Leftovers 9-17-14

Alright, as you may have surmised from the two other full posts on a Sunday, pretty busy day over here at Marvels HQ. I prepare, then, to ASTOUND critics (read: me) with the speed of these reviews. TO WORK.


All-New X-Factor 14

Scarlet Witch pays a visit to Polaris hoping to spend a day out with her half-sister, which Lorna does not want to do and invites Danger in the hopes that it won't be entirely uncomfortable. They go to a Renaissance Faire and drink and be merry before saving a girl from her creepy and possessive online stalker before heading out to a bar and drinking some more, where Wanda reveals that Havok had Quicksilver monitoring Lorna and reporting back to him. Peter David clearly had fun writing this book but it varies for the reader between fun and heavy-handed/somewhat inexplicable. Also, Lorna brings up her (and apparently every other mutant's) resentment of Wanda for M-Day yet encourages one of the world's most powerful and unpredictable mutants to drink despite her original wishes. Wanda also acts kind of like a child with some of this stuff, which could be an interesting character decision but doesn't really pay off or get explanation as such. Look, I meant to be going faster with these reviews then I kicked off with a book I had some real problems with. Seriously, I was aiming for like, three sentences. Total Score: 2/5


Deadpool Bi-Annual 1
Deadpool is hired by Sea World (it's a fake Sea World but it's pretty much Sea World, whatever, you get it, you're smart, I'm continuing) to stop Brute Force, a team of powerful, super-intelligent animals who have the ability to turn into vehicles, from continuing to attack their attractions. Deadpool agrees and at first has a relatively easy time against Brute Force (except for heavy Bear, who scares him off). His next attack on the team is postponed, though, when he realizes Sea World is evil and he teams with Brute Force to take down his own employers. It's a special bi-annual issue (as the title would tell you) that gives an extra ten pages to the story and is at least ten pages too long. There are bits and pieces of the issue that are genuinely funny but it reverts to fourth-wall breaking too often (I have my issues with that and I think they're probably documented but, in short, it's hard to make breaking the fourth-wall sound like it's not just a self-congratulatory writer winking too hard at the audience for approval) and it occasionally goes for lowest-common-denominator humor and now THIS self-congratulatory writer should probably get off his high horse and just rate the issue. Total Score: 2/5


Hulk 6

Doc Green (really don't like that name or the weird mohawk, you guys) attacks A-Bomb, eventually injecting him with his created serum and learning, indeed, that it's worked as A-Bomb shrinks down to Rick Jones and finds himself unable to transform again. Jones is real mad at Green but agrees to go with him to take out the next target. Green also attacks SHIELD and threatens MODOK to make sure he never toys with gamma radiation again. Meanwhile, Red Hulk gets a whiff of Doc Green's plans early and vows that he won't stand for it. I'm kind of interested in the story developing here but I'm finding Doc Green's appearance and attitude off-putting, which I believe is supposed to be the case, so I suppose points for that, but you also don't really want to read a book where you have nothing to like about the protagonist. Shaving the mohawk thing would be a good way to start. Total Score: 3/5




Hulk Annual 1
Patty Wolman, Banner's former scientist who wanted to commit suicide by Hulk, has been working with a mix of old and new research to create a sustainable forest but, as her health worsened, saw some setbacks. Now, with her mind going, she experiments on herself for the new VISTA project which would control whole sustainable systems with biochips and sentient plants and so on. It works a bit too well and she's enveloped into the Vancouver greenery, which begins to grow rapidly and envelop the whole city and its people. Doc Green fights back against it and eventually shuts it down with a chemical of his own design, though a Patty-like being, now Vista, survives and flees. Like the DEADPOOL BI-ANNUAL, this special length issue goes on about ten pages too long and drags like crazy, a result of Nero's attempts to characterize Wolman more and to show what she's been studying. It's possible everything he said was necessary to do as much as he wanted, but that doesn't make it an enjoyable or interesting read. Total Score: 2/5


Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man 5

Miles and Peter Parker have been surrounded by the cops in front of Peter's old house in the wake of the Green Goblin's reappearance. They manage to escape, though Miles is wounded leaving and picked up by detective Maria Hill, who vows to help him. Miles tracks Peter to MJ's house and Peter agrees to talk to the new Spider-Man there. Meanwhile, the spider-twins that have wreaked havoc on the city use the Green Goblin/Spider-Man distraction to heist some more specific materials and Green Goblin shows up to J. Jonah Jameson's apartment and gives him a full interview as a "reborn" Norman Osborn and Jameson shoots him. Plenty happening and aside from a couple of back-and-forth moments, it's setting up what could prove to be an interesting story for Miles. Total Score: 4/5






Nova 21
Nova finishes moving his family to their new apartment and sets off into space to follow up a lead on his father. He attacks the Chitauri planet where his father was last known to be a gladiator and finds that his father led a rebellion out of the prisons, stealing a ship with his fellow gladiators and setting off into the universe. Happy that his father escaped but now lacking any fresh leads, Sam returns home just in time to be expelled by Principal Philbin for his absences and tardiness. It's a tradition for teen superheroes to have trouble balancing their superhero life and their personal life, which always comes back to balancing school with their superhero schedule, but it's almost harder to get invested in this school problem with Nova being as powerful as he is. This isn't a cry about "school isn't important, why is Sam still there," it's more a note that most teen superheroes who struggle with this are heroes like Spider-Man or Ms. Marvel, who certainly have impressive powers and a lot with which to contend, but can't readily travel into space or leave their city on a whim (this isn't always the case, of course, but it seems more true). The reason I bring it up is that it seems to take some of the weight out of the expulsion, which isn't necessarily a slam on Duggan or his predecessors, since they all took time to focus on his troubles at school, but rather the logic of the whole thing. I read the last bit and kind of ended up going "so?" That's not a great cliffhanger. Total Score: 3/5


Savage Hulk 4
The story with the X-Men is still going and some of the X-Men work out of their binds while Hulk develops crazy strong telekinetic powers and ruins Leader (Leader only sent a drone to deal with this, so he's still out there and fine, though unsuccessful here). When the telekinetic energy in his head drains, Hulk leaps at the X-Men but Xavier manages to telepathic him down enough to leave without incident, leaving Xavier saddened that he wasn't able to help Banner but essentially restoring the status quo. The conclusion of this all-too-long arc drags just as much and pays off just as little as the rest of the arc. First arc of this new team-up book ends up not exactly delivering optimism for the rest of the series. Total Score: 1/5

