X-Club #1 – Review

By: Simon Spurrier (writer), Paul Davidson (art), Rachelle Rosenberg (colors), Cory Petit (letters) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: The X-Club helps to launch the world’s first space elevator. But all doesn’t go as planned.

Five Things: 

1. Dr. Nemesis is fun as hell. – I think there are a lot of comic writers who wish they could be Dr. Nemesis.  He’s smart, not physically imposing, has a huge vocabulary and a gift for turning a phrase.  You can just tell that the writers all seem to enjoy writing his dialog and that enthusiasm transfers to the reader.  Nemesis is the only reason the X-Club (the team…not the comic book) is remotely interesting.  Love when he tells the assembled press at the space elevator’s launching that he’s considering performing a “surprisingly painful procedure” on them called a “stupidectomy.”  Even when he’s not coining new words, it’s just fun to watch him ask the media, “Doesn’t anyone have an interesting question?”  The man doesn’t suffer fools!

2. Feels really contemporary in the current X-Men status-quo. – Personally, I think it’s vital for these lesser miniseries to feel very rooted in the current status quo because the only people who buy them are the hardcore who buy all/most of the X-books.  So, bravo to Spurrier for using small and humorous elements of the story to ensure that we know this is a post-Schism story.  He shows Cyclops continually correcting the speaker who calls them “The X-Men” by interjecting, “…. of Utopia!”  At one point they even show Wolverine watching the broadcast on TV and uttering a nasty word at Cyclops for continually making this correction.  Very funny and fresh…

3. LOTS of unanswered questions. – There are a few too many odd things going on in this issue.  We start with a flashback to the Invaders doing something in WWII and that “something” obviously ties into the Atlantean tribes upset at the space elevator and how one of them goes all monstrous.  And then something happens with Danger.  It’s just a bit too much tossed together in the opening issue and the linkages aren’t clear.  I like teasers as much as the next guy, but this was too much.  And is there a reason that the X-Men keep Danger around?  How many times has she gone nutso on them?

X-Men #22 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Will Conrad & Steve Kurth (pencils), Conrad & Jay Leisten (inkers), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: A team of X-Men plus War Machine try to stop a Balkan leader from siccing a bunch of Sentinels on her neighbors.

Five Things: 

1. This is a well-scripted issue. – This is an issue where you really have to differentiate between the concept/script and the art because one is good and the other is not.  The idea of one of these wacko Balkan leaders modifying Sentinels so that they’ll attack neighbors is pretty interesting.  It’s also nice to see that the X-Men don’t moralize over it too much: They’re heroes so there is no drippy discussion of, “It would be wrong, but if we let the Sentinels kill those normal humans, maybe everyone will realize how dangerous the Sentinels are.”  Nope, Gischler is a better writer than to patronize us that way.  He also has a really good handle on all of the characters and works a lot of humor into this issue.  It’s a shame that Gischler is working with some inconsistent artists because I think he could do some really big things.

2. Hard to support this art. – I generally like Will Conrad.  I don’t think he’s “awesome”, but he does a page now and then that I wouldn’t mind owning.  He’s a very capable (if unflashy) artist and he draws an incredible Domino!  But, I got a few pages into this issue and said, “WTF?  Has Conrad lost it?”  I mean, there’s a fight between the heroes and a Sentinel that makes zero sense.  Look at the bottom panel of Page 1, what is Colossus doing?  Is the Sentinel sitting on the ground or has Colossus somehow grabbed it by the ankle and jumped into the air with it?  Does Colossus have enough mass to jump the Sentinel into the air?  Why isn’t the ground shown in the background to clarify the perspective?  If Colossus has merely tripped the Sentinel to the ground, why is Storm flying under its shoulder?  And if he tripped the Sentinel, what is the Sentinel doing on the next page (the epitome of an unnecessary splash page, btw) where it is falling down again?  So the storytelling of the art is all kinds of fucked up.  And we’ve got problems galore with depth in the splash page.  Or page 4 where Storm and War Machine are blasting the Sentinel in the face/neck and Colossus is punching him– in the ankle?  What’s with the ankles?  Then I turned the page and knew what happened.  I recognized these faces as the work of Steve Kurth, so I flipped back to the credits and saw Kurth’s name.  I hate to blast the guy too much (although I just did) because I’m sure he’s a nice guy and working hard AND he might have been working on a really tight deadline to fill in on this issue, but I really don’t care for his art.  Don’t like how we’re looking down on everyone’s face in these tight shots.  Don’t like the odd mixture of heavy blacks with overly highlighted color art.  Don’t like that Jubilee has breasts larger than her head (and is back in her thong uniform).  Heck, Storm also has breasts larger than her head.  I can’t believe that a cheesecake fan like me is complaining about breasts, but I don’t like it.  And the color art isn’t doing any favors either.  The depth is really screwed up in almost every panel and I’d expect a colorist as experienced as Sotomayor to be able to fix some of those problems coming from the inker.  Anyway, art is not great.

3. Fun to see the X-Men interacting with other heroes – It is fun to see the X-Men playing with War Machine.  I don’t know if that’s ever happened before, but sometimes it get’s a little dull to just see the mutants dealing with their own little cast of characters.  This is also a great use of War Machine.  Since he can’t sustain his own series, he might as well serve as a kinda linkage between various parts of the Marvel Universe.

X-Men Legacy #259 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Khoi Pham (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Antonio Fabela (colors), Cory Petit (letters) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: A hitchhiker came back when Rogue, Magneto and gang returned from outer space.

