The X-Axis – w/c 28 October 2024
Well, at least I chose a quiet week to be away.
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #21. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Okay, I see what we’re going for here, but I’m not completely sold. The big idea here is that Lifeguard’s powers have started treating all of humanity as a threat and responding accordingly, leaving her unable to live among humans at all; the upshot is that her powers turn her into a literal island. It was fairly clear that that was where we were heading, though, so it doesn’t really work as a final issue reveal. And it feels a bit of a stretch from Lifeguard’s powers, which I don’t think ever turned on how she perceived things. The island thing feels a bit too literal, as well. Still, I like the way Steve is used as a more ordinary mutant who’s doing a little better at fitting back into normalcy.
NYX #4. (Annotations here.) This is David’s spotlight issue, and the basic idea is fine: he recognises that mutant history has been stuck in a lot of binary choices that he wants to escape from, but he has no terribly clear idea of how to do that. And of course, he ultimately does come out of retirement to save Kamala. Enid Balám makes him look good as a street artist, even if some of what he’s doing here stretches the boundaries of how his powers work. And I do appreciate the fact that Kamala sees straight through Sophie’s attempt to set her up. Kamala ought to be naive as regards some things – aspects of life as a visible mutant, say – but she’s not stupid, and it makes sense for the mutant-centric Cuckoos to underestimate her. (Or maybe Sophie is actually trying to be obvious.)
Other things don’t work as well. It’s never at all clear what the Krakoan and his allies were actually intending to achieve here – if it really was just “have a public fight with some mutants to damage their image” then I just don’t think that trope works in a world where large chunks of the public are meant to be histrionically paranoid about them already. I don’t think it was meant to be just that, but at the same time, I get the feeling that it was meant to be a lot clearer than it actually is. And if you want me to buy that David, who is a physically normal man with a very extensive skill set, can beat Hellion in a fight, then that’s going to take a bit more work than this gets. I can easily believe David outwitting him or outplanning him, or maybe even Hellion getting overconfident and letting his guard down, but this feels like David is meant to be simply beating him in a straight fight when he shouldn’t be able to lay a hand on the guy, and that doesn’t click.
WOLVERINE: REVENGE #3. By Jonathan Hickman, Greg Capullo, Tim Townsend, FCO Plascencia & Cory Petit. In which Wolverine hunts down Omega Red, Deadpool and Colossus and takes revenge on them. Which is surprisingly early, since there are still two issues to go. It’s an art showcase, really, but I’m enjoying it more than I would have expected. A mundane post-apocalyptic world is a pleasant change from the usual cliches, and the Wolverine/Deadpool scene is quite strong. I’m not at all convinced by the use of Colossus, though. The idea is meant to be that when the world goes to hell he sides with the Russian faction because that’s what’s in the interests of his family, which makes sense in theory, but just feels too far out of line with the character in practice.
Hickman seems to like the idea of Evil Colossus- he used him as a villain in Inferno, Wolverine:Revenge and the Ultimate Universe.
This week’s Spider-Man featured a backup story where Logan and Peter get together on Logan’s birthday,and the dialogue makes clear that they’ve been doing this for years. Which is weird, since we just had a major Wolverine birthday story just a few months ago in Sabretooth War. and the repercussions are still being felt in the X-books. And Spider-Man was nowhere to be seen in Sabretooth War. It’s odd that the X-office would let the Spider-Office do a backup story like that just a few months after a major Wolverine birthday story.
@Michael: That story seems to be Zeb Wells doing a sequel to his “Brand New Day” era backup wherein Logan drags Peter along on his solo birthday drinking-and-fighting binge. Peter’s willingness to see the best in Logan creates an odd friendship.
But as with his reuse of the Mayan god worshipper stuff, it’s Wells behaving as if his Brand New Day stories established well-remembered, well-worn continuity.
Pity that no one in the intervening years cared to reference any of it, partly because Wells didn’t write much more of that era.
If we have to have heel Peter, let him go back to being The Proletaiat.
@Omar I don’t mind going back to the Peter and Logan thing – they’ve had a friendship over the years in New Avengers, after all.
But having so much of his run hanging on Rabin, a one-time villain from Brand New Day, was just silly. And I’m in the apparently extreme minority who mostly enjoyed Wells’s just finished run.
