X-Force 10, Punisher 11

X-Force 10


With Pete Wisdom's advice to watch out for the bugs, Cable's X-Force team recognizes that they're being watched. They're intent to make the surveillance work for them, though, and Dr. Nemesis has a plan to do it. Thanks to Psylocke's keen noticing skills, she has recognized that something has been going on at the X-Mansion, that there's been some unseen entity there, and MeMe has learned which toilet the entity uses, allowing them to teleport the mutant, who Nemesis suspects can only be remembered when seen, to their base. The mutant is ForgetMeNot, from Si Spurrier's (among others') X-MEN LEGACY 300. Nemesis intends to use a power suppressor to make ForgetMeNot, who doesn't have a bug watching him because Volga doesn't know/remember he exists, appear to Volga's systems, at which point Volga will send a bug after him and Nemesis will put a tracker on that bug before removing ForgetMeNot's suppressor and making the bug and Volga forget he was there, sending the bug back to Volga's base. After a long time trying to catch ForgetMeNot (and many viewings of a video Nemesis recorded to fill the team in on ForgetMeNot's presence, which of course is forgotten every time they lose sight of him), Nemesis is finally able to talk to him and reveal the plan, which ForgetMeNot, who absolutely hates these guys after spending some time in their presence, agrees to help with. Unfortunately, when the bug is dispatched, it doesn't forget him when the suppressor is removed. Fantomex knocks Nemesis out, reveals to ForgetMeNot that he knew the whole time he was there (the benefit of his advanced brain) and promptly kills the mutant, causing everyone to forget he was there and sending the bug back to Volga.

Boy, this book is something else. It's often so smart and so self-aware and so much fun, all at the same time. This is a perfect example of that as the ultimate plot and plan is extremely compelling and fun, as is the inclusion of Spurrier creation ForgetMeNot, and as we get a great characterization of everyone here. I wrote a summary that was altogether much longer than I wanted it to be and still couldn't convey everything I wanted to say about this book. There are so many great things happening in this issue between great looks at the viciousness of X-Force and of the broken people who have been chosen by Cable. This is a book that uses its space remarkably well, dragging very little while getting so much across. Excellent stuff. And it's great to see Tan Eng Huat and Craig Yeung once more teamed up with Si Spurrier (as well as the great X-MEN LEGACY homage cover by Rock-He Kim).

Total Score: 5/5


Punisher 11

Punisher gets out of the prison after learning what he wanted to learn for both himself and for Black Widow, who worked out a deal with him on the way to the prison to try to learn information from one of the inmates. After breaking out, Frank calls on former partner Rachel Cole-Alves to pick him up. As they talk on the ride back, he admits that he's thinking about hanging it up, feeling too old and broken for everything that's happening. She tells him how bad things have gotten in LA, even indicating that the Dos Soles are stronger than ever and looking for political sway (which they are). She convinces him by asking if maybe the Dos Soles and the American commandos trying to kill him are connected. Meanwhile, Officer Stone has taken the Punisher route to exact justice on the thugs who put Lou in a coma.

Edmondson, who has really been getting back to Punisher's roots, goes a little deeper into Frank's personality as he shows a rare moment of "maybe I'm done" from Frank. He also does a lot to show the effect Punisher has had in the last few years, obviously showing what Officer Stone has been inspired to do but also revisiting Rachel Cole-Alves, who last was investigated for killing a cop as Punisher's partner and for whom he took the fall, drawing the ire of the Avengers in last year's (I think, I was definitely doing the blog at that point) PUNISHER WAR ZONE. Edmondson is doing a lot of world-building here as we're seeing so much of what's happening in LA and with the Dos Soles looking to extend their reach. Another strong issue with some really good Mitch Gerads art.

Total Score: 4/5

Amazing Spider-Man 6, X-Force 9

Amazing Spider-Man 6

Black Cat unmasks Spider-Man on live TV but Jameson inadvertently blocks the shot the entire time in a swing and a miss at humor. Silk manages to bust Peter out of the fight before any lasting harm can come of it but they know now to be prepared for Electro and Black Cat at every turn, which is good because the villains, on the sort-of coerced advice of Sajani, plan an attack on Parker Industries' big reveal of their new Electro-depowering tech. Everything at the press conference goes crazy but the ultimate result is a massive explosion that falls on Parker Industries and Spider-Man's rep, though it does indeed manage to depower Electro. Black Cat escapes and finds herself back in the good graces of a slew of underling supervillains, pledging to become the queen of the thieves, while Silk gets an internship with a news station in hopes of finding more about her family, and Peter feels rejuvenated by the success of the Electro device and believes he's in a good place with his work and his friends Sajani and Anna Maria, who are whispering even now about undermining some of his work.

I've already voiced some disapproval and concern about this book as it has focused on a pair of villains who just come off as crazy and well out of their own character, particularly Black Cat (I think Electro has been slightly better and a little more interesting). Cat has oscillated between petty criminal and vigilante for some time now so this full U-turn to hardcore crime boss because she's been wronged continues to seem really far-fetched. It may seem overkill to keep harping on that but right now that's what the entire story hinges itself on so it's impossible to overlook or to overstate its significance. What's more, the writing has been exposition heavy and the repeated attempts at jokes and humor have come off forced and mostly weak. I think there are interesting nuggets here and there (Sajani's sort-of betrayal, Anna Maria as sort-of sidekick to Spider-Man, Peter's determination to "heal" supervillains, etc.) but they're hard to find right now beneath the problems of the book.

Total Score: 2/5


X-Force 9

X-Force has been revealed in the desert and, despite Dr. Nemesis' hopes for a dialogue, a fight breaks out between X-Force and Pete Wisdom's team. Meanwhile, Agent Mel, the leader of the soldiers, is taken right from under their noses by the guerrilla Quaddees they were chasing in the first place, which, along with the insane power the seemingly least powerful soldier has, serves to end the fight and open a dialogue, to Nemesis' satisfaction. The soldiers in this unit have volunteered for superpowers, essentially, that will kill them all within a year but that will aid Volga until then. Now aware of their situation and the stakes, they agree to accompany X-Force to find their missing commander. When the team finds her, they're overwhelmed by powered-up Quaddees. Psylocke and Meme manage to bust through and read the captured Mel's mind, learning about the experiments and the power of the soldiers. Unfortunately, there seems to be no reasonable way out of this scenario so X-Force is x-forced to stick to Mel's plan, which involves her own team self-destructing, more or less, to take out the Quaddees and to stop their own powers from getting out into the work. Wisdom leads his team back home, though he warns Cable first about the bugs around them as Volga's spies (which we saw just two issues or so ago).

Things remain a little confusing this issue, as they were last issue, but Spurrier's managed to clear up enough and to keep a lot of the banter entertaining enough to allow us to proceed with the story. It's a true in media res story overall as we only get bits and pieces of the soldiers' mission, only the parts we need to know as they pertain to X-Force, which makes for a bit of a confusing issue but still allows us to come out the other side with a slightly better sense of our team and of Volga's capabilities, not hurt by Wisdom's reveal. It's a particularly strong Dr. Nemesis issue (a character Spurrier unabashedly loves, and rightfully so) as his unending disdain for superheroes finds a real home with this team. Some strong writing and fun character moments (one of the constant joys of this series is watching Fantomex repeatedly assert he is the best as whatever he's doing only to be proven wrong immediately, a joke that never seems to get old) carry this one.

Total Score: 4/5

All-New X-Men 29, Amazing X-Men 9, X-Force 7

All-New X-Men 29
Bendis (w) and Immonen (p) and Von Grawbadger (i) and Gracia w/Keith (c) and Petit (l)

X-23 hits Xavier Jr. from behind, breaking his grip on the Stepford Cuckoos and releasing everyone, including his own Brotherhood, from his hold. As he attempts to regain control or to get the X-Men to kill one another, Jean Grey and the Stepfords team to keep him at bay while Laura keeps Raze busy. Eventually, after much banter, the X-Men capture Xavier and Raze, sending them to SHIELD with the explicit direction that they keep strong power dampeners and sedatives on the pair, while the innocent "members" of the Brotherhood are sent back to their own time. STILL, somehow, worst-character Maria Hill allows Xavier to write a message to himself in the future, warning them that this plan didn't work either (presumably she didn't know that's what he'd write, but come on). Also, Warren takes X-23 out on something of a date.

