Review: This Week in X-Books #100 (Nonspoilers/Spoilers)

Wow - the big one zero zero. There were times I wasn't sure I'd make
it this far. ;) Now if only I could do the big holofoil cover and
stuff for the special anniversary, I'd feel all... er... comic-y. So
just imagine a big picture of, um, me, I guess, in holofoil on the
cover of this review. There ya go. Perfect. 

So for this super-special 100th issue of This Week in X-Books we
have... um... well, four books to review. Sorry, I already pulled out
all the stops on the mental-foil cover. You'll have to cope.  This
time around we have two of the newest titles - Emma Frost and Sentinel
- along with Uncanny X-Men and X-Statix. Quite a variety, but how do
they stack up?

Before we get into that, there is one other addition to this review -
I've added a "Side Notes" section at the bottom of the spoiler section
that may or may not make it into each weekly review after this point.
This consists of books from the current or recent weeks that aren't
X-Book related, but that I wanted to cover anyhow, for good or ill.
This time around it only consists of one book, but we'll see how it
goes.

Anyhow, about those reviews...

*****

Emma Frost #4 - "Higher Learning 4 of 6" - Bollers / Green / Ketcham

Hrm. Another issue that I'm a bit torn on.

There's some good stuff here, although at quite a bit of a turn from
the last few issues - it truly feels like another story arc honestly,
despite some of the plots carrying on from last time. 

At any rate, the character stuff is pretty good for the most part. At
least, with the main character, showing how she became what she is
today, and a few of the side characters. Then again, one of the
problems with the book is some of the other characters - charicatures
really, there for moving the plot in certain directions and to be the
Blatantly Bad Guys. 

As for the storyline itself, it's fairly low-key but it gets the job
done, having a few neat twists along the way. That said, while it's
entertaining enough, it's nothing to write home about, either. (To be
fair though, no one can really expect every series to be extraordinary
with every issue.) I was going to add that I'm not exactly part of
their target market since I *thought* this was targeted at younger
female readers... but given the PSR+ rating on it again, I'm really
not sure what to think at this point.

The main sticking point for me though is the fact that really, this
book isn't selling me on the fact that this story absolutely needed to
be told. It's entertaining at points, and certainly solid enough for
most aspects of the writing and artwork - but it still feels more like
someone decided we needed an Emma Frost book telling her past for some
reason, and this is the result. 

Oh, that and the cover. Gee, do "subtly" sexual much, Horn?

Recommendation: An entertaining enough read, but not spectacular, and
probably not for everyone. Especially not those liking lots of action.

*****

Sentinel #8 - "No Hero Part 2" - McKeevers / UDON

This book, too, is moving along fairly nicely now. And this story too
works pretty well, with nice art - but dips down in quality a little
bit at the end. So again, I'm feeling mostly positive, but am torn.

Then again, I guess nothing is perfect. *le sigh*.

To be more specific, in this book too many of the strengths are in the
characters - in the way they're put together, feeling like real
characters, in their interactions - even in the secondary characters
that just show up incidentally that seem to have some depth to them.
Much like in Emma Frost the plots thus far aren't groundbreaking, but
do have a bit more in the way of action to them, and are still
entertaining and take twists that you don't expect. 

As strong as many of the characters are though, in parts of the book
we do devolve to the "oh, let's dip into the 'overplayed stereotypes'
bin and see what we can come up with" method of character
construction. Which is especially jarring frankly when compared to the
rest of the book. And still reminds me a little too much of other
works (more details to come below in the spoiler section, naturally).

Still, on the whole my view of the book (on the whole and with this
issue in particular) is positive.

Recommendation: Surprisingly good in general, although with not much
tying it in to the X-Books on the whole. Still worth a try if you like
big robots, or just good nostalgic books about what it's like to be a
young teen. (Or is that pre-teen?)

*****

Uncanny X-Men #432 - " The Draco Part IV of VI" - Austen / Tan

While I've tended to like Austen on Uncanny better than a lot of
folks, I've admitted in the past that he really needs to work on his
antagonists. I'd like to repeat that here, and square it. No, cube it.

While I had hopes for this story arc, and indeed some of the new
characters have been at least somewhat intriguing and some of the
character work has been great, I'm liking the general direction of the
plot itself less and less. While I'm all for going back and trying to
make some sense out of past dropped plot threads and so on, as long as
it's well done.... well, you see the problem here. Going for the
extremely obvious and really trite, as well as ignoring other
well-established parts of continuity in the process, does not come
across to me as "well done."

As I referenced above, some of the other character work is well-done
enough, and still intriguing, helping to raise this storyarc above
levels it might otherwise reach. But I am truly getting less and less
enchanted with the main story, which is, well, the bulk of the book.

As if that weren't bad enough, the art continues to not work well at
all. It could be good enough on its own, at places - but for one thing
it's an awkward blend of styles that frankly don't go all that well
together. For another, it continues to be very unclear just what is
going on in various places, and explanations have to come from the
text just to realize what's going on in some very simple cases. Even
then, sometimes, it's not clear. Another bad point - the art makes the
melodramatic sections even MORE so (and not in a good way - something
that Austen's style DEFINITELY does not need). 

