REVIEWS: The X-Axis - 20 January 2008

THE X-AXIS
20 January 2008
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This week:

NEW EXILES #1 - "Dawn of a New Day!"
by Chris Claremont and Tom Grummett

NEW X-MEN #46 - Messiah Complex, part 12 of 13
by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas
and Dave Meikis

'76 #1 (of
Jackie Karma, part 1 of 8
by B Clay Moore and Ed Tadem
Cool, part 1 of 8
by Seth Peck and Tigh Walker

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Just when you thought Marvel had finally grown tired of the "New"
prefix, here comes NEW EXILES, the revamped and relaunched version of
Exiles.

What monumental change has led the book to start over from scratch? Um,
well, there isn't one, really. It's still written by Chris Claremont.
It's still about a group of heroes from parallel worlds living in the
Crystal Palace and helping to set things right on other Earths. There's
a new roster, but most of them were introduced a few issues back. And
there's new artist, Tom Grummett, but he took over with Exiles #100.

So really, there's not much new about New Exiles. It's Exiles #101, no
more and no less.

That said, there are positive signs in here. Some of Claremont's recent
stories have been all over the place. We've also had an excessive
number of stories about the Fantastic Four. It's a worrying sign when
they show up yet again on page 2, but in fact, it doesn't look as though
the story will be about them. This story uses them in their familiar
role as the first heroes of the Silver Age, to establish that it's a
world where the superheroes never got off the ground. The actual story
is set a generation later, although we don't get to the meat of it in
this issue.

Instead, most of the issue is spent on yet more set-up, fleshing out the
relationship between the new Exiles, and giving them a bit more
personality. Even though most of them are based on familiar characters,
this is still badly overdue. At last, there's finally an attempt to
define Mystiq's personality, and to mark out Cat as being in some way
different from Kitty Pryde. Several characters take the step from being
cyphers (or clones of the originals) to being a little more distinctive.

Artist Tom Grummett has never been one for spectacular images, but he's
always been a sound storyteller. He's clearly trying his best to get
away from the tedious and ugly light pink crystals which have dominated
Crystal Palace scenes in the past, and he also does a rather good
Sabretooth.

That's the good. But there are still a lot of problems here. The issue
is still riddled with weird glitches, such as Sabretooth announcing the
unveiling of new costumes, which then singularly fail to appear in later
pages. There's a clunky scene with Psylocke and Mystiq in which she
goes from instinctive distrust to flirtation in the course of two pages.
Psylocke also seems remarkably unbothered about having an explosive
bracelet strapped to her arm against her will. Rogue delivers an
excruciating two page monologue which couldn't be further removed from
actual speech. Sage is caught up in a storyline about the Diana Fox
persona from Excalibur - a story that didn't work the first time around,
and hardly cried out for a reprise. A sequence with Morph and Cat
playing football really doesn't make much sense at all. And the
cliffhanger is so out of context that it's more confusing than tense.

So... plenty of problems here. But there are some elements here that
could work - dump the Diana Fox angle and I could even see some
potential in Sage's insanity plot. Claremont's fanbase will probably
see this issue as a positive step in many respects, and it does have a
sense of direction that's been noticeably absent from his Exiles stories
until now.

Rating: C

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Here's an odd one. I kind of feel obliged to review NEW X-MEN #46,
because it's the final issue of the series. Admittedly, something
called Young X-Men appears to be taking its place. But they haven't
solicited it yet, and really, it could be anything.

So this is the end for New X-Men, the second incarnation of a book that
has never really quite worked. New Mutants was too domestic, too quiet,
and too light on the genuinely fantastic. New X-Men has swung far too
far in the other direction, with any sense of subtlety or personality
being lost beneath a seemingly endless bloodbath. Yet the characters
have plenty of potential. Perhaps the third time will be the charm.

I've said all this before, so there's not much point going into any more
detail. Frankly, New X-Men #46 isn't much of a final issue. It's the
penultimate chapter of "Messiah Complex", a crossover in which the New
X-Men have played only a peripheral role. The perennial problem with
these line-wide crossovers is to find an excuse for all the books to
take part. "Messiah Complex" is basically an X-Men story, but the
creators have given Madrox a big role in order to justify X-Factor's
involvement.

What about the New X-Men? Well, they have two main justifications to be
here. First, the story used the Purifiers, who are principally New
X-Men villains. But as the story has turned out, the Purifiers were
basically a red herring at the outset, rather than being more
fundamental to the plot. They won't be around for next week's finale,
from the look of it. Second, there's been a long-running subplot with
Predator X, also a New X-Men villain. That finally pays off this week as
the creature attacks the New X-Men, and Pixie has a panic attack,
teleporting the whole fight off to the X-Men for help.

It's a passable excuse for having the New X-Men there, but it still
feels like something which has been tagged on to the main story. The
reality is that this is mainly an issue about the X-Men and the
Marauders fighting each other over the baby, with the title characters
reduced to a few pages of subplot. It's not a particularly dignified
way for a series to meet its demise.

Mind you, as a chapter of "Messiah Complex", it works just fine. It's
clear by this point that the story is simply going to be a fight for
control of the baby, and its actual significance won't be explored until
later on. I'm not sure I would have dragged matters out quite that far
- after all, "Messiah Complex" itself was trailed by "Endangered
Species", which was several months long in its own right. But as an
action story, it does work.

Perhaps the oddest decision in this issue is the elimination of Mr
Sinister, a character who's been portrayed as virtually invincible for
twenty years, but can now be taken out by Mystique. The story tries to
set up an unusual method of killing him, but it still seems decidedly
out of whack with his normal power levels. I have a vague recollection
that Sinister was whining about his powers being reduced in the X-Men:
Colossus - Bloodline miniseries, but that was two years ago, nobody read
it, and I don't recall any mention of it in this storyline, nor in the
build-up.

