The X-Axis – 24 July 2011
Al and I have just finished recording a five-minute segment for our friends at the Thumbcast, which should be on their upcoming video episode. So, yes, if you want to know what Al’s sofa looks like, your time is nigh. We’ll let you know when it’s up (or maybe just embed it here).
I am, honestly, still intending to get around to a full review of that X-23 arc from a fortnight ago, as well as the New Mutants arc that ended last week. Meanwhile, this week we have… not a great deal, frankly. With one obvious exception, nobody seems to want to release new stuff on the eve of San Diego. So, here’s this week’s one big new release, plus the X-books:
Daredevil #1 – This may be billed as a first issue but it would be more accurately described as the start of Mark Waid’s run, since the break from the past isn’t as complete as all that.
The problem with this book (or the challenge, if you prefer) is that the last few years of stories have emphatically boxed the character into a corner. The decision to give away Daredevil’s dual identity has made it difficult, if not impossible, to go back to his classic set-up. Of course, these things can always be reversed – it’s been done with Captain America, Iron Man and Spider-Man, with various degrees of vague muttering about magic – but they’re not taking that approach with Daredevil.
And maybe that’s a smart move, because there’s an opportunity here for Daredevil to carve out a position based on its new status quo: everyone knows Matt Murdock is Daredevil, but nobody can prove it. This has essentially been the Kingpin’s status quo for decades, and if it can work for him, there’s no fundamental reason why it can’t work for Daredevil. The trick is to stop seeing it as something that prevents you from getting back to the classic set-up, and embrace it as the book’s new organising principle.
The deck-clearing “Shadowland” storyline isn’t being ignored here; rather, it’s used as the end of Daredevil’s emotional arc, so that a line is drawn under the misery and depression of the last few years, and Matt returns to action with a newfound (and quite possibly dementedly irrational) optimism. So the tone of the book is very different from anything we’ve seen in the last few years, as Waid makes clear by dusting off the Spot for an opening battle. Matt’s solution to the predicament while his previous writers have left him in is to simply ignore it and hope it’ll go away; Waid quickly makes clear that that’s not going to fly, but still makes the point that this is a happier, more cheerful version of the character. And that’s precisely what was needed, since Matt’s spiral of angst long since passed the threshold of self-parody. Waid’s aim is to make the book fun again – and I think the “open secret” schtick could work far better with that as the tone.
Paolo Rivera draws the lead story, though there’s also a back-up by rotating artist Marcos Martin. There’s some really high quality art throughout this, and the challenge of visualising Daredevil’s radar sense always gives inventive artists an opportunity to show what they can do. Just on a technical level, this is likely to be one of the best books that Marvel put out. But the key message sent with this issue is that the book is determined not to live in the shadow of Frank Miller stories from 25 years ago; that’s been taken as far as it can go, and it’s time to change gears.
Generation Hope #9 – Now here’s a story we haven’t had in a while. It’s impossible to discuss this meaningfully without spoiling the ending (which the cover kind of does anyway), so don’t say you weren’t warned.
This one isn’t about the regular cast. The focus is on the guests – a student whose mutant “power” turns out to be a general deterioration into sludge, and some singularly unsympathetic friends of his who are too busy filming him for YouTube to actually do anything to help out. By the time the stars of the comic show up to help him out, he’s already killed himself. According to Kieron Gillen, this is intended as a metaphor for teenage gay suicide. I’m not sure it’s entirely helpful to try and read the story that way, though, since it all takes place in one evening and it’s unavoidably tied up with Zeeshan’s initial shock at his transformation. (The current set-up of the X-books doesn’t really allow for him to have been out there as an undiscovered mutant living in the general world, so this is inevitable.) That’s fine, though; trying to shoehorn the story into an exact correlation with the real world would have felt contrived, and these stories usually work better when the match is a bit looser.
Since Zeeshan effectively can’t talk, or even form facial expression, for much of the book, he’s a nice everyman figure – and of course it helps that what he does say tends to suggest a view of things that matches the readers’ viewpoint. Luke’s a thunderously unsympathetic character whose utter lack of concern maybe pushes things a bit, but then the internet is depressingly full of inexplicably callousness. And the slack-jawed bozos around the edge of the room are all too believable. Jamie McKelvie’s art is lovely as ever – I particularly like the two silent grid pages near the end where the panels are spaced further apart than usual, a great example of how a very slight change of layout can really change the way a page reads.
