THE X-AXIS
11 November 2007
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This week:
ASTONISHING X-MEN #23
by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday
UNCANNY X-MEN #492 - Messiah Complex, part 2 of 13
by Ed Brubaker, Billy Tan, Danny Miki and Allan Martinez
SILVER SURFER: IN THY NAME #1 (of 4)
by Simon Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat
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There are lots of comics out this week, but not many of them cry out for
reviewing. And it's a quiet week for the X-books in particular, with
only Astonishing and Uncanny coming out. They're both in mid-storyline,
but what the heck.
ASTONISHING X-MEN may be the highest selling X-Men title, but it still
feels very much like a side project. Part of the problem is that
although it's notionally the X-books' flagship, in practice it lives in
a little world of its own, completely ignored by the other titles. They
belatedly acknowledged that Colossus had been brought back to life, but
that was about it.
After Grant Morrison left, the X-books spent several years floundering
without much in the way of direction. In theory, Astonishing could have
been the lead book that set the new tone for the line, but in practice
it was so self-contained that it couldn't serve that function. What's
more, because it's so spectacularly late, the other writers seem to have
become wary about acknowledging anything that happens in it. So when,
eventually, the other X-books finally got around to identifying a clear
direction that they wanted to go in, they just ignored Astonishing as a
straggler and marched off without it.
The fact that they can do this and get away with it points to another
difficulty. This two-year storyline simply doesn't feel as though it's
going to make much of a difference to anything. The closing issues
mainly involve the X-Men running around on an alien planet trying to
thwart a prophecy. Notionally there's a risk of Earth being destroyed
if the X-Men lose, but plainly we all know that's not going to happen.
Now that the return of Colossus is out of the way, and the tease that
Emma Frost might be a traitor has been set aside, what's still at stake?
Basically, it's the fate of a planet of little green men, with a rather
contrived culture of warfare. And do we really care that much what
happens to them? I can't honestly say this storyline has left me
desperate for more Tales of the Breakworld. The X-books already have
the Shi'ar Empire to visit when they want to play at being a space
opera. There isn't really a need for the Breakworld in the wider X-Men
mythology, which makes me suspect that chances are we won't be hearing
much of it after the final issue comes out in December.
I think that must be the sticking point. This storyline has dragged on
for three-and-a-half years (it should have been finished in spring
2006), and it just isn't monumental enough to get away with it.
Frankly, even at the scheduled length of two years, it would have been
overlong. It's paced in the manner of the "decompressed" superhero
comics that were popular when it was commissioned, and it's notable that
Whedon has adopted a much more efficient and pacy style in Runaways and
Buffy. If he was doing this storyline over again, I suspect it would
probably clock in at around sixteen issues.
This is frustrating, because the details are good - generally very good
indeed. Whedon has a knack for writing dialogue that makes his
characters feel rounded. He also plays imaginatively with audience
expectations. The centrepiece of this story is a clever little plot
twist which reveals that a major scene from a previous issue, where the
X-Men planned what to do next, was actually an act put on for the bad
guys while they were doing the real discussions telepathically. That's
a cute use of the unreliable narrator, misleading us by using a trick
that's been established in the X-books since the year dot, simply
because we expect to be cut in on the psychic conversations too.
John Cassaday's art is typically beautiful, with a command of body
language that gives his characters a subtle emotional range that few
artists in the genre can match. He's perhaps not a natural action
artist - his strengths lie in the quieter moments - but he's still able
to make those scenes work, and a closing set piece with Cyclops comes
across brilliantly.
So there's a lot to like in here, and even to admire. But the top-notch
technique is married to a storyline that's not quite strong enough.
Rating: B+
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Somewhat against my better judgment, I'm rather enjoying "Messiah
Complex" so far.
I mean, yes, technically I can see all sorts of flaws in it. And I'll
get to some of them in a bit. But it works at the most fundamental
level - it convinces me that the birth of a new mutant is indeed a
hugely significant event of dramatic importance.
Admittedly, it doesn't face an uphill task to persuade me there. As I've
discussed at some length in recent months, I'm now quite convinced that
the M-Day storyline was disastrously misconceived, and needs to be fixed
as a matter of urgency. Without doing that, there's really no book. So
anything that seems, on the face of it, to be reversing M-Day even in
part, is clearly a very good thing indeed (and a very important thing,
because if they don't get this right, it's hard to see what sort of
series they'll be left with).
Perhaps my enthusiasm for the general concept is making me unduly
forgiving. I certainly find it difficult to rationalise the fact that
I'm more interested in this storyline than in Astonishing, except on the
grounds that the stakes seem higher. After all, UNCANNY X-MEN's
"Messiah Complex" chapter drifts in second when it comes to technique.
Since "Messiah Complex" is a weekly storyline, it can get away with the
sort of pacing that would be egregiously relaxed in a monthly title. So
most of this chapter consists of the X-Men sitting around in their base,
deciding what to do next. There's a rather gratuitous fight with some
obscure Acolytes at the end of the issue, which looks decidedly as
though it's been included to get some action into the book. But mainly,
it's an issue of talking.
