{"id":82,"date":"2009-11-22T19:37:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-22T19:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2009-11-22T19:37:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T19:37:19","slug":"the-x-axis-22-november-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 22 November 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast, it’s just a couple of posts below.\u00a0 Go do so.\u00a0 We talk about the first issues of SWORD<\/em>, Supergod<\/em> and Victorian Undead<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is an unusually quiet week for new releases – everything seems to be in the middle of a storyline right now – but let’s run through the books anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dark Avengers<\/em> #11<\/strong> – Is it just me, or does Norman Osborn have a tiny itty bitty head on the cover?\u00a0 Anyway, when I reviewed the “Utopia” crossover, I pointed out that the Dark Avengers didn’t get much to do.\u00a0 Somebody pointed out that, actually, that’s pretty much par for the course – it’s really a Norman Osborn solo title, with the other guys standing in the background.\u00a0 And indeed, that’s what we get here.\u00a0 Since they’re the official government-appointed superheroes, the Avengers have gone off to investigate weird stuff in Colorado, and they’ve blundered into the Molecule Man, one of those virtually-omnipotent characters who’s way out of their league.\u00a0 Naturally enough, that means the Avengers themselves make cameo appearances, and Norman Osborn has an extended dialogue with the nerdy maniac.\u00a0 I have no idea why somebody thought it would be a good idea to have a few pages randomly painted by Greg Horn, of all people.\u00a0 At first it looks as though Horn’s going to do all the pages showing the Avengers trapped in worlds created for them by the Molecule Man… but then they kind of drop that idea and Mike Deodato takes over again.\u00a0 Besides, Horn is trying for hyper-realism, so he’s a weird artist to be doing surreal dream scenes.\u00a0 Still, all told, this actually isn’t bad; if you’re going to do a book like this, then it makes sense to do a story where the ersatz Avengers are put in the underdog role and have to actually try and do the job properly.<\/p>\n

Echo<\/em> #16<\/strong> – Presumably this is going to be the opening chapter of the fourth trade paperback, because it opens with a really blatant piece of recapping.\u00a0 To be honest, this isn’t the strongest issue of Terry Moore’s series; it’s built around some scenes with Ivy and her Tragically Ill Daughter which end up seeming a bit heavy-handed and sentimental.\u00a0 (The problem here, I think, is that said Tragically Ill Daughter doesn’t display much of a personality beyond being Tragic and Ill, which makes it all seem a bit disease-of-the-week.)\u00a0 That said, even when he’s doing material like this, Moore’s storytelling puts most of his contemporaries to shame.\u00a0 He’s great at the tiny little details of body language which make a character believable.\u00a0 The odd thing about this series is the combination of those little personal touches with a Hollywood plot and rather one-dimensional villains.\u00a0 Often it works, when the characters run into the action story elements and play off it; occasionally it feels a bit contrived, and for some reason this issue seemed to be in the latter category.<\/p>\n

G-Man: Cape Crisis<\/em> #4<\/strong> – Chris Giarrusso’s work on this series has been comfortably up to the standards of his “Mini Marvels” strips, but this issue has some of the best material of the series.\u00a0 It’s the sequence with G-Man escaping a wood full of… well, I’m guessing it’s a riff on Where the Wild Things Are<\/em>, but it doesn’t really matter.\u00a0 There’s just something about vicious monsters with a fully-fledged public transport infrastructure that works for me.\u00a0 Sure, G-Man<\/em>‘s story is basically just a framework to hang a load of jokes on, but when they’re funny, I’m fine with that.<\/p>\n

Hellblazer<\/em> #261<\/strong> – And we’re off to India for a new storyline, so that Peter Milligan can write about gullible western tourists and the heritage of Empire.\u00a0 Some of this is, well, less than subtle.\u00a0 (The British nineteenth-century justifications for colonialism were a little more complex than “we’re taught to possess the world,” for example.)\u00a0 But the basic idea of people trying to exploit a condescending Empire-era ghost is entertaining, if heavy-handed. And Giuseppe Camuncoli is doing great art on this series – good clear storytelling, and he knows how to play up the tongue-in-cheek bits.<\/p>\n

Nomad: Girl Without A World<\/em> #3<\/strong> – Despite the rather stark covers, the set-up here is almost a throwback to the early years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em>.\u00a0 Nomad isn’t exactly a character with a built-in fanbase – she’s the “Heroes Reborn” version of Bucky, now stranded in the regular Marvel Universe – but Sean McKeever plays to that by duly positioning her as a Z-list superhero protecting her neighbourhood and her high school.\u00a0 And the big villainous scheme is… people using mind control to dominate high school politics.\u00a0 Some of the action scenes are a bit ropey, but I do like the way the book plays the creepily politically-conscious students.\u00a0 I’m not so sure about the cliffhanger, though – it’s one of those moments where the villain is suddenly revealed to be somebody from another comic entirely who hasn’t been mentioned in years and who would probably have long since been forgotten if they hadn’t managed to scrape an entry in the Official Handbook<\/em> back in the mid-80s.\u00a0 Still, it’s something different, this book, and it plays to McKeever’s strengths.<\/p>\n

