Astonishing X-Men #13: Grr! Argh!

Well, it’s Reading Week for University of Windsor students. Unfortunately, Reading Week was last week for like 80% of the other universities, which means I’m here in Toronto alone while everyone returns to their academic institutions of non-Windsorian origin. Tomorrow, I’ll probably hit up Paradise Comics and stock up. In the meantime…

ASTONISHING X-MEN #13

I feel kind of bad reviewing five Marvel books in a row, but hey. The only DC I was able to get my hands on this week was Batman, and I already reviewed that.

Anyways, issue 13 marks the return of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday after a however-many-months-long hiatus, and is none too shabby. While the latter six issues of the previous run was pretty meh-to-fair, they did leave us with a fairly intriguing cliffhanger, and I was worried that Whedon would wait a few issues before re-addressing it. But such was not the case. Whedon launches the new storyarc Torn with an opening that answers a lot of our questions regarding issue 12’s cliffhanger, but of course doesn’t give everything away.

Being the first issue of an arc, it’s hard to judge how good the series will be, but judging from the quality of this issue it certainly has potential. I really enjoy Cassandra Nova, and Whedon’s certainly adept enough to write her.

However, there are two things that bugged me (aside from this issue’s ending, which wasn’t as shocking as I think it sought to be):

1) The dream sequence. I’m guessing it will have some weight on later events, but still, it’s been done quite a lot recently in X-books. Seriously, they’ve been popping up all over the place. What’s more, this one, while trying to be creepy (and okay maybe achieving it quite a lot thanks to Cassaday’s artwork), has its creepiness undermined by its inherent goofiness. I paraphrase…

Kitty’s Dad: Kitty?

Kitty: Dad? Is it you?

Kitty’s Dad: Yes, it’s me.

Kitty: It can’t be!

KD: Seriously, it’s me.

K: But how? It’s impossible.

KD: Trust me. It’s really me.

K: Wait, this is impossible.

KD: Believe me. It’s true. It’s me.

K: Oh Daddy…

KD: PSYCH IT’S A DREAM! GRRR! ARGGH!

2) Whedon, while still being respectful to the work Grant Morrison has done, has a tricky job of altering a few details while not contradicting New X-men. He does this relatively okay-ly, except that he resorts to a tactic I’m seeing pop up more and more: Mind Wiping. It’s a very convenient tactic, but holy shit has it been used a lot. Need to explain why Dr. Light went from killer to patsy? He got mind-wiped. Need to explain how Professor X apparently re-united Cyclops with his brother years ago? Cyclops got mind-wiped. Need to explain how the Sentry could possibly have been an established super-hero for the past 30 years? THE ENTIRE FUCKING MARVEL UNIVERSE GOT MIND-WIPED. Anyways, it’s not nearly as drastic here as that last example, but COME ON. Let’s go a week without mind-wipes, if you please.

Otherwise, Cassaday’s art is almost as Beautiful -with-a-capital-bee as it was way back in issue 1. Almost. I’ve sort of noticed his faces can look sort of goofy sometimes (last page being a good example). I’m not really one to talk, though. All the faces I draw look like feet.

8.5 out of 10

Flergh

Okay, I'm sorry to do this so soon since my last no-post, but with midterms and all that jazz I doubt a review will be posted for at least a week. For what it's worth, I've made significant changes to my myspace profile (and am still in the process of doing such) so if you feel so inclined just give a little clicky to the link on the right.

Cheers.

I can't believe I said cheers.

X-Men #182: Just When I Thought I Was Out...

Hey, everyone. Hope all your Valentine’s Day celebrations are at the very least not suicide-inducing. Personally, my plans for tonight are as follows: I will be having a lovely candlelit dinner. After that I think I’ll watch a romantic comedy, followed by a night of pure passion. Unfortunately, I will also be spending Valentine’s alone.

Ba-dump bump. Tsshh.

X-MEN #182

It’s been quite some time (other than last month) since I’ve read an issue of X-Men. This is mainly due to the fact that with a few exceptions, X-books have been known to suck for quite some time. And at the time that I dropped this book, X-men (as opposed to Astonishing X-men, New X-men, Uncanny X-men, District X, etc.) was the worst of them. Actually, no. Uncanny X-men was the worst of them. X-men was, however, rather bad.

Anyways, I dropped the book over a year ago, and had no regrets. Sure, the book’s sucky writer Chuck Austen had just finished his even suckier run, and was being replaced by Peter Milligan, writer of my overall favourite series X-Statix. This was not enough to convince me that the series had any potential, and the lacklustre first few issues of Milligan’s run didn’t help none, neither.

Good riddance, I said.

But then, last month, I was checking out the shelves at Border City when the cover to X-Men #181 caught my attention. Now, here’s a quick tip if you want me to purchase your comic: put a picture of a member of X-Statix on the cover.

