In which I finally get around to reviewing books that came out in America a week ago! \u00a0But I only got them on Monday afternoon, so there it is. \u00a0There’s an abundance of X-books this week (and frankly, I’m still working my way through the rest of last week’s comics), so I’m just going to run through them. \u00a0Believe me, it’ll be enough to keep us going.<\/p>\n
Astonishing X-Men<\/em> #38<\/strong> – This is the first chapter of “Meanwhile”, one of Marvel’s more curious editorial decisions. \u00a0Astonishing X-Men<\/em> now has two creative teams producing two different storylines simultaneously. \u00a0It’s going to alternate back and forth between the two arcs. \u00a0So last issue was Daniel Way and Jason Pearson’s Mentallo storyline, this issue is Christos Gage and Juan Bobillo starting their Brood arc, and next issue will be back to Way and Pearson.<\/p>\n This sort of thing isn’t completely unknown at Marvel – Hercules<\/em> and Thunderbolts<\/em> have both done similar things in the past by splitting up their cast. \u00a0But doing it with two seemingly unrelated storylines by two different writers is… certainly unusual.<\/p>\n There’s been a noticeable shift lately towards double-shipping the regular titles, rather than churning out low-selling spin-off books. \u00a0That makes a degree of sense, in as much as a second issue of Uncanny<\/em> is presumably going to sell more than another miniseries. \u00a0But it does leave me wondering whether this arc has its roots in anything more than Marvel deciding they want extra issues of Astonishing X-Men<\/em>, and the existing creative team politely telling them that it ain’t happening.<\/p>\n It certainly feels like filler. \u00a0SWORD have been experimenting on some captive Brood; it all goes wrong; Abigail Brand is in trouble; the Beast brings in the X-Men to try and rescue them. \u00a0From there, it’s “Brood on a space station” and you can probably figure out the rest for yourself. \u00a0Fair enough, it’s been a good few years since anyone’s done an X-Men story with the Brood, and there’s nothing wrong with dusting them off every so often to trot through their schtick for another generation of readers.<\/p>\n But that’s pretty much all it is; there’s no great twist, and there’s no apparent connection to anything happening in Way’s storyline. \u00a0It’s an ugly comic, too – I’ve enjoyed Juan Bobillo’s work in the past on books like She-Hulk<\/em>, but it doesn’t suit a story which is trying to be tense and claustrophobic, and he seems to have take on some very clumsy tics which do his work no favours at all.<\/p>\n Generation Hope<\/em> #7<\/strong> – It turns out that the story about the new mutant in the Berlin hospital is a two-parter. \u00a0That’s very welcome; I’m glad to see the book throwing in some shorter stories, particularly as the opening arc seemed over-extended. \u00a0This story has a simple idea – there’s an unborn mutant baby with mind control powers, and he doesn’t want to come out – and two issues seems about right for it. \u00a0It’s a neat twist on the zombie horde, but the sequence with the team telepathically persuading the kid to be born is also well handled. \u00a0As well as providing a nice take on why each character thinks it’s worth living (or not), it pays off rather well with the ultimate explanation coming from Teon – who, of course, can’t actually articulate why it’s such a good idea, but is somehow convincing anyway.<\/p>\n So this works both as an anthology story and as a vehicle for the characters. \u00a0The downside, and the slight anticlimax, is that it turns out that the baby isn’t going to get its mutant powers back until puberty. \u00a0So while the book sets this up as a new mutant birth, and technically delivers, it doesn’t really go anywhere in the short term. \u00a0That could be an issue with the book’s direction – will it actually get to introduce the new mutant characters it needs? \u00a0Still, a good team story.<\/p>\n Namor: The First Mutant Annual<\/em> #1<\/strong> – Got to love the optimism of that “#1”, haven’t you?<\/p>\n “Escape From The Negative Zone” started strongly in the Uncanny X-Men Annual<\/em>, which chose an interesting group of characters, played them off against one another, and had some interesting art as well. \u00a0But it’s been downhill from there, with Steve Rogers being shoe-horned into the story so that part 2 can appear in his annual, and the plot degenerating into “they fight some baddies from the Negative Zone, and then they escape”. \u00a0Despite this being notionally his own annual, poor Namor gets very little to do in this story other than go nuts on the thinnest of plot pretexts, and smash things up a bit. \u00a0If there’s a core to the story, it’s the idea of Scott learning to trust Hope and letting her play her part – but the regular books have already moved beyond that point.