Phonogram: The Singles Club<\/em> #5<\/strong> – Ah, the one that got pulped because it had the wrong bar code on it.\u00a0 They don’t make scandals like they used to.\u00a0 Each issue of this miniseries is showing us the same club night from the perspective of a different character, and we’ve now reached Laura Heaven, the lyric-quoting girl who hung around with Penny B back in issue #1.\u00a0 Laura is the pretentious fan looking for identity in the music of her favourite band, and not quite getting it right yet.\u00a0 It’s the sort of story that, in the past, you’d have done with a fan of the Smiths or the Manic Street Preachers.\u00a0 But there isn’t really a band like that around at the moment, at least with that sort of profile.\u00a0 So instead Laura is a fan of the Long Blondes – a risky approach, because frankly, they’re a bit obscure.\u00a0 (We’re dealing here with a defunct band who never made the top 40 album chart, and who never got a single into the top 20.\u00a0 Their biggest hit was “Weekend Without Makeup”<\/a>, if you’re wondering.)\u00a0 But as usual with Phonogram<\/em>, it doesn’t really matter whether you know the band or not.\u00a0 The point is what they mean to Laura, and her love\/hate relationship with Penny… and that’s universal.<\/p>\n

Thunderbolts<\/em> #138<\/strong> – Jeff Parker and Miguel Sepulveda take over as the new creative team.\u00a0 With storylines already in progress, though, it’s far from a clean break.\u00a0 To be honest, I haven’t been buying this in a while, and the current line-up really is a motley collection of weirdos.\u00a0 Nuke wearing a hockey mask and calling himself Scourge?\u00a0 Mr X, the serial killer from Frank Tieri’s Wolverine<\/em> run?\u00a0 The Headsman, from frigging Untold Tales of Spider-Man<\/em>?\u00a0 Actually, there’s a nice dynamic here, between the characters who are stark raving mad, and those who are merely mercenaries.\u00a0 Still, it does feel like a book that’s drifted an awfully long way from its roots – though clearly it’s going to need a new direction in a few months when Dark Reign is over.\u00a0 In the meantime, Parker tells an enjoyable enough opening story with them, and then sets up, you guessed it, an appearance by the Agents of Atlas.\u00a0 Let nobody say they haven’t got enough exposure.<\/p>\n

Wolverine: Origins<\/em> #42<\/strong> – In which Wolverine chats with Bruce Banner for a few pages and then, having apparently exhausted the potential of the mandatory guest appearance, pops off to Japan to speak to the Silver Samurai.\u00a0 Basically, it’s one of those stories where the bad guy knows how the good guy thinks, and so the good guy has to act out of character to outwit him.\u00a0 You know the schtick.\u00a0 It’s always horribly contrived, and this is no exception.\u00a0 As so often with Wolverine: Origins<\/em>, it’s got moments where you’re obviously meant to stand back and admire the clever plot twists; naturally, much depends on how clever you think they really are.\u00a0 Admittedly, it all fits together – the thing is, it fits into a horribly convoluted pretzel.\u00a0 But Doug Braithwaite’s art is pretty good, and it’s all harmlessly silly.<\/p>\n

Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em> #7<\/strong> – This is the second part of Jason Aaron’s asylum arc, and evidently he knows better than to drag out the mystery for too long.\u00a0 This issue doesn’t give us a complete explanation of how Wolverine ended up in the asylum, but it does give us a reasonable idea of what’s going on there: once upon a time it had a sideline in providing mentally unstable but readily deniable hitmen, but now the lunatics are literally running the asylum and the whole operation has gone completely off the rails.\u00a0 Equally, five issues of Logan shivering in a corner would have been a bit much, but Aaron moves us forward on that one too.\u00a0 I’m enjoying this one a lot; it’s a weird little story, but with plenty of dark humour, and it\u00a0knows not to outstay its\u00a0welcome.<\/p>\n

X-Men Legacy<\/em> #229<\/strong> – Isn’t this book meant to be part of the “Necrosha-X” crossover?\u00a0 Oh well, evidently it’s going to join that one late.\u00a0 In the meantime, we’re still in the middle of a “Nation X” branded arc – which, as you’ve probably guessed by now, simply means it’s the first arc to take place after the move to Utopia, no more, no less.\u00a0 This issue, Rogue tries to rescue Bling! from Emplate’s clutches.\u00a0 I realise that’s a bit melodramatic, but Emplate’s a melodramatic kind of guy, and I feel very strongly that he has clutches from which minor characters must be rescued.\u00a0 Daniel Acuna’s art is perfectly suited to the surreal weirdness of Emplate’s dimension (if slightly less suited to the scenes in the real world), and I really Mike Carey’s take on Emplate, as someone who fancies himself a long-suffering stoic victim of circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t listened to this week’s podcast, it’s just a couple of posts below.\u00a0 Go do so.\u00a0 We talk about the first issues of SWORD, Supergod and Victorian Undead. This is an unusually quiet week for new releases – everything seems to be in the middle of a storyline right now – but let’s […]<\/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-82","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\/82","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=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}