Still, that aside, it's another solid issue of action. As the final
issue of New X-Men, it doesn't work at all, but I'm choosing not to see
it that way.

Rating: B

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'76 is a slightly unusual book. It's an eight-issue miniseries with two
stories by different creative teams - "Jackie Karma" by B Clay Moore and
Ed Tadem, and "Cool" by Seth Perk and Tigh Walker. The common theme is
that, as the title suggests, they're both set in 1976.

According to interviews, this didn't originate as a high concept
project. It's simply a case of two writers independently having ideas
set in the mid-seventies and deciding to do a split book instead of
competing with each other. Obviously, the effect is to play up the time
period as the linking theme.

Now, there are really two versions of the mid-seventies. There's the
real mid-seventies, the historical period. And then there's the
fictional mid-seventies, a sort of well-established setting for the
stories influenced by seventies B-movies. If you're reading this - and
if you're reading '76 - then chances are your idea of the seventies is
probably closer to the latter.

And indeed, that's the way the book comes across. The inside front
cover has a list of historical facts about the seventies, and the centre
spread is a list of sports results, but the actual stories haven't got
much to do with any of this. "Jackie Karma" is a story about a lawyer
who used to be a kung fu vigilante, coming out of retirement when his
past catches up with him. It's set in the seventies because that's when
the martial arts craze was at its peak. Although I can't help thinking,
shouldn't it be set later? Wouldn't it make more sense, aesthetically,
if Jackie's heyday was the mid-seventies and his comeback was somewhere
into the Reagan era?

"Cool" is a Tarantino-esque story about wisecracking bail bondsmen being
sent on the trail of a girl who has allegedly ended up with the money
and the drugs after a deal gone wrong. I say "allegedly" for a reason,
although I can't quite make up my mind whether this is an example of
subtle plotting that leaves the readers to figure it out for themselves,
or just a gaping plot hole. I'm leaning heavily towards it being
intentional, but I'm not absolutely sure.

Frankly, there's no terribly obvious reason for setting this story in
the seventies at all, other than the amusing surface. There's no reason
why it shouldn't be the seventies, of course. But if you're expecting a
series which is actually about 1976 in any way... well, er, no, not
really.

Still, if you're into these particular B-movie genres, both stories are
sound efforts. "Jackie Karma" has the deadpan absurdity you'd expect
from a seventies martial arts story, and artist Ed Tadem makes the most
of the period with some impressive black and white art. "Cool" isn't
quite so visually distinctive, but it's still well told, and bounces
through its admittedly familiar set-up with energy. Both are fun
stories, and perhaps the only problem with this series is that it
implies it's got more to say about 1976 than it actually has.

The setting is neither a theme nor a gimmick, so much as a coincidence.
But take the stories on their own terms, and this is quite entertaining.

Rating: A-

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Also this week...

CABLE & DEADPOOL #49 - With two issues to go, Fabian Nicieza has
apparently thrown in the towel on the thankless job of writing the
plots, and artist Reilly Brown has taken over, with Nicieza contributing
the script. Inevitably, this is filler, as Deadpool visits the Savage
Land and hooks up with Ka-Zar. But it's funny stuff - despite the
circumstances, Nicieza seems to be having fun with the dialogue, and
Brown throws in some genuinely clever touches (such as a gloriously
stupid way of making Deadpool immune to Lorelei's siren song). And the
cliffhanger on the closing page is one of those fantastically absurd
images that would actually have worked in Mighty Avengers as well. This
is really surprisingly good, and perhaps somebody should look at having
Brown write some more. A

NEW WARRIORS #8 - People occasionally ask me why I don't cover New
Warriors, a book replete with Z-list X-castoffs. One answer is that
Marvel don't regard it as an X-book, and god knows I've got enough to
write about already. But this issue brought the real problem with New
Warriors crashing home to me - a singular failure to define the
characters properly, or indeed at all. Half the issue is about Night
Thrasher, and depends on a working knowledge of old stories from twenty
years ago if you're going to care. The rest consists of the team
sitting around discussing whether they're terrorists in a badly
thought-out scene. (They're clearly not; and if the concern is that
they're criminals, surely they knew that all along. The whole point of
the group is that they're defying the Registration Act.) Reading this
scene, I realised the grim and depressing truth: eight issues in, I
couldn't tell you the names of any of these characters. I don't know
which civilian matches up with which costume. I don't know what their
powers are. I can't tell them apart in conversation. They are just an
interchangeable mulch of non-personalities. Artist Jon Malin apparently
only knows how to draw one woman, and a scene with the four female
members is frankly embarrassing, as they look like identical quadruplets
in different clothes. I can't be bothered memorising their clothes from
panel to panel in order to tell them apart, and the dialogue certainly
doesn't assist. There are some half-decent ideas in this book about
kids resisting the Registration Act, but as a team book with actual
characters, it's a mess. D+

WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #21 - Beginning an arc which apparently leads to a
Way/Dillon Deadpool series. It's an odd issue. What we get here is an
action story in which Deadpool tries to take out Wolverine in the style
of Looney Tunes. I certainly laughed a few times, and there are some
well-timed sequences. But this week's Cable & Deadpool is funnier, and
also has a more interesting take on the lead character. I can't imagine
this take on Deadpool carrying a series; there's just nothing
particularly interesting about him, once you get past the slapstick.
Still, I can't deny that the issue raised a few smiles. B

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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" concludes in X-Men #207. The Man-Thing
guest stars in First Class #8. And after all this time, we finally
reach Astonishing X-Men #24 - which turns out not to be the end after
all.
--
Paul O'Brien

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