Five Things: [with SPOILERS]

1. Odd time to set a story – This story is set during the break-up phase at the end of Schism.  It’s really weird because for folks who have been following the X-Men on a monthly basis, we’re already 2 issues into the new status quo in most of the other books.  So, it’s off-putting to see the early part of this story revolve around Rogue trying to make her decision about whether to go with Wolverine and Cyclops because that issue is kinda settled.  And even though Rogue is still making up her mind, Logan, Bobby, Kitty, et al are no where to be seen, but Rachel Summers is still lurking in the background.  It’s just an odd hybrid of old and new that falls a little flat.  ONE good thing to come out of this is a nice conversation between Cyclops and his brother, Havok, about the philosophical split between the two camps.

2. Interesting concept for mystery – The way the central mystery of the issue unfolds is pretty cool: Rogue absorbs some of Magneto’s “point of view” to see why he is choosing to stay with Cyclops.  When she does this, she notices that he has a hitchhiker in his psyche and that ALL of the folks who went on the mission to rescue the Starjammers (in the last story cycle) have a hitchhiker.  Who could it be?  Friend or foe? Carey does a nice job of teasing this story along until we finally get to the reveal.

3. Can’t anyone stay dead? – My goodness was it a bummer to see who the hitchhiker was.  Ariel?  Really?  If a character a low-value as Ariel can’t stay dead we know that death is truly ruined in comics.  If you don’t remember, she was killed in Second Coming in a scene that was designed to show the reader that “this is serious stuff.  I mean, people are DYING!”  When I saw that reveal, I almost wondered if Carey was tired of playing second fiddle in the X-office and was annoyed that he’s been stuck doing a good job on X-Men Legacy for years and now he’s watching Keiron Gillen and Jason Aaron waltz in to take the spot-light.  Maybe he had this plotline all cooked up as a way to bring back someone cool like Jean Grey and when he found out he’d not be getting “promoted” off Legacy he said, “Fuck it.  I’ll just bring back Ariel instead.”  It just seemed like less inspired writing than I’ve come to expect from Carey (remembering that this is the guy who writes The Unwritten!).

Uncanny X-Men #2 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Carlos Pacheco, Jorge Molina & Rodney Buchemi (pencils), Cam Smith, Roger Bonet, Walden Wong & Molina (inks), Frank D’Armata, Rachelle Rosenberg, Jim Charalampidis & Molina (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White & Sebastian Girner (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Mr. Sinister has created an army of clones of himself.

Five Things: 

1. Enjoyable Mr. Sinister story. – I’m not usually a fan of recycled villains in superhero comics because they become as predictable as the heroes, but this is a pretty nifty Mr. Sinister story.  The idea that he’s been chasing perfection for over a century and now finally thinks he has things in place to act is pretty cool.  It reminds me of something someone said about cottage cheese once: the first time someone made cottage cheese someone opened up the vat and said, “It’s ready.  Let’s eat it.”  How did they know that the goopy white stuff was ready to eat?  That’s kinda what Sinister has done here: He thinks he’s perfect and he’s ready to clone himself and control the planet.

2. A little talky. – Man….there is a lot of Mr. Sinister talking to hear his own voice in this issue.  Gillen manages to power through it in this issue just by being a gifted wordsmith, but there will be fans that groan any time they see such big word balloons.  The trouble with lots of words is that it sometimes slows the tempo of the comic down more than it should by making us linger too much on panels that should be fleeting.

3. Art manages to be okay in spite of a huge cast. – There’s no art in this issue that is “bad”, but anytime you have 3 pencillers, 4 inkers and 4 colorists the issue will look like a bit of a mess.  On a positive note, the storytelling remains intact and all the pages are professional.  I don’t want to bang on the art too much, but it just kinda bums me out that we’re already running into this problem on issue #2 AND that comes on the heels of a pretty average first issue.  Damn it, Uncanny is supposed to be a flagship book!  The art shouldn’t have to be workman-like and professional.  It should be awesome and with the exception of Terry Dodson, this title hasn’t had “awesome” in a long time.

Wolverine and the X-Men #2 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Chris Bachalo (pencils & colors), Tim Townsend & Jaime Mendoza (inkers), Rob Steen (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: How long did you think it would be before the new mutant academy got trashed?

Five things: 

1. Go Iceman! – One neat thing about getting a new writer on an X-Men title is that most of them pick a pet character.  It gives you a little insight into the pitch they must have made to get the writing assignment in the first place.  They’ve all got interesting ideas about some of these characters and schemes that no one has tried before.  So, it’s really cool that Iceman is stepping up in this series because he’s always been the lame hero who wasn’t quite sold on even being a hero.  Mostly he was just the guy who wanted to be an accountant who slid around on ice slides and fired snowballs at Magneto.  Haha!  Jason Aaron obviously thinks that Iceman can be a major difference maker and this new manifestation of his abilities where he creates multiple snowmen and then controls them all is super-cool.  Oh yeah….and he impulsively plants a kiss on the lips of Ms. Pryde.  I LOVE that!  Even though the Kitty-Colossus thing is kinda a staple, I get sick of seeing them just pining for each other and continually ripped apart by fate.  Maybe it’d be cool to see Kitty (who has always been practical) decide it just isn’t in the cards for her and Peter and go in a more practical direction?

