The X-Axis – 4 December 2011
This is about as quiet a week as you’re going to get. For shipping purposes, this was week five of November, and for some reason DC has decided that in order to keep its schedule nice and regular, it’s just not going to ship any of its regular DCU titles when a fifth week comes up. They’ve got a couple of minis out, and that’s really about it. As for the X-books, it’s a relatively light selection of three books. I shall take the industry’s invitation, and keep this one relatively short.
THUNDER Agents #1 – This is one of the handful of DC minis filling the release schedule. Perhaps this isn’t such a bad idea – it’s certainly getting a clear run with the DC readership.
Before the DCU reboot, Nick Spencer was getting decent reviews for his work on THUNDER Agents, and now they’re giving him another six-issue mini. At least, that’s how it’s being presented. But this doesn’t exactly read like a first issue; it reads like an issue of a series that’s already well under way. It’s not particularly interested in establishing the premise or introducing most of the title characters; a large chunk of the issue is given over to scenes between two characters called Toby and Colleen which certainly feel like they’re continuing a subplot about the characters’ relationship.
This is not to say the book’s inaccessible – just that it’s explaining the back story in the way you might expect of issue #17, rather than issue #1. If you take it on those terms, it works quite well.
The THUNDER Agents, if you’ve never heard of them, are a relatively obscure Wally Wood creation from the 60s, who drifted through an assortment of publishers before finally winding up at DC in the last few years. The high concept is that they’re a UN-sponsored team who’ve been given super powers with a process that will eventually kill them; how much of that was in the original, I’m not entirely sure, but there seems to be an interesting idea here that the costumes and identities just keep getting recycled by new members.
What you actually get in this issue: three of the team are in “Subterranea” on some sort of peacekeeping mission, where the locals are having one of their periodic riots (which may or may not just be the sort of thing they do on a particularly exuberant religious holiday). Needless to say, the team aren’t entirely happy about having to deal with ordinary protestors. Meanwhile… well, Toby and Colleen talk about their relationship and go to see a movie, in scenes that feel like they’d probably be pretty good if I’d read the earlier issues and had a bit more context for them. There’s some talk about dead characters which really doesn’t mean a tremendous amount to a new reader. But there’s also a bit of exposition about the origin of the Menthor helmet (which Toby wears as a member of the team) which sets up a very nice idea about the way the helmet affects its wearer; it’s the sort of high concept that Spencer does well.
Wes Craig’s art is nice and clear, with some good use of subtly skewed pages and panels to liven up the action. And his characters are expressive enough to sell the extended conversation scenes, even if you’re not familiar with the cast. If I was approaching this as a random issue of an ongoing series, I’d be pretty impressed. As a first issue, though, it’s a strange beast, and one can’t help suspecting that Spencer’s planned next issue has simply been repurposed as a post-reboot issue #1 without any great thought being given to whether it truly belongs in that role.
Uncanny X-Men #2 – Second issue and we’ve got fill-in artists covering some of the pages already? Tsk. Not that it’s actually a problem here; Jorge Molina draws a flashback sequence that works perfectly well in a different style, and Rodney Buchemi’s work seems to blend quite acceptably with Carlos Pacheco.
So: in this issue, the X-Men continue fighting Mr Sinister, who then does something rather uncharacteristic for him: he explains what he’s up to. The problem with Sinister, historically, is that he drifted from a genuinely mysterious character in his early appearances, into a villain who would do whatever the plot required, under the pretext of being enigmatic. That made it rather hard to draw all the threads back together again, and when he was eventually given a back story as a Victorian mad scientist, it didn’t quite account for everything that had gone before.
From the look of it, Kieron Gillen’s approach recognises that some drastic retooling is called for, and that the best way to knock Sinister into shape is to reboot the character, draw a clear line under what has gone before, and give him a specific agenda and style – and if anything that went before doesn’t really fit, well, let’s just not speak of it again. With a garbled character like Sinister, this is probably the best bet. So there’s a pretext of sorts for Sinister’s change of demeanour; with the original dead, this is the “improved” clone designed to take his place, in a continual cycle of attempts to perfect himself. His style is now melodramatic Victorian villain; his agenda is to create a master race by mass producing the most perfect person around, i.e. him. This doesn’t quite dovetail with Sinister’s previous obsession with the DNA of mutants in general and Cyclops in particular – though you could always argue that mutants have become unviable since M-Day, so this is Sinister moving on to Plan B. More importantly, though, is that it takes a hazy and unfocussed character and nails him down to a clear agenda that makes him more than just a mad scientist plot device.