Speaking of which, and going along with the Emma Frost review - what
is WITH the cover? Yeah, we really need pictures drawn of scantily
clad jailbait (or close to it) with unrealistic proportions, and
frankly looking like she's utterly misshapen.

Recommendation: I'm frankly cool on this. The character work in some
cases may make it worthwhile to those who like such things, but in
general the plot is going in annoying places during this arc, in
general.

*****

X-Statix #13 - "Back from the Dead Part 1" - Milligan / Allred

Well, it's X-Statix. What can really be said?

Here we have the first issue of what was originally supposed to be
Princess Di's "resurrection," and which couldn't go forward with that
idea. And it is coloring my reading a bit, honestly. Or at least, I'm
finding myself looking at various pages and trying to figure out what
they were *supposed* to be like, and how things might have gone. So in
some ways I'm having trouble doing a normal review on the face of the
story as it stands. I'm really wondering in fact if it was a good idea
to go forward with this story at all, if it couldn't be done as
originally planned. (Then again I didn't think going forward with the
original story was a great idea either. *shrugs* So there ya go.)

Other than the comparison to the original version of the story (as
imagined) and what we actually got, the main thing that strikes my
mind is that the book is trying to pretty much give up any pretense of
being within the actual Marvel Universe, even while it's apparently
trying to bring in some of the other Marvel Universe elements.
Bizarre. But this book is playing it more and more just for the
extreme cynicism angle, trying less and less to be in any way
realistic. And just like pure comedy books, this sort of thing doesn't
work well in a shared, "straight" universe.

As far as my personal tastes go, I'm also annoyed by the way that a
need for extreme cynicism gets in the way of the story itself. There
are points where the cynical angles are more out of the way and
subtler, which tend to be the better issues, but this one has them out
in full force. And frankly makes me feel like I'm being asked "how
DARE you be a part of even remotely mainstream American Culture?"

Recommendation: Not for everyone - those who like a lot of cynicism
and less realism with their comics will probably enjoy it, but if
that's really not your thing, this book's probably not for you.

*****









And now the












Spoiler






(Should I book a halftime spectacular here? 







Oh wait, I'm mixing my media...)





Space








*****

Emma Frost #4 - "Higher Learning 4 of 6" - Bollers / Green / Ketcham

Okay, so we take a sudden turn from the previous story arc, mostly
focusing on Emma in school and her interactons with her teacher to -
uh, Emma completely out of school and on vacation with her family.
Slight bit of a jarring departure in the middle of what's supposed to
be one story arc. I can see how it's connected in some ways, with the
ongoing battle with her father - but still feeling more like a new
story arc in general to me at least. (Which helps bolster my opinion
that we'd be better off in general just skipping the story arc titles
and sticking to individual titles, future Trades be damned.)

Anyhow, it's interesting to see how Emma's getting a bit more bold and
world-wise due to what she learns through her powers, and how she's
starting to become quite the manipulator. A few things still seem out
of place, though. Like Emma not actually hating her father - yet -
after he's been written as more or less a characiture of everything
*to* hate? And the way everything falls into place in such pat ways -
Emma happening to see her father with his "associate," out in the open
where any of them are bound to see him - just happening to bump into a
guy that is connected to Christian - Emma on the trail of her father
just happening to find Christian at just the right time ... it's all a
bit much.

And I repeat - can we PLEASE start to get some decent covers on this
book?


*****

Sentinel #8 - "No Hero Part 2" - McKeevers / UDON

Yeah yeah, it's a nice read in general, and it's good to see the
incidental characters in need of a rescue getting a bit of depth as
well. But can we please please start to stray away from the "oo, I'm a
gung-ho officer of the military, SHOOT NOW damnit that's an order"
type of character for a while? Especially when they're given no
further depth? How many times do we really need an iteration on "But
Sarge..." "I said fire! That's an order!"??

This is also following a little too faithfully in the footsteps of The
Iron Giant in some ways, as I've mentioned before. The whole gung-ho
officer deal just strengthens that, and the more I compare the two the
more it distracts me from actually enjoying this story for what it is.

So the general direction of the story as set out last time is
interesting, as are some of the aspects of this issue - but I really
wish more work could have been done on the conflict this time around.

*****

Uncanny X-Men #432 - " The Draco Part IV of VI" - Austen / Tan

Okay okay - I admit, part of my not liking the direction of this arc
is probably due to me being especially fond of Nightcrawler. But that
aside, do we REALLY need to make Nightcrawler not an unfortunate
mutant, but instead part mutant, part... er... demon, for lack of a
better term? Oh please. What's next, Hellstrom shows up to duel Kurt
to the death over the title Son-of-Satan? And Margali was in on it
from the start and didn't find him by the river at all? Urgh.