Fortunately, this does allow Ed Brubaker to follow up on the storyline
he began in Deadly Genesis, with Professor X marginalised from his own
team now that Cyclops no longer trusts him. This is handled quite well,
although it really does beg the question of why Brubaker has waited so
many months to show us that Scott blames the Professor for the loss of
his family as well. If he was going to use that as a major plot point,
it should have been covered earlier than now. Still, now that we're
getting to it, it's done well. A page of Xavier listlessly wandering
the halls while the other X-Men make plans without inviting him is a
nice moment.
Billy Tan is the artist for this chapter. He's an action artist, and
the fight scenes work fine. But the rest of the issue, with people
standing around talking at the Mansion, is more of a challenge for him.
He falls back on a lot of oddball camera angles to spice things up, but
they don't really communicate much.
Although he can convey emotion at the key moments (that page with the
Professor comes across very well), Tan is less good at giving his
background characters things to do during exposition scenes. So we get a
lot of people with blank expressions and generic body language. When
Madrox and Rictor show up, the script tells us that they're angry about
how they were brought there, but nothing in the art brings that out.
And for some reason, Tan seems to have inordinate difficulties in
drawing Cyclops, who seems to have developed a squint visor.
So there's plenty wrong with this issue, and I'd be the first to admit
that. But it's made me care about the storyline, and that's enough to
forgive a multitude of sins.
Rating: B
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As writer Simon Spurrier has candidly acknowledged, the miniseries
SILVER SURFER: IN THY NAME was commissioned on the grounds that Marvel
wanted to have a Silver Surfer story on the shelves when the Fantastic
Four 2 DVD came out.
Come to think of it, that seems a little short-sighted to me. If I were
Marvel, I would want the trade paperback in the bookstores when the DVD
came out. I wouldn't want a Silver Surfer mini coming out in time to
release a collected edition through mainstream channels four months
after everyone's forgotten about the movie. But hey, it's their
business, and there's always the J Michael Straczynski story that just
finished.
The actual story in this miniseries has nothing to do with the movie.
Nor does it have anything to do with the Silver Surfer's present
continuity, in which he's back as the herald of Galactus. Instead, this
story takes the Surfer's former status quo as a well-intentioned cosmic
wanderer. We're either out of continuity altogether or somewhere in the
past, and it doesn't really matter which.
The story treads a familiar path. The Surfer encounters a utopian alien
culture, of peace, learning and friendship. Everything seems just
great. But you won't be surprised to learn that there's a dark
underbelly. This is an old standard set-up for stories about visiting
alien worlds, and to be honest, the first issue mostly bounces through
it efficiently without offering anything very different. But the final
page brings out Spurrier's real big idea for the series, which has
plenty of potential for an angst-ridden moralist like the Surfer.
You might remember artist Tan Eng Huat being pushed as the next big
thing by DC a few years ago, when he drew a short-lived Doom Patrol
relaunch in a heavily angular fashion. His style has changed beyond
recognition since those days, and with the addition of strong pastel
colours from Jose Villarrubia, it now has a softer, more European feel
to it. It's often beautiful stuff. There's still room for improvement,
though. The art tends towards rather small figures in cluttered panels,
at times looking like a scaled-down reproduction of work that was meant
to be 50% larger. Still, it's easy to see why editors get so excited
about this guy - and this is so different from his Doom Patrol work as
to show that he's got real range.
A solid issue. The world probably didn't need another Silver Surfer
miniseries, but at least it's getting one that shows promise.
Rating: B
------------
Also this week...
INFINITY INC. #3 - Hmm. This is a rather choppy issue, and it's also
heading way off into the realms of insanity where Peter Milligan is
often at his best. But he's also playing this story more or less
straight, and trying to do a relatively conventional origin story for a
superhero team, as the former members of Luthor's Infinity Inc. are
drawn back together by their common experience, even though they have
nothing else in common. It's a slightly awkward balance, and I'm not
sure it entirely works. It's certainly going to be a minority taste. I
have to be honest, though, and say that it's a book that I want to like
more than I actualyl like it. B-
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #2 - Well, this is a remarkably strange and enigmatic
book. I'm not familiar enough with the Gerber/Skrenes original to know
how closely Jonatham Lethem is sticking to the source material here.
But there's an endearingly awkward and dreamlike quality to this book
that somehow manages to play effectively off the more obviously cynical
subplot about the Mink, a corrupt populist superhero. Farel Dalrymple
is a great artist, and the sheer inappropriateness of his style for any
sort of mainstream superhero book only works to advantage. I still
haven't got much of a clue what's going on here, but it's certainly got
my attention. A-
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There's more from me at If Destroyed, and if you're desperate for more
Article 10 columns, you can always hunt through the archives on Ninth
Art.
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
http://www.ninthart.com
Next week, "Messiah Complex" continues into X-Factor #25. Wolverine #59
continues the "Logan Dies" storyline, by Marc Guggenheim and Howard
Chaykin. And the misleadingly-named Excalibur/Exiles crossover, X-Men:
Die By The Sword, is up to issue #3.
--
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS -
http://www.thexaxis.com
IF DESTROYED -
http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com
NINTH ART -
http://www.ninthart.com
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