The cyclical and continuous nature of comics means that you almost never see a door explicitly closed. Even when, say, Si Spurrier erases David Haller from the Marvel Universe entire, there's almost always some sort of backdoor. Spurrier didn't really leave one but he acknowledged that someone could certainly come along and change things back anyhow. Still, this "enemies of the future can't be defeated until their dead" sort of backdoor is a dangerous and cynical one, one that allows a seemingly infinite amount of second chances. What might be more dangerous (and perhaps more cynical from me) is that I'm already totally sick of Xavier Jr. and his story. I was sick of it in BATTLE OF THE ATOM. Also Maria Hill continues to be terrible simply to move the story forward and now X-23 and Warren are a thing, apparently. I feel like this is all a new coat of paint on an obviously old story (guys, it's not even THAT old).

Total Score: 2/5


Amazing X-Men 9
Yost and Kyle (w) and Barberi (p) and Wong, Meikis, and Barberi (i) and Rosenberg (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Wendigo curse is spreading, having already enveloped an entire town, and no one is quite sure how to handle it. The US military wants to keep it across the border, though they're eventually outvoted by Thor and Captain America. Meanwhile, officials are suggesting people move south, hopefully keeping the plague behind them. The X-Men, of course, are trying to find Wolverine in all of this. Eventually they manage it, tracking Wolverine and his newfound allies Talisman and Puck, but they're still heavily outmatched by the power and numbers of the Wendigo. Talisman thinks, given enough time to perform the spell, she can change the Wendigo back to their true human form. The X-Men circle her to give her the time but the fight has proven too much for Wolverine, who collapses, turning into a Wendigo himself, and attacks Talisman.

Yost and Kyle, in their second issue of this young series and of this arc, keep the action up here, showing a true Wendigo infestation and making sure to illustrate just how devastating it is. It's so big that two prime Avengers make an appearance in an X-Men book. There's a bit of characterization mixed in with all of the action and the tone, with each character getting a little bit of time in the spotlight, at least long enough to establish a bit about his or her personality. It's a strong issue though I think it suffers a little from a strange desire to jump around in time and to cast the scale of the disaster against a running news broadcast about it. It stretches the issue a bit longer than it needs to be, slowing things where you don't want anything to be slowed. Still a strong issue and another good look at the new creative team.

Total Score: 4/5


X-Force 7
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a and c) and Sabino (l)

X-Force has the closest thing they're likely to get to a day off and they're spending it at home, mostly hitting on one another. Psylocke flirts clumsily with the guaranteed one-night-stand Cable but retracts it later when he goes a little too fundamentalist for her liking, MeMe pulls Fantomex into her world, using the Nantes in his head to tell him that she's bored and maybe they could hook up at some time, and Marrow is convinced that Doc Nemesis wants to sleep with her, even as he explains to her all the ways she's broken. Meanwhile, a past Cable had sent Domino to follow a money trail that would point to Volga's investors which pits her directly against Volga in his new robotic body even as Cable forgets she's out there. The issue ends darkly as Volga (who has been spying on X-Force) captures Domino and as Fantomex reveals that he's been killing Cable the last few days to make himself feel more important.

I talk frequently about the occasional need for a series to take a slight break, something to reset the action and slow things down a bit. X-FORCE, unwilling to really take time off, keeps the pace and the darkness off by introducing frequent Cable collaborator Domino to the series and immediately having Cable's "die everyday" revelation have some serious repercussions. Cable going fundamentalist by promising that X-Force will not cease and will even spy on possible threats to make sure their goals are achieved is paralleled by Volga making a speech to Domino that says more or less the same things Cable is, even ending with a pair of panels that put Cable and Volga's faces side-by-side. METAPHOR.

Total Score: 5/5  

X-Force 9, Wolverine 9

X-Force 6
Spurrier (w) and J. Molina (p) and Yeung (i) and Rosenberg (c) and Petit (l)

Volga's thrown Cable out the window and subsequently exploded him and now has the team trapped and even MeMe, our narrator in this issue, rather trapped in a computer. She seems to be taking Cable's death particularly hard but takes the time to give us a brief rundown on what happened in Alexandria. She had been there, working for Volga, and saw the bomb explode, aiming for mutants, and had seen Cable and Hope affected. Back with Volga in the present, the villain prepares to start experimenting on the surviving team just as Cable and Dr. Nemesis teleport into the room, revealing that Cable has been sending copies of himself into fights as the real Cable, poisoned during the bomb, is in stasis and continually sends his copies out to die while receiving the memories and information they gain in his headband. They escape Volga's grasp and Psylocke again tells MeMe that she has to reveal to Cable who she really is...Hope, piggybacking on the real but brain dead MeMe's powers.

What do I have to tell you people to get you to read this book? Or are you all doing it already? Let me know, okay? Because seriously, it's so great. I explained this whole series to someone today and, even with my babbling summarization (familiar with those?), the book sounded AWESOME. To me, at least. I think the audience I was telling it to was genuinely interested but, you know, babbling. Really great issue and how crazy is it that the reveal of the bomb's real impact and that Cable's been sending copies of himself out into the world while he slowly dies at home AREN'T the biggest reveals. Check this series out.

Total Score: 5/5


Wolverine 9
Cornell (w) and Anka (a) and Curiel (c) and Petit (l)

Wolverine continues to chat with Death while Iron Fist and Shang-Chi fight the Hand outside. Wolverine learns from Death that he's still rather afraid of dying but that he also still has honor and pride and whatever else. He also learns that Sabretooth has Pinch, her daughter, and Lost Boy and he's ready for a rematch.

THE DEATH OF WOLVERINE is looking more and more like a rebranding than an actual, literal death. There's talk in this issue about what a name means and what his name is and other things of that vein. Death also scoffs at the idea she told him he'd die in three months. ANYWAY, I still can't get behind this book. The talk with Death as an actual person continues to not be that compelling to me, particularly as Death just espouses super basic psychology kind of stuff that should absolutely blow no one's mind. Also Rose makes another appearance and his dumb rose tattoo does the same. Hoping his healing power comes back just to get rid of that.

Total Score: 2/5

SUPER QUICK REVIEWS: Amazing X-Men 7, Wolverine and the X-Men 4, All-New X-Factor 8

I was trying not to get into SQRs until later (Wednesday and Thursday I tend to review the most Avengers/X-Men related books or the biggest releases or what-have-you) but then I felt KINDA like there was no other way to do this one? Look, let's just get into it.

Amazing X-Men 7
K. Immonen (w) and Medina (p) and Vlasco (i) and Rosenberg (c) and Caramagna (l)

Firestar and Iceman are sent to the local mini-mart to pick up snacks for "the big game" only to find themselves hurled into an interstellar negotiation as Spider-Man shows up tracking a baby that's just appeared in their cart. After some fighting (plenty of which has to do with resentment about Doc Ock), it's explained that the baby is actually an alien that serves as the only trade-bait that Spider-Man has to re-acquire the mascot for one of the teams in "the big game" that was taken by the aliens for reasons. After much fighting and chasing and squabbling and other actions, the aliens come back down and Spider-Man successfully works out the deal and returns the mascot, a goat, to the game while Firestar and Iceman return to the X-Mansion.

I really love a lot of the stuff I've seen from Kathryn Immonen (I will defend her JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY run with my very LIFE) but this book borders on absolutely inexplicable. There are fun moments throughout, certainly enough to make for an enjoyable enough read but it sometimes does seem to get a little bogged down under the weight of so much joke-making (also, Spider-Man kind of comes off like a jerk, which I suppose is not sacrilege in an X-MEN title). The plot is admittedly thin with plenty of references to "the big game" that don't particularly add weight. Still, it's hard to mistake the tone of this issue as more a fun issue and a throwback to the old Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon so it's also hard to judge this one harshly because I do think it hits its mark, it's just not a mark I'd be looking to buy.

