All-New X-Men #4-7 – “Flesh Wounds”
Well, I say “#4-7”. That’s kind of a guess, really. The cover of issue #4 says it’s the start of a new arc, and it sure reads like it runs smoothly through to issue #7. But apparently the trade paperbacks are taking the break at the end of issue #6. And there’s certainly a gear shift there. So maybe it’s meant to be issues #4-6 and I’m just chucking an extra issue on the end. It’s hard to tell. At any rate, issue #7 is the natural break point, whatever the trades may think, so we’ll run with that.
Dennis Hopeless and Mark Bagley are doing something of an old-school team book here, with multiple plot threads fading in and out of prominence. In these four issues, two themes dominate: Laura’s self-destructive tendencies, and some of the X-Men’s villains from the early sixties.
Issues #4-6 see the teen X-Men in Paris where they stumble upon the Blob, whose current villainous plans extend to nothing more outrageous than abducting giant animals from zoos – in a cute touch, European zoos in the Marvel Universe apparently have an extensive line in cryptozoology – and forcing acclaimed chefs to cook them for him. Because he just likes eating stuff. This occupies our heroes for three issues, during which Cyclops is abducted by a drunken Toad, who then spends issue #7 trying to summon up the courage to actually kill him. Toad has nothing in particular against Kid Cyclops, he just thinks that killing him will alter the timeline and that Cyclops’ influence turned out to be so disastrous that the result can only be an improvement.
The Blob and the Toad are nobody’s idea of A-list villains, but then the first three issues of this series pitted the X-Men against a bunch of amateurish college students with pretensions of villainy. Clearly, the book is rather more interested in the X-Men as characters than it is in any pretence of grand threats – which, in itself, is no bad thing. And since the teen X-Men’s whole schtick is that they were yanked from an early point in their career before they had much in the way of experience, you can see the thinking behind a story which shows them as being outclassed by C-list villains from their own past who have at least put in the years. Okay, it’s maybe a bit late in the day to be hitting this point so hard – when the Bendis volume is taken into account, we’re actually pushing issue #50 – but that’s still not much compared to forty plus years of history. A bigger problem is that this theme doesn’t actually work for Laura, who isn’t a time traveller from the Silver Age. She’s hypercompetent and has been since the word go. I’m not convinced the book is getting that dynamic right at the moment – the Blob just isn’t the sort of villain who should be posing her a major problem.
On the other hand, Hopeless does do a good job of linking this version of Laura back to the original, emotionally muted version. For whatever reason, the eight month gap has left Laura much more talkative and socially competent than she ever was before – something which is common to this book and to her own series, so it’s clearly a deliberate choice. But she’s still disturbingly keen to shove herself in harm’s way, blithely insisting that her healing factor will make it all okay in the end.
In one sense this is obviously true, but that won’t stop the injuries themselves from being horrendously painful, and Warren is clearly all too aware that Laura seems to be deliberately hurling herself into these situations even when she doesn’t really have to. He thinks she’s still putting on a front (and it’s a smart move to leave it some five issues before foregrounding that point), and when she rebuffs his expressions of concern, he’s not prepared to just sit there and be supportive. On the other hand, it’s also not clear that this is quite so simple as Laura self-harming; in her own mind, this seems to be her protecting the rest of the team by always putting herself at the front, and living up to the task of filling Logan’s role. In some ways she’s doing nothing that Logan hasn’t been doing for years, and the book is using the fresh perspective of Warren and Laura to say “hold on, this is horrific”.
In fact, some of this is remarkably violent. Though there’s a degree of wiggle room for future stories to ignore it, it’s certainly strongly implied that Warren gouges out Blob’s eyeball. And Scott’s ponderings of how he’s going to deal with the purely practical challenge of escaping a bozo like Toad are abruptly interrupted by the Toad smashing a bottle of whisky over his face. If you’re trying to do this sort of thing without stretching into mature readers territory then Mark Bagley may be a very smart choice of artist, since his style is traditional enough to take some of the edge off it while at the same time providing a shock value based on how incongruous these moments are. The actions are dark enough without the art going out of its way to hammer the point home.
