Welcome back for the first regular X-Axis column in, ooh, ages.  I’ve got a three week backlog of comics to review, so in this post I’m just going to cover the the recent X-books (some in more detail than others).  I’ll hopefully get to the other interesting releases in a later post – and no doubt Al and I will be talking about three of them tomorrow when we record a new episode of the House to Astonish podcast.  Should be up in the course of Monday, and then we should hopefully be back on the regular schedule for the foreseeable future.

Daken: Dark Wolverine #8 – This is part 2 of “Collision”, the crossover with X-23.  As you’d expect, the story shifts to Daken’s perspective, though the book is still playing its usual trick of leaving Daken’s actual motives and plans obscure even while he’s narrating the story.  He’s not an unreliable narrator so much as an incomplete one who doesn’t bother explaining himself to the reader, leaving it up to us to decide when he’s genuinely planned everything out in advance, and when he’s just winging it.

There are some interesting ideas in here.  A major theme of Daken’s character is his awkward and inconsistent attitude towards Wolverine, whom he alternatively emulates and disavows, without appearing to acknowledge what he’s doing.  Bringing in X-23, in theory, gives the book a chance to come at that theme from a different angle by presenting Daken with a different variation on Wolverine, as he tries to get a handle on her.  He also gets a good scene with Gambit, who serves a useful role in X-23 lightening the tone and does much the same here.  Daken sees Gambit as a villain in denial, someone who doesn’t actually care about his teammates except inasmuch as helping them lets him feel better about himself.  That’s consistent with Daken’s ultimately mercenary view of human relations, but it’s also an interesting angle on Gambit himself.

The art’s not bad, either.  Considering that he’s basically asked to draw the same four characters in the same alley for an issue, Marco Checchetto does a pretty decent job of keeping it visually interesting.  But what “Collision” seems to be missing is a strong plot to hold it all together.  In theory, the link here is Malcolm Colcord, who’s being hunted by X-23, and who’s supposed to be working for Daken (though he obviously has his own agenda).  But Colcord’s role isn’t much fleshed out, and he feels like he’s been spliced into the story simply to give the stars a common antagonist.  So the whole is less than the sum of its parts, but there are some good parts in here.

Generation Hope #6 – The start of a second story arc, which sees the book settling into what looks to be the regular format – another new mutant appears, and Hope’s team race off to investigate.  That’s a perfectly decent springboard for each arc, and makes sense given that we’ve established the new mutants need Hope to stabilise their powers.  Fortunately, this time the focus remains on the established cast rather than the new arrival, who’s busy providing a zombie horde set-up in a Berlin hospital for the cast to deal with.  There’s some neat opening material which continues to round out the characters, and a decent effort is made to justify Hope’s group as a separate team: she simply refuses to do as Scott says, and ultimately, what’s he going to do about that when she’s indispensable?  Kenji’s powers are starting to make more sense, as well (he seems to be a sort of flesh version of Warlock), though his constant talking about art risks hammering the point a bit.  Good issue, anyway, and the book seems to have worked out some of the pacing issues with the first arc.

Steve Rogers, Super-Soldier Annual #1 – Not really an X-book, but it’s the middle chapter of the “Escape from the Negative Zone” crossover, bookended by the Uncanny X-Men and Namor annuals, so I should mention it briefly.  Now, I thought the Uncanny annual was a pleasant surprise, with good use of the four core characters (Cyclops, Hope, Namor and Dr Nemesis) to create a team that forced Scott out of his normal role as the unquestioned leader.  Understandably, the focus shifts this issue, and I can’t say it holds my interest as well.  The other X-Men ask the Avengers for help in rescuing their teammates, and Steve Rogers decides to sort it out himself.  But this doesn’t really feel like a story where Steve Rogers belongs – even the villain would rather be fighting the Fantastic Four.  This wasn’t a problem with the first chapter because the emphasis was on the squabbling among the four X-Men, and that’s an X-Men story regardless of who the villain happens to be.  This issue has some cute moments and some neat comic relief – I like Blastaar’s beleaguered alien chef, complaining that he has to cook the same thing every night – but the actual story is a bit too generic, and the art, while perfectly fine, isn’t as distinctive as in the first chapter.

