The X-Axis – w/c 30 December 2024
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #5. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. I think this arc was more successful with the scenes about radicalisation of Paige’s brother. Once it gets past that, it finds itself in rather more familiar territory of grass roots violence, with the angle of budget cyborg enhancements. And right now, those two aspects don’t feel like they’re tying together properly, although I think the idea is meant to be that it plays into the path being self-destructive. Still, I do like the two plot threads coming together at the end of the issue, so maybe we’ll get a satisfying finish.
X-FACTOR #6. (Annotations here.) This is one of the stronger issues in the series, and it’s probably not a coincidence that it goes back to the Mutant Underground storyline from issue #2, which was also one of the stronger issues. X-Factor has struggled throughout its run to find a tone that works for it, mainly because it keeps trying to work in broad comedy angles that aren’t very funny and undercut the more dramatic scenes. Perhaps the main lesson to take from issues #2 and #6 is that X-Factor works best when it just plays the concept mostly straight. Jovius’ back story doesn’t really make sense in terms of Krakoa and its fall, but that doesn’t especially bother me, since it’s fairly clear that Bruin’s account is at best wildly incomplete. And the reveal of what he’s up to now does work. As for the Mutant Underground itself, it remains an odd amalgam of amateur radicals and experienced moderates, but that feels like something with potential. Mainly, though, this is just an issue that has most of its focus on the aspects of the book that work, and character moments that play to Bob Quinn’s strengths on art.
X-FORCE #7. (Annotations here.) Well, this is a bit of a mess. Even looking past the fact that it seems to be based on a fundamental misreading of Rise of the Powers of X, the idea that it’s setting up is very confusing and (to the extent that I understand it) not desperately interesting. Broadly, they seem to be going for “Rachel has resurrected herself imperfectly and needs fixing”, which is one of those ideas that doesn’t make sense on a mechanical level. How did she resurrect herself, if the Phoenix and the Five supposedly weren’t involved? If we’re acknowledging that the Five were involved, why she is any worse off than all the other people resurrected in the same story? Why does any of this make her overloaded with power? But it also doesn’t seem to have any resonance – what’s interesting about the side effects of a flawed resurrection? What’s it about? If this is really a story about Betsy and Rachel being bound together as Betsy supports Rachel, weren’t there easier ways to get there? X-Force was kind of winning me over last issue but, nope, this is losing me again.
DEADPOOL / WOLVERINE #1. (Annotations here.) The last thing the world needs is yet another Deadpool and Wolverine team-up, and god help us, we’re also getting a team book with both of them involved. But all that being said, if you’re going to do a straightforward action romp with Deadpool and Wolverine, this is a pretty decent one. It’s an extra-length first issue, and instead of using that space to make the plot more complicated, Benjamin Percy just writes some extended action scenes that give Joshua Cassara’s art more space to breathe. I’m happy with that. Now, sure, it maybe doesn’t speak volumes for the viability of a Deadpool / Wolverine team-up book that this is the second Deadpool / Wolverine team-up story in six months to use mind alteration to shut Deadpool up and stop him dominating the book. (Mind you, he did sustain a team-up title with Cable for years, so it can be done.) But it works here, so I can’t be too hard on it. Redesigning Stryfe’s armour is interesting – it says something about Liefeld’s design that you need to dial it back about 30% to make Stryfe fit the tone of a Deadpool comic, of all things. And it does make him look more at home here, but also more generic – his idiot flamboyance was maybe his most memorable trait, but maybe dialling it back leaves room for something else to come to the fore.
CABLE: LOVE & CHROME #1. By David Pepose, Mike Henderson, Arif Priatno & Joe Sabino. This seems to be a miniseries about Cable getting caught up in a war in the far future, detached from anything to do with the rest of the Marvel Universe – generally a tough sell but hey, probably truer to the core of the character. The hook is simply for Cable to encounter a whole town of people with their own techno-organic infections, kept in check by their own local cures, and for one of them to be the love interest. Nice straightforward suff, and the real selling point here is Mike Henderson’s art. He’s got some great action sequences here, but also a suitably burly Cable with an unusual take on the metal arm, which looks cobbled together from parts – maybe more effective in reminding us that it’s more than just a fancy sleeve.