What else? Well, Hank and Bobby both get some nice individual scenes, with Bobby awkwardly attempting to flirt in broken English, and Hank lamenting how his genius keeps being undercut by all the innovations he doesn’t know about. (Though it’s a bit of a stretch that, nearly fifty issues in, somebody’s still having to tell him about Twitter.) Scott obviously gets to continue the theme of struggling to escape the shadow of his older self, and issue #7 is a nice spotlight issue built around an old trope we haven’t seen in quite a while – namely, Scott losing his visor and not being able to open his eyes for fear of what’ll happen. It’s played more for horror here, which it suits nicely.
Idie, on the other hand, gets some rather heavy handed scenes yelling at God. On top of that, the book seems to believe that her power is to change fire to ice and vice versa, so that unless one of them is already there, she can’t do anything. (“I need fire to make ice and vice versa.”) That’s just wrong, and it’s wrong in a way that should have been blatantly obvious on even a superficial reading of her earlier appearances. It’s the sort of ludicrously massive continuity error that’s hard to overlook.
And Evan… yes, what exactly is Evan doing here, other than providing the book with a reason to participate in the Apocalypse crossover?
There are some strong ideas in here, but a few seriously irritating glitches as well. And even the plus points often feel like a grab bag of unrelated ideas, instead of a coherent whole. But to some extent, that comes with the territory of a throwback team book format. The good continues to outweigh the bad, even if some of the bad can grate.
Blob is a powerful villain kind of undercut by his physical appearance. I think he has been underused, but there’s nothing in his powerset of past appearances that suggest he’s a pushover.
Wolverine I actually keep forgetting is in the group. She doesn’t seem to belong. She’s a hyper-capable warrior hanging out with a bunch of kids on a road trip? Her relationship with Angel is interesting and her storyline’s good, but I don’t think she’s right for the team.
I’ve said before how Idie seems to be in the group because they needed some racial diversity. She doesn’t fit the theme at all. And her powers as presented do seem to be some kind of sliver-age comical misunderstanding of basic science.
Evan though, he fits in my opinion. He’s not time displaced but he is a younger version of a character. Plus, it hasn’t been touched on, but Cyclops was force-bred so that his son would be the ultimate weapon against Apocalypse. Or so that Cyclops’ body would be the ultimate receptacle for Apocalypse, depending on which story you’re reading. Either way, it hasn’t been touched on yet, but there’s some powerful story threads to examine. The event might look at that.
I think Blob is defined by his lack of ambition. He’s very physically powerful but not in a world-beating way, and the fact that all he really wants is to make money and eat fancier food is what limits him to a C-lister. If you want a henchman, he’s a great choice, but running shit is not in his future.
How did Blob get repowered (and pile back on the pounds) anyway? Or did that just happen off-panel?
> What else? Well, Hank and Bobby both get some nice individual scenes, with Bobby awkwardly attempting to flirt in broken English, and Hank lamenting how his genius keeps being undercut by all the innovations he doesn’t know about. (Though it’s a bit of a stretch that, nearly fifty issues in, somebody’s still having to tell him about Twitter.)
Moreover, there’s been TWO eight-month gaps in there (either side of Secret Wars, since the X-books never did “Time Runs Out” stories). Add in whatever time the stories themselves have taken, and these guys have been hanging around the present for at least a year and a half, maybe two years. That’s longer than they were X-Men in the past!
@Reboot
Hopeless got asked that not long ago, and his response was pretty much a shrug and “Secret Wars did it.” I kinda get where he’s coming from: your standard monthly comic is about 20 pages anymore. Do you really want to use page time that could be spent on story explaining how/why the reset button was hit on a C-Lister? At the same time, though, I find it a little annoying that there was literally no thought put into how to bring a character back.
Wasn’t Blob up-and-running with his powers again during the Bendis run? I remember him being addicted to the MGH that came from Dazzler as a source.
I have no idea if he was using the MGH to power himself up again. I tried to ignore that Dazzler stuff immediately after it happened – much like Bendis.
“Secret Wars did it.”
I guess this will now be Marvel’s version of the “Superboy-Prime’s Retcon Punch of Stupidity”.
“you can see the thinking behind a story which shows them as being outclassed by C-list villains from their own past who have at least put in the years”
On the other extreme, you have Kyle & Yost’s torture/death porn version of New X-men where the kids were taking on Nimrod, Belasco, the Marauders, etc. I guess Hopeless’ version is a bit more plausible.
When and why is Toad a villain again?
It’s briefly explained in the story.
It had something to do with “what Scott Summers did”, of course.