So as a rehabilitation of Sinister, this is going rather nicely. And I like the way he’s being positioned as an unequivocal villain; with Cyclops’ group already being portrayed as the morally ambiguous X-Men, it’s useful to play them off against somebody who’s unequivocally a bad guy.
It’s true that this issue is basically a fight scene with some exposition of Sinister’s plan, but I think it gets away with that. Since it’s primary an action issue, Sinister’s villainous speech works as a break. More to the point, Gillen’s obviously put some work into making sure that everything that happens in the action sequences means something, instead of just treating them as a genre requirement and leaving the artists to draw some carnage. The sequence on the last couple of pages, hammering home the idea of Sinister’s hivemind, is very nicely executed. A pretty successful issue overall.
Wolverine #19 – This is the final part of “Goodbye Chinatown”, which is billed as a “Regenesis” storyline, but is really more a case of Jason Aaron tying up the remaining loose ends from Wolverine’s stay in San Francisco and relocating the character and his one-woman supporting cast to New York.
The arc picks up on plot threads from Aaron’s first Wolverine story, in the Manifest Destiny miniseries, where he notionally became the leader of organised crime in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and as always happens when members of the X-Men accept such an office, it was never mentioned again. In theory, “Goodbye Chinatown” draws a line under that subplot, and also has Wolverine hunting down a stash of his money, which is supposed to explain how he’s able to fund the rebuilding of the school over in Wolverine and the X-Men – though I see from the solicitations that his need for cash is going to be a plot springboard for a little while yet. In reality, what we end up with is Wolverine, Gorilla-Man and Fat Cobra (a supporting character from Iron Fist) fighting kung fu drug dealers and giant dragons in a hidden underground society.
There’s no real pretence that we’re supposed to take any of this seriously; plot points are cheerfully and brazenly handwaved aside, inspirational speeches about freeing the baddies’ slaves are caveated by warning them about the poor state of the economy on the surface, and the villains from Manifest Destiny look to have been brought back simply to serve as some cannon fodder that provides a neat bit of symmetry for Aaron’s run to date. But given the generally bleak tone of Aaron’s run over the last year or so, and the fact that he’s usually at his most entertaining when he embraces his tendencies towards lunacy, the story makes a nice change of pace.
X-Men: Legacy #259 – This title has been off in a little schedule of its own lately, but with the outer space arc concluded, it’s finally time to get to grips with “Regenesis”. However, issues #259-260 are also Mike Carey’s swansong on the title, which he’s been writing since issue #188. Considering the number of new directions that he’s had to deal with in that period, he must be a sucker for punishment – remember when this was a book about Rogue leading her own team? And then when it was a book about Rogue being the mentor for the kids? And then when it was a book about Rogue leading her own team again? Remember how none of those directions really got very far before something else came along and slammed the book off course?
But, perhaps because he’s concentrated more on telling strong individual stories than on any bigger picture, Carey has managed to keep the quality pretty high through it all. And “Regenesis” handily doubles as something that gives a sense of closure to what he’s doing – though that doesn’t stop him from having Frenzy note that “your team’s breaking up before it fairly got going.”
So this is primarily an issue about Rogue trying to decide which side of the schism to choose. It’s presented as a rather more difficult choice here than it was in the Regenesis one-shot, but whatever. There’s also a more immediate story, as Rogue and the Starjammers find that they’ve accidentally brought a passenger back with them – apparently, Carey’s final act on this series will be to undo one of the more pointless pieces of artificial drama from “Second Coming”, which seems a slightly strange choice given the relative obscurity of the character in question.
But hey, at least it’ll get her back in circulation for future use, and it’s not like the stop-start nature of Carey’s tenure on this book really lends itself to some sort of big climax. As usual, Carey’s strength lies in making the characters believable despite the chaos of the story they’re appearing in.
Paul, I have a question for you if you don’t mind.