Uncanny X-Men #541 – Kieron Gillen’s other X-Men story this week couldn’t be more different; the second part of the “Fear Itself” arc is basically a chance to revisit the old “No one can stop the Juggernaut” routine, which actually hasn’t been done in this book in a good few years. (Inevitably, it’s cropped up elsewhere in Fear Itself, most notably in the last issue of Thunderbolts, but such is life.) So the Juggernaut is marching on San Francisco, accompanied by a sidekick who speaks for him and a bunch of presumably-enchanted followers. And the X-Men’s solution is, as usual, to try and get the helmet off. Needless to say, that doesn’t go smoothly. This is only part two, after all.
Juggernaut has been wildly downgraded over the last few years, if only because of the storytelling requirements of using him as a protagonist. This issue does a good job of re-establishing the basic “No one can stop…” premise and putting the ground rules back in place. I like the dynamic with the sidekick, too – I’m not altogether clear how Juggernaut’s agenda here ties in with the wider Fear Itself storyline, but I guess it works as long as he’s causing trouble.
Greg Land’s art is a bit mixed – he hasn’t fallen back into the manic grinning, and he does surprisingly good roads (there’s something about the Juggernaut trudging along an utterly mundane dual carriageway that really works for me), but there are also lapses into blank or stilted expressions. And I can’t help wondering, after Illyana thoughtfully showed up last issue to put a gun on the mantelpiece, why nobody seems to be suggesting that as a possible solution. Then again, we don’t see all the X-Men’s planning, merely the execution – so maybe they have figured it out. We’ll have to see how that one goes.
Overall, it’s a nice use of the crossover as an excuse to do the old school Juggernaut properly again – the core idea is reasserted, and there are some neat touches to freshen it up.
X-Factor #222 – Guido is released from hospital, and everyone hides in the office while mystic baddies gather outside. I realise Peter David inherited the storyline about Rahne’s pregnancy from X-Force, but while some of the dialogue between her and Rictor is pretty good, on the whole this isn’t doing much for me. We’ve got a bunch of largely faceless villains, and the pay-off is the arrival of a guest star – Jack Russell from 70s horror comic Werewolf by Night.
There are few things in the Marvel Universe that make my heart sink like an appearance by Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night. There can’t be many readers left who have any nostalgia for the guy – his book was cancelled before I could read, for god’s sake. Most of the stories I’ve seen him in simply use him as the Marvel Universe’s default werewolf, hauled arbitrarily into stories in much the same way that all Marvel heroes used to be contractually obliged to instruct Matt Murdock for their legal needs. Since this story is about cat and dog-themed mystical baddies going after Wolfsbane’s unnamed child, I can only assume this is another story where he’s going to serve as Marvel’s all-purpose werewolf character. Frankly, at this point I’m just politely waiting for this arc to finish so that we can move on.
X-Men #15 – Another arc wraps up, and since “First to Last” was pushed as kind of a big deal, I’ll try to come back to it in more detail later. Actually, I’m not sure why Marvel were pushing this one so much; it’s a perfectly alright X-Men story, perhaps stretched to an issue beyond its ideal length, but it doesn’t seem to have any great significance, other than to unscramble some obscure Emma Frost continuity and introduce a new villain.
I rather like the Evolutionaries as a concept; you can argue that they’ve completely missed the point of evolution, but within the logic of the Marvel Universe, that’s perhaps open to question. Essentially their remit seems to be to clear dead wood aside so that promising new evolutionary branches get a chance, and there’s something quite endearing about their polite bafflement over being unable to find a mutant leader who can get everyone on board for a campaign of global genocide. Christopher Yost has given them a combination of an utterly wonky worldview and a bruised confusion at not being able to win people over. If they were just faceless cosmic guys, it wouldn’t work. But played as murderous lunatics sworn to protect a dwindling bunch of ingrates, there’s some amusing potential.