Uncanny X-Force #7-8 – This is one of two X-books that double-shipped while I was away.  Judging from the solicitations, this is going to be happening a lot more in future; presumably Marvel are figuring that they get more money from extra issues of the regular series than from spin-off minis that only devoted completists buy.  I can’t say I have a problem with this; as one of those completists, I’d personally rather read a smaller number of books that shipped more frequently.  After all, virtually every story is improved by a more frequent schedule.  Readers who choose not to buy the peripheral books (which, judging from the sales figures, is the majority of you) may not be so thrilled about this.

Issue #7 is the conclusion of the “Deathlok Nation” three-parter, as X-Force team up with the latest version of Deathlok (the one from Jason Aaron’s Wolverine: Weapon X storyline) to battle superheroes from the future who’ve been turned into Deathlok cyborgs themselves.  The cyborgs are trying to protect somebody called “Father” who lives within Fantomex’s World complex; X-Force are trying to get there and kill him.  Cue the fight.  The results are a bit mixed.  I like the way the story uses the new Deathlok.  Aaron set him up with the central twist that this version started out as a murderous lunatic, only for the artificial intelligence of the cyborg parts to develop a moral code and seizing control.  So there’s a nice irony in this particular Deathlok being so keen on free will.  And there are some nicely creepy moments between Father and Deadpool (which also show that Rick Remender’s keen to take Deadpool seriously as a character, instead of just using him as the comic relief).  The closing twist works too, and makes sure that this story plays into the book’s wider storyline.  On the other hand, the plotting’s a bit vague, the art has clarity issues when multiple versions of the same character are wandering around, and the colouring ends up being sickly more than atmospheric.

Issue #8, “Unintended Consequences”, is a one-off story with guest art by Billy Tan.  It’s some of the best work I’ve seen from him, actually, even if he seems to be trying to work broadly in the style established by earlier issues.  (Either that or Dean White’s colour palette does wonders to give the book a consistent feel.)  Deathlok seems to be joining the regular cast, so there was evidently a purpose to “Deathlok Nation” beyond just wheeling out the guest stars.  The main focus here, though, is on the subplot of Psylocke trying to help Warren get control of his psychotic Archangel personality, with the Shadow King being wheeled out to screw things up for Warren.  The Shadow King is a one-note villain who’s pretty much run his course, but we haven’t seen him in a good few years, and Remender makes good use of him here as a one-off villain who helps the wider plot along.  It’s nice to see the book alternating between shorter and longer stories in this way, because sometimes a story point is better dealt with in a single, focussed issue instead of being artificially extended into a multi-parter.

Uncanny X-Men #534.1-535 – Kieron Gillen co-wrote the last storyline, based on a Matt Fraction concept, but with these two issues we’re into the new era proper.  That said, Gillen isn’t going for a clean break here; the emphasis is more on continuity with what went before, as well as tying up some of the loose ends.  That’s understandable, because Fraction’s run didn’t reach a neat conclusion, and there’s plenty of outstanding baggage.

The Point One issue deals with one such issue, namely the fact that Magneto’s back with the X-Men, and you’d have thought that even the tolerant folk of San Francisco might not be thrilled about having an A-list supervillain on their doorstep.  Fraction did in fact set up this story when he introduced Kate Kildare as the X-Men’ PR woman, but never got around to dealing with it.  Gillen picks up the ball and has a journalist brought to Utopia for the stage managed debut of the new Magneto.  Aside from providing a useful vehicle to do all the stuff that Point One issues are meant to do (but generally don’t), it also gives us some good scenes of Magneto arguing the point of just how much he’s prepared to bend the truth in the interests of the X-Men’s image.  Yes, there’s some glossing over to be done here – Magneto’s already been seen in public in X-Men: Legacy, which the story acknowledges and brushes aside.  But I can live with that, since the more important thing is that the story is addressing a long-overdue problem, and getting an interesting story out of it.

