Magneto #4 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Javier Fernandez (artist), Jordie Bellaire (color artist)

The Story: Magneto celebrates Memorial Day his own way.

The Review: With a sterling opening arc put to bed, Cullen Bunn’s Magneto now moves into different territory for its fourth issue, providing a one-off examination of where Erik goes, physically and mentally, between battles.

At this point a number of Bunn’s tricks are beginning to make themselves known. Especially only two weeks after the last issue of this series, it’s hard not to notice how many scenes there are of Magneto walking through dark corridors between the two. Likewise, it’s clear that one of the series’ trademarks is its methodical, almost procedural, way of documenting Magneto’s mission, methods, and kills. It does hurt the effect to see these devices called upon again so quickly, but they were effective for a reason.

While the Omega-Sentinels plotline is over, for now, this issue seems to say to its readers that the book will carry on with the same tone and flavor. One thing that Bunn excels at is imbuing his violence with purpose. Every move Magneto makes is calculatedly vicious in a way that very few stories even attempt. I still don’t think Magneto kills “on autopilot”, as an onlooker from issue 1 put it; indeed, it seems to me that it is actually of the utmost importance to him to be present and conscious of each strike and each murder. For Magneto, his power is a fusion of physical ability and focused will.

The dichotomy of these elements is the strongest part of the issue, as a retreat to an old hideaway reminds Magnus of the reasons he fights. The answer is fitting for a holocaust survivor and has a certain charm to it, though it might not be subtle enough for some readers.

X-Force #6 – Review

By Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost (Writers), and Clayton Crain (Artist)

I have to admit, this one surprised me quite a bit. I never thought that Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost would manage to get a satisfying conclusion out of the increasingly convoluted “Angels and Demons” arc, but, lo and behold, they have. While there are a few things keeping X-Force #6 from being truly great, it is easily the best issue yet.

In an effective change of pace, the storyline is framed within a status report given by Wolverine to Cyclops. Long story short, all hell breaks loose at the Purifier base as all the various tensions and plotlines explode into an orgy of violence. Wolverine breaks up a standoff between Risman and Bastion, Archangel goes on a rampage against the choir, X-23 and Warpath kill a lot of Purifiers before facing off with someone changed by Magus, and Rahne stands up to her Purifier father. All of it works extremely well to bring the first arc of the re-launched series to a satisfying and appropriately, open-ended conclusion. That said, I have to acknowledge that are a few gaps in the storytelling that I wish Yost and Kyle would have taken the time to explain. While I won’t spoil anything here, the gaps involve the nature of Magus and transformation of Warren Worthington.

I have to hand it to the writers for changing the storytelling style for this issue. The decision pays off in a big way and allows the few plot holes to be fairly understandable given the context. If I have one complaint, however, it is that Wolverine’s narration is a little bit heavy on the “tough guy” image from time to time. Also, he swears quite a bit (which actually works well in giving the narration a conversational tone) and it made me realize the series would be much better off as a MAX title. Clayton Crain’s artwork (which I’ll get to in a moment) is already shockingly (MAX level) graphic, so why the need for censorship for some commonly used swear words? I know that’s a discussion for another day, but I feel it’s worth bringing up.

Crain’s artwork (see, I told you I would get to it) has never been better. The color palette is still a bit too dark and the characters occasionally look oddly proportioned, but those flaws can’t overshadow how visually compelling the action in this issue is. It is brutal, disturbing, and (oddly enough) beautiful all at the same time. Some of the pages have to be seen to be believed.

I really don’t know how much more I can say. I went into X-Force #6 fearing the worst and came away from it more than pleasantly surprised. If the momentum from this issue can be sustained, X-Force is going to be one series worth keeping an eye on. Action fans and “X” fans, consider this one a must buy. (Grade: B+)

– Kyle Posluszny

White Down to Metal Tuft: A Look at the X-Men’s Angel

Angel - by Alex Ross

Warren Kenneth Worthington III, aka, Angel, has been a mainstay character of the X-Men series since its inception. The spoiled rich kid who was used to getting everything he wanted fleshed out the original five X-Men nicely, not only sharing witticisms and wisecracks with the Beast and Iceman but creating the first love triangle between Jean Grey and Cyclops.

Although there have been many changes to his character over the years, including moving onto other comic adventures in The Defenders and The Champions, it is the reunion of the original X-Men team in X-Factor that changed Warren the most; turning him from jovial playboy to a brooding harbinger of death.