There are pacing issues with the arc as a whole; the idea of cutting between the present day and the original encounter that nobody can remember could have been neat, but the plot, particularly in the present day, doesn’t have enough meat to make it work. Still, there’s a strong concept in here, and ultimately it serves its purpose by introducing a potential new recurring villain for a series that could do with some.
I hope waid can do for daredevil what karl kesel did for the book ten years ago or so: make it fun.
Loved the art on Daredevil. And the tone was just about right. It’s not ignoring what went on in the past. Matt’s new carefree attitude is a reaction to the trauma he’s been through in recent years.
I can’t believe that Marvel are not cancelling the X-Men book (or any) to make way for Wolverine and the X-Men. That is now 5 main x-books, it’s ridiculous and at least 2 too many.
Daredevil was fun, and reminded me of the Kesel/Kelly run as well.
I’m dubious about taking DD away from the take that’s worked; runs like Kesel’s have never been particularly well-received by fandom at large, even if they are well-remembered after the fact by a vocal minority that really liked them.
But within the “noir hero” framework that he works so well in, there’s certainly room for a light-hearted DD. It’s just a matter of changing the emphasis in the series rather than what the series is.
All of which isn’t to comment on the new relaunch issue, because I haven’t read it yet. And who knows, I may love it even if it doesn’t jibe at all with my ideas of what a DD series should be. I thought the first storyline or two of KA-ZAR were just swell.
@Paul what are you talking about?
Marvel Comics Presents 110 was a comic I read over and over as a kid.
What I’m trying to say is, I have nostalgia for Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night.
Especially if it involves Ghost Rider being torn apart by a werewolf biker gang. :-p
I wouldn’t have a problem with five ongoing X-Men titles if they actually bothered giving each one its own cast and reason to exist. They have enough characters running around that they could do so – though it’s doubtful they’d have enough first-rate creative teams to ensure reader interest, and even more doubtful they care much about giving a series a reason to exist beyond prying money out of completists’ wallets.
There are some concepts they already have floating around the margins of their existing series that could probably appeal to readers if handled correctly. If they were to bring Beast back I could see them spinning off an X-Men Science Team book that could be fairly entertaining and given that Dr. Nemesis is one of their breakout stars from the last few years I’m surprised they haven’t tried it.
Another option that could be a entertaining in the hands of the correct writer and artist would be something like The Fabulous! X-Men, starring Dazzler, Northstar, Pixie, Boom Boom and one other character (maybe Dust?) to function as the horrified voice of reason. Something like that might even appeal to that elusive female fanbase they’re always claiming to covet.
The students in the defunct New X-Men series never got a fair shake – the first half of the series was a well-intentioned but dull Westchester County 90210 high school soaper, while the second half was a ludicrously grim bloodbath. But Rockslide, Anole, Mercury, etc. are all good characters who’ve never been used to their best advantage.
So there’s plenty of potential for five ongoing X-Men books (not counting, of course, the four or five already ongoing X-Men books without X-Men in the title). Unfortunately, there’s even more potential for flooding the market with redundant titles featuring the exact same cast of characters in each one. I have no doubt which option Marvel will choose.
I kinnd of saw the point of ‘first to last’ being a retcon of Scott’s role. Cyclops thrust into leading all mutants as a teenager and no one else was allowed to remember it. I think this detail either helps ‘schism’ or is just pushed aside by it.
I’m the guy that likes Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night. I remember liking a story in Marvel Comics Presents 950 something, I think) when I was wee.
“I’m dubious about taking DD away from the take that’s worked; runs like Kesel’s have never been particularly well-received by fandom at large, even if they are well-remembered after the fact by a vocal minority that really liked them.”
All I can say is that I liked it at the time and tried to pimp it hard to people (I worked in a shop then).
Since it’s SD week, I remember spending a good few minutes discussing DD with Kesel at SD at the time, and the key to the run came when he explained, regarding the Spidey/DD issue, that DD was Bugs Bunny and Spider-Man was Daffy Duck.
I’m just kind of annoyed at how they sort of forced Rictor getting re-powered on Peter David with the Avengers: Children’s Crusade book. Depending on what news story you listen to either he said it was fine, or they just came to him and said, “Here’s what we’re doing and why, live with it.”