Cable:Love and Chrome is based on a conversation between Tom Breevort and Dan Slott, which is why there’s a “special thanks to Dan Slott” in the credits.
Am I the only one who thinks Cicada is Avery’s future self? They both call Cable “soldier”.
I read the first issue of Cable: Love and Chrome and just didn’t find myself getting into it. My favorite Cable stories (and I do consider myself a fan) are when he has interesting people to play off of:
* The X-Men run after The Twelve when he took Cyclops’s place on the team and had real interactions with Jean (as well as Storm, Beast and Gambit, though that wasn’t as interesting).
* Cable & Deadpool, where he played a good straight man while also advancing his own story.
* The Cable run where he raised Hope, with Bishop as his opposite. This also coincided with my favorite era for the X-Men in general, but I thought it was a great character piece
All these books gave him someone interesting with whom to interact, and some real stakes. This mini series feels like it’s going to be forgotten except as a footnote within a year, as another random Cable timehop
I’m not a huge fan of Cable- he’s fine, just not one of my favorites- so maybe that’s why I liked Love &. Chrome. It wasn’t amazing, but Henderson’s stylishly moody art and Pepose’s plot held my interest. I’m onboard unless it gets worse.
Wasn’t ‘Love and Chrome’ what the Cable miniseries that was supposed to come out before ‘The Executioner’s Song’ was called? I’ve tried looking it up but so generic a name I’m not finding anything comics related.
@Loz- no, the 1992 Cable miniseries was “Blood and Metal”.
Breevort’s blog is out today. First, he was asked this question about Young Cable:
Martin: From your description of Cable’s series, it sounds like we won’t be seeing the time-displaced Young Cable around. Should we assume he went back to his time period?
TOM: Far as I know, we won’t be seeing Young Cable any time soon, Martin. I was under the impression that his story was wrapped up at the end of the previous CABLE limited series, but I see that he got drawn into an X-MEN issue after that, quite possibly in error. But as I want to winnow down the number of duplicates and doppelgangers and characters from other future timelines and confusing stuff like that, we’re not all that likely to go back to that well without a very compelling reason. Sorry.
It’s amazing how Breevort still hasn’t read some of the material from the Krakoan Era. The Cable limited series ended with Young Cable going to help the X-Men against Orchis. And we never really saw what happened to him after that.
Next we have Tom Breevort describing the first e-mail he wrote regarding the X-Men:
TOM:All right, enough time has now gone by that I can probably share this with you. What you see below is the text of the first e-mail I ever wrote about how to lay out a new X-Line in the aftermath of the end of the Krakoa era. It was written before the job of building that line had been given to me, but after an hour-long conversation with former X-Editor Jordan White brainstorming what such a landscape might look like. Given that, it’s remarkable on point as to many of the specific titles that we wound up building. Heck, I even had SENTINELS this early.
X-MEN – Primary heroic super hero team. Focused on universal situations whether they specifically involve mutants or not.
UNCANNY X-MEN – Secondary heroic super hero team. Philosophically at odds with X-Men. Focused primarily on mutant situations.
School X-MEN – Kitty and new players recruit new mutants and train them in the use of their powers. Wear modified school uniforms ala New Mutants or Generation X. This book effectively is NEW MUTANTS but it could use a stronger X-centric title.
X-FORCE – The Krakoa Mossad, clinging to the idea and ideals of their destroyed homeland and taking the fight to its enemies.
X-FACTOR – Government-affiliated mutant squad. Freedom Force. If integration is the goal, then these are the most integrated heroes.
