Winter Soldier 18, X-Factor 255

I know what you're thinking: Tim, you're so good at this blog and you almost always have a reason for choosing a couple of books to be reviewed together, as imperceptible as those reasons may be to us, the wonderful readers! But we are having some trouble understanding this team-up, especially so early in the review week. Friday is too early to have paired up the other books and have these left as the remainders and you LIKE both of these books, you would work to pair them up with things first. In fact, there were several more X-books this week you could have paired X-Factor up with, though we admit we too would have been hard-pressed to figure out with what to pair Winter Soldier. Well, I have some bad news for you upbeat and very complimentary reader. This is "sad day" in the review week, wherein I review two cancelled Marvel books as they live out the rest of their sentence. That's right, though we knew Winter Soldier was cancelled, we've learned recently that the long running and nearly always entertaining X-Factor has also been cancelled. As a proponent of both of these books, I'm depressed over this most recent news, but I haven't the time for a proper retrospective this week and will have to dive into it next week. Instead, I'm writing an overly long introduction to my reviews for this week's issue of each book.

Winter Soldier 18
Latour (w) and Klein (a and c)

Just as with Hawkeye this week, we get a background for the villain of this arc in this, the penultimate issue of Winter Soldier. Tesla Tarasova was, as we know, a child when the Winter Soldier killed her father, a brilliant scientist who focused his work on cosmic radiation. A very smart girl, Tesla was raised in the same horrible orphanage/school that Bucky destroyed a few issues ago. We get a deeper look into life as a child of that institute and find it every bit as disturbing as we may have speculated last time. Every child there is trained to be a killer, a whole school of little Winter Soldiers to end up sold to the highest bidder. However, Tesla was different. Though she still excelled in training and was extraordinarily intelligent, she obsessed over her father's work on cosmic rays and eventually managed to expose herself to some, creating the Electric Ghost. Now her goal seems to be to unleash the same potential unleashed in her in the people like her, people without fear. Instead of seeing James as the man who killed her father and, as one would assume, hating him for it, she sees him simply as being like her, someone without fear and with power to be unleashed. She immediately deduces that he's fighting against his past not because he can't live with what he's done, but because he can live with what he's done. That's a great idea for Winter Soldier. Bucky has, since his return to the Marvel U, been haunted by everything he's done but he has never hidden from it. In fact, he's fully aware of what his past has wrought, including a pretty great arc (when he was the acting Captain America) where he had to fight people from his past and decidedly used the Winter Soldier costume to inspire fear and recognition. The fact that he still wears that costume is very telling of who he is. He fights against his past, but the question has never been raised about why he's insistent on still being the Winter Soldier. Is he simply not willing to shy away from his past? Is he upset about his past and needs to atone for it as the same person? Maybe. But the question itself of whether or not there's a part of him that can live with it is interesting.
So the Electric Ghost doesn't hate Bucky. In fact, she sees a kindred spirit in him and thanks him for changing her life in such a way that she's now here, controlling satellites and making people fear her or overcome any fears. She's so thankful, in fact that she makes out with him at the end of the issue. She doesn't like that he's still chained to Natasha and his past, chained to something like any other normal person. Where will that lead next issue for her and for Bucky? What will become of Bucky after this ends? Is this a way for Bucky to cut his losses with Natasha? I kind of hope not. I love them as a couple and hope that eventually things settle themselves out. But there are all sorts of interesting questions being raised and I worry that one remaining issue might not be enough to answer them all.