Now Peter David has to address this in his comic because some other writers wanted to mess around with some characters just to make a big shocking moment as opposed to how Peter David actually designs careful long-term plots. Kind of like how Rahne was dragged into X-Force and got pregnant and Peter David is dealing with that now. I dunno, I just wish they would let the main work with the characters in peace instead of giving him all this editorial interference. Then again, Marvel owns the characters so they can do whatever they want at the end of the day.
“Waid’s aim is to make the book fun again”
The only issue I have with this is when the Hell was Daredevil ever “fun”? I know some previous posters have already answered this with a “well that one time…” but the last time Daredevil was “fun” (outside of that one run that others have mentioned) was during his 60’s “super-hero” period that no one really favored. Now admittedly I’m a sporadic reader of the Daredevil titles, but while they have had their up and down periods, “grim and gritty” was the tone throughout all of them.
“I’m just kind of annoyed at how they sort of forced Rictor getting re-powered on Peter David with the Avengers: Children’s Crusade book…”
That’s going to stick? Really? I’d been presuming the whole of A:CC was going to turn out to be a feint (well at least the repowering of mutants, and probably the resurrection of Ant Man – frankly quite possibly most everything involving Wanda). I’ll actually be rather impressed if there are any lasting consequences from that series.
@JonDubya:
Well, that period of D.D. doing generic superhero work lasted a little longer than just the 60s. Frank Miller’s first issue as an artist was published in 1979.
@Bitterbam and Mika:
I assumed Rictor was a feint too, or at least an exception to a continuing rule, but a response from Jason Aaron to a fan’s question of whether UNCANNY X-MEN would address the events of CHILDREN’S CRUSADE – basically, Aaron said of course he is – suggests otherwise.
Ken B. said:
“I can’t believe that Marvel are not cancelling the X-Men book (or any) to make way for Wolverine and the X-Men. That is now 5 main x-books, it’s ridiculous and at least 2 too many.”
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. There is a slim hope that the existing books, particularly Astonishing and X-Men, will be forced to change due to the repercussions from Schism but I kind of doubt it. If Astonishing continues as it is I think it will be axed within a year, readers seem to be rapidly losing interest in paying $3.99 for a less than stellar creative team. Presumably Uncanny, Wolverine and the X-Men and Legacy will all have separate and distinct casts which I am fine with but I do not see how the other two books can work. It’s funny that Marvel claim that Uncanny needed to end because of what happens in Schism but that Astonishing and X-Men will be continuing, probably more or less the same.
I can’t see Uncanny X-Men as reestablishing Juggernaut for the simple detail that the only reason he is now unstoppable is because of the temporary power boost from the Fear Itself storyline. When you factor out the Fear Itself powers…
The X-Men had the helmet off fast, and only the Fear Itself telepathy protection/attack kept him from being stopped cold at that instant. The X-Men would have had the helmet off faster if they hadn’t had to worry about collateral damage (his Fear Itself-controlled and protected followers) or his “unstoppable” Fear Itself hammer.
As for Illyana, this issue implies that Scott has a lot of plans. The Illyana option will only look bad if, in the next issue or two, we see that Scott never even thought of it.
I’d look at it the other way round, Billy: it’s only Fear Itself that makes it POSSIBLE to do a traditional Juggernaut story in 2011. He’s been beaten so often that he no longer has much credibility in his original role, without some sort of power up to justify him. Even before writers started explicitly depowering him so that they could use him as a protagonist, he’d spent years as little more than the Rhino with a nicer hat.
Personally I think the only thing that has eaten Marko’s credibility is him being used as a good guy, which demands depowering him to a point where you lose all the gravitas behind his gimmick.
For Juggernaut to look like a credible threat, you have to just showcase how destructive he can be. Let him tear down a section of the city or something but don’t leave a trail of random, defeated superheroes behind his trail, that has become too much of a cliche lately.
As long as defeating Marko is portrayed as a desperate struggle, being defeated by a telepath zapping him shouldn’t be that big of a deal, as it’s his only, classic Achilles heel.