Total Score: 3/5


Wolverine and the X-Men 4
Latour (w) and Asrar (a) and Silva (c) and Cowles (l)

While reaching out psychically for help, Quentin was discovered by the Cuckoos and co and Cyclops gave the order to pull him to their base. He throws a little simulated psychic fight at him to see how trustworthy he is and he fails pretty miserably but Cyclops decides to listen anyway, hearing about what Quentin saw but unable to offer much advice about the right way to handle news of the Phoenix or Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Wolverine and Storm continue to push forth in their fight to Edan Younge before Wolverine sends Storm back to the school, knowing they'll need her help to stop Faithful John, who is currently pushing through the X-Mansion and convincing some of the students that Evan will be Apocalypse. Preparing to enter the fight to protect Evan, though, is Fantomex, who has secreted Evan to the World and emerges out of it to defend the mansion.

There's a lot happening here and a lot of it is interesting but some of the Younge stuff starts to get a little convoluted in the midst of everything else that's happening. It feels rather like there's just one too many stories happening here (which could, of course, all be skillfully linked together when the arc is said and done) and that one seems compelling but doesn't feel like it fits yet. Obviously Younge was the catalyst for all this but it's still such a weird and disjointed story that it's almost distracting from the other stories which are just as if not more compelling. Still, it's a pretty solid issue and Mahmud Asrar has some pretty strong art to go with it. I also rather like Latour's Quentin Quire, a character I tend not to like.

Total Score: 4/5


All-New X-Factor 8
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c) and Petit (l)

Cypher has had all the water drained from his body and the team is a bit startled by it. As things very slowly piece themselves together and the situation starts to go crazy as Dakei calls all the cops on the mutant intruders, the team convinces Georgia to do what she can to restore the incredibly weak Cypher. She's never done it before but she vows to try. They bring her past all of the guards and to the kitchen where she can get some water to transfer into Cypher. She eventually succeeds as the team yells at Dakei for berating and hating mutants while his daughter was one and then, as things reach a boiling point, Harrison Snow shows up and has a private meeting with Dakei (who he apparently knows) and the two emerge having come to the decision that Snow will take Georgia.

The tone of this book jumps around so quickly that it's hard to really latch on to it. Sometimes it's tense while they hope for the best for Cypher but then it turns into strange humor but then it jumps into mutant-rights outrage but then it shifts to almost casual conversation. Not helping anything is the inability to lock down an age for Georgia, who occasionally acts like a five-year-old and occasionally acts like a ten-year-old and occasionally acts like a fifteen-year-old. I think we're supposed to get that she's incredibly sheltered (various characters tell us that repeatedly) but I've met some incredibly sheltered people in my life and they still manage to act a consistent age. The humor in the book occasionally works but it also occasionally feels really out of place, which is sometimes pointed out but sometimes ignored. A book that cannot settle on a tone is a book that has some fundamental problems. Hopefully this one straightens it out next time.

Total Score: 3/5

All-New X-Men 27, X-Force 5

All-New X-Men 27
Bendis (w) and Immonen (p) and Von Grawbadger (i) and Gracia (c) and Petit (l)

The Evil X-Men Brotherhood (the ones from the future who messed with everything in BATTLE OF THE ATOM and who need a better distinguishing name) have found the Xavier School and begun to attack, with Raze, the shapeshifting son of Mystique and Wolverine (it would seem), posing as a wounded X-23 and stabbing the healer first. Things get crazier as future Jean Grey and Charles, the psychic son of Mystique (posing, at the time, as Moira MacTaggert) and Xavier, launch a psychic attack on everyone at the school, even taking control of one of the Cuckoos to keep their power up. Only past Jean Grey, Emma Frost, and Cyclops remain hidden from the attack. When the evil brotherhood starts to get a location on young Jean, Emma knocks her out to keep them all protected, though it sends Jean into a state where Charles can talk to and threaten her.

Story
I'm doing everything I can to see this as a new story, something removed from BATTLE OF THE ATOM which I so loathed. It is extremely difficult to do that, though, as everything still seems to be linked to BOTA because that's the only time these characters have appeared. As such, the story right now is limited and we can only assume this group is here because they didn't like the way things turned out in the aftermath of BOTA and seek to rectify it (or to send the ANXM back to the past. There's more history given for Charles and Raze though not really enough yet to explain why they're both so mad, though that's surely coming. This issue then is dedicated mostly to the siege on the Xavier School and kind of makes you think "hey, maybe these kids aren't getting enough training in?" Okay, maybe that's not fair, they're facing two Mystique-mothered children with Wolverine and Xavier all mixed in there and another Jean Grey, on top of some others. Still, we'll have to wait a little longer before we can get a full sense of this story. 4/5

Character
The biggest character moments are for the enemies, as we do see a bit of flashback history for Charles and Raze. There's a bit here and there for other characters through the dialogue, but they seem to be our focus right now. Cyclops' team's healer, Christopher Muse (I had to look his name up because I do not have any sort of connection to these kids), gets a teeny bit of characterization and story as he freaks out over dying (understandable) and as we learn that he can heal himself, even if it's unconsciously. Still, not really an issue for characterization of our main team but it's kind of weird to me that this book has shifted so much into being a book about both the O5 team and Cyclops' team when it had originally been the O5 team and where Cyclops' team already has a book. 3/5

Writing
Still a bit of back-and-forth dialogue which, as ever, feels incredibly out of place in big and tense fight scenes. There are times to let off the gas with dialogue and a big fight scene always seems like one of them. There's also opportunity to keep everyone suspicious and paranoid and tense and Bendis touches on it a bit but I think the jokes and the quips kind of get in the way of that tone really establishing, which is a shame because the fight, for however forced it kinda feels, is still an interesting one as it develops (it's hard not to view the convenience of a team that has two sons of Mystique, one with Wolverine DNA and one with Xavier DNA, fairly cynically but that doesn't mean the fight still can't be interesting). 3/5

Art
I always like Stuart Immonen's art and I've come to really appreciate Marte Gracia's colors. I think the art really helps the book in a lot of ways and kind of draws the eye away from any problems in the story. 5/5

Miscellaneous
I don't know if you guys could tell but I'm having a lot of trouble separating this from BOTA.

Total Score: 3/5


X-Force 5
Spurrier (w) and J. Molina (a+c) and Sabino (l)

X-Force is prepped for an attack on Volga after getting all the information they could out of the dead Aggasiz. It turns out Aggasiz, a mutant who could travel through other dimensions, had worked for Volga stealing all sorts of weapons-tech from other universes in exchange for his kidnapped family's safety. The most problematic tech he stole was a sort of enhanced super soldier serum, which gave people incredible powers but also faded after a certain amount of time, killing the soldiers who used it. For Volga, that's not so much a problem, as he realizes country's will still use the serum and just come back for more when their batch dies (because he's truly horrible). This is, it seems, also what happened to Marrow (though she, clearly, didn't die) and, as she attacks Volga's compound, she wonders why she remembers so little of her experience. However, as her narrative rattles on and she continues referencing whoever she's talking to as "baby," it dons on her that she was pregnant before Alexandria and that they killed her baby. Psylocke manages to figure out what's happening right as it happens and makes sure Fantomex and Cable are covered as Marrow lashes out, wrecking through Volga's troops. Volga himself finally comes out and talks to Marrow, revealing that she knew the risks going in but that she volunteered in the hopes of getting her powers back. With Marrow out of the fight (now paralyzed with countless emotions) Volga's men knock out Psylocke and Fantomex and take all three with them as Volga reveals that they injected Cable with the soldier serum at Alexandria too and wonders why he hasn't died yet. It's not so big a problem, though, since he has a way to expedite the process and affixes it to Cable before tossing him off his HQ, allowing him to explode below while Volga ends up with the three other mutants.

