The X-Axis – 21 April 2013
The march of the middle chapters continues…
Astonishing X-Men #61 – Part five of “X-Termination”, which now seems bound and determined on being the worst crossover in years. Notionally this seems to be intended to wrap up two cancelled titles, X-Treme X-Men and Age of Apocalypse. Since they both share an alternate reality theme, that could potentially have worked.
Unfortunately, what we’re getting is resolution the Ultimatum way – “everybody died, the end”. Except for Astonishing, of course, which is only there to prop up the sales, and seems to have no clear idea of why it’s present at all. This issue features yet more characters wailing histrionically about the existential threat posed by the personality-free cosmic guys. I can’t help suspecting that at some point this was a story where the threat was simply an all-consuming wall of energy, or something like that, and that somebody decided that such a threat wasn’t sufficiently personal. But instead of giving the threat a personality, or an agenda, they just gave it legs.
Art comes from a barrage of wildly inconsistent passers-by, in an assortment of ludicrously incongruous tones, with some characters even changing clothes mid-scene. Some of the pages done in the style of the Age of Apocalypse series are at least okay to look at it, though the design of the giants doesn’t seem to fit. The rest is mediocre at best.
To be fair, Marjorie Liu makes a reasonable job of selling the idea that everything depends on Jean staying in control of herself long enough to beat the baddies, which at least brings this story down to some sort of character conflict. But there’s only so much to be done with this material. The eventual pay-off is that the only way to save our world is apparently to sacrifice the entire Age of Apocalypse. In theory, that’s fine so long as it’s just there to drive the dramatic tension. But if they actually do it – and given the way this story has gone so far, they very well might – that would be a dismally misguided way of finishing the Age of Apocalypse series.
Cable & X-Force #7 – The main story here, I quite like. It’s a nicely multi-layered heist plot, with X-Force trying to steal a spaceship from SWORD, and taking the opportunity to try and break Colossus out of the same prison, since he’s being held there. Except Colossus doesn’t want to go, and when it comes down to it, X-Force aren’t ultimately bothered whether he comes with them – he’s just a convenient distraction from the real purpose of being there.
Yes, okay, that means the plot hinges on the deeply improbable coincidence of Colossus just happening to be held in a prison which just happens to be relevant to Cable’s next vision – but I can live with that, since it allows Colossus and Domino to get some worthwhile character moments in this story.
More problematic is the way the story uses Cyclops, whose arrival at the end of last issue was presented as the big cliffhanger, and whose appearance is given pride of place on the cover. Yet Cyclops contributes nothing to the plot and shows every sign of having been belatedly shoehorned in to a carefully constructed story that has no role for him. Even stranger, the story plays him as the established hero who might potentially have come to rein in his wayward son – wholly at odds with his current portrayal in the Bendis titles as a guy who is, if anything, more of a revolutionary radical than Cable. Mainly, though, the Cyclops scenes don’t work because they don’t seem to go anywhere.
Savage Wolverine #4 – Oh lord, is this is an origin story to superpower Shanna for future Frank Cho stories? She’s mystically revived from the dead with all sort of amped up powers, and… yeah, that’s a direction for the character that holds no interest for me at all. Not, admittedly, that any direction for the character has ever held any interest for me. Mind you, I guess it could all burn itself out by the end of the story.
To give Cho his due, this issue does have an unusually brutal fight scene that doesn’t attempt to conceal the fact that we’ve got a lead character whose only offensive power is to knife and cut people – it’s genuinely a little surprising to read, and works because the casual brutality seems right for the story, instead of being foregrounded in a way that would make it feel gratuitous. It’s a lot more graphic than I’m used to seeing in a mainstream Marvel title, but the age rating on this book is 12+, and I guess it’s on the right side of the line for that.
There are elements in Frank Cho’s comics that are very good – I just wish I felt that way about the whole.
Wolverine and the X-Men #27AU – Completely forgot to download this. Give me a minute…
Right, this is by Matt Kindt and Paco Medina, and it’s one of the alternate-reality issues being published as part of the Age of Ultron crossover, which I’m not reading, because rubble is dull. (Officially Age of Ultron isn’t an alternate reality, but let’s be serious now.) Apparently, the plot in the main series is that Wolverine and the Invisible Woman have come back in time to try and stop Hank Pym before he can make Ultron in the first place, which seems fair enough. But, in what I’ll agree is a nice twist on the formula, the plan isn’t to kill him, simply to talk him out of making the dangerous killer robot. The question, obviously, is what happens when that doesn’t work, as it plainly won’t, because there wouldn’t be much of a story that way.