WOLVERINE – Wolverine as a solo player. Pick him up living in remote cabin in Canada, where he’s brought back into the fight by somebody?
THE SENTINELS – People transformed into stealth Sentinels. Programmed to hunt down mutants, but they can do more and be heroic as well.
MYSTIQUE – Cool spy/espionage book with a morally ambiguous lead.
“Professor M”? Magneto wheelchair-bound?
Take founders and ANAD characters off the board for a while?
Brotherhood of X
Need fewer active mutants overall, and need to scatter the ones we know across the globe.
New villains. Old villains in new and interesting places. Some theoretically heroic mutants now in villain roles.
Mutants mostly living under the radar/inside the closet. A Red State future. Trying to pry open the door again/regain lost rights and cultural gains.
Mutants have families and friends and lives apart from being mutant super heroes. Not everybody drops everything else in their lives to live as a mutant full time.
Mutants interacting with normal people in society, good and bad.
Build relations between all X-Teams so they’re each in opposition to at least one other faction, providing story grist. So X-FACTOR doesn’t like SENTINELS because they’re anti-mutant but they’re forced to work with them. One team of X-MEN doesn’t agree with the stance of the other team of X-MEN. X-FORCE has a chip on its shoulder for X-FACTOR, whom they consider sell-outs. And so forth. Arrange the factions like on a wheel.
So a few things changed along the way, of course. X-MEN and UNCANNY switched premises, X-FORCE went in an entirely different direction, the founders and ANAD characters were well in evidence, and so forth. But ultimately, this is very much what we wound up doing. And possibly, this memo was one of the reasons why I was handed the job.
It is amazing how many ideas for the new direction Breevort had planned from the start.
So it was Breevort’s idea that Magneto would be in the wheelchair and he had this idea back in July or August of 2023. That explains what happened with Magneto and the R-LDS. As soon as MacKay was hired, Breevort probably told him Magento needed to be in a wheelchair and so MacKay came up with the R-LDS idea to explain it. And since this was relatively early, no one knew what would happen in Resurrection of Magneto.
It was also Breevort’s idea that Kitty would be training new mutants. I wonder if he knew about Duggar’s Shadowkat plans when he proposed it.
But I guess this explains the perceived redundancy between the Outliers and Kitty’s students. Breevort came up with the idea of Kitty training new mutants and got Ewing to write that book. Then, when Gail was plotting out Uncanny X-Men, she probably thought that it would be a good idea to introduce Scurvy, Ellis’s crippled aide and Harvey, the mutant boy dying of cancer, and introduce the Outliers at the end of the issue. And then later on reveal that Scurvy and Harvey were more than they seemed, that they knew each other and that they were trying to keep the Outliers alive. But Gail’s idea arguably rendered Ewing’s book redundant.
Breevort also came up with the idea of X-Factor being government-affiliated mutants. He probably came up with the idea of Alex and Lorna in it before Dark X-Men came out, which would explain a lot.
Interesting that Breevort liked the idea of “heroic” human Sentinels.
“Some theoretically heroic mutants now in villain roles.”
Now I’m wondering whose idea it was for Julian, the Cuckoos and Darkstar to go evil.
I respect Breevort and don’t want to be a hater but I do find everything about the way the line is headed to be really depressing and boring. The memo itself is remarkably banal and something literally anyone could write. There’s good creators and I’m sure some people are enjoying things but it’s all very late 90’s//running on fumes stuff.
Judging by a one-sentence premise, X-Force as Krakoan holdouts might have been much more interesting than the X-Force we got.
Or not.
The concepts in that email really are pretty basic. Multiple X-Men teams, X-Force is a hit squad, X-Factor is government-affiliated, Wolverine’s on his own in the wilderness… not exactly reinventing the wheel.
It makes sense given there was clearly a directive to go back to basics after Krakoa, but if “restore to factory settings” was a strong enough pitch to secure the job, you have to wonder what everyone else was tossing at the wall.