So with the return of this dark personality in the pages of the new X-Force, lets go back to that first life changing episode and understand the depth of Warren’s struggle as The Archangel.

The Mile High Club

Angel in X-Men # 25

“How can I explain to any earthbound being… even a mutant the indescribable joy of flying? This is why I was born to soar… to feel the air racing by my wings!” (X-Men #26)

The original X-Factor series brought together the first students of Xavier’s School to continue the Professor’s dream of helping mutants to control their powers for the betterment of society. The setup was disingenuous, though, as the team posed as a mutant hunting organization while in reality locating new gifted youngsters and taking them under their wing. The entire project was funded by Worthington, with long-time friend Cameron Hodge serving as publicist and lover Candy Southern as financier.

Angel and Iceman - Uncanny X-Men # 289

When the Marauders began to massacre the misshapen mutants known as the Morlocks in the sewers beneath Manhattan, X-Factor sprung into action to save their fellow homo superiors. Tragically, Angel’s wings are savagely pinned to the sewer wall by the energized harpoons of the dully named Harpoon. Warren is eventually saved and returned to X-Factor by Thor who recognizes Angel from his days as an X-man. The ordeal leaves Warren in St. Vincent’s hospital on his deathbed.

Suddenly, Warren’s world begins to fall apart around him. His financing of X-Factor Investigations, the supposed mutant bounty hunters, is openly revealed which raises questions of why a mutant would fund such an organization and launches a government investigation into possible fraud of Worthington Industries shareholders and the public. The only person able to save his business and investments from going under leaves him. And most tragic of all, the only way to save his life is to amputate his gangrenous wings.

X-Factor # 12

“No! I’m the Angel– now and forever! I’d rather die than lose my wings!” Warren replies. Unlike other homo superiors whose powers reside internally and covert to most, the Angel’s mutation are external appendages that exist extraneously from his body. To sever his wings is to cut off his mutant identity. Integral to his ability to be an X-Man and moreover a superhero is the ability to use those wings. To be without them is a kind of poverty, a personal lack of value and ability to recover from it. He is useless and ashamed, and suddenly what he was born to do is no longer a possibility. Therefore, for Warren it is better to die than never feel the airs race beneath his wings.

Furthermore, amongst superheroes flight is a rather unremarkable attribute and more to the point unattributed to any particular appendage. Would Superman fly without his feet? Or the Sentry? Certainly Iron Man or any other technology based superhero could not fly without their devices, but such things can be repaired. Flesh and bone not so much.

Unfortunately, Warren’s supposed friend Cameron Hodge gets a court order to undergo the operation against his will. The surgery leaves Warren emotionally scarred beyond his own comprehension. Trying to recapture that “indescribable” joy of flying, Warren jumps on his personal jet and takes off into the sky… only to blow up in mid-air.

To the Brink of the Apocalypse

The Man in the Mirror- Uncanny X-Men # 289

“It’s all in your self-image. Just because your wings were surgically removed and Apocalypse regrew them into the blades of death is no reason to spend the rest of your life sulking.” (Uncanny X-Men #289)

Thanks to Apocalypse, Warren survived the explosion, orchestrated by Hodge to kill him and make it look like a suicide. The technologically advanced Social Darwinist rebuilds Worthington into his last horseman, Death, and gives him the precious gift of flight once more. But this doesn’t come free and Warren serves as Apocalypses high-flying hand of doom. From his new metal wings he can rain down barrages of blades at his enemies and fly at speeds never reached before.

But he is no longer the heroic figure he once was: inside him burns a seething rage and thirst for blood that is manipulated by the hand of Apocalypse. Together with the other horsemen, Warren will build a new world out of the strong who survive the Pestilence, the War, the Famine, and Death!

That is, until Warren seemingly kills Iceman, breaking free of the evil social architect’s control. Warren takes flight from his friends to regain his senses. Although he escaped Apocalypse’s brainwashing, he cannot escape his rage and seeks vengeance on Hodge who has now kidnapped Candy Southern.

Long ago, Warren walked into a East Village club in New York City to get his mind off of Jean Grey when from behind a pair of hands covered his eyes. “Guess who, Warren!” a voice coys. “Candy Sothern,” he replies, ” the light of my misspent youth!” (X-Men #31). The two catch up on old times and get up to dance when suddenly Warren is called into action by the Professor. He promised her a second date and the two remained friends, business partners, and lovers from that day forward.