2. Love /Hate the new Hellfire Club. – On one hand, these kids are really funny because they’re a perfect canvas for Aaron’s black sense of humor: hearing such nasty things coming out of such young mouths.  One the other hand….I just cannot buy kids as a threat to the X-Men.  I really don’t care if they’re super smart.  It just flies in the face of my experiences with kids in real life.  Sure, adults will humor them and laugh at their jokes and sometimes act like we believe their white lies, but even average adults are usually 10 steps ahead of smart kids and the X-Men aren’t average adults.

3. LOTS of newness in the character line-up! – Other than Wolverine and Kitty, almost all of the characters in here are either new, updated versions of older characters or characters who have been underused.  A quick list:  As mentioned above, we have a new Iceman.  Rachel Grey has been off the board for a long time.  Idie is a new creation in the last year.  Broo the Brood is new from Astonishing X-Men.  Quentin Quire hasn’t been used in forever.  And this Kid Gladiator and his bodyguard Warbird I think are 100% new.  Coming off an era in X-Men titles where it felt like every story featured the same ten characters, this is SOOOOO fresh.

X-Men #20 – Review

 

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Will Conrad (artist), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Folks are still trying to acquire Sentinels.  The X-Men can’t have that.

Five Things: 

1. A unique team.  The team we get in this issue consists of Storm, Psylocke, Jubilee, Warpath, Colossus and Domino.  Other than Psylocke (and to a lesser extent Colossus), these are X-Men who we haven’t seen a lot of recently.  Sure, they pop up from time to time, but they usually haven’t been too central over the last few years.  This title is also notable for who isn’t in it.  There’s no Wolverine in this title.  No Emma Frost.  Even Cyclops’ appearance is limited to his sending the team on a mission.  If you keep this team line-up, this title really can have a purpose and not just another excuse to see the same cluster of X-Men every month.  One of the great things about the X-Men of my youth was the concept of the team.  You could point to an issue where Rogue or Psylocke “joined” the team.  Too often today’s stories descend into a gaggle of mutants who get forced into a mission.

2. A team with an attitude.  The attitude for the Team Cyclops in this Regenesis time is really great.  They’re willing to be heroes, but they’re also going to look out for mutant issues and they aren’t too concerned with political correctness or whether they are causing an international incident.  So, in this issue when they find some people trafficking in Sentinel technology, they send the team to take care of things.  Along the way, they run into War Machine who wants the X-Men to lay back, not cause an international incident and allow diplomatic channels to have their chance.  In the past, the X-Men might have walked away at that point to avoid pissing off the Avengers, but not now.  Nope. Their attitude is that they’re on a mission and War Machine can help or get out of the way.  Bonus that they pounded on War Machine who has been turned into such an unlikeable character recently.

3. Pretty nice art.  No one is winning an Eisner for this issue, but this is pretty solid art.  Good storytelling.  Good characters.  There are a few really nice panels in here too (the early half-splash of Domino is very nice).  Now, there are also a few panels that kinda get away from Conrad where the faces start to look like modern Deodato, Jr. (and that isn’t a good thing).  But, overall I think Conrad did a very solid job.  I’m not quite as on board with the coloring choices.  Conrad’s art is very heavily inked and he’s already indicated his shading with his blacks.  I just don’t think it’s necessary to also add highlights to this type of art.  It just looks wrong, like the coloring is too bright for the linework.  But, that doesn’t make the overall art experience “bad”.  Just not as good as it could be.

Uncanny X-Men #544 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The end is here!  Uncanny X-Men ends its long run of continuous, mostly monthly publication since Giant Size X-Men #1.  Of course, this is just before there is a new #1 next month, but I digress.  Things end with the team splitting up and a familiar old villain rearing his head.

Five Things:

1.  It’s kinda sad to see this end.  I’ve just ignored all the hoopla over other long running titles getting renumbered recently, but this series was the one I really loved since I was a kid.  So, it is sad to know we’ll have a new #1 issue next month.  There’s a lot of history and tradition in the preceding 543 issues and most of it was pretty good.  But, I guess the real reason it makes me sad is that renumbering is the publisher’s way of telling you “it isn’t working and we don’t know what else to do to increase readership other than renumbering.”  Hopefully it’ll work out for Marvel.

2.  Mr. Sinister is going to feature prominently as a villain.  This really isn’t a good thing.  There is a generation of fans who grew up with Sinister, but he’s a tedious villain.  Creating a new villain for each arc would be much preferable.  Old villains are boring because we kinda know what to expect AND we know that they’re as safe from permanent death as the heroes.

3.  Gillen writes really well.  Gillen does write really well and that goes a long way to making a comic enjoyable to read.  There are some writers out there who have decent ideas, but just don’t string words together all that well.  Or they can only write in “witty banter mode”.  Gillen can actually crank up a word balloon that is longer than a sentence fragment and not have today’s impatient comic reader getting itchy.  This is a really useful skill because sometimes you can’t tell the whole story with 5 word sentences OR there might be an artist on the book with significant limitations.

X-Men Schism #5 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Adam Kubert (penciler), Mark Roslan (inks), Jason Keith (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The final issue where we see how the X-Men split up and why.