Story
Good god, there's a lot happening here. Spurrier's a master at seeding little bits here and there throughout an arc and then watching it all hit home in one big reveal. It's Marrow's turn for narrative again this time and we get to see the pieces all start unraveling as her narrative leads us right to the fight and X-Force's loss. There's so much happening as we learn about how Marrow and Cable have powers again and we learn a good deal more about Volga (who is, by his own admission, a "comedy Russian bad guy") and the story of our team propels to an entirely new place. It's a pretty dark book and it's a pretty deep story and it's rather a thrill to watch it all come together (or come apart, as the case may be). 5/5

Character
Plenty is explained about a couple of our characters, which would be probably enough to boost this character score up by itself, but X-FORCE goes further than that. Each of these guys have such a distinct personality and we get a chance to see them all in their distinct roles, as Cable commands and leads, Marrow fights until the shocking news and then fights even harder and then shuts down, and Psylocke does what she can to keep everything moving the right way. The team knew about Marrow's baby and knew that the memories hadn't been removed from her, she'd repressed them because she couldn't deal with them. Psylocke tries to calm Marrow down when she learns and then tries to keep Volga from revealing the full truth to Marrow because she knows the impact it will have. Lots happening with every character, even with the noticeably quieter Fantomex, who continues reeling from last issue's crushing defeat wherein he started to see that maybe he wasn't the best there ever was at everything. Here he stays quieter, claiming to have a headache, and finds himself even more miffed as his bullets fail to kill the soldiers. Volga gets tons of characterization and it's totally over the top but he recognizes how over the top it is so Spurrier gets his chance to combat that accusation before it can land. Solid stuff all around, just an incredible book and we're only five issues in. 5/5

Writing
I have to think that all the writing I've done on this post already has told enough about the writing of this issue. I'll just mention that the pacing is really great, starting a little slower as they wait to attack, then instantly getting into it but in the same sort of balanced way that traditional superhero fights go until the revelation about Marrow's baby, which brings everything to a halt before really escalating the pace and, again, dropping it when Volga makes his big reveal. Between that and the wonderful Marrow narrative, Spurrier's got us right in his pocket. 5/5

Art
Jorge Molina steps in to do the art on this one and I think the change works pretty well, though I've liked Rock-He Kim's art (which is, I think, probably exactly what I said last issue, which also featured Molina on art). His Marrow is a little softer, even prettier, so that when she bones out (there's got to be a better description than that for her power) it's more abrupt and more fearsome. It's particularly effective in this issue when she also withdraws back into herself and we can see how small and devastated she is. Really strong stuff. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Geez, what a book.

Total Score: 5/5

Guys

We didn't even talk about how X-FORCE 4 started with Fantomex chasing a cat-related person who didn't want anything to do with him in an issue called "Le Pew." I was laughing out loud even before the name came, then it just got better.

This week's picks

Hey everyone, sorry for the no-post yesterday. I scheduled myself to have Saturday open so I could, if I chose, review the free comic book day books yesterday. Instead, I chose not to. Still, hopefully you guys all went and had a good time at your LCS. Now on to the top picks of the week!


Amazing Spider-Man 1

Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, and Edgar Delgado return to the world of Peter Parker and very quickly show us that they're ready to pick up right where they left off. With a solid lead story and a number of fun and interesting shorter stories to follow it, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 1 gives enough book and enough excitement to justify its $5.99 price tag but I couldn't help wondering this whole week about what I talked about at such length in my little miscellaneous section in the main review (linked to above). I still can't help but think that putting this book out for the regular $3.99, even if you sell it at a loss, encourages a ton more people to pick up this book and erases questions of "is the book worth the money?" and replaces it with "this book was well worth $3.99." ESPECIALLY for a big launch the week of FCBD. Get your new readers, dummies.

Avengers 28

I like it when things come to a head in a book in a way I don't expect. For all that I've loved the Illuminati and wondered about who would find out about the incursions next, I never jumped to Banner (though I very clearly should have, considering who comprises the Illuminati as is) and I never thought about all of the repercussions that would have. Hickman did something pretty clever by shell-gaming us with Captain America, kicked out of the Illuminati and memory erased while we sit and wonder when that's going to backfire on them. While we were looking at Cap, there was Hulk with the biggest of all axes to grind with this team. Hickman brings out the tension and the anger beautifully in this book before deflating it with a few well-placed Tony words. Really strong.

X-Force 4

I love Fantomex and I love what Spurrier had teased about Fantomex and I love issues that fundamentally change the way we look at a character but stay, somehow, in the realm of what we know of a character. That was a tough sentence to get through. ANYWAY, this issue has a bit of everything. Fantomex struggles with his programmed self-worth/self-assuredness as he can't help but recognize the skills of the people around him. Between that and the building sense of doubt around EVA and the explanation of the white hot room, Spurrier continues to bring out the very best (which is sometimes the very worst) in characters and really knows how to get them to a place where he can use them to tell the most effective stories. Great work all around.

All-New X-Men 26, X-Force 4

All-New X-Men 26
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen (p) and Von Grawbadger (i) and Gracia (c) and Petit (l)

Regular age Scott goes to console Jean after she has a nightmare wherein she destroys her team with the Phoenix Force. After a talk that gets a little weird but that Scott pretty firmly shuts down before telling Jean that Emma will be working with her to control her powers, Scott is rebuked by Kitty for being alone in a room with Jean. Later, X-23 decides to leave, setting out before anyone can stop her. She comes across Angel, out for a morning fly, and reveals that she's leaving because young Scott didn't say goodbye before he left. She storms off but runs across someone posing to be young Scott who attacks her. She crawls back to the Xavier School claiming that someone here must be a shapeshifter as the bad future X-Men from BATTLE OF THE ATOM walk away.

Story
Young Scott is gone, Jean is interested in old Scott, and Kitty is mad. The issue ends with the cliffhanger ending promising some story coming but for now, most of this issue is dedicated to minor story advancements and characterization. There's also growing concern for both Hank McCoys out there as young Hank tries to piece everything together and as Scott worries for older Hank given the state of his recent failures (bringing the young X-Men here and not being able to send them back). On the heels of a few little crossover events, this issue serves to slow things down a bit, which is occasionally necessary. 3/5

Character
I'm pretty thoroughly on record talking about my feelings about this book and about the young X-Men's return. I think the stories haven't been compelling enough to justify the massive shift in...well, everything and I don't think the writing has been strong enough to really drive this book to any new territory. However, it's the characters that I'm hating the most. On top of the back-and-forth dialogue, many of these characters have come off as simply obnoxious, starting with the always-talking Bobby, moving to the ever-bland Scott, and dragging down the suddenly intolerable Jean Grey and the all-over-the-place Kitty Pryde. It's made it hard for me to like any of these characters and I can't care about their problems if I don't like them. In fact, I rather hate the people who have been the big focuses so far (particularly Kitty and Jean, which is especially hard because I really like Kitty normally and I am, at worst, ambivalent about Jean). This issue does no better, concerning itself some more with romances and sniping. 1/5

Writing
Plenty of back-and-forth here which starts to grate but it makes more sense here, in something of a resting story issue than in the midst of combat or tense situations. I have less trouble buying this type of dialogue when it's in this sort of situation because there's a little more time to let these conversations happen. I still find it grating after some time (it happens pretty quickly in the Scott-Jean talk but it's okay later except that Bobby is a moron and that gets a little hard to keep following) but it's at least more applicable here. 3/5

Art
I like Stuart Immonen's art plenty. I like the way he draws these characters and I like the ways they express themselves. There are a couple of double-page spreads in here that I don't quite understand because nothing particularly drastic happens in the page. It just feels a little like they have to fill a DPS quota on this book and so they can come in anywhere. Still, not bad art overall. 4/5

Miscellaneous
Judging the character of this book in this new scale is very difficult for me because I actually have to think about why I'm feeling what I'm feeling (which isn't new to a lot of my reviews) but more than that, I have to consider whether to grade the characters based on I find them, based on their long history, or based on whether they fit into what Bendis has already written in this series. For all intents and purposes, these are his characters right now and so he's writing them mostly consistently to his vision for them. Can I grade harshly if he's being consistent? I, as you saw, decided that yes, I can. I'm all for writers changing things about characters. I get it. It's been a while since these characters were created. Times change, stories change, characters need to change too. What I'm less okay with is little personality changes here and there that don't fit with their pasts and also seem to have been borne of nothing. In this case, the fact that Kitty has become intolerable as the leader of this young team could be because she's taken on a new responsibility and she needs to put on her teacher voice, as it were. But it doesn't really come off that way; instead, it comes off feeling like she's just crappy to everyone. I'm happy to judge things like this harshly.

