Well its been a while, but now that I have all the xbooks coming in regularly (save Wolverine, Daken, and arguably Deadpool) I feel more confident in getting this thing updated regularly.
X-23 15
Picking up on surprising cliff hanger from last issue, Marjorie Liu's X-23 continues to impress me as strong and idiosyncratic book that's absolutely imperative for Marvel to be publishing right now.
The plot itself revolves around Laura, who has come to New York on personal business regarding her past, falling into an adventure with the Future Foundation. The series makes use of some old school continuity (namely that Sue Richards, Spiderman, and X-23 have all at one time or another become Captain Universe) to spin a cool sci-fantasy tale that spins right out of the ol' Micronauts books.
This is kind of a huge departure in tone for X-23, and its incredibly welcome. The series up til now has been quite good, but its scope up until this point has seemed quite narrow. Involving Laura in a new kind of adventure, surrounding her with characters whose points of view are so different from those of the X-Men, its a welcome change of pace. The story is a tad bit out of left field, but thats hardly any real kind of draw back.
I'm especially enjoying Valeria Richards, Sue and Richards ultra-precocious super genius daughter interacting with X, these are both dangerous young women with some problems figuring out where exactly they belong in the world, and I think X-23 using that as a kind of motif in its stories has been a great sort of touchstone. The book is always full of very strong, but also very troubled female characters, and watching them emphasized AS characters is a joy.
Phil Noto does the art for this arc, and its always gorgeous, though he draws perhaps the most inactive looking Spider Man I've ever seen. He's not in anyway bad at action, but he may not yet have picked up on how to portray really constantly dynamic characters like Spidey.
X-Men Legacy 256 and 257
Parts three and four of the Five Miles South of the Universe story line bring us some interesting stuff.
Before I really go into this, I want to stress how much this feels like a classic Claremont styled X-story. Multiple factions, tons of different elements, and high stakes, not just (as it so often is these days) just for the X-men or Mutant race, but for all the regular people around them. If you miss that feel of adventure and action in your x-books this is really for you.
This story has been setup as a big rescue mission, Rogue, Frenzy, Gambit and Magneto using some power taken from Legion to teleport deep into space and rescue Rachel Summers, Havok and Polaris. Initially separated they found themselves on a city sized space station falling into a sun and in the middle of a war between the Shi'ar and an insect like species.
In 256 we find that all the trouble is actually the work of an incredibly sadistic and disenfranchised alien mutant named Friendless. He hates his own people, he hates the Shi'ar, and he's telepathically manipulating the leaders of the two races to wipe each other out. Rachel battles Friendless, and the X-Men all re-unite, along with a group of Shi'ar space pirates from a much earlier arc of Legacy. The mission objective seems concluded, and the conflict between the aliens has even stopped, but the station is still falling into the sun, and Rogue sacrifices her borrowed teleportational ability to gain the knowledge to fix it and save the thousands of people on board.
257 sees the X-Men splitting up one group lead by Magneto trying to find a ship to get them off the station, while Rogue and Frenzy gamble their lives to stop the station from falling farther into the sun. The issue is filled with a lot of high intensity drama as Friendless returns and manipulates both alien factions into targeting the X-men.
This has been a great story, really surging with unexpected developments and great action. Theres some time made for some decent character development with Rogue, Magneto and Frenzy, and its nice to see the Shi'ar side characters getting some time to really flesh out their personalities. Havok and Polaris are left with fairly little to do, they are less of characters in this story and more plot objects...a position those particular too have occupied time and time again throughout X-Men history.
I really can't stress enough how much Mike Carey gets the X-Men. Gets what it is, and what kind of stories it needs to tell. So many other books try to make the X-Men about humans vs mutants or saving the mutant race, but those aren't really things you can ever get a satisfying conclusion to. They are the situation that gives the X-Men tension, and are better left as a kind of background. Carey instead tells a mix of super personal stories mixed with extremely large scope adventure that has always made for the best kind of X-Men stories. He also introduces, and makes you care about new characters. From Frenzy, who has quickly become one of my favorite X-Men, to the way he handles Magneto AS an X-Man, but without ever losing what makes him a terrifying antagonist, to characters like his alien ruffians. Carey blends old and new in a way few of even Marvel's so called Architects can.
Art is still Koi Pham, decent but muddy, and without a lot of the visual flare that I prefer in my comics, but his work is very expressive, and thats a huge postive in an x-story.
X-Men 19
Conclusion to the Victor Gischler penned Betrayal in the Bermuda Triangle, X-Men 19 is a fast paced conclusion to nifty pulp adventure team up between the X-Men and the Future Foundation.
On a mission to rescue Lee Forrester an ex of both Magneto's and Cyclops' the X-Men and FF have gone to another dimension, and found themselves embroiled in a war between the humans lead by Skull the Slayer and aliens from the planet Skorpius.
I have to say, I don't really know anything about Skull the Slayer or this dimension that the two teams hae landed in. I don't know if this place is an already established location, and these are all previously introduced races of peoples, or if this is all new. It feels like the former, but it could be the latter. Either way, we aren't really given a lot of time to learn about these people. That isn't so much a problem to me if these are a bunch of old comic ideas that have been given a chance to cameo here, that kind of thing is always nice, even if a tad rushed, but if these things are new, its a tad more disappointing, still, all the unique races and elements add a nice sense of window dressing to the thing, so under no circumstances are they a complete waste.
The story is a bit muddied or maybe just rushed, with Doom pretending to switch sides so he can learn about the enemies, and Cyclops Emma and Sue captured. Most of the heavy work is done by Pixie in this issue as she takes down the macguffin stopping psychic powers from working thats been holding off the Skorpius' rival race, and then frees the capture Cyclops and co.