What’s Good: It’s always nice to jiggle the status quo.  The X-Men have spent the last ~3 years living in San Francisco with a big “Welcome” sign hanging outside for any mutant who wanted to join them.  That was fun and enjoyable, but now we’re going to get something new and that’s a good thing.  As long as the status quo is constantly shifting under the character’s feet, the writers and artists always have new things that can help to inspire them.  There are all kinds of cool possibilities from the X-Men splitting into two groups.  In some ways, it can be a small microcosm of the superhero Civil War and in others, it’ll just be fun to see how the two groups respond differently to external events.  Like, what happens now if a mutant baby is born: Do both sides send a team?  Do they consult each other first?  Do they fight?  Movement forward in the story is almost always a positive.

The other neat thing in this issue was that the young mutants made good and helped to take down the super-Sentinel.  Even though the story of the teenage hero taking down a Big Bad who seemed to tough for them is not new, it’s always one of those things that make me smile.  Always…

Uncanny X-Men #543 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Fear Itself-bedazzled Juggernaut battles the new champion of Cyttorak.

What’s Good: It was kinda fun to watch Colossus beat down Juggernaut.  There’s gotta be a lot of penned-up frustration in the big Russian from all the beatings he’s endured from Juggernaut’s fists.  Even Greg Land did a pretty nice job of capturing these two behemoths smashing the crap outta each other.  That’s really the one cool thing that happened in this issue and it was cool enough to make up for a lot of the other stuff that was annoying.

X-Men: Schism #4 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Alan Davis (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Jason Keith (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The Cyclops/Wolverine split finally comes to the forefront and the ultimate danger to the mutants is revealed.

What’s good: Anytime an event has had as much build-up as Schism, it’s nice to finally get to the destination.  Seriously, Marvel started teasing this with promotional images of Cyclops’ visor sliced up into Wolverine-sized pieces back in January and in the last month, we’ve gotten images of how the mutants will pick sides in the months to come…..so, it was nice to finally see what they’re fighting about.

I kinda liked the central conflict: Cyclops thinks that every mutant needs to be a warrior whereas Wolverine wants to do the dirty work so that the younger mutants can have a normal life.  This has potential to be the updated version of the classic struggle between Xavier and Magneto.  And, I really hope that future creators continue the momentum in that direction.  To do so, they’ll have to (a) keep Xavier and Magneto on the sidelines and not thrust them back into primary roles and (b) continue with Cyclops’ transformation away from the guy who used to lecture Wolverine on how “X-Men don’t kill!”.  For me, that type of longer term plot development is precisely what I want out of my super-hero books, so let’s hope Marvel sticks with it.

Alan Davis is one of those pencilers who I wish could do a monthly book.  I thought he started out a little rough in this issue, but by about the 5th page, he was just nailing the scenes.  The great thing about Davis is that he’s so gifted that he doesn’t have to resort to tricks to have a visually impressive page.  Sometimes I love just watching a master like Davis draw a normal page with plain, old rectangular panels because it is so pretty.  I also rarely praise double-page spreads, but the image of Cyclops shooting that Sentinel across the Bay was great.  It was visually impressive and a climactic enough moment in the story to justify a double-pager.

X-Men Legacy #254 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Steve Kurth (penciler), Jay Leisten (inker), Brian Reber (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: Rogue, Magneto, Gambit & Frenzy are off to bring back Marvel Girl, Polaris & Havok from deep space.  What the hell have those three been up to for the last few years?

What’s Good: Two things really stood out as good about this issue.  For one thing, it was simply nice to see the lost trio of Marvel Girl, Polaris and Havok again because they’ve been missing since 2006’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire in Uncanny X-Men #475-486.  For me, those three were always important characters and I have much more affinity for them than most of the mutant kids or 90’s creations like Gambit.  So, even though the X-rosters are already overflowing and not everyone can get any page-time in the books, I’m very eager to have stories staring that trio again.

The other wonderful thing about this issue is the limited cast.  It isn’t new with this issue, but Mike Carey really deserves a round of applause for telling a story that doesn’t feature Wolverine, Cyclops and Emma.  I do love those three feature players, but they can be a bit of a crutch for a writer because you can always have Wolverine stab something or Cyclops act all commander-ish or Emma being snarky to someone.  Here we get to see: How would Frenzy and Gambit team up to destroy a huge mech/robot?  With all these X-titles, we really should have some that feature the B-listers and Legacy delivers on that front.

Astonishing X-Men #41 – Review

By: Daniel Way (writer), Nick Bradshaw (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: X-Men versus Mentallo on Monster Island.

What’s Good: This was a very enjoyable finale to a storyline that has helped Astonishing get back on track after a couple of years of wandering in the wastes (Ghost Boxes, Ugh! and that MUCH delayed Ellis/Jimenez arc).  A lot of fans are fond of saying how Astonishing happens “outside of continuity” but I’m not sure that’s true anymore.  This felt like a story that could be happening in the current X-universe, but it wasn’t laden with all sorts of goop that would only make sense if you’re also reading all the other X-titles.

I’m often the first to complain about the overuse of Wolverine and Emma Frost on the X-titles, but this issue brought us something we don’t see that often: a Wolverine + Emma team-up.  Even though they certainly go on missions together, it was still neat to see the two of them alone and working together.  I’m sure it has happened before, but it hasn’t happened often.  So, bravo!  It was also great to see Armor get some page time.  I actually reread the Whedon Astonishing run a few months ago and was (again) surprised that so little has been done with the Armor character since Whedon’s run ended.  Any time Wolverine takes a young mutant under his wing, that character has a chance to shine, but for whatever reason she’s been shuffled to the sideline (with Wolverine even taking on a new pet teenage girl).  Even though Armor isn’t in this issue much, at least she is in the issue.