X-Factor 255
David (w) and Kirk and Leisten (a) and Milla (c)

The Hell on Earth arc continues (admittedly somewhat regrettably) as Mephisto wins the day. He's defeated all the other Hell Lords while Tier waffled about in deciding to try to kill the Lords or not. Now Mephisto has won and has set himself up as the new ruler of all the hells and is seemingly unstoppable, except for Tier who finally chooses to take the fight to Mephisto. Meanwhile, Monet and Guido continue their fight, both physically and verbally. Guido notices that Monet is getting more shaken up by the fight than she should be and comments on it. She denies it and continues to fight with him, eventually leading to him punching her a little too hard (though, he notes, not hard enough that it should hurt her as badly as it does) and, well, killing her. So that was a shocker. Oh yes, spoilers and all that. Look, it's a review blog and my formula has stayed more or less the same, so there are quite a few spoilers in each review. Maybe I should make more of a note of that. I'll take it into consideration. Maybe clump the summary together more and then leave the analysis separate. We'll see. ANYWAY, Monet just died, what are we talking about? That's a pretty big deal. Of course, people have come back from the dead before in this book (and recently, at that) so it's not out of the question that she'll be revived. HOWEVER, with the book facing cancellation and Peter David never looking for the book to get stale, maybe this is the real deal. Also, one of the cool things (and one of the things I'll miss most about X-Factor) about this book is that no one who stars in this book really appears anywhere else in the Marvel Universe. Someone might make an appearance, or the team might even pop by in an event or something to see what's happening, but they seem to be the largest self-contained team in the 616 and the most self-contained characters in the Marvel Universe. What I'm getting at here, in my long-winded way, is that Monet could very well die here and the Marvel Universe at large would not even need to take notice. It's not like a fake-out Cap death where he's on 90 teams and in his own book so we know he's probably fine. It's Monet in one book on one team and, frankly, if you asked 90% of the 616 who she was they probably wouldn't know unless they were particularly well-informed. That's where this book pretty much leaves off. OH, and Jamie is still a goat-headed demon and Mephisto needs to turn that around stat because Madrox is great.
I alluded to not particularly liking that this arc is continuing at the start of this review and I stand by that. It's a major arc and I guess, when shaped this way, it definitely could have a final story feel to it. Major characters have returned, major characters are dying, major events are happening, etc. Still, it hasn't been my favorite story from X-Factor and I'm going to be more sad if the book ends on this note. I'll say again, though, that's personal preference. It's entirely possible some diehard X-Factor fans are loving this arc and loving what the team is going through right now and are contentedly sighing at the final outcome for our beloved second-tier heroes. Sadly, I'm not one of those people and if the book ends with this arc I'll feel a little empty inside.
I plan on doing a real sort of retrospective on X-Factor at some point but this week is a little busy and I already have my Monday post planned and it's a little more time sensitive than whatever my thoughts on X-Factor are, especially when my thoughts on X-Factor are pretty well documented here.

Winter Soldier 17, Deadpool 7

Winter Soldier 17
Latour (w) and Klein (a and c)

The plot thickens as Latour sends Bucky into action against the Electric Ghost. We get a scene of Bucky confronting a projection of Nick Fury, which is a nice scene and remains a good tie to the Winter Soldier of old. One of the intriguing things about both the start of this Winter Soldier series and Bucky's tenure as the costumed hero (for the time that he's been a hero) is the relationship Bucky has had with SHIELD and, particularly, with Fury. He's spent more time with SHIELD in his few years back in Marvel continuity than plenty of long-time heroes and it fits pretty well with his character. Bucky has always been a follower of sorts; he certainly has his own personality and his own leadership qualities, but much of his existence has been as a weapon. He was the knife that the Invaders used to do the covert ops that required hands getting a little dirtier in World War II and he was the Winter Soldier, the Cold War assassin for Russia. Now particularly, with the loss of Natasha, Bucky finds himself directionless and in pain and has fallen back on Fury, his first connection to the superheroing world after his memories were restored. Fury, as Fury does, led him a bit astray in the hopes that not revealing the whole plan would get Bucky involved too deeply to back out when he figured out the key elements. When Bucky confronts Fury about this, he comes clean (or does he? That's the great part about Nick Fury's character; even when he comes clean, we can never be sure how clean he's come) and explains that he had to get Bucky back in the game somehow. Fury needed him, SHIELD needed him, and Bucky himself needed the push. It's a nice little construct to fall back on, their relationship, that pushes the story forward. So Bucky stays in, Robards stays in, and the Electric Ghost stays in, now amping up her push back at just about everyone. Fury lays out the plan and sends Bucky in.
Bucky gets to the satellite he's sent to, teleporting through space. His captions get fairly thoughtful as he thinks about the teleportation process; it's a duplication of all his atoms followed by the destruction of his original body as the duplicated atoms reassemble into his body again in point B. He wonders if he's the same man that teleported away if it's a new person being reassembled. Is there a soul? What happens to it? What becomes of his personality if his physical structure is the only thing sent from one spot to another? Heavy questions that are followed up by a scene where he kills a few guys and is set upon and recognized by the Electric Ghost as the man who killed her parents.
I think this is an interesting story to work with and an interesting, if morbid, path for Bucky's monologue to take. I found it interesting because I read more or less the same kinds of questions about two days earlier while reading the new IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic. What is happening in the world that is making all these different writers question the existence of souls and the moral dilemma of teleportation? Still, good issue setting us up for our first major villain meeting in Latour's run. But who will be the villain in the end? Bum bum buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.