So I’m just in Border City, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I’m like “Hey Mike! What’s Doop doing on the cover of X-men?” and since Mike didn’t know he replied, “I dunno.” And then I was like “Well I’m going to buy it and find out.”

And then I bought it.

Anyways, that was last month. This is this month. I was disappointed to discover that Doop was nowhere to be found in this issue, but what I did find was a pretty engaging story, with some equally engaging artwork.

The basic premise for this new storyline, entitled “The Blood of Apocalypse,” is quite simple. Apocalypse is preparing a lot of the usual (most likely involving some people getting killed), and this issue is pretty much dedicated to him preparing his plans. However, there’s a lot of appeal to figuring out how his plans will play out. Perhaps the main source of appeal is in the mystery of who will become his four horsemen of the apocalypse. It appears he already has a Pestilence and a War, and has his sights on one other candidate for the third horseman. Which brings me to my next point, and the single most enjoyable aspect of this issue…

… Milligan makes Sunfire into a badass. What’s more, he makes Sunfire a badass despite (or perhaps thanks to) the fact that he has no legs. He doesn’t radically change the character, or give him new powers. He simply gives him a chance to “shine.” In the past issues I’ve seen with him, Sunfire’s always come off as a bit of a prick, and generally has gotten himself beaten up pretty badly as well. In this issue’s backup story, there’s still the beaten up jerk we know and love, yet I find myself in awe of what he has to go through, as well as the decision he makes at the end of the story, given his current situation. Seriously.

This issue is not, however, without its faults. The Rogue/Gambit developments by this time have gotten boring (I don’t think they were ever interesting) and even borderline painful, but not in a good way. I’d say that Milligan isn’t a good soap opera writer, but considering the intricate relationships found in X-Statix (man that was a good book), as well as the constantly crappy X-men soap opera plotline under ANY past writer (exceptions being Morrison and I suppose Whedon), I’d say that this is less Milligan's fault, and that maybe X-men should steer clear of this style altogether.

Still, I quite enjoyed this series, and have half a mind to go back and collect the stories I missed out on in the past year. Unfortunately, I hear that Milligan is leaving the book soon. Well, I’ll stick around until he leaves. Then we’ll see.

7.5 out of 10

Captain America #14: I like the art. A lot.

Originally, I was going to post this week’s review on Marvel’s first “I (Heart) Marvel” issue, but I found that they didn’t have a picture of the cover on the Marvel website, which I always try to include with the review. So I gave up. That’s just a little behind-the-scenes info for you guys. Whatever.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #14

Okay, I’ve been reading a bunch of Brubaker’s work for a while, starting with I guess his second Sleeper run. I have to admit; he’s one of the better, if not the best, writers when it comes to a story filled with twists and turns (which is just how I like ’em).

That being said, his contributions to longstanding Marvel icons (and to a lesser extent, Wildstorm icons) have been insane, to the point of Slow-Down-You-Maniac. In less than two years, he’s killed off the Red Skull, killed off Banshee, killed off Nomad, killed/reorganized much of the Authority, and brought Bucky back from the grave. On top of that, in the next two-ish months, it looks like he’s going to kill off Foggy Nelson and bring back Thunderbird. Or something like that.

While most of these have seemed like needless shock-value ploys, it is his two Captain America related events, the death of the Red Skull and more specifically the return of Bucky, that in my opinion have been dealt with the most effectively. Interestingly, it’s naturally the one that would make people the most nervous. After all, isn’t DC doing the same thing with Jason Todd in the pages of Batman?

What makes this particular story so good is the way in which Brubaker reaches us on an emotional level. Sure, it would be one thing to have Captain America be all mopey and emo (I’m looking at you, Batman), but Brubaker uses many more subtle techniques, such as a conservative employment of flashbacks, in order to achieve the same emotional resonance. It doesn’t hurt that the art is so great to look at, neither.

The storyline has had a few, well I guess the word I’m looking for is missteps, in the past few issues, but they aren’t present in issue fourteen. One of my favourite parts is the use of same-time storytelling in the first two pages. I think that it was a fairly novel idea, and would like to see it used to a greater degree some time in the future. Only hopefully will be as great to look at.

This issue serves as the conclusion to the Winter Soldier arc. Naturally, not everything is wrapped up into one neat little package, though significant headway is made, and a victory is achieved on the hero’s side. Normally, I’d be quite nervous about the way in which this victory is achieved (the fix-it-all cosmic cube), though it’s clear that the cosmic cube can only do so much, and that there will in fact be repercussions. I’m willing to see it play out, if for no other reason than because I like looking at the art.

Oh, and the last page, while slightly see-coming-able (I didn’t, but someone in last month’s letters page did), is pretty neat, and without giving anything away, I must say looks great.

9 out of 10