On another note, somebody in the comments here recommended the Avengers Academy Unlimited strip. I’ve just caught up and while it’s mostly lightweight fun with a surprising amount of romance and yearning subplots, the current arc is miles above. It’s actually x-pertinent – Emplate abducts Escapade to his realm. But the main accomplishment is the art by Karen S. Darboe. It’s stunning. I actually can’t believe an Unlimited exclusive is that well drawn – the best one can usually say about art on Unlimited strips is that it’s serviceable. This is something else entirely.
Yes, the Emplate story really is worth reading for the art alone. And the story is okay too, though I’m not sure exactly what Escapade did in the big climax.
The X-Men Unlimited story on the other hand, what was that about? The moral of the story is that humans are innately dangerous so go live in the sea? That Lifeguard probably killed a bunch of people, then abandoned her sick mother and mortally injured friend, and that’s good? I think this is the only story with Lifeguard in it that I’ve read, and it still feels like a disservice to the character. Two stories in a row where the mutant ends up living in isolation though, kind of weird.
@Krysziek- the problem is the idea that Peter always hangs out with Logan on his birthday, when we’ve seen Sabretooth-fights-Wolverine-on-his-birthday stories since then, and Peter is nowhere to be seen.
“Move under the sea. Move under the sea. That’s your solution to everything.”
I’m sure there’s an easy solution to the Wolverine birthday conundrum.
Logan: “Hey, Pete. Listen. Sabretooth tries to ruin my life every birthday. I gotta go deal with that. Wait for me at the bar. I’ll be back later. OK?”
Peter: “Sure thing, pal.”
As far as “evil Russian Piotr”, Hickman was only playing fair with the story Benjamin Percy was already telling with Colossus. It didn’t seem like Hickman had any wider point to using Colossus than to play off of Percy’s Colossus and to set up a potential storyline for the writers who’d be writing those books after him.
Heck, Logan should just bring Spider-Man along to the Sabretooth b-day fights.
“OK, Webs, yer birthday gift to me is to hit Creed as hard as you can.”
“I’m not going to kill a guy.”
“It’s fine, he’s got a healing factor. He’ll just wake up tomorrow with a bad headache.”
“I do have a lot of frustration related to crappy bosses and villains I have to hold back against. . .”
The real solution is that Logan just has several birthdays a year. One for friends, one for foes, one for family. So he hangs with Spider-Man on one, Sabretooth shows up for another…
Look, if my father-in-law can claim both January 8 and 10 as his birthdays because his mom wasn’t sure, Logan can have as many as needed to get through his obligations.
The Lifeguard story was particularly weird, and stretched the boundaries of what her power even -does- in a major way. I know, obscure character, no one cares, but it was weird to bring her up like this and have a whole “her power thinks humanity is the threat so she’s now generating an illness and mutating and now she’s an island.”
Avengers Academy just did something else I love, and that’s rectify one of the stupidest, most wasteful deaths of a character I liked and reunite a couple that deserved better, and I don’t care how handwavey and illogical a solution it was–I’ll allow it.
It’s Wolverine’s revenge on Sabretooth. “Heh, heh. He thinks he’s offin’ my lovers on each of my birthdays. The joke’s on him. That’s not my actual bday.”
Gosh, no.
We already see way too much of Wolverine, let alone of Wolverine with Spider-Man.
Spare Peter that burden.
I’m personally very suspicious that it might actually be Peter Parker dressing up as Sabretooth for Wolverine’s birthday every year.
This third issue is the second time that WOLVERINE: REVENGE has surprised me. I figured after #1 that we were getting a one-villain-hunted-down-per-issue structure for the rest of the series, but as Paul wrote, that’s all over now and we’ve got two issues to go. I’m curious to see where things go from here.
Fun comic.
Re: Lifeguard
“I’m not completely sold”
I am! That’s an appropriately silly way to dispose of a silly character.
I’m really enjoying NYX, but as an academic I’m having to actively tell myself to ignore nearly everything about Prodigy’s university context. Not everything works perfectly, but the vibes are great and I’m glad to see exploration of the non-metaphorical aspects of mutants as a cultural group in the Marvel universe.