Total score: 2/5


X-Force 4
Spurrier (w) and Molina (a and c) and Sabino (l)

X-Force is after a French superpowered guy named Le Necrogateur, a character who has the ability to read the minds of dead people. It's a useful little trait and it's one that's particularly necessary for the team now as they try to figure out what information the now-dead Antonio Aggasiz had on Volga. Fantomex leads the charge to try to lure Le Necrogateur out using another superpowered person (don't know if these guys are heroes, villains, mutants, etc. so it's hard to label more specifically) named Anaïs who has the ability to talk to cats and more catlike abilities. The chase goes rather badly for Fantomex who has to watch as everyone around him begins to outperform him which comes at odds with his programmed-in belief that he's the best there is at everything. He goes into his own mind to meet with EVA where she parses out the trouble he's been having and recommends, because it's possible she's not exactly in her right mind right now, that he simply kill anyone who may be better than him in anything.

Story
The story here has to do with the Volga storyline but it has more to do with the story of Fantomex, which is a story well worth diving into right now. Spurrier does a phenomenal job meshing story with character here as Fantomex's journey of self-discovery is inextricably tied to the actual journey they're going on and to the future of this series. It's very strong and it's very interesting and it's getting into some pretty scary territory for the team. 5/5

Character
It's no secret that I love Fantomex but it's hard to argue that he's one of the more complex characters out there today. Even without a long and sweeping history like some of these characters have, his origin and his powers are some of the more hard-to-define powers out there. That wasn't necessarily made easier by the fact this his three brains were split into three different characters and each brain controlled separate powers. Spurrier promised big things out of Fantomex during this series and he's already delivering pretty heavily, immediately diving into his created French accent (he reveals here that he can't speak French) and his built-in superiority complex and everything else. Fantomex physically can't imagine anything bigger and more important than himself and Spurrier is using that to show a man in serious conflict with himself. It's a little heartbreaking and it turns dark very quickly, even amidst a few really funny scenes. 5/5

Writing
The story bounces back and forth between the chase of Anaïs and Fantomex's talk with EVA, meaning that their dialogue carries throughout the entire issue and both narrates what's happened while also explaining its relevance. It doesn't hit you over the head with any of it but it works really well in terms of showing us everything that's happening. It's good writing and the talk with EVA both serves as a useful device to advance the plot and makes for a compelling plot line all its own. Fantomex himself brings up early in their talk that he's been avoiding her because he's not sure what the brain-split has done to EVA and where her loyalties lie. Those questions certainly persist through the issue as she asserts herself and eventually recommends that the sane option would be to make himself the best there is by killing everyone else. The tone of the issue is fantastic, switching between somewhat light-hearted and extremely dark as the issue wraps up. Brilliantly done. 5/5

Art
Jorge Molina taps in for Rock-He Kim on this issue and does an admirable job. I've liked Kim's work a lot but I think putting Molina on the Fantomex-centric issue ends up paying off because the book is a little lighter and a little more kinetic and Molina's more cartoonish style works really well for it. It's not necessarily easy to make Fantomex particularly expressive considering his face-covering mask but Molina puts a lot of emotion in the eyes and it's what we need amidst all the drama going on inside his mind. On top of that, letterer Joe Sabino helps with a lot of expressive type. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Really fun book and another really good issue. While we're on the subject, I re-read X-FORCE 3 last night and BOY that was a good issue. I don't know if I gushed about it enough last time. Spurrier is writing some of the best and most interesting characters out there right now.

Total score: 5/5

X-Men 13, Uncanny X-Men 20, X-Force 3

X-Men 13
Wood (w) and C. Mann (p) and C. Mann and S. Mann (i) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

With a moment to rest following Arkea's defeat, the team ponders where they've been and where they're going. Psylocke encourages Storm to officially make them a team and own up to being its leader, Rachel Grey tries to get over her crush on John Sublime (which may turn into a revenge on Sublime), Monet pushes herself harder to eliminate the weakness she found against the Sisterhood, and Jubilee tries to find her place in the school with Shogo. They're thrust into their new mission, though, as a professional bad guy (that may as well be his description) claiming to be Shogo's father begins to attack the school, promising that everyone will die unless he gets his hands on the boy.

Story
Though we're entering quickly into the new BLOODLINES storyline and this bad guy who goes by the name "The Future," this is meant to act more as a downtime issue. The action doesn't kick in until about halfway through as it's more important here to understand what the team is going through. It's a needed break in the action but, as with all serial media, it can't last. The Future is maybe a little weak so far in his actual background (he really does just seem like a generic really bad guy, though that may be developed further) but he does seem already to be an impressive adversary. 4/5

Character
With a break in the action, the character takes an important role and Wood does a good job taking advantage of it here. Psylocke wants Storm to be the Ororo that gets up in people's faces and that doesn't back down and they have an exchange that works really well. Still not totally sold on Rachel Grey in this book but I think Wood can use her as a good foil to Storm. Monet's determination is right on the money and Jubilee's restlessness towards not understanding her new role is solid. 4/5

Writing
Pretty solid writing throughout. The story comes across well and Wood does a good job switching between characters and even shifting the tone when the action starts to pick up. 5/5

Art
Clay Mann draws really impressive people and some pretty good action, though there's not a lot here. Still, the range from Ororo and Storm's talk to Monet and Rockslide's punching to Jubilee's dancing is a pretty wide range and Mann handles it well. 5/5

Miscellaneous
A first issue of a new arc is hard, particularly one following an arc that was so long. I think Wood and company gave just the right amount of downtime here before diving into the new story. Still not totally sold on the Future (also his name is the Future). This issue also has a little mini-story at the end by Wood and artist Phil Briones called BROMO-SUPERIOR where Hellion, Rockslide, Anole, and Broo go to train in the Danger Room on the heels of the Future's first attack on the Jean Grey School.

Total score: 4/5


Uncanny X-Men 20
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Faucher, Holdredge, Mendoza, Olazaba, and Vey (i) and Bachalo (c) and Caramagna (l)

After the attack in Chicago, Scott decides to check in with Maria Hill personally, using the Stepfords to get into SHIELD unnoticed and ask his questions of her. They search her mind, to which she submits willingly, and find that she also believes that SHIELD could be behind the Sentinel attacks but knows little more (though she has an attraction to Scott because Bendis). Scott and the Stepfords leave and, back at base, realize that whoever is targeting them must be using Cerebro technology to do it. The list of people who can use Cerebro tech is very short and Scott narrows in on Hank McCoy. He and Magik pay Hank a visit at the Jean Grey School but are quickly found by SHIELD and attacked.

Story
Scott's war continues just as Mystique and Sabretooth continue their fight with SHIELD, Mystique still posing as Dazzler. It's hard to really get in the head of some of these characters because I'll likely never face the persecution and fear on these guys but I find it hard to buy that Scott would even feel the need to check on Hank. They weakly try to explain it all away by saying that it's probably not him but who knows, he certainly hates Scott these days, but it's hard to see even the most persecuted and feared man believing that Hank McCoy would employ Sentinels. Also, Maria Hill having a crush on Scott is INFURIATING. Bendis can't go two minutes without introducing another love interest for so many characters. 4/5

Character
Scott's character is so often in flux these days that it's hard to kind of pinpoint if he's in character or not. It's also hard to tell about Maria Hill because she's sometimes savvy and crafty and sometimes totally off-the-handle obsessed with one aspect of her job. I don't think these problems are this issue's, I think these are line problems at Marvel. Still, I'm going to lump the score for Maria Hill's crush on Scott into here so... 2/5

Writing
The tone works for this issue as things jump around pretty quickly to disorient the reader. In addition, it does feel like it's coming from a darker place right now, which is how things surrounding Scott should feel. The Maria Hill attraction thing (no, I'm not going to get over it and I HATE Maria Hill) feels a little out of place amidst all the serious Sentinel things going on. 4/5

Art
I like Chris Bachalo's art a lot and I think he does an interesting job matching tone here. There are times where I think that his art is almost too cartoony for how dark this tries to go but overall I think he manages to balance it out with a seriousness that matches Scott's concerns and the war designation Scott is so eager to give out. Also, I will admit that I'm still not really onboard with a lot of these costume designs. 4/5

Miscellaneous
I really don't think that my aversion to the Maria Hill-Scott Summers thing is out of place here. I think Hill is a stronger character if she's not obsessed with Summers based in part out of some schoolgirl crush on him. On top of that, it is one of my frequent complaints about Bendis that he tries to overload with love triangles and romances that I feel tend to bog things down. Don't get me wrong; there are romances and love triangles elsewhere throughout comics and every other sort of media, but we don't need it in every single comic.