Issue #535 kicks off the next story arc, “Breaking Point”, which is a sequel to Joss Whedon’s Breakworld arc from Astonishing X-Men.  I can’t help wondering whether this too is partly an attempt to tie up a loose end, namely Kitty’s intangibility, another plot thread which Fraction set up but never really did much with.  At any rate, after so long seeing the book hand-wave its way past plot problems, it’s a pleasant change to see the characters belatedly acknowledge questions like “Uh, why didn’t Kitty die when she was stuck in the massive space bullet with no food or water for months on end?”  And we’ve also got a renewed focus on a small central cast and a single central plot, instead of the unfocussed sprawl which has plagued the book for a while now.  Gillen’s got the voices of the characters, and there’s a nice surprise at the end.  It’s a good issue.

Uncanny has not exactly benefitted from great artists of late, but Gillen has the good fortune to kick off his run with Carlos Pacheco (on the Point One issue) and the Dodsons (on “Breaking Point”), so these are good looking issues.  I can’t help noticing that the preview of upcoming art in the Point One issue ends with a panel that looks depressingly like Greg Land, but I choose to ignore that in the hope that it’ll go away.

Wolverine & Hercules: Myths, Monsters & Mutants #2 – Well, it’s Wolverine and Hercules teaming up to fight mythological creatures who have been brought back from the dead by the Hand as zombies.  It’s miles out of sequence with other Marvel books (aside from featuring a villain who was killed off last year, it really has to take place before Daredevil got involved with the Hand), but that’s not really a big deal.  It’s perfectly okay, it does what it promises, and it passes the time nicely.  Juan Santacruz’s art is entirely pleasant.  Considering that a book like this is basically completist fodder, it’s pleasant to report that it’s an above average comic.  But in a market already oversaturated with Wolverine product, it’s unlikely that anyone beyond the hardcore fans will feel the need to go out of their way for this.

Wolverine: The Best There Is #5 – More talking, more maiming.  The plot has taken forever to get to a point it could happily have reached two months ago.  And the cliffhanger is staggeringly flat – after ten pages of fighting, we’re supposed to be excited by the prospect of more fighting against a different henchman.  There’s the occasional glimmer of a worthwhile idea, and to be fair to Charlie Huston, he could have fulfilled the “loads of gore” remit by just doing a load of regular fighting and telling the artist to draw it more graphically.  At least he’s tried to design a story that engages with what Marvel asked for.  But it just doesn’t work.

X-Factor #218 – Last issue, Guido was shot by Ballistique; this issue, Monet races to save him (while guest star Black Cat deals with the baddies).  The three villains remain largely enigmas here, but Peter David gives them enough charisma to make them interesting anyway.  This is the sort of issue that can easily go overboard and become mawkish, but the story largely manages to avoid falling into that trap.  In part, that’s because David has done such a clear job of defining Monet’s character that it really stands out as a big deal when she drops the act, as she does briefly here.  Equally, David manages to pull off an ending that could easily have seemed like a cop out, by immediately segueing it into a bigger mystery.

X-Men: Legacy #247 – And finally, the penultimate chapter of “Age of X”.  Looks like I was basically right about the idea here: we’re inside Legion’s mind, in a world created to make him the hero (though Carey neatly avoided making that too obvious by keeping him on the periphery in the opening chapters).  There are a couple of lovely moments in here with Cannonball gamely hanging on as the last X-Man who still thinks there’s a war to be fought, even if everyone else has started to realise they’re in an illusion.  The art seems to be slipping a little this issue; perhaps the deadlines are catching up on Clay Mann.  But it’s still solid enough.  I’ll come back to this arc in more detail when it finishes with New Mutants #24, but Carey’s done a lovely job here of gradually unravelling his puzzle and telling a decent story into the bargain.