@Krzysiek Ceran: I must admit I’ve been off the Spider-books for years at this point. My sense is that the character is a bit exhausted overall, and I’ve become really tired of dragging in magical and multiverse plot devices.
And Marvel are perversely bent on continually writing Peter Parker as an unlucky ad frequently incompetent, and always with a new (and swiftly forgotten) love interest that seems to follow the same stock plot beats.
I think Spider-Man when he’s written more as an outsider, focusing on the kinds of crime and super-crime that the big-time heroes don’t, and one whose sense of humor and ingrained loner habits irritate the “establishment” heroes.
But from Brand New day forward, Marvel has generally brought on writers who scrip Spider-Man as a screw-up or a second-rater by the Fantastic Four and so forth. I didn’t like that when Dan Slott did it, either. But I guess that’s the only way you keep Spider-Man as an outsider after he’s been made an Avenger for so long and more and more characters adopt MCU-style quipster dialogue.
As a result, I haven’t read Wells’s run. I’ve liked his dialogue for Spider-Man in the past, but I think he has a lot of the (editorially mandated?) bad writing habits that pushed me away from the Spider-books in the past.
My impression from reviews and forums is that there’s a good Norman Osborn idea in this last Wells run, albeit based on a contrived plot point from the earlier Nick Spencer run.
But the actual Peter and Spider-Man stuff doesn’t sound that interesting or consistent, and the plot justifications for Ben Reilly, Paul, and the two(?) Hobgoblins just sound tiresome and convoluted. And I’ve never been a big fan of the Black Cat character.
That said, I know there’s a lot of “vocal minority” online fan toxicity around the Wells run because of editorial’s stance on Mary Jane. So I’m happy to get a differing perspective on any of this.
Wells’s run was for me really great when it focused on Tombstone and his gang wars (the resulting Gang War was fun as an arc of Amazing Spider-Man, the rest was typical event bloat). I don’t know how we got good Norman, I fell off Spencer’s run a long way before the end, but Wells runs with it and it’s pretty good. At least until the ‘Goblin Sins’ become a sentient thing that can possess others, that was a step too stupid for me.
As for Black Cat, she was nothing to me – a knockoff Catwoman without anything interesting going for her – until I read the recent Jed MacKay run he did (two Black Cat ongoings and a smattering of miniseries and oneshots). It’s nothing revolutionary, but it is very competent genre stuff that made me really like the character.
I really don’t think Spider-Man needs to be written as an incompetent to make him an outsider. Just give him a falling out with the Avengers. Say, the Avengers ignore the Vulture causing trouble in Queens because they’re off dealing with Kang or something, Spidey gets frustrated, and quits to focus on looking after his city.
@Omar Karindu & Krzysiek Ceran — Norman Osborn’s babyface turn did indeed begin during Nick Spencer’s run, and in particular the SINS RISING arc from 2020.
To summarize, the dead Sin-Eater, Stan Carter, was resurrected by Spencer’s main villain, Kindred. He was reworked into a morally ambiguous anti-hero who only targeted people who deserved it, which was not true to the original story (where Stan not only almost killed Betty Brant, but did kill a totally innocent random pedestrian trying to shoot Spidey). Stan was granted with a magical shotgun which could, LITERALLY, purge the sins of anyone shot with it. So he returned as Sin-Eater and shot a bunch of villains with it, working his way up to Norman. This became a tied “when should a hero kill” debate with Spidey and some of his distaff counterparts, who tried to capture Stan before he shot Norman. Along the way, Sin-Eater shoots the Lethal Legion, Mr. Negative, and frees the Juggernaut from Ravencroft. Those shot with the gun survive and become sin-free.
Despite all of Spidey’s efforts, Stan reaches Norman Osborn and shoots him with the magic shotgun. Norman is purged of sin. The other villains revert to normal once Stan is defeated, but Norman remains sin-free…from being shot by a magic shotgun by a resurrected C-List villain (who admittedly had one good story). This endures beyond Spencer’s run, and Norman eventually becomes a babyface hero as the Gold Goblin, for a little bit. He got to witness Ms. Marvel “die.”