All-New X-Factor 7, New Warriors 4

All-New X-Factor 7
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c) and Petit (l)

Serval doesn't need X-Factor today so they come up with their own mission, brought to their attention by new team member Cypher. The daughter of anti-mutant author Scott Dakei has broadcast a live stream to the world saying how she's too cooped up and how she wants to experience the world before her stream is stopped by her father having one of his men shoot out the computer. The team agrees (some more willingly than others) to try to secret Georgia away from her father if it's what she really wants. They visit his locked-down home and, after some initial bumps, manage to get a chance to talk with Georgia. She says she doesn't want to run away and that she's happy where she is, happy to wait until she's able to leave. Cypher refuses to accept such an answer, believing that she's being held prisoner by her father, and tries to take her with them regardless. She shows off her own power then, though, as she reaches up and touches Cypher's face, seemingly draining life force from him.

Story
Peter David does have a tendency to take what's in the news of the day and place it into the comics world. I remember, in fact, reading a long section about it in his book on writing comics (I would be more specific but I'm not near the book right now, you guys). There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing happening, a discussion about whether you can separate art from its creator, but the most recent example is Ender's Game creator Orson Scott Card, an outspoken anti-homosexual...uh, bigot (I was trying to go with something classier but nothing came, sorry dudes and dudettes). Scott Dakei (guys, his first name is even Scott!) engenders the same sort of conversation: should Danger be reading his book despite his anti-mutant beliefs? Who does she support when she buys the book? Does she show support for his causes by buying a book unrelated to his beliefs? All sorts of questions and very few answers here because it's a hard question to answer. Beyond that, the attempted rescue of Georgia is a little far-fetched but David (something else he pointed out in his comic-writing book) himself makes sure to point out it's a little far-fetched before we can. Well countered, Peter David, well countered. 4/5

Character
There are some character movements in here, particularly surrounding everyone's motives for saving the girl and how far each is willing to carry on with it. Quicksilver hates Dakei and wants to upset him, Gambit wants to be the sort of hero who doesn't get so muddled up in dealing with supervillains that he forgets the little guy, and Cypher seems particularly attuned to the idea of a depressed girl trapped maybe against her will. Probably some more on that coming later, supposing Cypher isn't dead. There aren't huge revelations here but David is doing a good job to ensure we understand a little more about who these guys are as we push forward. 5/5

Writing
The issue gets a little long-winded and borders very tentatively on preachy well after we understand what the debate is. The order of the day in comics is shorter and quicker interactions but David forgoes that to make sure the specifics of each debate in this issue (whether you can separate an artist from his or her work, why this group of mutants should get involved in Georgia's struggle, the ethics of kidnapping someone who wants to be kidnapped, etc.) are unveiled. It's maybe a slower read than some of the other ones but it doesn't really drag, particularly. If there's a problem with it, it's really that there are too many debates going on and it means we jump from one ethical dilemma to another without any sort of resolution, leaving the reader exhausted by the end. David, though, does a good job to illustrate multiple points and counterpoints to a lot of these questions. 4/5

Art
Di Giandomenico does a pretty good job with the character designs here and works to some of his own strengths by showing faces at very specific angles and often giving the characters somewhat longer, wavier hair to give everyone a solid sense of motion. I don't always love Di Giandomenico's art but it works out pretty well here. 5/5

Miscellaneous
Maybe I should have talked about all that creator/art stuff down here and left "story" to the broader strokes. Whatever.

Total score: 4/5


New Warriors 4
Yost (w) and To (a) and Curiel (c) and Caramagna (l)

Just as Nova has been captured trying to protect his fallen comrades, Justice, Speedball, Sun Girl and Haechi (that's what the splash page calls Mark, the new Inhuman they found) turn up and enter the fight. With the New Warriors assembled, they begin to fight back against the Evolutionary and the High Evolutionary (two different people, you guys, totally unrelated somehow) and manage to send the High Evolutionary fleeing for his machine. Well, maybe it's not totally fleeing because the machine will kill everyone with powers once he starts it up. It immediately knocks out their entire group (save for Nova, who was knocked out at the end of the fight) except for Sun Girl, who is human using tech. The High Evolutionary explains the stakes but Sun Girl refuses to listen and blasts him through the stomach before blasting the machine. With the High Evolutionary wounded and the New Warriors back on their feet, the villains are forced to flee (for reals fleeing this time). Though they regroup in the Savage Land, the High Evolutionary proclaims that there's no time to try again, the Celestials are on their way.

Story
It remains an intriguing story, the idea that the Celestials are ready to wipe out the unclean planet as evolutionary progress has been so...unique up to this point and as the villains of the series are trying to protect the Earth as a whole by killing the majority of the superpowered beings on the planet. It's the ultimate "kill one person to save a hundred" sort of story but ramped up to a much bigger scale (as the High Evolutionary points out). With a pretty neat group of characters representing each of the major evolutionary off-shoots (and a few more at that), this story has set itself up to be an exciting one. Also, bonus points for invoking Ghostbusters with the next issue tease of "Dogs and cats, living together." 5/5

Character
Christopher Yost has been one of my favorite writers recently for picking up just about any character and immediately writing them with a strong voice and a pretty interesting thing to add to a story. No one ever feels like they were just tossed into a story without a reason for being there and that's the case now too as everyone adds something to the issue and as Yost manages to write fun and exciting fight dialogue. It reminds me, in a way, of what Bendis likes to do on just about every page of every book but, instead of it being irritating to me, it's paced in a way that works and that makes sense and flows better. I'd say more but I'm afraid I would just rail against Bendis' back-and-forth dialogue some more and we've all already heard plenty about that. 5/5

Writing
I feel I've rather covered this in the previous two sections, particularly in "character," but Yost's writing continues to be strong and the pacing starts to get pretty hectic right when it needs to here, ramping everything up as the fights start. Solid stuff. 5/5

Art
Marcus To and David Curiel are doing a great job here. There wasn't a lot that really struck me in this book (I'm not great at reviewing art unless it really sticks out to me, positive or negative), but To conveys plenty of emotion and his action sequences work extremely well. Fun and fitting stuff. 5/5

Miscellaneous
I had high hopes for this book when it kicked off and I'm yet to see them disappointed. I also like that cover quite a bit.