And what's with some of the stuff being said here? What, Kurt suddenly
is just finding out that yes, Mystique really is his real mother,
despite that having been revealed ages ago? And... um... didn't the
Marvel Universe already have at least one or two versions of Satan?
Belasco, and Hellstrom's father? (Or were they one and the same? I've
gotten a bit lost). Why am I suddenly imagining a bunch of Satan
figures lining up in some extra dimensional locations at one of those
"take a number please" machines?

There are other little annoyances - like why does Northstar decide to
switch costumes in the middle of holding someone back? Why does Kurt
suddenly have to be related to Abyss (who that *was* in last issue,
not that we could really tell) and other characters? And who is Kiwi
Black, and is he someone we're already supposed to know? Oh, and why
can't we get a more... subtle villain, than someone who utterly
destroys someone for just questioning his truthtelling?

Maybe some of these questions will be answered for the better in the
remaining issues of the arc, but I'm doubting it.

*****

X-Statix #13 - "Back from the Dead Part 1" - Milligan / Allred

And yet another case where I've said a lot of what I had to say above,
and am a bit stumped what to add below.

I'd say that I'm interested in reading what Paul O'Brien and other
Europeans might have to say on this comic, if frankly I didn't know
that the UK (or at least parts that I've seen) like to bash the
Eurotrash even more than everyone else. Still, things like the
Eurotrash team, the policy of killing everyone in sight as a European
way of keeping the lids on a media problem - all of it is going more
and more over the top, and further away from the actual semi-realistic
Marvel Universe. (I know, "semi-realistic" sounds odd to say about
super-hero titles, but you know what I mean.) Which is odd in general,
when they then bring Spiderman into the mix at the end.  What the
hell?

As for the story itself - well, it's not really sucking me in. I guess
we'll have to wait and see just where it's going. And compare in the
process just where it might have gone as originally planned. As it
stands, it feels like a story that's pretty much lost its raison
d'etre.

*****

Side Notes:

And here I take my stab at a quick blurb (or not so quick blurb) about
a couple other books that came out in the past week that I thought
worthy of the space. Or, in this case, one book. This section might
expand in the future, or just disappear, but we'll try it out and see
how it goes. Due to my being so bogged down in past weeks, this time
I'm only covering one book from a couple weeks ago that I wanted to
cover at the time. I also fully intended to cover the latest issue of
Lucifer here - but that issue has also been swallowed up by the Piles
That Are My Papers, and gleefully devoured. And although I'd normally
try to wing it without the physical issue in front of me, I honestly
now can't even remember what it is that I wanted to say about the
issue in the first place. Argh.

But at any rate, even one issue is a start, right?

*****

A Distant Soil #36 - Coleen Doran

This is definitely one of the less mainstream books that I buy, and I
realize that it's definitely not for everyone. In fact, if the thought
of two guys being in love or getting physical squicks you, don't even
bother to apply.

In fact there's a lot to really raise the eyebrows here at times - the
relationship between one of the main characters and a very young girl
can have some odd overtones at times, to say the least. Not to mention
other "relationships" between various characters, not all of them
willing. So if you want to consider this comic, be prepared to be
uncomfortable about various parts.

That said, I still enjoy this series - in the very rare times that an
issue actually ships. The cast of characters is quite varied, to say
the least - and while I'm not always the biggest fan of
ultra-high-tech societies or the sci-fi end of the spectrum, here it's
developed in a way a lot more like the fantasy that I do like.

This series doesn't really consist of storyarcs, but instead is one
long complex story, and may not always be extremely welcoming to new
readers. This issue however (probably due to a longer hiatus than
usual) is more of a "catch-up-the-new-readers" book, one of the
reasons that I'm mentioning it here. 

The story to this point involves a very... well... seriously messed up
alien culture developed mentally and technologically near the point of
godhood, really, and their "Avatar," almost a sacred figure to the
culture. This holy figure in the recent past has decided to subtly
rebel, and try to bring the entire culture down around his ears from
within - only to have things disrupted entirely when a half-breed
child born on earth taps into the power of the Avatar, something that
should be accessable only by one being at any given point. In the
process of trying to save her and use her powers, a rag-tag band of
very odd individuals is cobbled together and goes off to fight the
good fight - only to have everything go horribly wrong.

I frankly can't really put my finger just on why I like this storyline
- hell, maybe part of it is just that I started reading it probably
around a decade ago, and want to see how it turns out. Maybe the
characters are just the right sort to make me feel empathic. Maybe
it's the sense of voyeurism that you get peering into the very
seriously twisted culture of the Ovnan. Part of it may even be the
art, when I usually tend to like to buy for the writing. It's a bit
sappy at times, and very complex, but I still can't get enough.

Except that I have to, because the issues tend to come out at even a
more glacial pace than Frank Quitely's artwork. *sigh*

*****

And with the disappearance of Lucifer from my pile, that leaves me
with... well, nothing left to cover this week! So that does it for
now. It looks like next week brings us more New Mutants and X-Treme
X-Men, as well as the second issue of X-Statix in as many weeks. They
really have to stop doing that.

So until that time - ciao!