{"id":4357,"date":"2018-10-21T21:56:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T20:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4357"},"modified":"2018-10-21T21:56:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T20:56:28","slug":"x-23-1-5-two-birthdays-and-three-funerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4357","title":{"rendered":"X-23 #1-5: “Two Birthdays and Three Funerals”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mariko Tamaki and Juann Cabal get a fresh issue #1 for the start of their run, but this is very much a continuation of Tom Taylor’s\u00a0All-New Wolverine<\/em>. \u00a0The set-up is exactly the same, except for the dropping of the “Wolverine” name in favour of “X-23” – which nobody draws attention to until issue #5, and which Laura pointedly refuses to explain. \u00a0So perhaps it’s something we’re coming back to, and they just didn’t want it to overshadow the first arc. \u00a0Or perhaps it’s something we’re kicking into the long grass, because we all know the\u00a0real<\/em> reason – Wolverine Classic is back – so there’s not much point trying to sell us on an organic story reason.<\/p>\n

Visually, the style of the book hasn’t drastically changed either. \u00a0Cabal drew much of the “Orphans of X” storyline for\u00a0All-New Wolverine<\/em>, and he maintains that style here. \u00a0Unfortunately, deadlines seem to catch up with him by the final issue, most of which is handled competently enough by Marcio Fiorito. \u00a0But the rest of the book has some great visual flourishes, not just with the usual contrast between Laura and her enthusiastic mini-me Gabby, but also in the way the Stepford Cuckoos’ unity and pose starts to break down when they’re alone and arguing amongst themselves.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of real bravura set pieces in here, too – a psychic illusion rendered over a few pages in monochrome red, which really blasts off the page when you’re reading it digitally, or a sequence of Laura chasing down a van only to find she’s got the wrong one. That’s a familiar movie trope that rests on misleading editing, but the final intercut panel of the two different vans is pure comics.<\/p>\n

Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian writer best known for her non-superhero work. \u00a0She also wrote the recent Jennifer Walters\u00a0Hulk<\/em> title, which I wasn’t particularly keen on. \u00a0This is much more successful, and a respectable continuation of one of the best recent X-books. \u00a0The opening arc benefits in some ways from a re-read, not least because it helps to keep track of which Cuckoo is doing what; on the other hand, that’s an exercise that also winds up foregrounding some problems.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in passing above, it’s a Stepford Cuckoos story. \u00a0At first glance they don’t seem like obvious contenders for a Laura and Gabby story, but the parallels are entirely obvious once they’re pointed out. \u00a0Not only are they another set of cloned sisters, but they’ve been left diminished by the deaths of other clones as well – they lost Sophie and Esme, while Laura and Gabby lost some of the other clones who were created alongside Gabby (Zelda being the one who got named).<\/p>\n

More to the point, while Laura and Gabby are wildly different personalities, the telepathic Cuckoos cluster as a group and tend to present themselves to the outside world as a single mind. \u00a0It’s been clear from the outset that they’re\u00a0not<\/em> – and there have been stories recently showing them starting to develop their own personas, which we’re clearly ignoring for the purpose of this arc. \u00a0But for most of their history, the Cuckoos have tended to act spooky and speak in unison.<\/p>\n

The plot involves the remaining Cuckoos trying to bring Sophie and Esme back to life by cloning new bodies for them. For reasons never clearly explained, those cloned bodies are unable to handle the Cuckoos’ psychic power levels, and so the Cuckoos (perhaps prompted by Esme) come up with a plan B: mentally hijack a scientist who specialises in transferring minds into cloned bodies, and see if they can get Laura and Gabby’s bodies instead. \u00a0Because, presumably, they’ve got healing factors, and should be fine. \u00a0Esme then quietly does in Sophie, and tries to get Gabby’s body for herself. \u00a0Sophie resurfaces as a voice in Laura’s head, while Mindee also rebels against the others to side with her.<\/p>\n

Thematically, this is all quite interesting. \u00a0Laura is somewhat comfortable with being a clone, but doesn’t like being reminded of the reasons for which she was created. \u00a0Gabby is pretty much at peace with the whole thing and likes the idea of picking a symbolic birthday for herself. \u00a0And for Laura, the fact that they’re so unlike one another is a reassuring sign of her own individuality. \u00a0But the Cuckoos seem to prize their lack of individuality, acting publicly as a unit and only dropping the mask when they’re among themselves. \u00a0Their identity is completely tied up in the group, which is why Phoebe and Celeste are so willing to embrace outright villainy in order to reunite the five; only Mindee recoils at the thought of being cut out of the wider X-Men social circle. \u00a0And Esme just wants to dominate the group, exploiting their loyalty to do it. \u00a0(Something she can only do with Sophie out of the way.)<\/p>\n

But there are plot problems here, not to mention a certain fuzziness in explaining the Cuckoos’ back story which makes the point rather more obscure. \u00a0For one thing, how the Cuckoos clone the new bodies in the first place? \u00a0The scientist Laura rescues is very clear that she didn’t make the new clones – they were already disintegrating before she arrived – so where did they come from? \u00a0For another, why don’t the clones work? \u00a0How can the Cuckoos’ powers be an obstacle to cloning, when they were clones to start with? \u00a0And perhaps most importantly, how did creating two new clones result in bringing back the dead Sophie and Esme, instead of just resulting in two new clones? \u00a0None of this is explained at all, and it’s all pretty fundamental stuff. \u00a0It’s not even clear how Sophie’s mind shows up in Laura’s head, unless we’re meant to take it that she’s a ghost.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the fact that the plot makes a lot more sense if you have a working knowledge of the original Grant Morrison stories, which are never really explained. \u00a0In issue #1, Gabby asks how Sophie and Esme died, but Laura dodges the question and gives a partial answer. \u00a0Sophie’s own flashback in issue #4 is similarly impressionistic. \u00a0This makes some sense on a character level – Laura probably wouldn’t want to give a straight answer to Gabby’s question, and Sophie would be telling Laura something she already knew – but these are stories from fifteen years ago, and you can’t really assume that the readers know them.<\/p>\n

Basically, for this story to fully make sense, you need to know that Sophie was the dominant personality in the original five Cuckoos; that she died more or less heroically when she supercharged her powers using Kick so that she could use Cerebro to stop Quentin Quire; that Esme steered her into doing that, so as to clear the way for Esme to dominate the group for herself; and that Esme went off on her own (rejecting the group) to join the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, where she got herself killed. \u00a0Much of that is alluded to here, and if you already know the stories, this is probably an adequate reminder; if you don’t, I’m not convinced that enough is being done to set it up. \u00a0And if you do remember it, you might well wonder how gullible the rest of the Cuckoos are to fall for Esme’s schtick again – though I’d say that’s a fair extrapolation from their group obsessiveness.<\/p>\n

Still, the problems here are largely ones of omission – stuff being glossed over or left unexplained – and despite those problems, what’s actually here is generally pretty good. \u00a0Laura and Gabby’s dynamic remains intact, and the art is excellent. \u00a0Plenty to like about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mariko Tamaki and Juann Cabal get a fresh issue #1 for the start of their run, but this is very much a continuation of Tom Taylor’s\u00a0All-New Wolverine. \u00a0The set-up is exactly the same, except for the dropping of the “Wolverine” name in favour of “X-23” – which nobody draws attention to until issue #5, 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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4357","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\/4357","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=4357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4358,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions\/4358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}