<\/p>\n It’s got art by Max Fiumara, which is sporadically interesting to look at, but that’s about all it’s got going for it.<\/p>\n Uncanny X-Force<\/em> #10<\/strong> – Technically “The Dark Angel Saga” starts in the next issue. \u00a0But in practice it starts here, since this issue sets up X-Force’s reason for visiting the Age of Apocalypse and the macguffin they’re going to be hunting for.<\/p>\n Perhaps more to the point, this is the issue where the subplot about Angel’s insanity comes to a head. \u00a0 Amahl Farouk (who really should get around to buying a second suit) leaks evidence of X-Force to the press. \u00a0Naturally, they never get around to publishing it – that would destroy the premise of the series. But first, Archangel sets out to, uh, avert the PR problem his way. \u00a0Refreshingly, this doesn’t get drawn out too quickly; instead, he gets jumped by the rest of the team almost immediately. \u00a0Considering that last issue was a bit of a drawn-out misfire, it’s nice to see the pacing back on track here; most books would have stretched this amount of plot to several issues, but Rick Remender’s absolutely right to do it in one.<\/p>\n Yes, the storyline about Magneto discovering the team seems to have wandered off into the ether. \u00a0And yes, Billy Tan and Rich Elson’s art doesn’t always get the atmosphere it seems to be going for; a more consistent use of light and shadow wouldn’t go amiss. \u00a0But on the whole, pretty good.<\/p>\n Continuing Marvel’s programme of exposing new titles to a larger audience, the issue also includes a reprint of Iron Man 2.0<\/em> #3 – presumably chosen because it’s the issue where Jim Rhodes gets his new armour. \u00a0It is, however, also part 3 of an ongoing storyline, which opens with a five page silent sequence of unnamed characters looking at stuff – perhaps not the best choice of story for this purpose. \u00a0In fairness, it’s a smarter move than just running issue #1, which would be several months out of date, but if Marvel are going to keep doing this regularly, they might want to look at making sure that new titles launch with some shorter storylines that lend themselves better to the format. \u00a0They might also want to consider plugging the release date of the next issue. \u00a0Just saying.<\/p>\n X-23<\/em> #10<\/strong> – X-23 and Gambit are in Paris… for some reason. \u00a0The recap page says they’re looking for something, but if they are, the story never gets around to dealing with it. \u00a0It reads more like X-23 is continuing her globetrotting phase – soon, she will have moped on all five continents. \u00a0Anyhow, the plot – such as it is – is that one of the documents X-23 picked up from Daken in the last storyline was a list of people she killed when she was an assassin. \u00a0And now she’s moping about that. \u00a0And that’s essentially it for the first half of the book.<\/p>\n This is a very mopey comic. \u00a0That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it kind of goes with the territory of the character, and Marjorie Liu has made a smart move introducing Gambit as a co-star to give the book some light and shade. \u00a0But even so, it is Very Mopey Indeed, and very light on plot. \u00a0Something finally happens about halfway through when Wolverine and Jubilee show up, thus allowing the book to revisit its favourite “nature vs nurture” theme with Jubilee vampirism. \u00a0That’s fairly standard. \u00a0But there’s also a more interesting conversation with Gambit and Wolverine, raising the question of quite why Wolverine didn’t take X-23 under his wing as a sidekick, as he did with Jubilee or Kitty before him. \u00a0To some extent, this seems to be Liu attempting to address an elephant in the room and explain what the hell X-23 was doing in X-Force in the first place – but it’s nice to see her trying to make sense of it in a way that works for the characters, instead of just brushing it aside.<\/p>\n All that said – there may be a couple of nice character ideas in here, but that doesn’t really alter the fact that there’s a hell of a lot of moping and almost no plot.<\/p>\n X-Factor<\/em> #219<\/strong> – From the look of it, this seems to be the final part of the storyline with the three assassins. \u00a0X-Factor demand explanations from J Jonah Jameson, Guido’s feeling surprisingly good in hospital, and everyone apart from Madrox goes after the baddies. \u00a0I kind of feel like the assassins’ story doesn’t go anywhere in particular; they have a half-formed angst subplot, but basically it feels like their role is to shunt Guido and Layla into position for the next story. \u00a0That’s a shame, because Ballistique had a strong debut issue and I was hoping for them to be more than just villains of the week. \u00a0Perhaps Peter David has more in mind for them, but it feels as though their side of the story doesn’t get fully developed here.