This issue features the duo having arrived back in the Silver Age, and obviously faces the major problem that not a great deal can really happen (this being the sort of crossover where everything of importance needs to take place in the main book). Instead, Kindt gives us an incidental break-in to a SHIELD base to pick up a Thingie, and tries to work a couple of character beats into that. Wolverine learns about the dangers of altering the past by inadvertently encouraging the Brood to get more powerful (which doesn’t work at all, since I just don’t buy the idea that this one encounter with a single captive leads to the whole race changing). And Sue… uh, well, Sue reflects on an old issue of Fantastic Four and sends a message to Reed.
It’s an adequate issue judged by its remit of padding out the crossover, but it simply hasn’t been given anything to work with, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the series it’s notionally attached to.
X-Factor #254 – Part 5 of “Hell on Earth War”. Mephisto’s running around killing other Hell Lords, Tier’s belatedly decided that he doesn’t really want to kill demons, and Jezebel has decided he’s going to do so anyway. Though I could have stood to see this storyline run a little shorter, Peter David is building the momentum quite nicely. In many hands this would have been an entire storyline of X-Factor on the run, but David knows how to escalate the minor details to at least give the impression that it’s building to a climax – even if, when you stop to think about it, the heroes really are just basically on the run for the whole arc.
X-Men Legacy #9 – Another single-issue story – that’s three in a row, the common theme apparently being to further Legion’s relationship with Blindfold, and illustrate how he sees his “pro-active” version of the X-Men’s mission working. This time, Legion has discovered, of all people, the Golden Age Vision living on the moon. Apparently this guy pops back to Earth from time to time to pick up books from the library and when he learns about mutants from an anti-mutant book, he’s going to launch a devastating attack which the X-Men won’t be able to deal with. So Legion gives Blindfold a pep talk about the whole problem, and then decides to deal with it himself – pre-emptively.
The basic idea is fine, as is the fact that Blindfold simply refuses to endorse this exercise in punishing things that might happen in the future. Both the fact that Legion hauls her along in the first place, and the fact that he ploughs on without her, are interesting illustrations of where their relationship currently stands, and of where Legion’s priorities ultimately lie. His behaviour here is meant to be disturbing on a variety of levels, just as it was in the previous issue.
But I have two problems with this story that stop it from entirely working for me. First, Legion’s power levels are all over the place in this series, and it’s starting to feel like they fluctuate according to the convenience of any given story, instead of being the outward display of greater self-control that earlier issues seemed to suggest. I’d prefer to see a bit more discipline in sticking to that theme so that Legion has to earn the displays of power.
And second, the set-up with the Vision seems terribly contrived. Leave aside that it doesn’t fit with continuity (the Torch mini from a few years ago had him living on Earth, so he ought to know about mutants already). Leave aside also that the Golden Age Vision was never anywhere near powerful enough to be the major threat that the plot requires. It just strains credibility horrendously that anyone the guy would go off on this crusade based solely on reading a single book, and hand-waving references to him being insane aren’t enough to bridge that gap, for me.
The idea is sound, but a lot depends here on how forgiving you are for really awkward set-ups, as long as they allow for interesting reactions.
As someone who is still reading Age of Ultron, I can confirm that the WatXM’s plot purpose (to make Logan realise that perhaps killing isn’t the best idea, and to make Sue realise that maybe in this instance it is) is completely ignored in AoU 6, which features Wolvie in stab mode and Sue as the ostensible voice of reason.
I quite enjoyed Wolverine and the X-Men #27AU – up until I read Age of Ultron #6. There’s simply no way of squaring the two stories. Which is a shame, because the character material in WATXM was pretty good (albeit a touch heady-handed).
In recent interviews Axel Alonso has talked a lot about the “process” involved in developing tie-in issues. If only that process involved making sure issues actually tie in to the main story properly.
This issue of [i]Wolverine & the X-Men[/i] was indeed completely pointless (aside from the stupid Brood bit). The cover doesn’t help, showing something that probably won’t happen until Age of Ultron #7 (Wolverine & the Invisible Woman joining the past Avengers) and has no relevance to the issue’s actual contents.
Wolverine and the X-Men’s tie in should have properly been a solo Wolverine tie-in. But maybe Marvel at last have their limits and see the absurdity of publishing Wolverine 1AU.
And, while I quite enjoyed it, Paco Medina really ruined the climactic moment for Sue, when he emphasizes her breasts above all else in the emotional, climactic splash page.