“how Peter David actually designs careful long-term plots”
Peter David does not design careful long-term plots. What he does is make stuff up as he goes along, plotting from one cliffhanger to another to keep readers interested. One could argue that even if he were interested in some kind of long-term plotting, he’d have to abandon it pretty quickly given the kind of close editorial interference that goes on on a regular basis, but whatever his original intent for X-Factor was, his current method of writing is “let’s get from crazy issue-ending splash page X to crazy issue-ending cliffhanger Y.”
It’s possible that Jugs may hold on to his Fear Itself abilities. It seems like Hulk might to some extent.
The story behind Jugs changing power levels is supposed to be that his patron was unhappy with his work. He wasn’t causing enough chaos and was being a nice hero (turning into Captain Universe, joining the X-Men) far too often, so he was docked power.
Based on the covers of upcoming issues, it seems that Piotr is going to make a similar deal with Jugs old patron to become the new Juggernaut, and stop the old Cain Juggernaut who is currently powered by one of the Serpent’s kids.
It’s as good a story as any to cover up the misuse of the character in recent times.
“Peter David does not design careful long-term plots.”
This seems inconsistent with the fact that details in the first half-dozen or so issues of X-Factor were paid off as late as X-Factor #50. Have some elements of the current run been made up or adjusted on the fly? Almost certainly. But that doesn’t mean he can’t also have long term plans for characters and stories.
Maybe Peter David just takes the old Claremont “here is a subplot I may or may not get around to resolving in the next hundred issues” approach.
As someone who has never particularly cared for Daredevil, I bought the first issue on the strength of the creative team, and found it to be absolutely excellent. I’ll definitely be back for more, and I think it unquestionably deserves all the good press its getting.
Daredevil could be written by Chuck Austen for all I care, as long as it’s got Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin contributing. These men blow my mind every time.
Peter David doesn’t hit a homerun with every issue of X-Factor, but he hits enough doubles and triples in the lulls that I could care less if he’s making it up as he goes. Although when you really stop and look, while he does exhibit an extraordinary flexibility is dealing with all the various Marvel- and X-related crossovers, there is usually a sense of a few well thought-out plot threads serving as the foundation for his stories. He just shies away from bundling them up as discreet arcs like most other books do these days, so the stories flow for much longer, subtle stretches.
To bring back the old, powerful Juggernaut (if that’s what you wanted to do), I’d go the way of Geoff Johns’ first Grodd story during his original Flash run. It was just a one-shot issue that had Grodd escaping, throwing cars around, causing destruction, and at the end of his rampage, we had this huge wide shot of several city blocks, showing the extent of the damage. The story itself wasn’t anything special, but that one “aftermath” panel hit home about how much damage Grodd was capable of.
I think PAD is one of the few writers that is able to take all of the editorial mandates in stride and make comic-gold. So I’m not concerned if he’s forced to work with a repowered Rictor, he’ll think of something almost seamlessly weave it into his current X-factor stories.
“this is intended as a metaphor for teenage gay suicide”
And a very bad one at that.
“Runs like Kesel’s have never been particularly well-received by fandom at large, even if they are well-remembered after the fact by a vocal minority that really liked them.”
That’s true for what, 90% of the acclaimed runs from the past decade or so?
That metaphor is horrible. Its implication is that gay teenagers die because they’re gay, full stop, which makes this just about the most offensively inept metaphor in comics since the Legacy Virus. If he wanted to write a story about the problem of suicide among gay teens (and the harassment and bullying that leads to it), he could have just written a story about suicide among mutant teens.
on the juggernaut: i vaguely remember a juggernaut story from the late 90es, by alan davis. even then, they had to power him up with magic to make him a halfway credible threat again.
on PAD: i think he knows the general direction of his character arcs, and some stories were clearly planned out (theresas pregnancy, for example). other things hes clearly making up as he goes along, like layla miller. hes also gotten very good with dealing with whatever the editors throw at him (m-day, messiah complex, rahnes pregnancy). his mix of foresight and flexibility makes for a consistently good comic. so, im not worried about rictor. but i have to say, if they are going to repower mutants, why chose one whos being used by another writer, against said writers will (if thats indeed what happened)? its not like there arent enough depowered mutants walking around.
btw, i kinda love emanuela luppacinos art. shes hasnt got the most distinctive style, but man, her guys look attractive. and the storytelling is rock solid. she would make a good secondary artist beside terry dodson, i think they have similar styles.