Total score: 5/5

All-New X-Men 25, All-New X-Factor 6

All-New X-Men 25
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Ponsor (c) w/ Timm, L. Martin, A. Adams, Mack, Young, J. Keith, R. Rodriguez, Bermejo, Gracia, K. Williams, JG Jones, Del Carmen, J. S. Campbell, Ruffino, Wicks, Shiga, Hipp, Wittert, J. Parker, M. Wilson, J. Thompson, P. Smith, Wiacek, and Bellaire (a and c)

Beast (present day Beast, not Beast of the past in the present) lays in bed being lectured by the Watcher about how his decision to bring the original X-Men to the present was so bad that it's ruined the chance of happiness for mutants ever again. We see a ton of different possible timelines from a slew of guest artists (seen above) with a brief close-up on every one of the original X-Men and see all the bad futures they could have and all the good futures they can't have before Beast asks for help resetting things and Watcher tells him that he's deplorable and that he only watches and can't act.

Okay, so this is a weird little boy-who-cried-wolf situation because I tend to spend a lot of time not enjoying ALL-NEW X-MEN (I spend a lot of time actively not liking it which shows just how sad I am) and then this issue comes out. Don't get me wrong, I still don't like this issue but I dislike it for more reasons than normal and I even don't like it for the message Watcher's sending, although it's the message I've wanted sent since day one. No, what I don't like about this one is the fanfare. It's an oversized issue with what the cover claims is "the greatest artist roster ever assembled." I have no qualms with that claim and the art is pretty impressive throughout (though it takes some questionable turns here and there) but I don't understand why it has such a roster. It's the 25th issue of an X-MEN book. It's not like people are surprised it made it to 25. Even with Marvel's sometimes flagrant renumbering, 25 isn't a huge, huge mark to reach. DEADPOOL celebrates issue 27 this week. THUNDERBOLTS and IRON MAN are both on issue 24 this week and I'd be quite sure neither will pull out all the stops for issue 25. Even a book like X-MEN LEGACY that must have been constantly on the bubble numbers-wise hit 24 before the big 300th issue. Even putting that aside because why should I complain if comics get celebrated every once in a while, this story simply isn't that good. Like, it's a perfectly serviceable story but it feels perfectly serviceable as a .1 or something. It lands between arcs and it gives something of a recap of what's happening to give readers a jumping on point. The story, then, is fine for what it is but let's not act like what it is is something absolutely groundbreaking and worthy of the attention this book wants from everyone. Look. I shouldn't complain, this book has some great art in it (I particularly shouldn't complain because David Mack and Skottie Young each get a page and I adore them both). I just hate fanfare that feels so cynical. And I just flat-out don't like this book.

All-New X-Factor 6
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

The team goes to see Doug Ramsey, AKA Cypher, in the hopes that he'll shed some light on Warlock's current situation. Doug's been having some bad dreams wherein he becomes an incredibly powerful villain and kills all of his friends and he's decided he's going to throw himself off a cliff to prevent it happening. However, X-Factor shows up in time to shake him from that notion though it's still clearly sitting in the back of his mind. Danger scans him and discovers that he has a piece of Warlock tech in him and, despite his protestations, removes it to show it to him. He discovers that it's been sending transmissions about him to Warlock. The team and Doug go to find Warlock and the Magus, following the transmission from the piece of Warlock previously in Doug. When there, they're welcomed by the Magus who reveals that he's just trying to carve out a life for himself in the wake of the destruction of his home planet. The techno-organic virus that had infected him before gave him the ability to break from traditions once held by the Technarchy, meaning that he was able to set aside his enmity for his son and work together with him to promote their race. Now the Magus really is just a businessman trying to live life on Earth. He allows Warlock, who explains that the machinery in Cypher was just to ensure he didn't hurt himself as he'd been thinking of doing, to leave with X-Factor and the two former New Mutants join the team.

The book is coming together more and more and as these two new members join up with the team we can start to see that there are plenty of plot lines waiting to be unraveled. On top of the Quicksilver+the Uncanny Avengers storyline, there are burgeoning details about Cypher, about Danger and Warlock (Warlock quickly falls in love with Danger) on top of the Danger and Gambit weird thing that's happening, about Polaris' mental state, about the whole Serval thing, and even about Harrison Snow's affair with his personal assistant and his newly introduced and troubling wife in this issue. The characters are starting to come alive in their own way now too and it seems like things are really starting to fall into place for this book. Now there are a number of threads to be pulled, all of which could seemingly unravel everything, and still, presumably, plenty of other plots to build on going forward. Peter David lasted as long as he did with a book like the previous X-FACTOR because he write a solid team book and knows how to layer in problems for his characters as well as anyone in the business. They don't always work and sometimes the characters start to sound a little similar but by and large he manages to build a team that has a lot of heart and personality and a story that is barely keeping itself together in the best of ways. That's starting to come through here and ALL-NEW X-FACTOR could be primed for a nice run.

Amazing X-Men 5, All-New X-Factor 5, Marvel Knights X-Men 5

Amazing X-Men 5
Aaron (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

With all of the X-Men by Nightcrawler's side again, they prepare for war with Azazel's ship. Nightcrawler and his friends do what they can to keep Azazel and his pirates at bay but they begin to make a real push against the X-Men and, after Wolverine is stabbed through his back, Nightcrawler is forced to consummate his deal with the Bamfs, the terms of which are still unknown to us. He goes through with it, despite the pleadings of an also-Heavenly Charles Xavier in his head, and the Bamfs pile on Azazel, forcing him to Earth, while Nightcrawler and the X-Men make their way back out of the portal. The deal that Nightcrawler made chained Azazel to Earth, meaning he can't take over Heaven or Hell or anything out there at the cost of his own soul. But hey, Nightcrawler's back!