It’s almost as though BMB doesn’t read the books he doesn’t write and his editors haven’t got the heart to tell him when he fucks up.
I enjoyed Legacy. I didn’t realise that the would-be antagonist was an existing character. I quite liked the idea of a gullible alien posing a threat. It’s the same idea we saw earlier with the crazy anti-mutant looney cult. It probably doesn’t work as well when its an existing character.
I think the idea of the done-in-one stproes is to help build up Legion’s confidence gradually. It also helps to make his next run in with the Avengers/Shiled/X-Men seem a little more meaningul.
I thought the Cyclops moment worked in C&XF. What didn’t work was the cover/marketing. Cyclops has in many senses become more and more like Cable over the past few years. His tolerance/approval of Cable’s actions makes sense. I would, however, assume that the Uncanny X-Men would have some role in the series down the line. Otherwise, the appearance seems pointless.
“As someone who is still reading Age of Ultron, I can confirm that the WatXM’s plot purpose (to make Logan realise that perhaps killing isn’t the best idea, and to make Sue realise that maybe in this instance it is) is completely ignored in AoU 6, which features Wolvie in stab mode and Sue as the ostensible voice of reason.”
So you’re saying WatXM #27AU is an alternate reality to AoU #6, which is definitely not an alternate reality? Alright then.
I rather like the idea of Cyclops and Cable finding some common ground. I mean, I think readers generally agree that Marvel’s attempt to make Cyke a bad guy is rather ham fisted half of the time and misguided the other half, so it’d be nice to see some of the other heroic characters side with him and sympathize with his position. I think it’d go a long way to give the Cyclops/Wolverine schism some ambiguity and morally gray areas. Way more entertaining that way!
“It’s almost as though BMB doesn’t read the books he doesn’t write and his editors haven’t got the heart to tell him when he fucks up.”
I can understand a lot of Bendis flak, but I’m not really getting how he fucked up here, given that it’s his story. If someone writes a tie-in issue to a series and it doesn’t match up with the main series’ plot, surely that’s down to the tie-in writer (and/or all editors involved)? The tie-in writers should be given the main series to read and conform to, not the other way around.
Actually, that is fair.
(this being the sort of crossover where everything of importance needs to take place in the main book)
Or at least where SOMETHING of importance needs to happen in the main book.
Pretty much. Bendis is the main event writer, the tie-ins have to match his book.
WAXTM #27AU got put in my pull, and I ended up buying it without realizing that it was a one-shot (and not even replacing the normal WAXTM #27). Kinda feels like a waste of $4, as it’s a story with nothing to do with anything, and it’s not very strong on it’s own merits (Wolverine accidently makes the Brood stronger, Sue stares at some 1970s F4 panels.)
I agree with Niall that the Cyclops moment worked in C&X-F, but the marketing for it was silly and completely off the mark.
Potentially stupid question, but what does the ‘AU’ after the issue numbers stand for? Age of Ultron?
“Potentially stupid question, but what does the ‘AU’ after the issue numbers stand for? Age of Ultron?”
Yes.
I think this is the first time I can remember that I didn’t read a single book reviewed this week.
(On the plus side, Bandette, Atomic Robo, Daredevil and Chew were all great.)
Editors and tie in writers really have to take the fall on the Age of Ultron/WATXM mess. Aside frim Bendis writing the main book, you also have to look at how long ago it was written. Bendis had a lot of the details ready for years. Editors especially have to be at fault for not picking up on the problem.
So I gave up on Age Of Ultron but is this a problem because Bendis is writing the Wolverine that is an Avenger because they wanted a killer on the team and the Wolverine Marvel insist in us having now is fluffier?
(unless he’s written by Remender.)
So after Wolverine fucks with a single Brood captive that captive escapes back in to space and propagates the entire Brood species across the universe in just a couple years since the point this story takes place and when the X-Men first meet them later?
Uh-huh.
Surely if Aarkus has read as much as the story would have us believe he has, and if he values knowledge so deeply, he would know that one cannot simultaneously believe all of the contradictory assertions one will encounter. Unless that is where the crazy comes in.
A simple refinement would be to include the detail that his reading selections have all inadvertently come from a single, heavily curated, biased source (perhaps even a source tied with the anti-mutant church we’ve already met). That would make it more plausible that he’s only encountered an anti-mutant POV and can’t see any reason why it might seem unreasonable.