I have just finished Aaron’s run on Wolverine in trade and I remember your earlier reviews commenting you wondered if this was a story about Wolverine and religion. I have read it now and see it as a move to redeem Wolverine and make him a character that cares about the children and affects of his violent actions.
I started reading Uncanny X-men around issue 200 and Wolverine was the killing character not interested in leading and the x-men dispatched to do the dirty work. I feel that since the movie we have been seeing a hollywood friendly character.
So my question to you as a long time reader is does it work for you?
I actually didn’t notice there WAS fill-in art in the second issue of UNCANNY X-MEN until after I finished it, which is certainly a compliment to all involved.
Concerning the retooling of Mr. Sinister: if I don’t consider what’s come before, I have no problem with it. This iteration of the character certainly works on his own terms.
If I do consider what camebefore, then I find it a cheat. Yes, this is literally not the same character, but that’s an excuse, ultimately. We long-time fans are nevertheless being treated to the great revelation of what a major X-Villain has been secretly yet visibly up to since I was four years old. That’s one hell of a loose end to tie up. Really, I’m surprised it’s just being treated as an opening, simple story as opposed to a major arc for the year.
Not that I’d prefer that. What I would prefer as a fan is a culmination to Sinister’s machinations that at least jives with the tone of his other appearances. This Sinister would be at home in, say, Busiek’s AVENGERS (I suppose Pacheco’s presence brought that example to mind).
So, summarily: boy, is that wrong, but I’m having fun anyway. I appear to have come far from my fanboy days. 🙂
Oh, one other note: Colossus needs to beseech Cytorrak for the SCREWS to the Juggernaut helmet. Sinister’s just shooting the thing off made me laugh. I realize KG now has to deal with the problem of Colossus being, well, unstoppable, but that was a wee bit sad.
If they are going to need to use fill in artists at some point anyway, it makes sense to use them when it works for the story. So I have no problem with Uncanny using a fill in artist in the second issue if it works well, rather than six issues down the road in a place that feels intrusive.
From what I got of Uncanny #2 Sinister’s goal with mutant DNA was simply to use the purest forms (Scott and Jean’s) to help make himself more perfect. A bit of copying natural purity to make an even better species.
I just can’t believe that we can’t even go three issues without fill-in artists these days, and Pacheco had at least 3-4 months of lead in time. It’s just pathetic, and from the looks of Pacheco’s art his inker is the one who does more to make his work look good.
There’s good timely artists out there who can at least do 6-8 issues, and I refuse to believe that the only other option out there for a monthly artist is the tracer Greg Land.
@Tdubs: I think Aaron’s just following a general trend in the way Wolverine’s been positioned over the years. If you go back to his very early appearances, Wolverine’s presented as an obnoxious brat who doesn’t understand the greater wisdom of the experienced Cyclops. Then for a while he was a man of honour struggling with mental illness. Then he was a survivor of torture. Then he was a grizzled veteran and father figure to younger (ie newer) characters. Aaron’s pretty much in line with that trend, and its loose unifying theme of redemption from his past actions. The idea of Wolverine being attracted to religion makes sense to me; bringing in the actual literal afterlife seemed to me a bit heavy-handed.
@Adam: While I tend to agree that this works better as a reboot of the character than it does as an explanation for Sinister’s past storylines, I think those stories were something of a lost cause, and so far back in the past that most readers had probably given up waiting for an explanation anyway. At the end of the day we’re talking here about dropped subplots from the 1990s.
I’m enjoying Uncanny – although this ‘reboot’ of Sinister feels flat to me, even if it does give him clear motivation. I’m also still disturbed by Pacheco’s art. The move from more textured, fluid images to this stiffer, almost basic / flat depiction of characters still has me wondering if this is considered an improvement on his part, or if something is wrong. I thought maybe he did it to speed things along and not be late on the book – but that clearly isn’t it given the fill-in sections.
Also the following comment – “before something else came along and slammed the book off course” – speaks to how I feel about the Marvel Universe for the last few years. A new status quo is set up – either in a book or for the Universe as a whole – and it only sticks around approximately 12 – 16 months before the next new status quo storyline begins. Nothing settles in for long – and while that may be good in some cases – you don’t feel the heft of anything because, well, the effects of this summer’s crossover will likely be changed by next summer’s crossover.