X-Men #16 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Jorge Molina (artist), Guru EFX (colors), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor)

The Story: A very old flame sends a distress signal to Cyclops and Magneto. It is delivered by FF, who are now sporting their new Dr. Doom look.

What Good: I was a fan of the art. Although I am usually allergic to the Rob Liefeld-esque posturing of heroes (see Cyclops, Wolverine and Thing at various moments), they looked good. Cyclops was an imposing leader and everyone looked heroic. The action sequences had a bit of an anime feel to them with the sort of frozen still-shot with bits of motion blurred beyond recognition. The fastball special was a good example, and it worked. On draftsmanship, I had no complaints. The figures, background and tech were clean and detailed, and the faces, while often expressionless (except for Franklin), were attractive. I really enjoyed the sequence in the submarine, and the double splash page with the staples was awesome in opening up a panoramic scope.

X-Men: Schism #3 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), Daniel Acuña (artist), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor)

The Story: A trap is set for the X-Men at the Museum of Mutant History. We learn more (and are impressed by) the capabilities of the Hellfire Club’s junior division. Cyclops wears a jetpack and Wolverine steals a car.

What’s Good: Daniel Acuña’s art is very stylized, but if you like his style, then this issue is for you. I found myself comparing the art favorably to his work on the Eternals. His shots are moody, so much so, that I almost found the tone on the first page to be oppressively so. This is a good thing though, because this is the middle of a 5-issue arc, so if things aren’t bad now in tone and mood, something is wrong. The darkness on the edges and background of the art also contributed to a feeling that I didn’t have all the information, and that the characters were without options. And knowing the way Schism is going to have to go, this is again excellent art chores to propel the theme and taste of the story. Acuña’s mini Hellfire Club was creepy, far more so than the other artists in the series have done and the weird background in their meeting felt almost Steranko-ish in flavor. And, most importantly, the action, in this donnybrook of an issue, was clear and dynamic. Check out the energy Acuña puts into Magneto walking towards his target with hellfire goons flying all around him.

On writing, Aaron brings his trademark grittiness to a story of continuing bigotry and persecution. He did this with snappy banter, generally tight dialogue filled with real personality (none moreso than the pint-sized Hellfire people, underlining once again Aaron’s comfort with writing those characters that a twisted and off-kilter). I’d also like to give an A for effort on how the Hellfire Club took out Magneto. I’ve thought before about how a magnetar could be used in a story, and this certainly is a creative way. It’s not plausible to shoot a collapsed star out the barrel of a gun, but it is creative. Shooting face-sucking, power-draining aliens out of T-shirt guns looked almost logical by comparison.

Uncanny X-Men #541 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The Juggernaut, complete with Fear Itself hammer accessory, is bearing down on San Francisco.  It’s up to the X-Men to stop him.

What’s Good: This was a pretty tight issue that was entertaining to read.  The story is pretty basic: Juggernaut is stomping towards SF and the X-Men need to stop him.  Of course, Juggernaut is difficult to stop on a normal day– now that he’s powered-up with his Fear Itself hammer, we really don’t know what his limits are, but we’ve seen both the Thunderbolts and a bunch of the Avengers Initiative kids take cracks at him in other Fear Itself tie-ins and no one has even slowed him down yet.  So, the X-Men are faced with a pretty tall task.

Gillen does a nice job of getting a lot of X-Men into the action and it isn’t just the standard mutants.  True, Emma and Cyclops feature prominently, but Wolverine is nowhere to be seen (Bravo!) whereas Iceman and Colossus get big roles.  Of course, any long-time X-Men fan gets gleeful at the prospect of Colossus v. Juggernaut tussle (think of Uncanny #183!) and it’s nice to see Colossus get in some good licks!  We even get a cool moment from Hope and it’s nice seeing Hope turn into a useful hero rather than the child in danger that she has been for the last ~4 years of comics.  Of course, this whole thing is orchestrated by General Cyclops…

Uncanny X-Men #540 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Greg Land (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Juggernaut (the hammer-wielding, leveled-up version) is coming to town.

What’s Good: There are a few little nuggets about the world of Fear Itself in this issue, and I guess that’s really the point when the big event crosses over into an ongoing series.  Of all the folks who have gotten hammers, it makes the most sense that the X-Men would have something to do with Juggernaut since he is really the only one with whom they have a lot of history.  So, it was kinda cool to see Juggernaut get a thrall to follow him around, crying to everyone that DOOM is upon them.  Still no explanation about why Juggernaut speaks in viking runes whereas most of the other hammer-wielders can speak English…

Even if Cyclops was being all kinds of evasive, it was also nice to see the little scene between him and the sexy Mayor of San Francisco (Would she really be that sexy?).  One of the plot threads I’ve always enjoyed about the X-Men’s relocation to SF has been their integration with the Mayor’s office.  It was just kind of a neat touch.  Steve Rogers and the Avengers get to talk directly to the President.  The X-Men are happy just to deal with a lowly Mayor after being complete outcasts in the NYC metro area for decades.  I have a feeling some of this will be going away in the near future with Schism, so we’ll enjoy it while it is here.

Oh, and it was kinda fun to see Namor get shot down.  The only reason I enjoy having Namor around as a character are for those scenes where a woman refuses to sleep with him or some bad-guy who he takes lightly kicks his ass.  Love watching that guy fail.