My problem with the Age of Ultron story proper is that it seems like another Marvel where they start with the ending, then railroad over any logical deviation to get there. And then you get endless conversations justifying what they’re doing, rather than showing us the justification.
I suppose the reason that the AU is called Wolverine and the X-Men rather than Wolverine or one of his other titles is that Wolverine and the X-Men sells better than the others, though I haven’t bothered to look that up. I rather like the idea of having an alternate universe version of a cross-over happen as the cross-over unfolds–why should we have to wait for three months to get our what-if story? This way, readers can pick and choose which version of the story the story they prefer.
As has been stated, WatXM doesn’t work at all as a tie-in because Wolverine’s entire goal in going back in time was to kill Pym; he’s expressed the (probably correct) belief that nothing anyone can say to Pym about Ultron will result in anything other than Pym deciding that now that he knows what could go wrong, he’s certainly smart enough to find a way to do it right this time.
And the bit with the Brood works even less – we’re supposed to believe that the Brood look the way they do because they encountered a time travelling Wolverine … but, aside from just trucking in some very irritating sci-fi tropes (of course every time travel trip has to result in some long-established element of continuity being the fault of the time travelers; of course galaxy-affecting events can ultimately be traced back to Earth, the only place where anything important happens) and the ridiculousness that’s already been pointed out here of one Brood encountering one mutant resulting in the entire species taking on the appearance they’ll have when the X-Men encounter them a few years later (not to mention that the Brood’s appearance was allegedly the result of adapting to Wolverine’s physiology, but they’ll be unable to overcome his healing factor next time they meet, or that all previous descriptions of the race have implied that they’ve been ravaging the galaxy for ages with no mention that they looked completely different just a few years ago) there’s the small problem that we’re supposed to believe that the appearance that we’ve always known the Brood to have was caused by Wolverine during the same time trip during which he killed Hank Pym to prevent Ultron … how was there ever a timeline with “post Wolverine” Brood AND live Hank Pym?
While I’m venting: why is everone at Marvel somehow under the impression that New York and Antarctica are close to each other? Despite the fact that Ultron’s supposed to be conquering the entire planet, getting in and out of New York is portrayed as a major undertaking, but moving between New York and the Savage Land repeatedly happens without incident – Storm can carry large groups of people between them via wind without any trouble, Wolverine and Sue can steal Nick Fury’s flying car and make the trip before he calls SHIELD to report a stolen vehicle (or else SHIELD has cameras in every superhuman’s headquarters but didn’t bother putting tracking devices on their flying cars), there’s even a point where Storm flies the group into New York so quickly that they don’t have time to notice that Ultron’s command center extends furthr south than they expected and stop before they fly over it* – I’m wondering if at some point it wasn’t supposed to be the Savage Land that they’re operating out of (or if Bendis didn’t realize the Savage Land is in Antarctica, and not just some “Hollow Earth” type of place you can get to from anywhere, when he plotted it out.
*(By the way, the scene where Storm flies them over Ultron-controlled territory and suddenly everyone’s complaining that Nick Fury didn’t realize how far Ultron’s territory extended – that was clearly written as though Fury had teleported the group there, right? I didn’t imagine that did I? I’m assuming that originally the time machine was supposed to put them there, then someone realized that Doom’s machine doesn’t work that way or something and they had to add a scene about getting from the Savage Land to New York.)
Person of Con wrote:
I rather like the idea of having an alternate universe version of a cross-over happen as the cross-over unfolds–why should we have to wait for three months to get our what-if story? This way, readers can pick and choose which version of the story the story they prefer.
Okay, I want the next super-mega-crossover like House of M or Civil War or AvX or whatever to have four different version of the final issue, each with a different major character dying, randomly distributed to comic stores across the globe. Just to watch all the fans become very confused. “I can’t believe Cyclops killed Emma!” “No dude, he killed Professor X.” “What are you guys talking about, he killed Iron Man?”
” So I gave up on Age Of Ultron but is this a problem because Bendis is writing the Wolverine that is an Avenger because they wanted a killer on the team and the Wolverine Marvel insist in us having now is fluffier? ”
No, because Wolverine historically takes a “Do as I say, not as I do” stance when it comes to heroes killing, ever since he gutted Rachel Summers to keep her from killing Selene.
What’s baffling is that both Fantastic Four #5AU and WATXM #27AU focused on how Sue Storm has lost more than any other hero thanks to Ultron. Logically, following the events of WATXM, Age of Ultron #6 would’ve seen Wolverine and Sue Storm try to reason with Hank Pym, only for Sue Storm to cut off his oxygen supply when it becomes obvious he isn’t going to listen.
