousy cliffhanger. \u00a0But hey, it’s the epilogue to a four-year story I didn’t much like, so it’d be surprising if I changed my mind now. \u00a0Will Conrad’s art is pretty good.<\/p>\n

Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em> #14<\/strong> – In this month’s exciting issue of Avengers vs Deathlok<\/em>, we get the origin of one of the many, many Deathlok cyborgs who’ve travelled back from the future, and we get a lot of fighting with the Avengers. \u00a0Wolverine’s barely in it, which wouldn’t be a big deal if it seemed to be in any way a Wolverine story. \u00a0But it doesn’t, to be honest; if anything, it seems like Jason Aaron has a Deathlok story he’s keen to do, and he’s going to shoehorn it into this title for no better reason than that he happens to be its regular writer. \u00a0Judged as a Deathlok mini, it’s not bad – I like the idea of inverting the concept by making this one a maniac who’s broadly happy with his new life as a murderous cyborg – and Ron Garney’s action sequences always have plenty of energy. \u00a0It just doesn’t seem to belong in this book.<\/p>\n

X-Factor<\/strong><\/em> #206<\/strong> – In which the team finally get back together and beat the baddies. \u00a0Yeah… I can see why they wanted to do a peripheral Second Coming<\/em> tie-in, because X-Factor<\/em> could use the sales. \u00a0But in practice it ends up as a bunch of random baddies attacking X-Factor for no particular reason, and if anything it draws attention to a flaw in Bastion’s scheme: the mutants aren’t<\/em> all trapped in his magic dome in San Francisco, because some of them weren’t there to start with. \u00a0Mind you, it’s better than it has any right to be, because Peter David uses the essentially random attack as a backdrop to have fun with his characters and, for once, to give them a good clean win. \u00a0Still feels like a bit of a diversion, though.<\/p>\n

X-Men Legacy<\/em> #237<\/strong> – Part 12 of Second Coming<\/em> proper. \u00a0And since there are only 14 parts, we finally reach the point where the X-Men win something: X-Force get to shut down the nasty robots from the future. \u00a0Unfortunately, they get to do it in an issue drawn by Greg Land, and the art is decidedly hit and miss. \u00a0There’s quite a nice page with Cypher talking to a computer, but a central double-page spread which is supposed to be a montage of three different concurrent fight scenes is just shapeless and awful. \u00a0And Mike Carey seems to be struggling to find opportunities to be smart with this issue – dialogue like “Scott, that was… that was Hope<\/em>” is surely beneath him. \u00a0Good closing scene with Cable, though, and they’re still keeping up the idea that this is, presumably, heading to something big and some sort of turning point.<\/p>\n

Zatanna<\/em> #2<\/strong> – Not as strong as the first issue, perhaps because it doesn’t have quite such strong set-pieces. \u00a0It’s also an early lurch into a plot device I’ve never liked – the one where a demon makes somebody have an angst-ridden dream so that the story can spell out their character issues for the slow members of the class. \u00a0Lovely art, though, and Brother Night is a solid villain. \u00a0I’ll give it a little more time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’ve been writing this, the England\/Germany match has been under way. \u00a0Will England still be in the competition by the time I finish writing this? \u00a0No. \u00a0No, they won’t. \u00a0 Still, at least the BBC will have got all the weeping and flagwaving out of its system for another couple of years. \u00a0It’s all […]<\/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-386","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\/386","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=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}