I still don't really like this arc in its conceit. I think it's a dangerous move to bring Heaven and Hell into a universe that can't possibly abide them. Well, okay, Hell already exists in the Marvel Universe so I suppose it's not that much of a stretch to say that Heaven is there too but the truth of the matter is that Hell works in a somewhat different way than the typical model of Hell. Heaven, then, seems just like a place that would contain the souls of all of the heroes that have ever died and how do you close that door once it's been opened? Obviously heroes don't exactly suffer from overly long deaths, but dropping Heaven into the equation seems both like it's going to bring up religious issues and just be a possible panacea for any deaths that are still to come. On top of that, the scale of the story almost didn't seem big enough; I don't know that it ever truly found its footing here and I particularly don't like introducing Heaven so blatantly with a story that doesn't really shine. I continue to be very torn on Ed McGuinness, who has all the basics of drawing really mastered but whose characters (particularly the women) have really child-like faces (Storm on the cover of this issue terrifies me more than most things in the world). But hey, Nightcrawler's back!

All-New X-Factor 5
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

When Gambit wakes, Danger is standing in his room. She explains to him that his kiss introduced organic counteractions to the programming Nil had done to erase what she once was but that she fears it wasn't enough and needs more counteracting. Gambit doesn't really know what this means and he leaves more than a little shaken. Meanwhile, the introduction of Danger to the team has made things a little trickier around the office as she recognizes immediately that Quicksilver had left through the bathroom window and run somewhere before running back and pretending to be finished with the bathroom based on his heart rate and she deduces that Harrison Snow is having an affair with his assistant when she scans that the assistant has Snow's DNA on her in ways that suggest such an affair. Of course, everyone denies these allegations and Danger is left doubting herself even more. Finally, when X-Factor is brought into a business meeting with the head of an up-and-coming tech business that Snow wants to buy out, Danger immediately recognizes that the man isn't human. As everyone protests Danger's accusation, she plunges her hand through his chest to reveal his true nature. It's the Magus, head of the Technarchy and father of former New Mutant Warlock, who turns up apparently on the side of his one-time enemy Magus as X-Factor faces off against him. Warlock appears to save his father and the two escape while X-Factor tries to put everything together. Polaris decides they need to go see Cypher to understand what's happening with Warlock.

The introduction of Danger to this team has already made the book a good deal more interesting. It's thrown another dynamic in with this team and it's already showing how much more difficult it's going to be to keep secrets around here. With the reveal that Danger can sniff out everyone's little lies, we're able to see just how much of a powder keg Peter David has built with his core three characters and with Harrison Snow, who is still obviously set to be the villain of the piece. In that way, this issue has to be the strongest so far of the bunch and it hints that things may continue to improve as we get a little deeper into a new plot and as we start to establish new members for the team (color me surprised if Cypher and/or Warlock doesn't end up on the team when all of this is said and done). There are perhaps a few too many nerdy references in here for the characters - I have no doubt that they don't sail over the head of anyone reading it but I don't believe that some of the characters would actually make them let alone make them in the situations in which they are made (Snow makes a Doctor Who reference to the head of the other company and then quickly explains that it's a Doctor Who reference for literally no one's benefit in his first time meeting the other company's head). Still, the plot is moving, the characters are coming into their own, and everything's working out one way or another so let's hope this ball keeps rolling.

Marvel Knights X-Men 5
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

The dream-Xavier shows up at just the right time as he gives Kitty all of the inspiration she needs to continue fighting and to inspire Krystal into doing what she can to give them an army and to find her way to Darla. Meanwhile, Rogue and Wolverine, their recent fight put aside, re-enter the fray near Darla and manage to keep things chaotic for the young mutant while she begins to panic and tries to use the drugs she got from the head of the cult to up her powers. Kitty and Krystal, leading a Krystal-controlled team of bikers back into the town, cut a swath through the battles and all of the X-Men present begin to get added help when they create their own backups in the form of dream-Storm, dream-Nightcrawler, and dream-Colossus. While the fight rages, Krystal makes her way to Darla and tries to talk her down. Though it's a struggle to convince Darla that she's not doing the right thing here, Krystal eventually succeeds and gets Darla to give up the fight and let the X-Men help her. Finally everything begins to calm down and, to help a little bit more, Krystal convinces the press that everything they'd seen from the outside of these fights were created by a mine cave-in and subsequent explosions from that.

It's a nice little ending for what has been a nice little series. One of the most apparent things about writer/artist Brahm Revel throughout this series has been a true love for the X-Men. He cares who these characters are and where they've come from and, while this story was a sweeping tale about two scared mutants in a town that hates and fears what they are, it's what really drove the story all the way through, right up to its ending with the dream-X-Men team coming to the aid of fellow X-Men Wolverine, Rogue, and Kitty Pryde. The book reads as a real love story to the X-Men while managing to create and craft a story all distinctly its own, aided by Revel's outstanding art. I liked a lot of the things that were happening in MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN (thanks, in large part, to the incredible Marco Rudy art) but I think this series stands a little better as a complete story. Certainly a story worth telling and I think we can safely say, now that the newest batch of MARVEL KNIGHTS books have all been completed, this little experiment of reintroducing the MARVEL KNIGHTS line was a success.

All-New X-Men 24, All-New X-Factor 4

All-New X-Men 24
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

J-Son, King of the Spartax empire, interrupts Gladiator's tribunal to ask why Jean Grey has been put on trial for crimes she hasn't committed and why he'd still be going after her even after he's done so much to harm her, like hunting down her family to destroy any sort of genealogical attraction the Phoenix felt to Jean Grey. Of course, this leads to a delay in the trial and to a very angry Jean Grey. She's escorted back to her cell while Gladiator and J-Son argue but she breaks away from her captors, escaping into the city. Meanwhile, the Guardians, O5 X-Men, and Starjammers manage to secure a Shi'ar ship with the aid of Angela and fly it down to the planet, hoping to go unrecognized. They land and find themselves immediately discovered by Gladiator and his Imperial Guard. They quickly get into a fight before Jean emerges and asks to be brought back in and tried as a murderer.