I am completely neutral to Brevoort, but based on the content of his newsletter and the line under his direction I agree with David completely.
The vibe I’m getting from the Brevoort era so far is that the company wanted a safe pair of hands at the wheel to keep the books in maintenance mode (possibly pending what the film arm decides to do with the property) and he was willing to take the assignment.
I don’t think Brevoort treating his job as a job is an inherent problem (not every creative needs to be a superfan of the property they’re working on), but I also see no indication he has any particular affinity or vision for the line and that dispassion seems to be the defining vibe of the books so far. Back to basics, keep it safe.
We have seen over and over that this does not lead to well-regarded eras for the X-books; you could make an argument that they only became popular because Claremont and co were experimental.
In fairness, the Phoenix book is kind of new territory for the line… space opera is a recurring element, but not a full-on cosmic hero book like Quasar or Silver Surfer.
But on the other hand, it seems more like an Avengers idea, like, well, Quasar or Silver Surfer.
Anyone know what Brevoort means by ANAD.
I suspect Joe is correct. There’s a new X-Men movie on the horizon, and (sadly) the comics almost always conform to the movies. And it seems unlikely that the movie will do anything like Krakoa.
My read of the timeline:
• Marvel Studios tells Marvel Comics that there will be a new X-Men movie.
• Marvel Comics says, “Oh shit, time to shut down Krakoa ahead of schedule!”
• MC to MS: “By the way, what’s happening in your movie, so we can conform to it?”
• MS to MC: “Oh, did we not mention that the movie isn’t coming out until at least 2026? We haven’t even hired a director or script writer. We have no idea what we’re going to do, story-wise!”
• MC: “Oooookay. I guess we play the hits for awhile, and keep our options open.”
ANAD = All New All Different.
So far I’ve been subscribing to Exceptional X-Men and buying issues of NYX sans Mojo and one-off issues of X-Factor. I’m a bit sad that ‘Kitty tries to have a normal life while not addressing her massive PTSD’ has turned into another version of New Mutants, but there are worse things.
I wish the satire of X-Factor was sharper. I’m not expecting American Flagg (even though I just now tricked myself into wanting a mutant-focused comic a la American Flagg), but mild gibes at social media aren’t cutting it.
ANAD = All New, All Different
So it’s very appropriate that “take founders and ANAD characters off the board for a while” line ends in a question mark, because the answer to that question was a resounding, “No, we don’t really have the courage to try that.”
I also like the bit about the two X-Men teams being philosophically at odds; kinda like the old Silver Age DC method of coming up with an eye-catching cover first and then figuring out a story to justify it. Nice that 9 issues in, they’re finally getting around to that (despite the books feeling like they’ve been at odds the whole time, for no particular reason).
Every time I hear someone talking about “ANAD characters”, I always think “Do Kitty, Rogue and Rachel count?”
I can’t blame Brevoort for the lack of flow between the end of Krakoa and the beginning of FtA. I think the end of Krakoa was chaotic for a number of reasons, including higher-ups telling creative teams to wrap the Krakoan era up quickly as it was being published.
That boiler-plate pitch, however? It’s very close to what the X-books were in 1992, and explains one reason why I haven’t been into most of the FtA comics. The only real wrinkles are the two X-Men teams being in conflict and Magneto in a wheelchair (no reason given). At least we have a few high quality titles come out of this basic beginning.
Even Magneto in a wheelchair isn’t so far from the “Magneto and the Phoenix 5’s powers are all screwed up” plot point from the post-AvX era, right down to the hints that these issues may be due to something other than what the characters assume.
My take on who counts as ANAD: Kitty, definitely. Unless you’re equating ANAD directly with GSXM1, she came in plenty early. Rogue is a bit more debatable, but her popularity and what she brings to the team dynamics means excluding her is the harder side of the argument. Rachel is just about the opposite… enough on the edge that you can successfully argue to include her, but the default would be exclude without a specific reason.