As far as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents goes, I’d also add that anyone who gave up on the ongoing after the baffling end of the first storyline might like to know that the exposition about the Menthor helmet goes some way towards explaining what the hell happened there.
(spoilers)
carey really does love his z-list characters, doesnt he? its a love i share with him, and i hate it when minor characters are used as cannon fodder, so im weirdly excited about ariel.
over in uncanny, i was very skeptical about the new sinister two issues ago, but i think this issue he finally clicked with me. and i think gillen is doing a great job with the tone of the book.
Ever since Carlos Pacheco came back to Marvel and his former inker Jesus Merino stayed at DC, his art has looked quite stiff and indistinct to me. Frank D’Armata’s “let’s make everyone look like a wax doll” approach to coloring is a very poor match for his pencils, too.
I thought Sinister’s goal with the Summers’ DNA was to make a mutant powerful enough to defeat his old master Apocalypse? And he achieved that with the birth of Cable…
Another reason I can think of for bringing Ariel back before Carey waves goodbye to the book is to give Wolverine’s side a teleporter. Cyclops got Pixie and Magik, and it looks like Blink may be next on the list.
PPP – Yeah, and when they did the Sinister story straight after ‘The Twelve’ had taken Apocalypse out of the picture (for a little while) – the story where Sinister had mutations running wild on Earth – it seemed like he’d had his shot at an ‘ultimate’ goal.
It’s all the Sinister stories since then that have seemed unnecessary to me. Don’t really know why he was involved in Messiah Complex.
I thought with the new female version they’d take the chance to give her new, different motivations, and I was more interested in that than this reboot.
I really don’t consider it a fill-in artist if the script called for two time period changes like that.
It’s cheating fill-in art. It’s the smart way to do it.
A smart writer would put in a dream sequence or flashback or extradimensional travel or LSD trip into every single script, to allow for fill-in artists. You could get Art Adams or Frank Quitely on art and fill 12 pages of every issue with visits to the astral plane and jacking into cyberspace. Bam! Deadlines hit every month!
I think we may have another Al posting comments here, by the way – the comment above isn’t by me.
Al K
Perhaps it is your hated nemesis, A L Kennedy?
My vote concerning the identity of the other Al is former New Jack Swing singer Al B. Sure!
A smart writer would put in a dream sequence or flashback or extradimensional travel or LSD trip into every single script, to allow for fill-in artists.
This was pretty much exactly what Alan Moore did on Tom Strong, though I don’t know if Chris Sprouse had any deadline problems there. It always seemed more like Moore’s way of expanding the range of collabrators available to him.
I think that the point is that ‘beating Apocalypse’ isn’t really a goal, unless the character’s motivation is revenge. It tells us that Sinister’s goals are somehow different from Apocalypse’s or that Apocalypse is somehow an obstacle to them, but not what those goals actually are.
The idea originated in the Age of Apocalypse crossover, and in that story, at least, the suggestion seemed to be that Sinister had his own agenda for steering human evolution, and that Apocalypse was a threat to that agenda because he was a raving maniac who was going to destroy the world. Essentially, Sinister was opposed to Apocalypse for the same reason that he would have objected to the world being eaten by Galactus.
Oh, did that get introduced in the AoA? At least Ethan isn’t alone in alone in assuming that was a plot point. When were Sinister and Apocalypse painted as enemies in 616? I could swear they had a rivalry going during X-Cutioner’s Song at least, which pre-dates AoA by a year or 2. Does that just read different in retrospect because of AoA?
Mike says: “Nothing settles in for long – and while that may be good in some cases – you don’t feel the heft of anything because, well, the effects of this summer’s crossover will likely be changed by next summer’s crossover.”
This nicely puts into words the way I’ve felt about the MU ping-ponging from one status quo to another for a while now, and I think the decompressed storytelling (thinking mostly of all of Bendis’ Avengers books) exacerbates this, because the status quo is set up by the big event, and then nothing much happens in between events because it takes 6 issues to show one day in the heroes’ lives, and then the next event comes along and changes things again.
It’s kind of bizarre that, despite how many books Marvel are publishing and how frequently some of them are published that it can still feel like nothing much ever happens.
I actually agree with Jerry, despite having always been a big fan of decompressed storytelling. I really like Bendis’s style, but every story takes so many issues that it does feel like nothing ever happens except for events.