It continues to be a little hard to review this book (and a good deal of Bendis' books, but the difficulty increases steadily the more characters are involved. I should make a graph) because my problems with the dialogue and the interactions and the tone and the double page spreads and everything else is already so well-documented. There's probably something deeper I could say about the fact that nothing changes in the style of so many of his books from issue to issue but it seems petty to complain about that; clearly if Bendis is popular, he's going to keep writing in that style and putting out books that fit that formula. So maybe one of my issues with this whole series and everything else that's come out surrounding this in the last year is that it's all so boring to me. I very rarely have found Jean Grey interesting, I tend not to be too connected to the Phoenix as a whole but particularly Jean Grey is uninteresting in the hands of many writers, and she and Cyclops, the oatmeal of the superhero community, are really at the center of this series, just like Cyclops is the center of UNCANNY X-MEN. Of course, it doesn't help that I have had real misgivings about the conceit of ALL-NEW X-MEN since it launched and I am getting more and more sick of stories about "can we kill an innocent person to stop crimes they may commit?" which means that, at least for right now, literally nothing about this book is working for me. Okay, and there IS something to be said about the fact that the format of these books never seems to change and I don't feel invested in ANY of these characters, partly because I know they all must get back to the past at some point and because I just haven't been given a reason to care about any of them yet. Too much to complain about in so little time.

All-New X-Factor 4
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Rosenberg (c)

X-Factor has discovered that Gambit's old associate Nil was the one responsible for taking considerable funds from Serval Industries and that he did it using a a very damaged Danger, former X-Man. Now she seems to have no memories and a distinct desire to kill her captor. Gambit, who has the closest semblance to a relationship with her on the team, tries to talk her down to no avail before Polaris destroys her body with her powers. However, Danger can inhabit other mechanical forms and quickly inhabits the team's ship to preserve herself and continue to fight. Her body rebuilds itself and she transfers back into that, ready at last to kill Nil, who finally offers himself up in the hopes it will save the island. Gambit refuses to allow it though and jumps on Danger again, this time kissing her before she can strike at anyone. Somehow, this restores her to herself enough for her to recognize Gambit and stand down. The team convince Nil to give back the money he took and they all leave with Danger in tow. Without discussing it with the rest of the team, Gambit promptly offers her a spot with X-Factor.

Okay, so let's get the compliments out of the way first. The issue moves pretty well. Peter David has a tendency to chew scenery a bit and load up dialogue with exposition and it happens here to an extent but, despite that, the issue moves quickly enough, keeping the action intense enough to merit a very action-based issue. There are, of course, still some flaws after that. The big one is the cliché yet also inexplicable return of Danger's memories after a kiss from Gambit, who admits himself that he never had any sort of romantic link to the robot, the living embodiment of the Danger Room. They had spent time together in various X-meetings and the like but I don't even think they've had a particularly close bond at any point. And yet, here we are, as the issue winds down, with Gambit kissing a robot and it having enough of an impact on that robot that her memories return and her homicidal rage is quelled. It's simultaneously a giant cliché and a deus ex machina, all wrapped neatly into one package. I think that the interesting things that are happening in this book are getting somewhat overlooked by moments like that and some of the exposition pieces. For example, I think David is developing something very interesting with Polaris but I think it's going to be hard to get to it if the book can't get past some of the set pieces. I'd also like to see a little bit more happening with Gambit and Quicksilver. It's a hard book to judge right now because we're only four issues in so there hasn't been a lot of time to really get into it with some of the characters and still tell compelling stories but I'd like it to at least go one way or the other. This story wasn't compelling enough (it basically boiled down to "Danger is crazy for some reason and Gambit's kiss made the crazy go away") and it ended up just taking away from the book as a whole. Still, four issues in isn't unusual for a book to still be finding its footing.

All-New X-Men 23, All-New X-Factor 3

All-New X-Men 23
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen and Von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

The ANXM find themselves in space alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy in the quest to find Jean Grey. They know that it was the Shi'ar who took her and have been tracking the Shi'ar ship but it's not gone unnoticed. The two factions quickly get embroiled in a space battle with various members of the Guardians deploying to fight the Shi'ar in space and others and the ANXM staying behind in the ship, where they get unlikely support from the thought-dead space pirate Starjammers, led by the Corsair, Cyclops' father Christopher Summers. Meanwhile, Jean continues to be told that she's on trial for crimes committed by the Phoenix and ham-fistedly tries to explain that she hasn't committed these crimes.

I would, perhaps, be less averse to this series (despite its horrible conceit) if issues read as quickly as these summaries went. Instead, thanks to Bendis' famous back-and-forth dialogue, the issue ends up losing both its tension and its pace. Bendis tries to restore it with the Jean Grey bits, putting her up against a seemingly impregnable foe, and with the tension Scott is clearly feeling (Scott, who will soon star in his own ongoing soon from Greg Rucka), but it falls short when you have Bobby making non-stop jokes and Rocket making non-stop (grr) fake swears. Of course, there is a time for comic relief in the midst of a serious situation but it tends to be bad if it's impossible to separate the two. I've pretty much been solidly on record about my dislike for the conceit that the O5 X-Men are in the present in the first place but I'm willing to accept it if it still yields good stories. This one feels like an attempt to bring up the trope of "can you find someone guilty of crimes they haven't yet committed," a question asked constantly in comics and other media and one that Bendis himself has even asked in the last year in AGE OF ULTRON. So I'm not on board with this plot, I'm not on board with the dialogue, and I'm not really on board with a lot of these characters. Guess how I'm feeling with this book?

All-New X-Factor 3
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

X-Factor is starting to get its bearing as Gambit moves into Serval Industries, Polaris continues to lead the team, and we discover that Quicksilver is working on behalf of Havok to keep an eye on Polaris and the entire set-up for the Avengers. Any sort of subtlety to the potential corruption or evil of Several Industries, too, can be put to rest as Snow reveals that he's planted a camera in Polaris' eye and as he offers a job to last issue's enemy, Dr. Hoffman. Of course, he doesn't tell any of the X-Factor members any of this and he sends them out on a new mission to find someone who hacked Serval's servers and made off with all sorts of plans and ten million dollars. Their physical trace leads them to the hidden Thieves' Guild island and Gambit immediately knows that Nil, the technomancer who threatened Gambit's leadership in his own title, must be behind it. They go and investigate and find that Nil has upped his abilities by hooking X-Man Danger up to his set-up. When Polaris frees her, Danger attacks all of them.