Total score: 3/5


X-Force 3
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a) and Sabino (l)

X-FORCE needs to find Volga, their suspect for the bombing at Alexandria. Psylocke combs Cerebro to find Volga but settles for finding people who are thinking about Volga, honing in on one mutant in particular, a teleporter named Antonio Aggasiz who had escaped but was again captured by Volga and terrified of him. The team travels to Brazil only to find that many mutants are being held there because their home countries wanted them secreted away and punished for being mutants. With guards keeping an eye on Aggasiz, the other inmates ask to be let out of their cells to help take down the guards. Cable accepts their help but Psylocke refuses to let them become killers and puts everyone to sleep while she goes in and kills all the guards. She wakes the team but before they can get anything from Aggasiz, Volga himself appears in some sort of energy projection and kills the teleporter.

Story
The plot thickens as Volga seems to have some sort of powers though it had seemed for all intents and purposes previously that he was just a regular human. In addition, the look at the rendition of these mutants is as dark as anything else we've seen pertaining to these mutants and really helps illustrate the sort of conditions mutants live in more than fights with various supervillains could. 5/5

Character
Psylocke narrates this issue though her narration is far more sparse than the previous two issues from Cable and Marrow's perspectives. Instead, she puts her thoughts on her sleeve this time out, snapping at Marrow for calling her ability and methods into question and putting everyone to sleep before admitting to her team that she sought out X-Force, unlike the recruitment of the others, because she can't stand to be away from the killing. It's dark but it's really well done and we get a couple hints at more interesting developments down the road as she reveals she knows why everyone else joined up. Something interesting also happening with Marrow as her language centers do, as Psylocke threatened, seem to be on the fritz. 5/5

Writing
A really good comic book will more or less have this "writing" section covered based on the "story" and "character" sections because the plot, tone, and characters will mesh so well that I'll have nothing to add. Such seems to be the case here as Spurrier is showing us the world that Cable fears is out there already in this darker issue. 5/5

Art
I wasn't sure how I liked Rock-He Kim's art when the initial preview art for the series came out. Much like so many books with a steady artist, though, it's grown on me and come to match the tone so inextricably that I can't imagine another way it could be illustrated (though I saw preview pages recently for an issue done by another artist so I guess I find out). 5/5

Miscellaneous
The team is starting to come together here and the closer look at Psylocke really helps to establish some of the things Spurrier wants established. In this case, she shines a light on Marrow (who helps her own case by talking so much this issue) and on Fantomex (there's a great moment when she corrects his faux French and calls him a fraud but then later reveals that he's joined with the team because he needs help and won't ask for it). Even MeMe has a nice couple moments here. And her name is actually MeMe and not Meme. Who knew? Such is the flaw of writing in all capital letters all the time.

Total score: 5/5

X-Force 2, X-Men Legacy 300

X-Force 2
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a and c)

Cable is adamant about uniting mutants in terms of seeing everyone as one people as opposed to their separate factions. In that hope, he contacts every individual faction he can (including Wolverine and Storm at the Jean Grey School, Mystique wherever Mystique's at leading her villains, Magneto wherever Magneto's at, Cyclops at the Xavier School, Polaris at X-Factor, and Havok with the Avengers) to tell them about the recent attacks to mutants and about the new mutant they've found, who he and his team have dubbed Meme. Everyone he talks to is very reluctant to actually care about his information about the war they're fighting and the idea that the mutant race needs to really take care of its own, even after he reveals that Meme is just one in a line of people who seemingly have been experimented on and whose powers have been tested and synthesized. Of course, it seems like both Hope and Marrow are members of that group with Marrow being particularly a strange case as she was depowered on M-Day. The key for Cable and his X-Force now is to track down the person responsible for the events at Alexandria. Cable goes to Fiqh, a higher-up in Saudi intelligence and strikes a deal; Cable and his team will kill someone in his way and he'll give them information. The team succeeds, giving Fiqh a direct line to the head of his agency. He happily gives up the information he promised, leaving Cable and his team with a look at Yevgeny-Malevitch Volga, a billionaire with the means to destroy Alexandria.

Another really compelling issue. I think this one is a little heavier than the last, covering multiple locations and giving a harder-to-follow running narration from Cable instead of Marrow this time. Still, it's a more worthwhile read for how deep it gets. Like in issue one, there are mysteries peeking in from the corners here and ones that you already know will be driving points later down the road but are secondary to the missions now. It's a lot of very cool stuff and Spurrier has very clearly defined the sort of story this one is going to be and the sort of parameters driving the team. I think that Cable being so determined to make the mutants see themselves as one race is really interesting and a really smart move that hasn't really been done before. It's been touched on in the past, particularly after M-Day and with the X-Men's move to Utopia but it's never been on this sort of scale, where Cable so desperately wants everyone involved. The characters are showing a lot of personality and the story certainly has legs. I think this one is going to be another one that builds its world first and then really takes off, like Spurrier did in X-MEN LEGACY, though I'd be surprised if it took quite as long here. Great stuff.

X-Men Legacy 300
Spurrier, M. Carey, and Gage (w) and Huat, Kurth, Sandoval, Yeung, A. Martinez, and Tarragona (a) and Villarrubia, Rosenberg, and Arreola (c)

A young woman with serious injuries to her face has appeared at the Jean Grey School and subsequently been trapped by one of the defense measures surrounding the school: a fence that sucks you in and keeps you trapped more and more the more you want to get into the school. She's trapped pretty badly and none of the X-Men appear to be on hand to help her except one, a mutant man named ForgetMeNot. ForgetMeNot explains that he is an X-Man but is one who is almost entirely unknown because his power is one that makes anyone not focused on him forget about him entirely (not unlike the Silence from Doctor Who but, you know, he's a good guy). The girl explains that she came to the school in the hopes that the X-Men, who she always loved, would accept her although she's not a mutant because, after a sexual attack from a man in her town, her entire home life has pushed her away. However, there's apparently no way to get out of this gate. ForgetMeNot decides to tell her a story to take her mind off how much she wants to get in, something that will hopefully release her. So he tells her a couple of stories, including one about his efforts saving enemy soldiers, or at least giving dying ones some brief moments of peace, when the X-Men were at Fortress X, one about Professor X being the kind of guy who set his watch to remind him about ForgetMeNot every hour so someone knew he was always there, and one about trying to get Weapon Omega and Mimic to take his powers after Professor X died so that he could be noticed at last. The lesson of the stories end up being, essentially, that you are what you are and you are what the past has made you but the key is to do something with it that matters, to live the life you have and make the best of it. Eventually the wall traps ForgetMeNot, who Beast apparently forgot when he programmed the defenses, and frees the girl, allowing her to escape with the lesson learned but forgetting about ForgetMeNot.