Uncanny X-Men # 289

As Warren swoops into save Candy, Hodge murders her. Overcome with feelings of betrayal, hatred, loss, disgust, and most of all, helplessness, Angel uses his new metal wings to slice off Cameron Hodge’s head. The entire ordeal leaves Angel more distressed than ever and it is sometime before he returns to the X-Men at Beast’s provocation.

He has hard time dealing his powers (i.e. deadly wings that act out of his subconscious and a lust for death) his public notoriety because of the X-Factor mess, and the inhuman color of his blue skin. Yet Warren moves on and tries to be the X-Man he was under the new codename– Archangel.

Feathers Stick Together

Although Warren regained his “Angel” persona sometime ago, the return of “Archangel” marks a chilling reminder of what has already traversed:

“What follows can be described only as wanton destruction. And for the source of this horror there is the blank oblivion of unconsciousness. The X-Man known as Archangel sees nothing of the carnage he has wrought. Or more correctly the carnage wrought without his direction by his wings themselves” (Uncanny X-Men #285).

In X-Force Vol. 2, # 4 and 5, Wolfsbane, under the control of the religious mutant-hating Purifiers, rips off Warren’s wings to recover Apocalypse’s technology that will build an army of metal-winged crusaders. The trauma causes Apocalypse’s tech to activate and transform Angel once more into his bloodthirsty alter ego.

What will come of Warren Worthington III now? Will he remain the tragic harbinger of death? Or is there hope that he can regain his angelic persona once more?

Archangel Returns!

Check Out X-Force #6 August 26 to find out.

And check out the classic adventures of the winged wonder in Essential Classic X-Men Vol 1 & 2, Essential X-Factor Vol. 1 & 2, and issues of 285 to 300 of Uncanny X-Men.

– Steven Bari

X-Force #5 – Review

By Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, (Writers) and Clayton Crain (Artist)

The previous issue of X-Force was, in my opinion, the strongest yet. Everything about it seemed to suggest that the series was finally moving in a positive direction as the story, characters, writing, and artwork came together really well. Unfortunately, X-Force #5 isn’t quite as strong as I had hoped, but it does take the story in an interesting direction that I believe will pay off well when the arc concludes next issue.

This issue focuses mostly on the division between Matthew Risman and Bastion, the leaders of the Purifiers. Risman comes to recognize the error of his ways in allowing Bastion to seize control of the Purifiers and plans to take action into his own hands by using the winged-warriors (created last issue). Bastion, meanwhile, continues to manipulate the Purifiers through William Stryker in order to bring about the total destruction of the remaining mutant race. For a Purifier-centric issue, the story works well, but it makes the inclusion of X-Force seem like an afterthought. To be honest, the team doesn’t do a whole lot. Wolfsbane is once again in Purifier captivity while the rest of the team chases down an enraged Archangel and that’s about it! The issue lacks any sense of balance between the two storylines and suffers because of it.

By framing most of the issue around Matthew Risman, readers are given a glimpse into the humanity of some of the religious extremists. When Risman is in control of the narrative, things work extremely well. But I must say that Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost disappoint when it comes to everything else. There are a few solid lines of dialogue, but, as a whole, anything outside of the Purifier storyline feels like filler. In short, the storytelling style works well, but the rest of it is average at best.

Visually, X-Force #5 is a pretty good looking book, but a little bit of light would go a long way. I understand the dark, gritty look and it fits the style of this series extremely well, but sometimes it gets a bit out of control. When the action comes across as more confusing and muddy than kinetic and bloody, it might be time to lighten things up. That said, the larger scenes are quite impressive and the character work continues to improve so I can’t come down too hard on Clayton Crain.

Overall I feel that X-Force #5 presents an equal measure of the good and bad aspects of this series. It is a decent, but slightly below-average read. (Grade: C-)

-Kyle Posluszny

X-Force Special: Ain’t No Dog #1 – Review

By Charlie Houston (Writer), Jefte Palo (Artist), and Lee Loughridge (Colorist) Jason Aaron (Writer), Werther Dell’Edera (Penciler), Antonio Fuso (Inker), and Andrew Crossley (Colorist)

I am just going to cut right to the chase with this review and say that I have two major complaints about this book.

So here it goes.

