THE X-AXIS
4 March 2007
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This week:
NEW EXCALIBUR #17 - Fallen Friend, part 2 of 2
by Chris Claremont, Scot Eaton, Sandu Florea, Jay Leisten, Dave
Meikis and John Dell
X-MEN #196 - Primary Infection, part 3 of 3
by Mike Carey, Humberto Ramos and Carlos Cuevas
D'AIRAIN AVENTURE #1
by Ashley Wood, TP Louise and Chris Ryall
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NEW EXCALIBUR #17 is the concluding half of "Fallen Friend", the story
with which Chris Claremont chose to return to the book after his health
problems.
Rather than going back to his ongoing storylines, which have been on
hiatus for several months, Claremont has gone for something a little
more personal, by giving Nocturne a stroke. When I reviewed the
previous issue, my main concern was that I couldn't see how the story
was going to be resolved satisfactorily in one issue. But Claremont
surprises me; rather than trying to resolve everything in one go, he
delivers a sound "coming to terms with it" story and then seems to be
setting up Nocturne's full recovery as a long-term storyline.
It seems a little odd that Claremont has chosen to pursue this avenue
first, before getting back to the long-delayed main storyline. But
then, it's always been his style to follow up promising side avenues
when they occur to him. And the main story hasn't been forgotten; next
issue begins a seven-part resolution. I might still have been inclined
to do it the other way around, but we'll have to see what role Nocturne
plays in the next arc. It certainly works this way, at least.
The story makes good use of Nocturne's powers of possession to play off
the idea of being trapped in a damaged body. At first that seems to be
setting up the obvious superhero angst route (which would be to have
Nocturne crippled and possessing another character in order to go into
combat), but fortunately it seems we're going to be spared that in
favour of a more conventional recovery story.
The problem, in fact, isn't the approach at all. It's the overly
sentimental dialogue, which topples over into some truly horrid
speech-making in the closing scenes. ("Call us a family, call us a band
of brothers - we stand together in common purpose to take care of those
around us...") It's not a subtle story, and to some extent it gets away
with that because it's working with events which are very emotional.
But even so, it pushes its luck too far by the end.
Still, the worst I can say about this issue is that it gets a bit
mawkish. It does succeed in what it was trying to do, and it pulls off
a workable two-parter without becoming too trite. On balance, it works.
Rating: B
LINKS:
http://www.marvel.com
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Over in X-MEN #196, Mike Carey and guest artist Humberto Ramos complete
the three-part "Primary Infection" arc.
Pandemic - the guy who was mentioned in passing in Carey's first arc -
turns out to be a mad scientist type who once treated Rogue and managed
to duplicate her powers. Since then, he's been going around using that
as a device to copy other mutant powers as well, making him terribly
powerful. But now he wants to get Rogue back. Why?
Well, we finally get a clear answer to that in this concluding part.
Apparently Pandemic only gets the powers, and he wants the ability to
absorb minds permanently. There's a rather garbled attempt to explain
that this way he'll subjectively experience their lifetimes and, in a
metaphysically debatable kind of way, live forever.
Hmm. Much as I like Carey's writing, this one doesn't really work for
me. The problem is the villain - he's a cipher for most of the arc, and
when his motivations are finally fleshed out, they don't ring true.
We're told what he wants, but never really why he wants it. And since
he gets comprehensively beaten at the end of the story, I assume he's
not being set up for a rematch - if anything, the long-term significance
of this story seems to be to mess with Rogue's own powers yet again.
As a result, I can't help but see this as an extended three-issue fight
scene, with the usual exaggerated art from Humberto Ramos. As it's
Carey's second arc, it would have been nice to see his quirky roster
working together as a team, but by keeping them separate for most of the
story he hasn't allowed himself that opportunity. Still, the finish is
inventive, and there are cute action sequences to liven things up. But
the story has Pandemic at its centre, and he's not a great villain.
By no means a terrible story, but a superficial one. Carey can improve
on this.