Kesel’s run would have been more acclaimed if it had lasted longer than 12 parsecs.
@moose n squirrel: The book could have made it clearer, but his death was supposed to be a suicide, not a result of his powers. If memory serves, there’s a scene where he gets a knife before locking himself in the bathroom.
The last story I remember was where the Juggernaut really seemed unstoppable was during Peter David’s Hulk run years ago, where the Hulk is in South America and runs into a deforestation outfit, I think, and, long story short, the Juggernaut (out of uniform) is one of the workers, and the Hulk, not recognizing him and thinking he’s just a metahuman hired goon, tries to take him in a straight-up fistfight. The Juggernaut beats the Hulk senseless while explaining that the got used to losing until his new boss (who is shortly revealed to be the Red Skull, I believe) pointed out that the only reason people can beat him is that they know how to, and if they didn’t know they were fighting the Juggernaut they wouldn’t have a chance. It’s much cooler and better written on the page, but I don’t want to take up too much space with a blow-by-blow.
I have to agree that this X-factor story is not working for me. The villains are boring nobodies, they’re really not scary, and the guest stars are pretty arbitrary. Feral really could work as a gust star because she is sort of a scar mirror of Rahne, but it hasn’t been going that way. And I agree, no interest in Jack Russell. I feel like Darwin and Pip should play into this storyline, and I’d really rather see that story.
That said though, I do think Peter David is really great, I’ve been loving this book since it launched, and even during a sort of disappointing storyline such as this one, I never really lose interest.
The “pregnant Wolfsbane” arc was just kind of an awful nightmare to have dropped in anybody’s lap; it was clear from the start that Kyle and Yost didn’t really know what to do with Rahne and did what they could to keep her out of the picture – so one wonders why they would drop a magic-baby plot on her (and on any writer who had to deal with the character next) when they knew they wouldn’t be around to resolve the story.
I’m trying to do my own maths here:
Post Schism there will be:
Uncanny X-Men;
Wolverine & The X-Men (the title sounds as shit as its premise)(to me it would have made more sense to have just chucked Logan and whoever wants to follow him into the Uncanny X-Force title. He is already a prominent figure there. WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER WOLVERINE TITLE!!!);
These ones are pretty set on its reason to exist:
X-Men: Legacy;
X-Factor;
Uncanny X-Force;
Astonishing X-Men;
X-Men; <-I would discard this one. Not as enjoyable as I thought it would be.
Personally, the following titles I don't even bother picking up:
The other numerous Wolverine titles;
Generation Hope;
Daken;
X-23.
Am I missing any?
Thats quite a lot of titles, for the mutant corner of the Marvel U. I think you're on to something there, Brad, editorial needs to make some serious choices.
If there was a proper x-kids title (even if it was a "Westchester County 90210 high school soaper") or a science team title, I would certainly be in for those, too.
I wouldn’t mind this scenario:
TWO Core Books:
1. “Uncanny X-Men”
2. “Logan and the X-Men”
THREE Periphary Books:
3. “New Mutants”
4. “X-Factor”
5. “Legacy”
and just for kicks, keep these because they’re well written and seem to have interesting stories for the time being:
6. “Generation Hope”
7. “Uncanny X-Force”
Cancel “X-Men”, “Astonishing X-Men”, “Wolverine: The Best There Is”. The first seems like some kind of favor owed to Victor Girschler and had produced a few mediocre stories at best; the second outlived its purpose once Warren Ellis left; and the third is an odd and interesting book to be sure, but I wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.
Feel free to keep “Wolverine”, “X-23”, and “Daken” which are only nominally x-books anyway. I’ve happily never bought the latter two and don’t seem to be missing anything.
astonishing and x-men v3 are superflous, no matter how you slice it. the rest can stay as long as theyre written well, even if, strictly speaking, not all of them have a clear purpose.