<\/p>\n The main focus of this issue, though, is X-Factor (minus Madrox, who’d probably have tried to rein them in) going after the villains with a degree of casual vindictiveness that’s genuinely kind of uncomfortable, perhaps because it’s often underplayed. \u00a0It’s a good sequence, which manages to leave some doubt about how far we should be rooting for the characters, and provides some more great moments for Monet’s character. \u00a0Not one of the best issues of X-Factor<\/em>, but it’s got some very good bits in there.<\/p>\n X-Men: Giant-Size<\/em> #1<\/strong> – It may be billed as a one-shot, but this is effectively X-Men<\/em> #11.5, starting Chris Yost’s “First to Last” storyline which continues in X-Men<\/em> #12. \u00a0And hey, everyone – it’s the Neo! \u00a0Remember the Neo? \u00a0No, probably not – but Yost’s not actually that interested in them either. \u00a0He needs them as cannon fodder to illustrate his own new characters.<\/p>\n Normally I’d deprecate this sort of thing, but sod it, it’s the Neo. \u00a0They were created by Chris Claremont during his abortive second run on Uncanny<\/em> – in theory, they’re a hidden race who are to mutants what mutants are to humans. \u00a0That sounds like a good idea until you actually try to write it, at which point you end up with just another bunch of mutants, because there’s no way of making them distinct. \u00a0The Neo just didn’t work, and if this issue needs an obscure off-shoot of the human race to steamroller, hell, it’s the only use anyone’s got out of them in the last decade.<\/p>\n Yost is really interested in his new characters, the Evolutionaries – who seem to be a sort of cut-price Celestials. \u00a0Much of the issue is a flashback to their previously-unmentioned debut in the Silver Age – hence the 1960s X-Men on the cover. \u00a0And much of that flashback consists of the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants before the Evolutionaries show up. \u00a0(There’s also a Sentinel wandering around which nobody seems to have seen before. \u00a0It’s all a bit strange and leaves me wondering whether it’s meant to seem off. \u00a0You can never tell these days.)<\/p>\n The idea of the Evolutionaries is quite good, though. \u00a0They’re a bunch of murderous cosmic thingies whose objective is to make sure that mutants inherit the world as planned. \u00a0I like that idea; it’s a throwback to the idea of mutants as the next stage in evolution, which we’ve kind of lost sight of following M-Day. \u00a0And it’s got a good old-fashioned angle; the Evolutionaries are technically on the X-Men’s side, but they’re not the sort of help you’d want. \u00a0It’s a good introduction of the idea, and it works as the first part of a storyline. \u00a0Why it’s being marketed as a special issue in its own right… heaven only knows.<\/p>\n X-Men: Prelude to Schism<\/em> #2<\/strong> – So we’re moving… backwards in time…? \u00a0This is a series in which Scott Summers has conversations with major X-Men in reverse order? \u00a0At this point, I’m confused; Paul Jenkins is writing some decent enough character vignettes, but is this supposed to be building to something? \u00a0How?<\/p>\n This issue, Magneto talks about stuff, which is to say that he recaps the plot of that Testament<\/em> miniseries from a couple of years ago and reminisces about his early encounters with the X-Men. \u00a0There is also a strained metaphor about magnets. \u00a0It restates some standard themes of the character, which is fine as far as it goes – but beyond that, so what? \u00a0I have absolutely no clue what this series is supposed to be achieving, why it’s supposed to make me care about “Schism”, or what the whole thing is for. \u00a0Perhaps it’ll make some sort of sense with hindsight, but if there’s a point to all this, it’s well hidden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In which I finally get around to reviewing books that came out in America a week ago! \u00a0But I only got them on Monday afternoon, so there it is. \u00a0There’s an abundance of X-books this week (and frankly, I’m still working my way through the rest of last week’s comics), so I’m just going to […]<\/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-846","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\/846","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=846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846\/revisions\/847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}