Kindred, it is worth noting, was teased to be Harry Osborn for 2 years. “He” turned out to be the Stacy Twins, resurrected as demons by Mephisto, who shared the identity. Harry Osborn turned out to be a clone; the real one had been dead since the 90s. Mephisto’s interest in Spider-Man since ONE MORE DAY in 2007 is because he’s afraid of Mayday Parker, who is destined to defeat him when he eventually conquers the world. These are all real comics that professionals were paid real money to write. Not imaginary Fan-Fiction .net money.
I’ve nothing to add about the Spider-commentary other than to paraphrase a line Paul typed ages ago on an old site: “Every time I think Spider-Man has jumped the shark, Marvel trucks out a new aquarium.” So long as Nick Lowe and Tom Brevoort are senior editors at Marvel, Spider-Man will never progress in his main titles again. Greg Weisman’s Spectacular Spider-Men is good, though I doubt it survives past a year.
Oh, and I am glad that you-know-who was resurrected in Avengers Academy Unlimited, too.
I don’t really like Peter Parker being part of a formal team. I don’t think he works well in a team dynamic… he’s best as an independent hero who just happens to be friends with everyone and has frequent team-ups. He feels like a specialist you call in when you have certain problems or needs–scientific, or it’s one of his villains running around, what have you. He’s on the Avengers and FF speed-dials, he can come lecture at Avengers Academy or the Xavier School, but he’s painfully out of place off-world. (Imagine Spider-Man fighting in the Kree-Shi’ar War or Operation Galactic Storm…) He doesn’t do monitor duty, or Sunday meetings or paperwork. But everyone who matters realizes that for all his jokes and occasional screw-ups, Peter Parker is one of the most experienced, versatile, trustworthy, and competent heroes around, and should be held up there as a seasoned veteran.
Leave the teams to some of the other Spiders like Miles.
@AMRG: My understanding from summaries I’ve read is that Kindred retcons the Stacy Twins themselves into some kind of genetic constructs, and that Sins Past — the infamous “Norman getting with Gwen Stacy” story — was some kind of fake memory thing.
More generally, isn’t the consensus that there was some degree of editorial interference with Spencer’s endgame? No that this redeems the magic evil-erasing shotgun….
@Omar- it was confusing. The finale was partially scripted by Gage and it was a mess. The twins are genetic constructs but at one point they seem to be controlled by a computer copy of Harry’s mind and at another point they seem to be independent entities. Harry’s a clone but it’s not clear who cloned him. Mephisto and Strange in the previous issue seem to be wagering over Peter’s soul but in the finale they’re wagering over Harry’s.
It’s not clear how much of this was what Spencer intended. Several people, including Slott, have suggested that the story mostly ended as Spencer intended- Spencer just ended it quicker than he wanted to. Spencer himself has stayed mum since his run ended. It does seem like Norman being turned good by the magic shotgun was originally intended to be temporary by Spencer but it was made permanent.
ASV “ I’m really enjoying NYX, but as an academic I’m having to actively tell myself to ignore nearly everything about Prodigy’s university context. Not everything works perfectly, but the vibes are great and I’m glad to see exploration of the non-metaphorical aspects of mutants as a cultural group in the Marvel universe.”
In the mid 90s, I pitched a Jesse Quick mini-series since, in the JSA book (the Parobeck one), Jesse was in graduate school writing her thesis about super heroes. I just happen to have just finished grad school studying metatext, so I thought it was a great companion to the just-launched Starman, itself full of metatext.
Needless to say, nothing even came of it.
One of the major problems with Wells’ run can be traced back to his love of the original Inferno. Maddie was turned from a relatively normal pilot and mother into a half-naked evil dominatrix by an artificial plot device- being tricked by a demon in a dream. And unlike every other X-person who was mind controlled. Maddie never got to go back to her original personality. Some of us never stopped complaining about it but Wells was one of the readers who like it.
And the problem is that almost every major character change in Wells’ run was based on artificial plot devices.Norman didn’t turn good on his own- it was the magic shotgun. Ben didn’t turn evil as a result of character development- he turned evil because he lost his memories.Kafka didn’t turn evil on her own- she was infected with Norman’s sins.
@Krysziek- even Gang War had its problems. For example. Hammerhead disappears midway through the story.