Plot-wise, there's a lot going on here. Serval is taking a very obvious step towards evil corporation even faster than I expected it would, Danger's a danger, and Quicksilver is, as Gambit suggested, a spy for an Avengers team. Aside from the introduction of Danger, though, all of these plot points are expected plot points, going so far as to even be plot points that Gambit, a character in the book we're reading, has expected them all along. In that way, the big plot shifts aren't super meaningful to us because they're plot shifts we've all been expecting and they're plot shifts only three issues deep, while we're still trying to figure out what this team is all about and who Serval is. Granted, we are only three issues in so these plot shifts may just be red herrings to cover bigger issues, but, on the face of it, it's not a terribly compelling set of plot twists. In addition, the writing ends up focusing a lot on quirky little quips and shoe-horned jokes. I'm a pretty big proponent of Peter David and his work (particularly his long work on the last X-FACTOR book) but this series isn't selling me quite yet. Of course, I'll keep reading it but that doesn't mean much coming from me, the guy who willingly reviews every single one of these jerk books.

All-New X-Factor 2, Cable and X-Force 19

All-New X-Factor 2
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

X-Factor enters the AIM lab to try to find Dr. Hoffman and Quicksilver and Gambit are almost instantly whisked away into traps, leading Polaris to start ripping the place apart. As the lab reacts and launches gas at her, she vaults into the holding cell where they're keeping Fatale. The traps that Quicksilver and Gambit were pulled into are ultimately beatable and the two reunite pretty quickly. The invasion, though, has drawn the notice of Hoffman and he's begun to launch into his testing. He had been draining the power from mutants Fatale, Reaper, and Abyss to charge himself up and to give himself a bunch of energy based powers. As Polaris tries to fight back, Quicksilver and Gambit rush on to the scene, with Quicksilver giving Gambit an opportunity to toss a kinetic card into the monster Hoffman's ear, destroying him from the inside out. Hoffman himself is alive but unconscious as the power dissipates. As the team regroups, Fatale, Reaper, and Abyss want to kill Hoffman but Polaris and Quicksilver won't let them. The appearance of Quicksilver, though, gives them an ample enough hate to turn their focus to him (fun fact: Quicksilver is hated by like, everybody). They leave, though, and swear their revenge someday.

Bit of a strange issue. It's also one of those issues that annoys me because it highlights some possible level of hypocrisy in me. I often think about long first arcs and wonder if it maybe hurt the book to stay in one story for so long to kick it off. In some cases, I think it works really well, like with CAPTAIN AMERICA and with THOR: GOD OF THUNDER (which did eventually wear on me a bit but was mostly solid and was technically two arcs, though it really was just one). Yet when this book comes along and gives a two issue arc to establish our characters, at least half of our team (the splash page indicates there may be more on the way) has been introduced, and we see a plot resolved, I'm left wanting maybe a bit more. It's not a bad issue, per se, just one that feels like we missed chunks of story that were maybe important. It also does the Marvel thing of playing with what exactly it is to be mutant. Right now, Rick Remender has Red Skull walking around the Marvel Universe with Charles Xavier's actual brain in him to give him telepathy while Peter David here explains that Dr. Hoffman was able to drain the energy from mutants to gain powers that may or may not be THEIR powers but are powers. Kind of have to overlook that. The ending is also a bit abrupt as everything winds down quickly and the issue ends with Gambit quipping about Quicksilver. Bit of a strange read, really.

Cable and X-Force 19
Hopeless (w) and Unzueta (a) and Rosenberg (c)

The two X-Force teams have met up and things have calmed down a bit between them since last time as they try to figure out what happened to Cable, Spiral, Bishop, and Hope. Psylocke can't locate them anywhere until Forge suggests that they get to a junkyard where he and Nemesis can whip up a power amplifier for her. Meanwhile, Stryfe has contained everyone in his vicinity and force-teleports Spiral away, not caring about her. He then makes Cable watch as he leaves Hope and Bishop in a room with a psimitar and he taunts Cable about how, despite all of his wishes, he built a daughter who knows how to be a killer. Back in California, the power amplifier works and leads the teams right to Spiral (sent to a fishing ship). Betsy says that the power amplifier can help her take the blocks out of Spiral's head as far as remembering where Stryfe is if she's willing to take them there. Spiral agrees and they prepare to take off.

It's a bit sad that this crossover is the way that both of these books will end because it means that we don't get to see a real Hopeless send-off to the book he so neatly crafted. Instead, this is the final issue of CABLE AND X-FORCE and it's very clearly not the final issue of the story. Sad to see it go and sad that it has to spend a lot of its time focusing on characters who weren't even in this book. Sure we'll see a little bit more of Cable's X-Force team as VENDETTA wraps up next week but it would have been nice to get just one more book to see the finale for this team, which Hopeless wrote so well and made so fun. As an individual issue in the crossover, this isn't a bad one. As I said in the last VENDETTA review, you can pretty much map out the beats of a four-issue crossover like this one and this issue is hitting those same beats now as the two teams come back together and put their differences aside to prepare for the final fight against the big bad with the stakes raised to their highest points. In a way, maybe that's what's so sad about this being the final issue. We don't get closure for the team we grew to like but we also don't get anything we weren't expecting in the course of this crossover. Kind of a buzzkill. As much as I want the new X-FORCE series to start, I wouldn't mind a true final issue for this book, no matter the outcome of the next issue.

All-New X-Factor 1, Cable and X-Force 18

All-New X-Factor 1
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

Wolverine's annoyed that Gambit keeps missing school, has taken over the Thieves' Guild, and has continued his thieving ways. He tells Gambit that he's going to have to shape up if he wants to keep teaching at the school. Polaris, though, shows up with an alternative: come work with her on behalf of Serval Industries. They go to Serval HQ to meet with Harrison Snow, CEO and president of Serval, to hear his pitch to Gambit, which is basically that Serval has plenty of resources as a huge and rising company (and poses Snow as the next Tony Stark, weapons-manufacturer-wise) and that Snow would like to see those resources used for good in the world. Gambit agrees to go on a mission with Polaris and surprise teammate (surprise to Polaris, anyway) Quicksilver and test it out. The three break into an AIM research facility harboring scientist Dr. Terrance Hoffman who is allegedly experimenting on mutants. As they make their way through the facility, Hoffman continues to test the mutant Fatale and relishes the idea of testing even more mutants.