It's a solid frame story and the sort of story that makes you go "ahhh, clever" as you start to get the gist of the idea. ForgetMeNot is the sort of perfect character for a retrospective and sweet tale like this one, one that requires an observer from X-Men history but one who is decidedly separate from it. It's like dropping the Watcher in something like this, but a Watcher who is human and therefore more complex. The character and the issue are also impressively tailored to fit the themes of this long and storied series. While ForgetMeNot only interacts briefly with Professor X and never with, say, Rogue or Legion, he spends a long time dealing with Weapon Omega and Mimic, who have powers rather similar to Rogue's and who had spent a lot of time with Rogue in their most recent appearance, and the entire key to the issue is about being forgotten as a character who had never before existed, like a sort of opposite Legion. There's a lot to like about the oversized issue and it's certainly worth a read as long as you're not looking for something that will contribute to a larger story or a larger world and rather looking for a standalone and very introspective issue like so many of these style books tend to be.

Uncanny X-Men 18, Wolverine and the X-Men 1

Uncanny X-Men 18
Bendis (w) and Rudy (a) and Staples (c)

Scott's X-Men have figured out that the O5 X-Men and Kitty are missing and, when they find a piece of Shi'ar weaponry, they piece things together awfully quickly. Then we look back a couple weeks ago to when Illyana brought Kitty to the Xavier School so she could talk to Scott before bringing the rest of the kids there. And, of course, she tries to kill Scott before Scott explains to her how much he hates himself and so she shouldn't kill him because then she'll hate herself. A week later, she brings her team. Scott has an awkward exchange with Jean and then an awkward exchange with Scott and then it's the present and they're gone and they have to decide if they want to find a spaceship and go after them or if they hope for the best.

I want to preface what I'm about to say by noting that I totally understand why the X-Men who didn't side with Scott feel the way they feel about the death of Charles Xavier. I get their anger, I get their sense of betrayal, I get their confusion, I get their sadness, I get their loss, I get it. That said, I am sick to death of former friends prepared to kill Scott. On top of that, I don't believe Kitty Pryde, heart and soul of so many X-Men teams, would legitimately consider cold-blooded revenge assassination. Overall though, I'm just sick of seeing it. I know it hasn't been that long since Xavier died but I don't need to see everyone try to assassinate Scott for it, particularly in a world where people get taken over by cosmic entities or bad guys or whatever else ALL THE TIME (I think Wolverine has a more real gripe which is that he was fighting very firmly on the side of "don't let the Phoenix come to Earth," which is different than just "Xavier is dead because of you." He also had his own problems with Cyclops before that so...). And it's been apparently like, I don't know, a month since Xavier died in this Universe. Bendis claims, through Scott, that Kitty was trapped in space only a year ago, meaning that just about every significant thing with the X-Men over the last five to ten years has happened in the span of one year. Marvel time is totally messed up; it's the result of wanting to keep characters from aging out of usefulness while still trying to maintain a timeline over decades and decades of backlog. That's why most people don't try to draw attention to it. Here, though, Bendis wants to create his own continuity, trying firmly to set Kitty's time trapped in a space bullet into a real timeline and, personal gripe, getting in a useless reference to the fact that Kitty's favorite band is the Beatles (BOLD STATEMENT). Look, what I'm trying to say is I'm mad I have to complain about all this stuff again when I could be talking about what I did and didn't like about Marco Rudy's really interesting art in this issue. There's a lot of stuff I liked about it and a lot I didn't like and now, look at that, we're out of time. SORRY EVERYONE.

Wolverine and the X-Men 1
Latour (w) and Asrar (a) and Silva (c)

The latest class has graduated from the Jean Grey School but don't think that means the X-Men are about to let Quentin Quire out of their sight. Instead, they've made him a teaching assistant, a disastrous idea motivated by the fact that the older version of him appeared last year as a new Phoenix. The first day of summer session starts with a disaster as Rockslide, who didn't graduate with the rest of his classmates, causes a ruckus and Storm has to get involved, blaming Quentin for things getting out of control. They fight, with students like Rockslide and Hellion also getting a piece, and Quentin storms off. Meanwhile, Beast is up in space with a couple of other students and Wolverine is fighting his way through the Block, an inter dimensional prison Fantomex has set up, to get to its owner. When he eventually finds Fantomex, he tries to convince him to become a teacher at the school, even going so far as to bringing Evan, Kid Apocalypse and adopted nephew/pet project of Fantomex, with him. Fantomex refuses but who knows if other events will force him into action, particularly as, back at the Jean Grey School, an image of the Phoenix has appeared on every screen available.

Like with Aaron's run (which ended, you may forget, just one week ago), this one already has a strong focus on the students of the Jean Grey School or, perhaps more accurately, on Quentin Quire. Aside from the teen drama and the problems at the school and everything else, though, there is a real threat lurking somewhere on the corners of things. There are questions here and there (like why Wolverine has decided to let most of the staff go on vacation at such a seemingly crucial time or what the plan with Quentin, who doesn't respond well to adult pressures or manipulation, will be going forward) and obviously Latour is swinging for the fences right out of the gate (I think I'm mixing my metaphors here) as he introduces the Phoenix as a possible villain again immediately. We'll have to see where this one goes and how it gets there before I can really judge it. Too early, my friends, still just too early.

X-Men Legacy 24, X-Force 1

X-Men Legacy 24
Spurrier (w) and Huat and Yeung (a) and Villarrubia (c)

My plan, right, was to lead Wednesday off with AVENGERS and SECRET AVENGERS, as I tend to put Avengers titles out first if I have them. Scheduling forced my hand, though, and had me lead with X-MEN LEGACY, the end of my favorite book of the year, and X-FORCE, the start of what I hope will be a favorite (I'm writing this before I read that one). I think, given the impact of these two stories (and particularly this one), it's the right call to highlight these books as early as I am, middle of the day on a release day, but it also makes me more wary of spoilers. I've toyed, going back and forth, with having reviews that wholly summarize the book and having reviews that vaguely point at things and reviews that are more log lines with analysis of something I refuse to define. I've more or less settled on fully summarization, leaving out some of the finer details to allow potential readers the chance to find those out for themselves.

There's no room for that here.

This book is not only totally spoiler-laden, it's maybe the most incredible story I've read in comics since Gillen's JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY or the Winter Soldier creation. It's meaningful, it's wonderful, and it, above all else, knows exactly what it is. I refuse to spoil it here and I refuse especially to do so on a Wednesday, when plenty of people won't even have a chance to get to it. All I'll do is advise you to go out, buy this book, buy any copy of X-MEN LEGACY you can find, and absorb it all. Drink it all in. As Spurrier says in the traditional final letter to the audience, the book is "a title, a character, a creative team and above all a vibe so bloodymindedly unlike its fellows." If it's not for you, it's not for you. But it's absolutely been for me and it's absolutely been something to watch. It's an incredible departure from any other superhero comic in the way that YOUNG AVENGERS played with the medium and the art form as a whole or the way HAWKEYE insists on not being about superheroes. It's something worth seeing even if it's not what you're looking for. Please take note of it. I'll end this not-quite-review with more of Spurrier's words:

There will be some, I think, angered by these last few pages, on the grounds that a tale's "importance" can only be weighed according to some grand impact on its Universe. I understand but disagree with that view. Instead I wouldn't have chosen quite such a perversely bittersweet ending if I didn't think it the best way to emphasize a very important point: even when nothing else has changed, when all the explodo and punching seems to have been for nothing, it's the lesson learnt - even the merest echo of it - that renders the journey valuable. Our memories remain.

X-Force 1
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a and c)

Cable has assembled Psylocke and formerly-powered Marrow to be a part of his new mutant strike team, a "dirty tricks crew" for mutant nation. The reasoning behind this one is more firm than the reasoning behind the most recent couple of X-Force teams, one brought together by threat and one brought together to prevent disasters Cable foresaw. This one is here to do a little bit of everything, including making sure mutants don't get dealt out of the world-building hand. After an attack in Alexandria (which may be linked to why Hope is suddenly strapped up to machines with Doctor Nemesis claiming that she's "theoretically alive") took over three thousand lives with a mutant square in the center of it, Cable wants to figure out what the mutant's tie was to the explosion, hoping to keep people from getting more mad at mutants, and to recover whatever the weapon was, hoping to arm up the mutants. His "broadly trustworthy" informant has discovered that the cyber-weapon that shut down communications in Alexandria was also used in various other countries at various other strikes to gain data. Now this informant is being held by the Chinese and the team needs to get him out before they can advance to the next stage. Of course, to Psylocke's dismay, the informant is Fantomex. Fantomex reports that the weapon is being carried by a plane always airborne over Antarctica (international air) and it's only susceptible to attack when it's being refueled. He also happens to know the refueling schedule. The team dispatches in EVA to attack the refueling plane, hijacking it to allow the formerly-depowered Marrow to hurl herself at the plane with a Doc Nemesis concocted timefreeze grenade, allowing her 30 seconds of unfettered access. She shatters the engine of the plane before sticking a parachute on the weapon container and launching it and herself out of the wreckage in that 30 seconds (real time a few tenths of a second) before the plane blows. Inside the weapon's container is, as Cable suspected, a new mutant.