That’s because nothing ever does happen except for events!!
It’s different if you read in trade, though. The Bend-vengers works better this way because every arc is meant to have a block buster type feel to it.
@Original Matt: In “The X-Cutioner’s Song”, Sinister impersonated Apocalypse to order the Horsemen to kidnap Cyclops & Jean for Stryfe, in return for which he received a canister that was supposed to contain Summers DNA (instead it just released the Legacy Virus).
I’m not sure you could really say Sinister allied with Stryfe against Apocalypse in that deal. Stryfe attacked Apocalypse later, but that wasn’t necessarily part of Sinister’s deal or even of Sinister’s concern.
So prior to that there was no connection between Sinister and Apocalypse? I’m not very good on my Sinister history. It seems other people have the same problem I do, and that’s not understanding what Sinister in story X has to do with Sinister in story Y.
I’m guessing that in the lead up to Inferno that Sinister appeared in X-Factor? I’ve never read any early X-Factor that wasn’t part of the X-overs.
http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/spotlight/showquestion.asp?faq=11&fldAuto=138 generally a good source for minute dissections of x-continuity.
I have to say, it’s been gut-wrenching buying a bunch of Nick Spencer comics because of the good reviews only to be disappointed. I’m sure he’s written some good things, I mean, he must have, but Morning Glories was a great (if familiar) premise that hasn’t gone anywhere so I’ve dropped it, his Secret Avengers issues were awful and Thunder Agents issue 5 was nonsensical in its plotting.
Best of luck to him, but yeah, not for me.
“His style is now melodramatic Victorian villain; his agenda is to create a master race by mass producing the most perfect person around, i.e. him. ”
I like that idea. But I’d have preferred it if Gillen just created a new villain for this role instead of Sinister. I hate, hate, hate Sinister. Never liked that character. I furthermore believe that if you’re going to take a villain and completely change his agenda, for whatever reason (necessity, I guess, in this case), then you may as well just create a new character anyway.
Creating a new character *might* be conceptually more sound, but there’s also the marketing aspects to consider.
Sinister still has name recognition, while a new character would have to start from scratch and most likely be rejected by fans in general.
I think this new direction works for Sinister. At least it’s preferable to the old version.
After M-Day would have been a good time to create and introduce a new major X-villain. Perhaps even a time that needed one. Someone looking to capitalise on their dwindling numbers, or something. Instead what we got soon after was Apocalypse back from the dead again.
@Damon: I totally agree! I’m the same with Jonathan Hickman and Kieron Gillen too.
You could play the idea that Sinister’s attempts to defeat Apocalypse was in order to tie-up a loose end of a faustian deal to further his true scientific goals. Same with his play in Messiah Complex, getting a genetic sample of what is essential Jean Grey 2.0 DNA, to finish off his true scientific ends. Or with Ms. Sinister, a just in case hail mary, for if something were to go wrong before he had accomplished his final goals.
I’m more curious about Magik… They said Gillen had wanted her more, and I am hoping to see some of Phonogram applied to her. I’m also very confused, as I’m sure I’ve read every Magik story to date… BUT… did she ever have formal training as a swordswoman? And when did she become able to use magic on Earth? I thought she needed to be in Limbo to anything mystical. I was very depressed on the missed moment of reuniting Kitty and Magik and to a lesser extent Rachel…
@NB – What “marketing aspects?” It’s Mister Sinister we’re talking about, not Wolverine. Yes, he has name recognition, but I don’t believe for a second that an X-Men book would sell more copies than it normally would just because Mr. Sinister happens to be in it.
Sinister is not Wolverine no, but I had the impression that he is one of the more famous X-Villains, with pedigree going back to all the way to Claremont’s first run.
He might not cause people to run the comics shop, but he most likely will not cause the sales to decrease either.
*sigh*
Marvel needs better marketing people. These days, it’s just ‘Hey. Sinister’s back.’ Back in the day, Stan Lee would have had us waiting with baited breath to find out what new, mysterious menace menaces our heroes in the mighty Marvel manner!
“I was very depressed on the missed moment of reuniting Kitty and Magik and to a lesser extent Rachel…”
I’m glad I’m not the only person who cares about stuff like that.
You mean at one point, Kitty was really good friends with Magik and Rachel? Whaaaaa?
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