To be fair, it’s more than briefly explained – while they’re cryptic about exactly what Scott did, the story does spend quite a lot of time labouring the point about what Toad is trying to do and why.
do the time displaced x-men ever muse “huh, toad became a green slimy guy with a long tongue instead of a guy who could jump really high sometime between when our adventures and present day”
Well, also to be fair, the team has dealt with what’s happened to Hank and Warren over the years.
They’ve probably just come to accept that crazy things happen to mutants over the years.
I’m still wondering how long the young X-men will stay in the present. At some point, they have to return to the past, don’t they? I’m starting to think they’ve outstayed their welcome.
I think at this point they’re just divergent versions of the characters, and any pretence of them being the same ones has been dropped.
@Darkroom Dan: I’m still wondering how long the young X-men will stay in the present. At some point, they have to return to the past, don’t they? I’m starting to think they’ve outstayed their welcome.
They’ll stay until Marvel gets the X-Men film rights back. Then, they’ll be sent back in time, thus providing Marvel with an in-universe device for resetting the timeline and rebooting the X-Men franchise. Editorial will have a de facto blank canvas to work with and they’ll pick and choose which pieces of the old continuity to keep and which ones to jettison.
Bendis created them in 2012, between the releases of X-Men First Class in 2011 and The Wolverine in 2013. Both films did ok at the box office, but not spectacularly. My hypothesis is that Marvel editorial figured, not unreasonably, that the film franchise was starting to decline and that Fox might soon be willing to part with it. So, they greenlit, or helped Bendis devise, the concept for the reasons I describe above. That way, they could relaunch the X-Men comics in a more streamlined, mass-audience-friendly condition at the same time the MCU X-Men made their debut.
But then Bryan Singer came back as director, Days of Future Past did big at the box office, and that blew the doors off the plan. So, now, Marvel’s back in waiting mode, hoping X-Men: Apocalypse tanks.
It doesn’t stop Marvel from advertising (and cashing in on) the new film with the current Apocalypse cross-overs, of course.
I don’t really subscribe to much in the way of the Kremlinology that ascribes every Marvel editorial move to conflict over movie rights, but . . .
If you look at the last year, there does seem to be something of a thaw in Marvel / Fox relations. They’re not bosom buddies, but Marvel is doing a big crossover to commemorate the new movie and they let Deadpool crack a MCU joke in his movie. I think, if you take that as evidence, they’re at least tolerating each others’ existence at present.
Marel also probably realizes there’s a ticking clock on Hugh Jackman being able to be involved in any potential Avengers crossover. You have to know they’ve thought about that a lot.
Fox might be keeping an eye on how the Sony/Disney works out. If all parties are satisfied with Spidey’s treatment (satisfied, of course, meaning $$$), i think the odds of Wolverine showing up in the MCU skyrocket.
@Tim O’Neil: If you look at the last year, there does seem to be something of a thaw in Marvel / Fox relations.
AIUI, much of the butthurt had to do specifically with Fox film head Tom Rothman, and he’s out of the picture now.
Marel also probably realizes there’s a ticking clock on Hugh Jackman being able to be involved in any potential Avengers crossover. You have to know they’ve thought about that a lot.
Oh, yeah.
Provided Apocalypse does well at the box office, Jackman’s retirement from the Wolverine role, and its subsequent recasting, is the next major hurdle for the X-Men film franchise to clear.
“I think Blob is defined by his lack of ambition. He’s very physically powerful but not in a world-beating way, and the fact that all he really wants is to make money and eat fancier food is what limits him to a C-lister. If you want a henchman, he’s a great choice, but running shit is not in his future.”
My favorite Blob bit ever is in one the X-Men original novels (I had too much free time in my teenage years) where the X-Men beat him by running past him. That’s the definition of a c-level defeat. (Or maybe lower. Wouldn’t happen to Batroc.)
How often do drunk people actually get the hiccups? Toad’s constant ‘hic’s were a jarring and odd shorthand for Hopeless to use when Bagley had it covered with the visuals. And I also lament Toad’s decharacterisation post Wolverine and the X-Men, but sure, because-of-
Cyclops is as good a reason as any.
How often? Rarely. But it’s been a shorthand for drunkenness for about a century and doesn’t look to be ending anytime soon.
Just throwing this in here, as it pertains to the next issue, not the stories being covered here.
Issue #8 seems to be a real mess. The whole “displaced in time, wanting to get back to their own time” plot-line gets dredged up again.