That seemed to be the story the tie-ins were setting up, anyway. It would’ve been a suitably shocking scene, far more effective than another of Wolverine’s “the ends justify the means” killings.
Okay, I want the next super-mega-crossover like House of M or Civil War or AvX or whatever to have four different version of the final issue, each with a different major character dying, randomly distributed to comic stores across the globe.”
Great idea. And to get this issues the retailer has to order twice the amount he has to order for variant covers. You should work for Marvel 🙂
“Okay, I want the next super-mega-crossover like House of M or Civil War or AvX or whatever to have four different version of the final issue, each with a different major character dying, randomly distributed to comic stores across the globe.”
You could work a good story out of that idea. Work it out so everything seems okay, maybe with a few continuity errors between books, right up until the end. Then one month print a bunch of blatantly contradictory books seemingly out of nowhere. Then tie them up with a reality mending storyline that establishes reality had actually been broken months earlier (and was the reason for the earlier smaller intentional continuity errors.)
You could combine the blatant contradictions and the reality mending into a single issue. Make it a larger than normal issue.
Don’t openly promote what you are doing. Previews solicits will just say vague promo blurbs like “A major character dies!” and “Who will die?”
Maybe tease it by releasing different unfinished art that seems to show different characters dying. Play it off, without explicitly saying it, that it could be any one of those characters. And without giving away that it is actually all of those characters and perhaps more.
Remember how in the last few months, due to the retcons in First X-Men and Sabretooth Reborn, fans were coming up with ridiculous explanations for everything being caused by Wolverine? So really we already knew Wolverine ‘created’ the Brood we’re familiar with, because Wolverine created everything. It’s now wonder Kang needs his ancestor taken out.
Has Ka-Zar shown up, or been mentioned/hinted at, in SAVAGE WOLVERINE?
That seemed to be the story the tie-ins were setting up, anyway. It would’ve been a suitably shocking scene, far more effective than another of Wolverine’s “the ends justify the means” killings.
Seriously. The way it actually played out was so hilariously predictable: Wolverine comes in all knifey, argues with Sue for a while, and stabs away eventually, all while Hank Pym seems to be totally bewildered in the face of a complete failure to even attempt to explain why Wolverine wants to kill him (“Wait, who are you?” “RAAAR KILL YEW” “Wait, why are you trying to kill me?” “YOU DON’T GET IT BUB, I GOTS TA KILL YEW” “Okay, right, but why exactly” “AH’M THE BEST THERE IS AT WHAT AH DEW, AN WHAT I DEW IS KILL YEW” “Okay, I got that, but what is it you’re killing me for?” “BUB! BEER! DARLIN’! SNIKT! BUB (TM)!”)
@serge – Ka-Zar has shown up, but he didn’t look or act particularly like any version of the character I’m familiar with (on the other hand, there may have been some Ka-Zar-related developments I’m unaware of; it’s not like I’m a Ka-Zarologist).
When the only tool you have is six infinitely sharp knuckle knives, every problem looks like a knife-hole.
Honestly, Wolverine and the X-Men and Age of Ultron are both failures in their own special way.
With WatXM, I don’t envy Kindt: trying to tell a compelling story in between the margins of a decompressed Bendis epic is not an easy task. BMB doesn’t generally leave a lot of details to the imagination. On the surface, “Wolverine creates the Brood” means that at least something meaningful happens besides stopping for gas. Unfortunately, it makes no fucking sense on several levels.
Then you have AoU. Yes, this is the main series, it was written first, and the tie-in should match the main title and not the other way around. On the other hand, “murder a founding member of the Avengers” is a STUPID PLAN. Reinterpreting that as “talk to a founding member of the Avengers first” seems more like attempted salvage than anything else.
I am positively amazed by the SHIELD monitor device that gives Wolverine the infodump about what’s happening to the Brood hive-mind. It’s like someone had a magical plot-point cable box that got switched to the morphogenetic field channel!
Geez. I think I’ll get AoU in a few years when the issues are 99c each.
“Geez. I think I’ll get AoU in a few years when the issues are 99c each.”
Don’t bother. It’ll be a rip-off.
Zing.
The main mini isn’t going to be worth less than $10? I avoid tie ins unless they are ACTUALLY important/a title I’m buying anyway/or considered to be good by general consensus.
I’ll otherwise not prop up a book because it has a banner on the cover. That encourages more of that sales strategy.