Uncanny X-Men #539 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Ibraim Roberson (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: A one-and-done story featuring Hope and Logan.

What’s Good: Let’s hear it for the done-in-one story!  In this era of 2-issue ideas that are milked into 6-issue story arcs (so that Marvel can sell a measly 1000 paperbacks), it is really refreshing to get a tight one-issue story.  Especially when you consider that it is easy to close your eyes and see how even this story could have been stretched across 6 months.  Hell, we’ve all seen X-events that had less meat on the bones than this one story.  Bravo to Gillen and the X-office for getting this one right.

I’m usually not a huge fan of having Wolverine be a central character in an X-comic just because I feel that he is overexposed and I get sick of seeing him hogging the spotlight (i.e. can’t someone else be the hero sometimes?).  But this story has an intelligent set-up and it makes sense that Wolverine is the one to save the day.  It’s a slight SPOILER, but the basic story is that some of Hope’s “Lights” (from the Generation Hope series) take Hope for a day on the town to get her to loosen up, but Hope is kidnapped.  And Wolverine is on the case to get her back.  See, doesn’t that make sense?  That’s what would happen. Wolverine would just go and get her back (although you might expect that Cyclops would be sending a back-up team 15 minutes behind him).

Continuing with the SPOILERIFIC discussion, the talk that Hope and Logan have after he saves the day is really good: He isn’t being standoffish toward her because he is angry about Nightcrawler’s death in Second Coming, it’s because he’s concerned that she might be a danger (i.e. something to do with Phoenix Force) and that if she is dangerous Logan knows that he’s going to be the one called on to kill her.

Neat idea, huh?  Ordinarily, Logan is all over acclimating the young female mutants, so it is a little odd that he has been so standoffish toward Hope, especially given that she embodies so much of his warrior attitude and was trained by Cable who Logan respects.  Now it makes sense. It’s the same reason that farmer’s don’t give all their chickens and cows names: because they’re gonna have to kill them someday.

X-Men Legacy #251 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Khoi Pham (pencils), Tom Palmer, Craig Yeung & Nelson DeCastro (inks), Marte Gracia (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: An X-team consisting of Magneto, Rogue, Gambit, Frenzy, Legion and the Professor head off to “capture” several of Legion’s personalities that have broken free.

What’s Good: The various Legion personalities are kinda neat.  I do have a fundamental problem with them that I’ll talk about below, but seeing new mutants introduced who have weird and wacky powers is fun and a good call-back to the old days when it seemed like new mutants were turning up every issue.  I don’t want to go back to those days, but it’s still fun to see new characters sometimes.  It’s only a slight spoiler, but there’s one guy named Chain who turns everyone he touches into a clone of himself except with a different weapon, so when Rogue and Magneto fight “him” they’re really fighting an entire city.  Then there’s another personality that is a little girl that feed off and manipulates emotion.  Seeing these new characters is kinda fun.  Can’t wait to see what Styx can do!

The pacing of this issue is also pretty solid as the team resolves a few of the wayward Legion personalities in this issue.  When I first heard that Legion had 6 breakaway personalities, I groaned a little bit in fear that we might have a 6-issue story arc, but that appears not to be the case.  And, to his credit, Carey hasn’t given us many overly long stories during his multi-year tenure on the title.

The remaining positive is just the freshness of this team.  These are all characters that aren’t getting much to do in the other X-books AND the issue is completely devoid of Cyclops and Wolverine.  Even if a few of these characters aren’t my favorites, there are fans who enjoy them and it makes sense for at least one of the X-books to focus on “other” characters.  Heck, each book should focus on unique sets of characters, but that would be asking too much.

Uncanny X-Men #538 – Review

By: Kieron Gillen (writer), Terry Dodson (pencils), Rachel Dodson (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The conclusion of the deposed Powerlord Kruun’s attempt to get revenge against the X-Men.

What’s Good: This was a fun and quickly paced issue.  As I’ll get into below, I think it had some flaws in execution, but the flow of the issue was pretty strong.

The high point is that we have Kitty back.  Yea!  She’s such an important part of the X-Men and family of comic X-titles really suffered for her absence (first while she was in the space bullet and then when she came back but was stuck being insubstantial).  It’s also nice to see that she and Peter maybe have a chance to be together now.  If you’re remember, one of the cruel twists of the Whedon Astonishing X-Men run was that just as Peter returned from the dead and they began their relationship, Kitty got stuck in the space bullet and was gone.  Of course, I’m sure they’ll be stuck on opposite sides of the upcoming Schism storyline just to show how serious the Schism situation is. [NOTE to X-writers: That would be a pretty lazy story choice unless there is a really good reason for it.]

It is also pretty cool that San Francisco is continuing to get played up as the most welcoming city in the U.S.A.  I thought it made a LOT of sense when the mutants relocated to SF around issue #495 or so and it has been fun to see the mutants close relationship with the mayor.  So, pretty cool that SF is going to give a home to the Breakworld aliens.

X-Men Legacy #250 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Khoi Pham, Tom Palmer & Marte Gracia (pencils/inks/colors – Legion Story), Steve Kurth, Jay Leisten & Brian Reber (pencils/inks/colors – Rachel Summers story), Cory Petit (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: A two-parter for this special anniversary issue.  In the first part, we visit some of Legion’s out of control personalities.  In the second, we learn a little more about Revenant/Rachel Summers and where she and the Starjammers are.