Rating: B-
LINKS:
http://www.mikecarey.net
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Ashley Wood is nothing if not distinctive. It used to be possible to
stereotype his work as sepia blurriness (and for the most part, that
used to be true), but he's developed beyond that now. These days, Wood
is much more about stark design, and producing comics that look like art
objects.
D'AIRAIN AVENTURE is a monthly anthology title from IDW in which Wood
illustrates serials written by himself and regular collaborators TP
Louise and Chris Ryall. It's advert-free and heavily designed, with
cardstock folded covers and minimal colouring throughout.
The main selling point will presumably be the prequel to Ryall and
Wood's Zombies vs Robots, a story in which three competitive scientists
get to squabble about who goes through their exciting new portal. Ryall
writes fairly conventional, but subtly amusing stories, and Wood draws
his story fairly straight. Ryall's other contribution, "Black Magick",
is a five-page opening chapter about a haunted house inexplicably
appearing overnight on a Californian suburban street. It's a lovely
premise, and Wood's design for the house is wonderful.
Both stories get extremely subdued colouring, which works well enough
for the lab. I'm not sure that borderline monochrome is really the
right way of conveying suburban California, mind you. It helps to smooth
over the clash of sticking a haunted house in the street, and makes it
easier for them to co-exist in the same art, but perhaps it becomes a
little too easy.
The lead story, "Les Morts", is a much more elliptical affair. It seems
to be about an immortal man who makes a living by killing himself on
stage and passing it off as an illusion. A deserted town and what seems
to be a drained sea apparently fit in somewhere. There's a dreamlike
quality to Wood's work that fits this kind of thing.
Wood's big problem used to be decipherability. Notoriously, his
contribution to Invisibles was so incomprehensible that DC had it
re-drawn by another artist for the trade paperback. He's still much
stronger on atmosphere than on conveying physical action - the closing
page of "Les Morts" is not as easy to follow as it might be. But he's
certainly a readable artist now, and there's an appealing quirkiness to
the stories he's drawing.
Even so, there's still a weird clash between his spartan, monochrome
style, and the sort of thing he's actually drawing. Zombies vs Robots
sounds like it ought to be over-the-top pulp fun, but Ashley Wood comics
usually seem more like a witty entry for a design award. They don't
have the B-movie feel you'd expect for some of this material, and I'm
not entirely convinced that they sell the concepts as well as they
could.
But Wood is certainly idiosyncratic, and this is a likeably playful book
- even if it's a very arthouse sort of playfulness.
Rating: B+
LINKS:
http://www.idwpublishing.com
http://www.ashleywoodartist.com
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Also this week...
WISDOM #3 - It's a shame nobody seems to be buying this series, because
it's really good. Manuel Garcia takes over from the perennially-delayed
Trevor Hairsine on art, and the results look just fine. Shang-Chi guest
stars so that Wisdom can get somebody else to handle the boring business
of fighting bad guys on his behalf. And there's a nice gear change at
the end which shifts from comedy to genuine emotion in a way that not
many writers this side of Peter David can pull off. Good stuff. A-
http://paulcornell.blogspot.com
WOLVERINE #51 - If you enjoyed issue #50, then good news - here it is
again. Of course, everything looks good when Simone Bianchi is on art,
but there's little in the way of story, and no discernible point. At a
panel this weekend, Loeb observed that the reason other TV writers fail
to get their scripts in on time is because they're trying too hard to
make them perfect. He may be right, but there is such a thing as going
too far in the other direction. C
http://www.simonebianchi.com
X-FACTOR #16 - Jamie Madrox continues the task of hunting down his stray
duplicates and reabsorbing them. After last month's slightly
disappointing HYDRA story, this is a real return to form, as Jamie drops
in on a duplicate now living as a priest in Vermont. Peter David has
got incredible mileage out of the metaphorical possibilities of Madrox's
weird power, and this story has also really helped to widen the book's
claustrophobic horizons. One of the best stories Peter David's written
in quite a while. A+
http://www.peterdavid.net
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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, Uncanny X-Men #484. Yes, just the one. And if you're
wondering how lopsided Marvel's scheduling is, thanks to some late
running books, they've currently got eight X-books on the slate for 21
March. God help us.
--
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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