Very interesting first issue and one that makes completely clear that these characters will all very much have their own distinct personalities and uses. I talked a little bit in my pre-game this week about the upside to having a team that's a little smaller than the recent X-FORCE teams (and really than most teams in general) and, after reading this issue, I have to emphasize again how neat it is. Four people on the team (plus unofficial member Doctor Nemesis) means we get ample time to check in with each character and get a feel for everyone, even in just the first issue. Marrow, the biggest question mark of the roster, handles narration duty and it gives us a look into an adrenaline junkie's mind, one that we can also see through her action and her dialogue. The narration colors her as something more than just a deranged thrill-seeker, which her dialogue may not have done so well. Cable, of course, is the terse general, always plotting and always leading. Psylocke is the most complicated and perhaps the least fleshed out here, though not because Spurrier does a bad job with her. She's probably the most prevalent character in the wider universe from this team right now so there's less need to really get too far into her character but it still sticks the landing (OLYMPICS) by showing her as the uber-powerful and lethal telepath with a complex history and a vow to stop killing. Fantomex gets perhaps the biggest makeover with Spurrier really relishing the dive into his over-the-top personality and his French aspects. Fantomex sometimes confounds writers thanks to his strange origins. He chose to be French when he was raised as part of the Weapon Plus program and it's something that writers don't tend to bring out too much (even Remender didn't focus on it besides a word here or there and Wolverine's insistence that his nickname be "Le Pew," a nickname which Wolvy would be pleased to know carries over here). Spurrier sees it as a key character point and I can't help but agree. The man chose to be French, of course he's going to embrace it. It also gives him the unerring air of smugness and irritation so points to that as well. Really fun first issue, looking forward to this one as it continues and as we start to go deeper into the story and the people.

Cataclysm - The Ultimates' Last Stand 1, Daredevil Dark Nights 6, Fantomex MAX 2

Cataclysm - The Ultimates' Last Stand 1
Bendis (w) and Bagley and Hennessy (a) and Keith (c)

Galactus is in the Ultimates Universe and he's ready to eat some worlds up, specifically Ultimate Earth. He shows up and Miles Morales is the first one on the scene, wondering what he can possibly do against the behemoth standing over the world. Fortunately, it's not long before the other Ultimates show up but, unfortunately, it's after Galactus blows up a sizable portion of New Jersey. Iron Man's readings on Galactus reveal that he's come from the 616 and Tony has legitimately no idea how to stop him, particularly as the combined might of their heroes seems to weigh not at all on Galactus. Tough fight incoming for the Ultimates and the rest of the world.

Not too much to this issue but pretty much exactly what there needed to be. We don't get a ton of character or depth of plot or anything like that; what we get is the immensity of the threat Galactus presents and the impact that the Ultimates, this Earth's greatest superhero team, has on them. It's a very worrying prospect for the universe and for the team and, though there's not much else to say about what happened in the issue, the threat speaks volumes. I think that CATACLYSM 0.1 last week was a better issue for characterization and the theoretical threat Galactus poses to the Ultimate Universe, exploring the idea in the differences between the 1610 and the 616 and how difficult it's always been for the 616 to stave off Galactus while highlighting just how much better equipped they've always been to deal with it. This issue is important, then, for showing the physical threat of Galactus. No more theoretical, no more "oh geez, this could go badly;" this issue needs to show "oh geez, this is going really badly." I think it accomplishes that pretty well. We'll see where the event goes from here.

Daredevil Dark Nights 6
Palmiotti (w) and Silas and Decastro (a) and Fabela (c)

Matt, alongside a random FBI agent named Keller, is escorting witness Nestor Canosa, a New York dishwasher who happened to see known drug lord Oscar Gomez stab popular DJ Brian Adams in a back alley, to Miami to testify against Gomez. We'll get back to this ridiculous summary sentence in the analysis just...just keep in mind how convoluted it sounds, even in the writing of it (sorry). When the group lands, they stop off at their hotel where Matt finds New York superhero friend Misty Knight lounging by the pool. They don't have a ton of time to catch up (though the sheer volume of words might make you think differently) as Agent Keller crashes out of a window and into the pool. He surfaces to tell Matt that Canosa is under attack. Matt and Misty run up to find a couple of attackers in the hotel room. Matt, now costumed, sends Canosa out of the room where Keller picks him up to try to protect him. However, the two separate groups are swarmed by backup and Keller is shot repeatedly, leaving the men no resistance in taking Canosa. Matt and Misty continue their investigation and track the kidnappers by their getaway car, crashing the party and finding out that Canosa is already gone, possibly still alive.

Jimmy Palmiotti has been around for awhile but I mostly know him as an inker. He's been on plenty of good books and he frequently worked alongside Joe Quesada, most notably (for me) on Quesada's artistic run on DAREDEVIL. I haven't seen a ton of his writing work; really my only experience with it is this year's WHAT IF...AVX. Between that and this first issue of Palmiotti's three on DAREDEVIL DARK NIGHTS, I think it's safe to say he is a pretty awful writer. I'm not thrilled with the story, which is both cliché and overly convoluted, but it's his exposition and his dialogue that are real killers. My first sentence in my summary paragraph was actually not far off from what's written, though it's about 15 sentences shorter. It's an incredibly slow book, one that really should be over by word count maybe ten pages in, again, particularly when the story is so cliché. Even THAT doesn't really cover it, though, as the writing is simply awkward. There's a distinct lack of, and I know this is going to sound weird and petty, contractions and it throws off every line of dialogue. Contractions are really something that you don't notice until they're not there. The phrasing of every contraction-lacking line suddenly becomes remarkably robotic and stiff which then, in turn, makes the would-be more natural lines sound out of place. It's just a mess. And I'm not particularly a fan of the art, to make matters worse. It's a little upsetting, assuming this trend will continue (and I'm willing to make that assumption after similarities between this and the writing of WHAT IF...AVX), that this arc will end what has been, in the least, an enjoyable Daredevil series.

Fantomex MAX 2
Hope (w) and Crystal (a) and Loughridge (c)

I changed my mind, I don't want to review this one, you guys. One of the extremely few joys of not getting to do this for a living is that I can pretty well pick-and-choose what "review every Marvel book" means by my own personal standards. There are, of course, a handful of books I've skipped because they didn't really fit the superhero brand I'm looking for on this blog and there are a handful that rank somewhere below my level of noticing (there was a weird tie-in between Wolverine and some, I don't know, Kitchen Nightmares like TV show? I, uh, I skipped that one and just didn't tell you guys). This one I'm begging out of, despite absolutely adoring Fantomex as a character and being, in the very least, mildly interested in the art of the book (and more than mildly interested by the amazing Francesco Francavilla covers on the series), because I find the book so ridiculously gratuitous. Here's the thing that's kind of hard for me, as a self-proclaimed reviewer, to justify though: I've complained about MAX books not going far enough simply because it made the MAX line feel unnecessary to be used to tell a story that any other book could tell. It seems like Hope and Crystal are giving us a book meant for a MAX line with ridiculous amounts of swearing, sex (both implied and not-implied and consensual and not consensual), and violence. But that doesn't mean it's worth reading. I think gratuitous is probably the word that most fits and it's something I don't really want to get into. If you want this book, read it. If you don't, I don't blame you one bit. I don't and so, fortunately, I won't.