What’s Good: I really like the general style of story telling that Mike Carey is going for here.  Too often modern comics have these discrete 6-issue arcs that collect nicely into trade paperbacks with each 6-issue arc having very little to do with the last one.  Here, Carey is picking up some ideas that spun out of his Age of X storyline and actually playing with them.  You wouldn’t be totally lost if you were a part-time X-Men reader and picked this issue up cold without reading Age of X, but you might be a little confused.  And that’s how it should be dammit!  Nothing makes me feel like a bigger chump than realizing the money I plunked down for the BIG STORY in 2010 isn’t having any impact on the stories I’m reading today.

The Legion story is well told and features a diverse grouping of X-Men: Legion, Professor X, Magneto, Rogue, Gambit and Frenzy.  Even though I do roll my eyes a little bit every time I see Legion or Gambit on the page, I think we should give credit to Carey and the X-editors for creating a team that doesn’t include Wolverine, Cyclops or Emma.  Just having this different team setting off on a different mission to contain some break-away Legion personalities is fun because I’m not wondering how these characters can be in multiple places at one time.

But, the star of the issue is the Starjammers storyline.  If you’ve been reading X-Men for longer than a couple years, you know that Ed Brubaker took the  team off into space for the Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire story.  That story lasted one year and when it was done, some of my favorite characters (Rachel Summers, Havok and Polaris) were left in space.  Well….they’ve been gone for ~4 years now with nary a peep so it is nice to see that story line being picked back up.  Again….this type of story telling makes fans feel like we weren’t chumps for buying those issues in 2007.  And I’m ready for another good X-Men-In-Space romp.

X-Men Legacy #249 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Rafa Sandoval (artist), Matthew Wilson (colorist), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: Aftermath, Part Two: The dust is still settling on the X-Men’s Age of X. Events in Age of X were so fast and so different, that the X-Men, back home and safe, have some breathing room to deal with who they might have been and what they might have chosen. Legacy #249 is about three people coming to terms with the mirror that Age of X held up for them: Rogue, Legion and Frenzy.

The Review: This story demands a deft hand at character work, something at which Carey normally excels. I have to say though, that I was generally disappointed in what could have been a really strong story. This one turned out to be just okay.

I thought that the Frenzy story-line was the most engaging, emotionally. I felt for her and her angst over who she might have been and still could be, although there were no real surprises to how things turned out. I think it’s very facile to show someone what they might have been and then, after that, they simply decide to be different. There’s more to it than that. There’s a reason Frenzy, in the real world, chose the path she did and there should be some resistance to this new path. There was really none here, which I though was a lost opportunity.

The Legion story-line was the most intriguing intellectually. I loved seeing the way Nemesis was trying to control the different personalities in Legion and I loved seeing the new personalities. This part was fun and was really about the science fiction adventure that will follow with Legion and his many, many personalities and awesome power.

Namor The First Mutant Annual #1 – Review

By: James Asmus (writer), Max Fiumara (pencils), Fiumara & Norman Lee (inks), Jim Charalampidis (colors), Jared K. Fletcher (letters), Jordan White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: Cyclops, Steve Rodgers, Dr. Nemesis & Hope fight a Namor who is made insane by lack of water as they try to escape the Negative Zone.

What’s Good: Ya know what?  Bravo guys!  This three-part annual story (continuing from Uncanny X-Men Annual #3 and Steve Rogers Super Soldier Annual #1) was a really fun story that just about anyone with a passing familiarity with Marvel continuity can enjoy.  The very nature of this story meant that it isn’t meant to have long-term consequences and “change the way we look at the Marvel Universe forever” and Asmus used that nature to just nail the landing and give us everything you could really want in this story.

This is 90% a Cyclops and Hope story.  The central theme is that Cyclops wants protect Hope because of her role as the “Mutant Messiah” and how Hope chaffs at this because, while only a teenager, she has lived her entire life as a solider learning at the feet of Cable.  So, she isn’t some teenage mutant who is wetting herself because her powers are beginning to manifest, but a fully trained solider.  Even though some of this same ground is being plowed over in the ongoing X-books, it was still nice to see Hope and Cyclops team-up and have Cyclops trust her to go into a dangerous situation and help save the day.
Other highlights in this issue are Steve Rogers really selling his friendship for the X-Men (and Cyclops in particular), a really good Steve/Namor fight, Namor acting like an insane maniac and getting defeated (kinda) by Hope, and a lot of comic relief from Nemesis.  Good stuff.

Not everyone is going to love Max Fiumara’s art because it is different and his characters are very stylized, but that’s really what I like about it.  He’s one of those names that pops up in a Marvel book about once a year and it is always kinda a treat because he’s one of those few artists where even the untrained eye will spot him right away.  Let me put it this way, Marvel has quite a few artists who aren’t all that hot.  They don’t suck, but there’s nothing very cool about their art except that I presume they can grunt out a monthly book.  Well, when we have a story like this 3-parter, that I presume will have plenty of lead-time, I applaud Marvel for having someone different like Fiumara draw it rather than one of their competent, but unremarkable, C-list superhero artists.  Let’s have MORE non-traditional artists on Marvel books than 5th generation John Bryne wannabes.