This one-shot feels completely unnecessary and, in some ways, incomplete. It’s unnecessary because we already have more than enough Wolverine stories to last the rest of the year both in stores and in the pipeline. While not a total loss, there really is no reason for the Ain’t No Dog tale to even exist. As for the other major complaint, the book feels incomplete because it fails to include a story for X-23, the third and, in many ways, most interesting character of the current X-Force team. Instead of something about X-23, we get another Wolverine story and, to be honest, that just rubbed me the wrong way. With those things said, however, taken as stand alone stories, you could do worse than what’s offered in this book.

Ain’t No Dog is about a Cyclops directed mission for Wolverine to retrieve a computer chip that is implanted inside a person of interest. Needless to say, the “all too easy” capture of the person is a trap and Wolverine must kill a lot of people before figuring out a way to get the computer chip. A simple, brutal story that, as I said, is quite unnecessary. Unlike something like Kick-Ass, which uses violence as a means to tell a story, the insane amount of violence here seems forced. This is shocking violence just to have some red on the page because it sells books and goes well with the X-Force style of violence.

Charlie Houston does a decent enough job setting up and executing the story, even making an interesting point about the phrase “ain’t no dog,” but there is nothing that makes it memorable or unique. As for the art, Jefte Palo draws some ugly, gritty characters (his Cyclops reminded me of Steve Buscemi) and then turns the violence up to eleven. At times there is some well done, though unnecessary, gore and Lee Loughridge does some great work with the bright red blood and dark shadows presented on nearly every page, but taken as a whole, the art is pretty mediocre.

Hunters and Killers is definitely the better of the two stories, though it is predictable and brings little to the character of Warpath that readers of the X-Force series wouldn’t already know. In a nutshell, Hunters and Killers is a tale about Warpath contemplating the difference between a hunter and a killer in relation to his Indian heritage while he goes about stalking a bear. As with his recent treatment of Wolverine during the Get Mystique arc, Jason Aaron does a nice job bringing some depth to Warpath through the inner monologue that drives the story. He brings a philosophic touch to the concept of what a hunt is and what results. It is pretty compelling stuff, even if the ending of the tale can be seen from a mile away. As for the art, the team does a nice job staging the hunt, though there really wasn’t anything memorable about the presentation. This is a more intimate tale and the art reflects that well.

Overall, I can’t help but feel that this X-Force special will only satisfy certain types of people. Wolverine and Warpath fans will get a decent enough fix and those looking for some comic book carnage will find themselves satisfied with the mass bloodletting in the Wolverine story, but all the rest can easily skip this book. There is nothing in this book that adds to the current X-Force storyline, the art isn’t strong enough to elevate the basic tales, and there is no X-23. If you haven’t noticed, I was looking for a lot more than I got. (Grade C-)

-Kyle Posluszny

X-Force #3 – Review

By Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost (Writers) and Clayton Crain (Artist)

After what has been an extremely rough start for the X-Force re-launch, part three of the “Angels and Demons” storyline hints that the series is starting to find its footing. With that said, however, I must mention that issue #3 is very much a Purifier story as opposed to an X-Force story. Those looking for an “X fix” should look elsewhere as the Purifiers take front and center so we can get a glimpse into Bastion’s master plan to eliminate the remaining mutants (here’s a quick tip: catch up on your anti-mutant history/continuity). What we do get of the X-Force team revolves around Warpath’s mindset and the rescue of Wolfsbane (or Rahne Sinclair, if you prefer).

X-Force #3 works well because Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost have finally established a direction and plot that goes beyond the initial “X characters resorting to graphic violence on a rescue/revenge mission.” The Purifiers are established as a real threat and are shown to be dealing with the politics that have been brought about by the return of Bastion. They have a plan in motion that must be dealt with and, with that, we have a storyline in place that looks to be well worth reading. The inner dialogue of Warpath is well written and to the point, giving both the character and the team some much needed depth. This issue also brings to light some of the tension that exists between the various X characters as a result of the Divided We Stand storyline thread.

Clayton Crain’s dark and gritty artwork continues to be a mixed bag of sorts. I feel the art fits the story perfectly, but some of the exaggerated character features need to be toned down a bit. While there is definite improvement in that area with this issue, a little more refinement would be welcome. Also, a little bit of light from time to time would go a long way, as some scenes suffer from confusing action or direction.

All in all, I found myself surprised by the quality of this new issue of X-Force. The plot seems to be moving forward, the dialogue is improving, and the artwork is getting closer to being just right. One final note I must mention is that the cover of this issue is quite deceiving, as there is very little action and Rahne is never shown in her wolf form. (Grade: C)

-Kyle Posluszny