This is definitely looking like a wait-and-see book after the first issue. Of course, plenty of books are like that and there's no shame in it (I would say, though, that both AVENGERS WORLD and BLACK WIDOW, which debuted this week as well, landed pretty squarely in the "things are looking good" camp). Right now there's just too much that needs establishing before we can start to see what these characters and this plot is going to feel like. Gambit (and probably the rest of the team but we get narration from Gambit this time out) is certainly skeptical of Serval and he probably should be, given the fact that it's a huge corporation hiring a superhero team to do good work in the world. Huge corporations don't tend to work exclusively on the side of good in comics (unless they're run by a superhero to begin with) and Gambit clearly recognizes that. The team's an interesting one and there's reason to believe we'll get good chemistry out of them and Peter David keeps up his knack for dialogue and fairly easy-flowing scenes in his return to Marvel (he wasn't gone for long, no, but it's still a return). Carmine Di Giandomenico brings a crisp art style to the book that could certainly pay off and Lee Loughridge's colors are phenomenal. Should be fun to watch this one play out.

Cable and X-Force 18
Hopeless (w) and Unzueta (a) and Rosenberg (c)

After a conveniently timed nightmare about Bishop (to be fair, we're led to believe she has nightmares about Bishop fairly often), Hope wakes up to find Boom Boom watching a live stream of Cable's visions. As she walks in, the TV flashes by an image of Bishop and informs her that Bishop is in Hollywood this very instant. Hope knocks out Boom Boom to stop her telling Cable, takes guns from the armory, and embarks on a mission to kill Bishop. When Boom Boom awakes and tells Cable, he sets off after her, hoping to spare Hope from cold blooded murder. Meanwhile, on the west coast, Bishop has angrily set off to stew in the city after learning that Storm erased his memories of hunting Hope. Now he's got them back, he's trying to learn to cope. He doesn't have much time to try, though, as Hope attacks him before either X-Force team appears to intervene. However, someone does appear in time to intervene as Stryfe, Cable's clone from the future, shows up and grabs both of them before, disappearing with the two of them as Cable arrives. It's not long before the Uncanny X-Force arrives and suddenly Cable has to explain why Psylocke can't find Bishop any more.

There's a lot happening here of interest but it's ultimately going to rely on the random Stryfe plot twist. It would have been enough to pit Hope and Cable against Bishop and eventually have the X-Force teams get involved with it (though I then would have complained about why no one is talking to one another just as I'm going to complain about Bishop's relationship with his new team) but this new wrinkle can either vastly improve the story or unnecessarily complicate it. We'll have to see which way it goes, though typically the words "clone from the future" tend to be in the latter camp. The other major issue I'm having is that UNCANNY X-FORCE hasn't exactly done a lot to show that the team actually cares about Bishop. Sure, the act of removing his memories was done out of some bit of caring and sure they already know Bishop but he's only just returned from the future and he's spent as much time fighting against them as fighting alongside them. I don't think it doesn't work, necessarily, but I would have liked to see some stronger connection between the team and Bishop. The VENDETTA crossover will pick back up in the next issue of UNCANNY X-FORCE so we'll likely get a better sense then of how this event will go.

All-New X-Men 15, Cable and X-Force 12, X-Factor 260

All-New X-Men 15
Bendis (w) and Lafuente (a) and Campbell (c)

The original X-Men are still in the present. That about sums up the issue and the series at large, but let's keep going because we are gluttons for punishment. Bobby admits to Scott that he's freaked out whenever he sees Kitty and his older self embrace because he doesn't really like Kitty and he doesn't understand this crazy future. He and Scott decide to leave the mansion for a while and go hit on girls. Meanwhile, Jean is working with the grown Beast to focus her telekinetic powers, which leads to her reading his mind and finding out that he was once in love with her in what must be the creepiest thoughts Beast has ever had (he's can't stop thinking about how beautiful she is, despite the age difference now, and how much he regrets not telling her before). Then she approaches young Hank and makes out with him for a while.

I've asked it before and I'll no doubt ask it again but for whom is this book written? I understand that it has fans and I understand that, at the root of every review I write, I can never be right because what people like is objective and no one has a correct opinion, as it were. But who benefits from this book? On top of the writing, which I happen to find annoying and grating because Bendis writes most characters exactly the same and as if they're all teenagers so it's particularly grating when they actually are teenagers and he has to differentiate, to whom is this story compelling? Who is out there enjoying the new love triangles that change the face of the Marvel Universe for no particular reason and which puts Jean in such an ungodly position of choosing between a couple of her teammates? Is she going to track down Angel and make out with him later too because he wanted to date her originally as well?  Being a physically strong character doesn't make you a strong character and somehow this book feels like it's weakening Jean Grey as a character, who was already quite weak at her inception. In addition, I can't help but again say that the original X-Men have spent 15 issues in the future and who is enjoying this book? Then again, I bought a shirt that was three sizes too big for me the last time I went shopping so what do I know?

Cable and X-Force 12
Hopeless and Bunn (w) and Larroca (a) and D'Armata (c)

So I didn't get exactly what I was hoping for out of this issue as we don't get the story that focuses on Dr. Nemesis just yet but I'm holding out hope for next time. Instead, we get Domino helping Colossus break into a supervillain bank vault that contains a magical artifact that will destroy the Earth if not dealt with today (cutting it a little close, guys). The break-in and the inevitable fight against all of the enemies is mere backdrop to the lover's quarrel they're having about whether or not they should have a relationship that goes on further than where it's gone already. Meanwhile, Hope is in the future to find out who is behind Cable's visions and why.