X-Men Giant-Size #1 – Review

By: Christopher Yost (writer), Paco Medina and Dalabor Talajic (pencillers), Juan Vlasco and Dalabor Talajic (inkers), Marte Gracia and Wil Quintana (colorists), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor), Axel Alonso and Nick Lowe (editors)

The Story: First to Last, Part I: In this new arc, the Neos, another mutant offshoot of humanity (different from homo superior) is attacking the increasingly misnamed Utopia. The neo’s have lost the ability to reproduce, as homo superior had done for a while, and now that mutants are being born again, they want the secret to what’s up. This battle royale drudges up some buried memories in Scott, really old ones, from the original X-Men’s first year: He suddenly remembers a run-in with the evolutionaries that he was supposed to have forgotten.

The Review: My first reaction to reading X-Men Giant-Size #1 was: “That was pretty cool.” Superb art led the way, starting with a planet-scape, then dipping under the cloud-deck, and into a cave and some newborns. The detail, draftsmanship and colors were beautifully natural and the following action dramatic and clear. In the present-day, the clouds in the background of the giant neo were spectacular and the fight scene pretty awesome, although from time to time, the “cameras” zoomed in too close, and it was tough to follow the blow-by-blow. The shift in art teams between past and present was a useful tool to highlight the change in setting and there were some nice old-school touches to the scenes in the past. My favorites were the Kirby-esque action poses, Magneto’s not-form-fitting costume, Magneto’s general portliness (you get a no-prize if you remembered that he started off as a middle-aged man before being turned into a child by Mutant Alpha in Defenders #16 and then aged back to his prime adult strength by Eric the Red just before Uncanny X-Men #104), and even Wanda’s sixties sort of physique (instead of the ultra-svelte pneumatic women that populate comics since the 80s). All-in-all, some very fine artwork.

Writing-wise, Yost has brought a piece of high-concept sci-fi to the X-universe. The introduction of the mystery of the evolutionaries, the hurtling fight scene right out of the gates, and the neat resolution of the plot challenge of the neo’s all launched this arc strongly. I felt propelled along the story and wanting more of this *big idea*. The dialogue worked, and the characters were mostly honest. Where they weren’t honest (Bobby’s exaggerated quipping in two time periods, Wolverine’s idiotic back-stabbing on the neo and Emma’s inexplicable failure to wake up their best strategist while they’re being attacked), I could see why Yost had chosen to fudge a bit, for dramatic effect, but since I’ve read some pretty flawless books by this writer, I felt he’d cut a couple of corners he didn’t need to.

Astonishing X-Men #37 – Review

By: Daniel Way (writer), Jason Pearson & Sara Pichelli (pencils), Karl Story & Pichelli (inks), Sonia Oback (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: The Astonishing X-Men battle Fin Fang Foom in Tokyo.

What’s Good: Well, the basic part of the story: The X-Men battling Fin Fang Foom in Toyko with all the glittery neon signs is pretty cool.  There’s all the fun tropes of giant monster battles: stuff getting smashed, heroes hiding behind cars from the giant monster, Wolverine jumping on FFF’s back and looking about as big as an ant….  It isn’t real deep, but it’s still kinda fun and there’s promise of more monster battles next month (or whenever this title deigns to drop another issue on us) due to the reveal that the main villain is Mentallo and he has seized Monster Island and is controlling the monsters (including FFF).

It was also nice to see Armor get a little bit of time on the page.  Count me as a big fan of the Whedon Astonishing X-Men where he did a lot to establish Armor as a three-dimensional character.  It never made sense to me why Marvel would have a “name” writer develop a young character, make her viable and then just have her sit on the shelf for 3-4 years, so it’s nice to see her back in action (and with augmented powers to boot).

X-Men #11 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Al Barrionuevo (pencils), Michael Lacombe (inks), Rain Beredo (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters) and Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: A one-shot where Professor X helps Jubilee deal with her vampirism by relating a story of his own past experiences with vampires.

What’s Good: This is a pretty low-commitment issue for a reader that’s easy to pick up even if you don’t know much about current X-events.  If you’ve been following X-Men since it’s launch, you know that the first 6 issues dealt with an attack by vampires on the X-Men’s Utopia headquarters.  For those who claim “nothing ever happens” in superhero comics, the big event from that series was that Jubilee was turned into a vampire.  While her vampirism was dealt with pretty well in the Wolverine and Jubliee miniseries by Kathryn Immonen & Phil Noto, there are probably a lot of fans who didn’t read that miniseries, so it’s nice to see the main X-Men series address this new aspect of a popular character.

Gischler comes up with a pretty nice way to address the issue as we see Professor X reach out to her.  The Professor really works best now when he adopts this more avuncular air (versus bossing people around) and can help the younger mutants with their problems by telling them a story.  In this case, he whips out a story from the 1950’s showing his first dealings with vampires in Africa.  It is a fun little story that (a) reinforces the Professor’s wealth of worldly experience and (b) adds some more foundation to the vampire mega-story that Gischler has been crafting over the last year.  Often these stories where a popular character relates some older story that they never bothered to mention before come off as false — as if I suddenly said to my wife, “Did I ever tell you about the time I ran into vampires in Africa before we met?” — but it really works with Xavier because he is so old.  Imagine an aging grandparent and how many times they were able to whip up some old story that you’d never heard before.  Cyclops can’t tell this story, but Xavier can.

The Barrionuevo/Lacombe art team gets the job done.  I’m not running out to buy original pages from this issue, but everything is as it should be from a story telling standpoint: solid panels that establish new scenes, clear depictions of the action, etc.  Labcombe’s inking gets a little heavy and brushy in places and I think that style works better for 1950’s Africa than 2011 Utopia, but I didn’t have any problems with the art.