The ending of Wells’ run was just idiotic. Tombstone decides that he has to kill Janice- the person he loves the most in the world- to avoid going to jail. And in the end, he just bribes or threatens the judge. Then why didn’t he do that to start with instead of nearly killing his daughter?!?
I think part of the problem with Peter’s outsider status is that now half the Marvel Universe knows Peter’s identity. When Quesasa took over as editor-in-chief. the only heroes who knew Peter’s secret identity were Strange, Black Cat, Daredevil and Wolverine. Thus he seemed like an outsider. But starting with the meeting in the park in Daredevil, more and more heroes learned Peter’s identity- all the active Avengers and the Fantastic Four knew. The Brand New Day mind wipe was the perfect opportunity to reverse this. But instead the Fantastic Four and many of the Avengers learned it again.
Some of the blame goes to Slott. For some reason ,he seems to have always thought that the Fantastic Four should know Peter’s identity while Felicia and Daredevil shouldn’t. So he had the FF relearn Peter’s identity while Felicia and Matt didn’t. And this did long term damage to Peter’s relationships with Felicia and Matt. Felicia didn’t get her memories of Peter’s identity back until Spencer’s run, over a decade after BND, and the result was the horrible Queenpin plot. Meanwhile, Peter and Matt have only recently been as close as they were before BND- and Matt still doesn’t know Peter’s identity.
@Michael That one is easy – Tombstone wouldn’t be able to pay off/threaten his way out of the courtroom with Janice on the stand. But without her there it was easier to convince the judge to throw the case.
I think Spider-man can work in in team setting in the right time and place. Being Johnny’s chosen replacement in Hickman’s FF was perfect for the history of both titles. Living in Avengers tower with this Aunt and Wife or being Tony’s lackey did nothing for Peter as character.
I’m reading on unlimited so have not read the final arc, I just hope the next writer removes Paul and works to bring Pete and MJ back together. As that is the only way to fix BND. (The best part of Spencer’s poor run was pulling then together only for wells to split them apart and not explain it for over a year). We have had over a decade to prove the a single Spidey is less relatable then a married on was.
@Kryzsiek- I’m not buying it. There had to be a dozen witnesses who saw Tombstone try to kill Janice but the judge was able to dismiss the charges anynway.
I also put some of the blame on Bendis. His Ultimate Spider-Man gradually downplayed Peter’s science smarts and his ability to actually take down the villains, instead playing up the idea of Ultimate Peter as the uncorrupted, idealistic “heart” of the Ultimate Universe.
This came along with the cynical power players and establishment big shot characters seeing Peter as “just a kid” and often condescending to him, and with the villains coming into his life like a wrecking ball.
But that worked because the book kept Peter as an average high school student and adolescent. And it worked against the backdrop of the Ultimate Universe, at least the pre-Ultimatum version.
The problem arises when Bendis brought a lot of that over into the “main” Marvel Universe.
Bendis’s New Avengers and his other work with Spider-Man, such as the opening arc of The Pulse and the Siege crossover, also tended to use Peter as more of a plucky, good-hearted person, but also a somewhat ineffectual hero. We got two major Green Goblin stories in which Spider-Man contributes virtually nothing to Norman’s defeat!
And it was Bendis that started the trend of everyone in the 616 universe knowing Peter. he even deliberately undid a bunch of the BND stuff by having Peter casually reveal his identity to most of the “Heroic Age” New Avengers cast.
New Avengers and its sequels also did a lot of stuff contrasting Spider-Man against the “professional” superheroes like Captain America and Iron Man, as well as the grizzled badasses like Wolverine. So Spider-Man’s relationship to them becomes that of the plucky amateur, a guy they like as a person, but also the guy who doesn’t accomplish much tactically.
Back in Spider-Man’s own books, then, any attempt to bring back the idea of Spidey being, say, an outsider to the heroes or a publicly hated hero started to work with those relationships. And so Peter becomes less competent as a hero, and when the relationships with the big shots who look down on him kindly go sour, they just become the big shots looking down on him.
I like a lot of Bendis’s work on Ultimate Spider-Man and Daredevil, but I think he did a lot of long-term damage to most other characters and teams he worked on, some of it not that visible in the moment.