Maybe I'm too much of a cynic here or something but I don't really care about the relationships developing in this book or in All-New X-Men, which made two of the reviews today a little hard to get through (evidenced by the fact that I'm going to just keep complaining about this shirt I bought). I don't even necessarily think the problem in this book is a lack of caring about Domino and/or Colossus. I like both of them just fine (Colossus more so, probably, but Domino's been great under Hopeless' watch) but I think we've seen enough awkward start-stop relationships built over time and this one seems less intriguing than even most of those. One of my favorite things about Winter Soldier's introduction to the Marvel Universe was the implied relationship between him and Black Widow prior to their time as heroes, which is then instantly and without fanfare picked back up when they come together again. I read comics for the characters  and the world they've built but that tends to make it a little harder to care about them going through relationship problems that have been forced on them. Maybe that's just me. I did, after all, buy this dumb shirt (yes, I'm wearing it now, for the first time, which is why I'm particularly annoyed with it today).

X-Factor 260
David (w) and Edwards and Leisten (a) and Milla (c)

The end of the world came and went, X-Factor is somewhere in the wind, separated and lost, and Polaris is getting drunk. Like, crazy amounts of drunk. And she's sick of the world right now so she's going a little more villain than she normally would, which means that when the bartender refuses to keep serving her, she starts wreaking a little havoc. Eventually the police come, who Polaris instantly disperses, followed by a SWAT team. Before the SWAT team has a chance to try to take out Polaris, Quicksilver stops by on his way to Avengers Mansion (not sure why he's living there at this point but whatever, let's keep going). Quicksilver, of course, is Lorna's half-brother and the two quickly come at odds with one another. Quicksilver attempts to talk Lorna down and Lorna very much does not want to be talked down, leading to quite a fight between the two

As X-Factor winds down to its final issue (only two more left! I don't care for that!), we've seen where various members of the team have ended up post-Hell on Earth. Lorna seems to be the only one back in New York (that we know of so far) and she is not faring well. It's a nice portrayal of a breakdown for a superhero, especially since Lorna has been moving this way for a while. We can only hope she doesn't turn supervillain, honestly, given everything that's happened with her lately. Now with her team lost to her, she's fallen rather hard. The conversation between Lorna and Pietro is a decent one with Peter David no stranger to writing the two of them. Of course, Lorna being drunk means that conversation goes over the top at times and it gets a little annoying after some time but overall it's a seemingly accurate example of someone falling so quickly on to hard times and overreacting. There is a moment at the end where, sober, she remembers what happened and regrets her attack on Quicksilver, which is at least reassuring. Also at the end was a hint of a new X-Factor team/series in the works, which is the first I've officially heard of that, assuming it will bear a new series.

Thunderbolts 4, X-Factor 251

Thunderbolts 4
Way (w) and Dillon (a) and Guru eFX (c)

The details of the mission that the Thunderbolts are on has become both clearer and foggier. On the one hand, we now know that the dictator of Kata Jaya was in the pocket of America at the start of his regime, though that didn't make him a good person. Then America left him, feeling they'd stabilized the region they way they'd wanted, and now the dictator has gone rogue and gotten his own mercenary in the form of Madman. Thunderbolt Ross led the team down in order to take out the dictator and stop his gamma-charged army. However, the indication that America was involved in the dictator's placement and the fact that Ross' plan involved the Leader in some capacity seems to have muddled the rest of the team's drive a bit. Punisher ended last issue by shooting the Leader in the head and this issue picks up with Red Hulk leaping off to try to save him (pouring lots of radiation on him because THAT'S just science).

Meanwhile, the dictator gives his whole backstory to Elektra before killing himself in front of her just as Venom shows up to save her. Punisher tapes a landmine to his chest and dives on to Madman as Deadpool distracts him. Exciting bits of action and intrigue in this issue, but it's hard to say where we'll end up and the plot is a little bogged down in itself. It could clear up pretty quickly, especially if we could ever figure out Ross' motives. All said, though, most of this issue was taken up with the dictator explaining the state of Kata Jaya and shooting himself, so not a lot to analyze in terms of team dynamic (which is particularly broken right now, as there is no trust in Ross and he's gone anyway). I imagine next issue we'll get something more intrinsic in terms of team building (if the team sticks together) or plot smoothing. Not much to say. I'm not a particular fan of Dillon's drawings, largely when he goes to faces. I think the bodies are fine and someone like, say, Deadpool is fine because there's a mask, but I've never liked the way he does faces. It's distracting. Also, he seems of the opinion that Punisher ought to be Sly Stallone and that makes me read Punisher as Sly Stallone and I hate myself for doing that.

X-Factor 251
David (w) and Kirk (a) and Milla (c)

There were some interesting developments in this issue but I'm still largely held down by my lack of affection for Wolfsbane. I just don't really care what happens to her and, while her son is innocent enough, I've certainly tied the two together. Overall, the plot is important because it involves hell-lords coming to Earth to destroy Tier and claim dominion over the other hells which could have reaching effects. The more interesting development to me, though, was that Darwin apparently discovered that, unbeknownst to most of the team, Monet is dying. We don't know what's happening with her and it seems clear that she is unaware, but Darwin brings it up with Layla who ALSO knows. So there's some intrigue for you. Also, Polaris doesn't want to go to the Avengers for help because she doesn't want to have to go to Havok. Worth noting.

Anyway, the hell lords have a deal in place that says whoever kills the seven billionth person born on Earth gets to be the hell overlord. Everyone still has their own hell but they kind of report to the winner. That's really what this is about. At first, I was reading it saying "geez, really? That's what this is? And the seven billionth person on Earth is the son of a super-powered person?" That last bit still holds true in disbelief but whatever, coincidence stretches far enough. After I thought about the "seven billionth person" deal, it made an amount of sense to me. At first I had said "that's not a great reason," but after some pondering I realized...well, it's still not a great reason. But it's not a great reason for a pretty decent reason. Some sort of higher being, a god-figure, seemed to hand this deal down to the hell-lords, who agreed to it. It's exactly the sort of deal someone based on, per se, the Christian God would have made. It's the whole idea of "hey devil, I bet that this dude Job stays true to me NO MATTER what you throw at him" or "I'm mad that humans are being jerks down there, I know, I'll flood the Earth!" It's very old-testament, this deal. So I forgive it. I'm still skeptical that it boils down to the son of a superhero but whatever, I'll live with it. If you get by that part of the story, it's a pretty good issue. Though I'm bored by Wolfsbane, I still think this team dynamic is one of the best in comics today. They function like a family, even after the last couple months have shaken their roster up a bit, and it's worth reading just for that.