Deadpool 7
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Koblish (a) and Staples (c)

This is easily the best issue of Deadpool so far in this new run. That's not the highest praise I can give in general as I've been pretty vehemently against this run on Deadpool so far, but it's about the highest I can give to this issue. There were genuinely funny moments and some smart bits of dialogue and the entire conceit is interesting, as we take a look back in time at a late 70s, early 80s Deadpool thrown into the middle of Tony Stark's life as it crumbles with his alcoholism. Deadpool is hired by a demon to make Tony's life a little bit worse and to make sure everyone knows that Iron Man was drinking. Deadpool helps Tony beat his addiction before stealing his armor and drinking above a nuclear power plant as he throws nuclear rods into the ocean. The demon is angry that Deadpool didn't get Tony drunk but Deadpool points out that the deal was to get Iron Man drunk, not Tony Stark, and Mephisto shows up to take the demon away.
There's not too much here by way of plot but there were genuinely funny moments. The start of the issue, showing us a look into the Daily Bugle as Jonah and his team scurry to find news, is particularly fun to read. Robbie Robertson, and Ben Urich are pitching ideas for new articles about Tony Stark's drinking problem while Peter Parker is in the background trying to drum up interest in an article about illicit dealings at Oscorp. Jonah will only listen to Robbie and Ben but refuses to run anything about Tony, choosing not to besmirch the hero's name. Peter continues to weakly attempt to draw attention to Oscorp before asking if anyone is listening to him and then revealing he's Spider-Man to the uninterested audience. It's a fun way to set up the plot and it's a nice little touch to throw the Daily Bugle faithful. However, it has literally nothing to do with the rest of the issue aside from the exposition and all the fun parts those characters brought quickly disappear as Deadpool enters the book after Peter leaves the Bugle. It's a sad state for Deadpool when the least entertaining and interesting part of the book is whenever the titular character is present. He throws out reference after reference and the book makes pretty cliched statements about demons and record execs and lawyers and things along those lines while Deadpool spouts off period-piece humor and cassette tape mentions. The book lost all the good will it had gained with a phony letter page at the end wherein the writers write fake questions from people in the comedy world (as both Posehn and Duggan come from that world). Names include Paul Scheer, Matt Mira, Mike Drucker (three times) and Marvel persons Bendis and editor Jordan White, as well as Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn himself. It's the same sort of in-house references that this book has been guilty of making all along and it kind of alienates the reader who knows there's a joke going on but feels no part in it. It's not so much a wink to the crowd as it is a full fledged shove out of the way and it's systemic of the whole series so far. Like I said, there are funny things happening in this issue but it's overridden by cliche jokes and references and the overwhelming sense that we're not really wanted here.