@Mark Coale – I would’ve read that! NYX is hitting the same spot that Children of the Atom did for me in taking seriously (and not just superficially) the idea of mutant culture, and I hope there’s an audience for it. I also hope they stop talking about how a guy who was dead a year ago is suddenly a tenured department head who a) is too nervous to handle talking to his apparently very formal dean, and b) the university is looking to fire for some reason.
To be fair, a character with a magic evil-erasing shotgun would make for an interesting villain for Ghost Rider. It might even work as a Punisher antagonist.
@Taibak, considering how well “angel” Punisher fared in early Marvel Knights, I don’t think Magic shot gun should go anywhere near Frank or his recent forgettable replacement.
@Omar Karindu: Bendis’s New Avengers and subsequent Avengers comics had sooooo many problems. Spider-Man’s use and characterization were, to me, a symptom of Bendis’s inability to write a large cast effectively. Most of the members did not get spotlights or chances to shine. It was a lot of quips followed by throwing an army of super-humans against a threat, often followed by an anticlimactic resolution. I say this as someone who read enough of it to recognize these patterns and stop reading, so if I’m off it’s because I couldn’t finish his run.
@Omar Karindu — I absolutely agree about your take on Bendis’ impact in the greater Marvel line over the past 24 years. I’d also argue that the Ultimate imprint he co-founded and ran for a while made the decompressed “6 issue or bust” format for every arc SUPER DUPER POPULAR, to the point that single or two issue stories mostly died after that for a good decade or two, as prices continued to rise. Now things are slightly more stable — some writers, heaven forbid, are willing to wrap up an arc in 4-5 issues with a single trade break tale — but the damage is done.
And as someone who read much of Bendis’ work, I found him to be terribly overrated. And I agree, his decision to treat 616-Spider-Man as “slightly older Ultimate Spider-Man” has damaged the character.
I’ve personally nicknamed him “Bendis the Horrendous” as a result. And it wasn’t easy finding an appropriate adjective that rhymed with “Bendis.” At the very least, he’s been gone from Marvel for many years and then became DC’s problem, and now Dark Horse’s.
To the surprise of no one, his big idea on Superman was…to reveal his secret identity to everyone, write everything into a corner, and then bail. But heaven forbid someone say an Eisner winner is a one trick pony.
I suppose his best contribution is adding more diverse characters into the mainstream, like Miles Morales. And teaching the world that you can write a 20 page superhero story that contains nothing but cyclical dialogue, zero action or conflict, charge $3.99 for it, and most retailers and readers will eat it with a spoon.
While I agree with the assessment about damage that Bendis (and Millar) did to the Marvel Universe, and also that Bendis is a horribly over-rated writer (especially after the early part of his career, when he did some good work), I don’t put the blame for decompression on Bendis (or Warren Ellis). I have heard this was a corporate decision on Marvel’s part, that they were seeing declining sales on monthly comics, so they decided that the Trade market was the future. They had an edict that their writers should write for the Trades, which meant that the long-time loyal fanbase were getting screwed by getting five minutes of reading material for one overpriced floppy book.
Bendis was exceptionally good at stretching enough content for two issues (max) into a five or six part story, yes, but I also think this may be why Marvel decided to invest so heavily in Bendis as their headwriter for the years between 2001 and 2006. One of the reasons, anyway.
Agree with everyone else about Bendis. While it’s true that he did some good things (such as bringing Jessica Drew back to the forefront after two decades of obscurity), his work did damage to many characters and franchises.
He definitely contributed to the trend of acting like everyone was already friends in the MU- the Illuminati and Jessica Jones series made it seem like the X-Men were always buddy with the other Marvel heroes, which is not the case.
And he definitely contributed to the trend of using villains without giving them any characterization or dialogue (the Hood’s army for example). OTOH, some of the characters he used in the Hood’s army got more attention and they got stories from better writers.
But yes. he damaged many of the core Avengers cast- Wanda obviously, but he also did damage to other Avengers like Wasp and Hawkeye.
I was online pals with Bendis in the 90s before he came to Marvel. So, I choose to remember the guy who did Jinx and Fortune and Glory and not his Big Two stuff.
@Mike Loughlin: I think that’s a fair assessment of Bendis’ writing style, at least for team books. It perfectly maps onto his (terrible) Legion of Super-Heroes run, at least.