The big villain in this, the Skorpius Emperor has a vaguely defined ability to manipulate the earth around him becoming a sort of plant ground based shape changer, and you get a really fun sequence at the end of the book where the X-men and FF combine their powers to stop him
This is a fun book, but its fairly obvious that the story was less about itself, and more an excuse to team up the FF and the X-Men, and to play guys like Magneto and Doom off of each other, and that would be great, EXCEPT, Victor Gischler still doesn't have the best grasp of all these characters yet. There's some he's definitely got a hold of like Emma, and he actually writes an excellent Pixie which is really nice. He has some good Dr. Nemesis and Reed interactions too. The whole book would just have played out a little bit better if he maybe had some more time under his belt finding voices for guys like Magneto and Wolverine.
Still, it was a lot of fun, and I'd probably recommend the trade to someone who was just looking for something fun and irreverant.
X-Men Regenesis and Generation Hope 12
I've decided to review these together as they cover quite literally some of the same material, are written in teh same time frame and by the same person.
Kieron Gillen has quickly become one of my favorite X-Men wordsmiths. His take on characters, and his ability to express subtleties and motivations under the surface are almost without peer, and because of that his X-Men Regenesis is masterly.
The plot is fairly minimal, X-Men choose who to follow, while Cyclops and Wolverine campaign for a few of their favorites. Nearly everyone's reasons are very clear, and make good sense following the last few years of X stories. Theres a couple of more suspect choices, Bling! for instance is not someone I saw wanting to go back to the school, but even in those circumstances I can see the logic.
The dialog throughout the story is well wrought. In particular scenes between Cyclops and Storm, Rogue and Magneto, and probably most importantly in my mind the scene with the young X-Men.
I can't stress how important it is that Gillen addressed them, and addressed them well. They are the crux of this, they are what the Schism was about, and its interesting, because while these X-Men are concerned about their future, so are the fans of the younger gen of X kids, it mirrors our concerns in a lot of ways.
Billy Tan's art works, and he does a great job illustrating the tribal framing device which Gillen uses to weave the story together, but his visuals are a bit blurry sometimes, and theres some very odd coloring going on in the book.
Several pages of Regenesis also deal with Hope, Transonic, and their conflicts and concern over 14 year old Oya, the mutant who killed to defend the X-men during Schism. These pages also appear in Gillen's Gen Hope 12.
Gen Hope has been my favorite Marvel book since about issue 4, and while this is sadly Gillens last on the book its a wonderful exit. Besides dealing with the elephant in the room of Oya, it sets up the ability for the next writer James Asmus to take the various Lights in a lot of different directions rather than necessarily strictly following whatever Gillen would have done.
Like Regenesis its fairly light on plot, mostly being vignettes of character interactions. Transonic confronts Hope about Idie only to be almost instantly cowed by Hope showing honest to god vulnerability and pain. A fun scene involving a beach cook out leads to some enjoyable antics, and theres an honest to god revalation about Velocidad that elevates the character above the kinda second rate Johnny Storm role he's been in since the beginning.
Also as a plus the team gets a new member in the form of Pixie, which adds some romantic akwardness into the mix. I'd personally seen this particular addition coming since before Schism when they failed to rescue the last Light before he committed suicide, and it was nice to see my suspicions play out as well as see Pixie find herself a more fixed position in the x-books. Shes been a fairly major character for a while but has gotten fairly little actual recognition.
As always though, Gillen leaves the book on a note that doesn't really allow you to trust much of what you've seen, because as always the subtle control and influence Hope has on her Lights always ends up showing, and you once again have to look at everything you've witnessed, and wonder just exactly how much was the Lights, and how much was Hope, and moreover, how much of it was Hope subconsciously affecting them and how much was it her actively controlling them. Even as Gillen leaves these questions remain, and because of that there is no Marvel book more intriguing. I hope Asmus is up to the challenge of writing characters with so may layers and so much subtlety.
Art is as always on Gen Hope very good, Steve Sanders picking up pencils this week and doing some really wonderful stuff with Zero's powers, sadly I'm not looking forward to the incoming Roberson, he drew the Gen Hope characters back in Uncanny 439 and gave them all nearly identical body types and similar faces, not a bad artist, but not a great pick for drawing young women.
Uncanny X-Force 16
Arguably the best book Marvel is publishing, X-Force continues to deliver high stakes sci-fi action and suspense with great writing and incredible art.
The climax to the Dark Angel Saga is coming, the Apocalypse possessed Warren Worthington III working on a plan to start evolution on earth over again from the beginning, Psylocke captured, every member of X-Force battered by Apocalypse's Horsemen and the Age of Apocalypse reinforcements Dark Beast has gathered.
Dialog is as always great, and while I dont necessarily worry for the lives of our characters, I do worry for their souls, and even for the fate of the great villains.
Remender continues to write the best Deadpool we've seen in years, and makes Fantomex shine maybe even more so than Morrison. His Archangel is chilling, his Psylocke a real presence, and all of his new villains are immediately arresting individuals. he's even made me love Deathlock, this is the very best of comics here.
The setting still revolves around The World, and we still have yet to see exactly what will come out of the experiments that Fantomex has kept there.
No book in Marvel keeps me on the edge of my seat as much as this one. Buy it now.
On a seperate note I recently read though Jason Aaron's run on Wolverine, I won't review it in depth here, but I'll say its a very mixed bag of interesting elements and plodding plots. It has a lot to recommend it, but it is slow and drawn out far longer than it needed to be. I mostly bring it up though, because it very much sets up Wolverines state of mind going into Schism, and honestly Schism prolly would have read a lot better coming directly out of it.
Well that's it for Views of the Atom this week. See you soon for another Mutant Watch, and hopefully coming soon a regular podcast
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