All-New X-Men 17, Savage Wolverine 9, Fantomex MAX 1

All-New X-Men 17
Bendis (w) and Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

Young Bobby and Hank have gone with Magik to the future to meet the future X-Men only to find that perhaps THINGS ARE NOT QUITE WHAT THEY SEEM as the future seems okay for mutants, though one-time elected president (of the United States) Dazzler was shot on her inauguration day. The team that's gone back in time is a rogue team led by Hank McCoy to fix things.

This post should direct you to my thoughts on Battle of the Atom which continue to be unchanged by this issue, which shows more X-Men teams and more "twists and turns" that all signify nothing.







Savage Wolverine 9
Jock (w and a) and Loughridge (c)

Wolverine has gotten himself into another scrape as he's been kidnapped and drugged and dropped off on a foreign planet (Mars? Probably Mars). After nearly burning up on re-entry, Wolverine has landed and nearly immediately gets into a fight with a giant bug. He manages to down it and climb out of the pit the two of them fell into only to find a child sent by a mysterious organization to recover him, claiming that he's just one of many created to be Wolverine-like. The boy presents Wolvy with a serum saying that it could save them.

Definitely an intriguing story without a ton of info to start with. We know Wolverine's not on Earth and that something pretty weird is going on but this is more a showcase of tone, character, and art. It works for all of those parts, particularly tone and art. The book moves extremely well and the narration and dialogue are both incredibly limited. It's a solid start for Jock's arc as he plays both writer and artist on this one. I've never seen Jock doing any writing and I haven't seen him on interiors since the Losers (he might have written already and he may have done interiors since Losers but I haven't seen him on either) and it's certainly an encouraging start. I love Jock's art, both on interiors and on covers so I'm definitely excited to get a bunch of that and the writing is off to a strong start in both tone and story. Should be a fun one moving forward.

Fantomex MAX 1
Hope (w) and Crystal (a) and Loughridge (c)

International super thief Fantomex is at it again, though he's being trailed by US Department of Justice agent Rhona Flemyng. The tail isn't exactly an issue for Fantomex, who seems to be losing her at will. He is still enticed by her, though, and he makes contact with her after she's been reamed out by her superiors and moved off as the primary agent on the case; she now serves as a consultant to agents Stuart Stirling, Alexandra Macready, and Richard Gaunt. She finds out pretty quickly that the three are super agents of some sort and clearly have their own motives. Meanwhile, Fantomex is dealing with his own issues as he investigates an alien life form he stole which appears to be dying mysteriously. He's interrupted in his autopsy as Stirling contacts him, aware of his connection to Flemyng, and informs him that they'll kill her if he doesn't meet with them.

Fantomex gets his own MAX series and, as I said in my pre-game this week, he's pretty deserving of it. International super thief known for his amazing powers and his womanizing; it seems to line up clearly with the MAX line. WITH THAT SAID, I'd like to note that I think some of the characterization is a bit weird. In truth, I think Fantomex is pretty well cast here so far. It's really his ship EVA that comes off a little strange. She has something just short (if at all short) of complete obsession with Fantomex which is a bit weird. On the one hand, she's supposed to be a manifestation of his nervous system. On top of that, she's always been more of a quiet presence, perhaps flirting with Fantomex at time but in far more of a playful way than in the overtly sexual way we see in this issue. I suppose there are different ways to interpret that but it seems a little character-breaking. I also considered that maybe, like the other MAX books, this was set in an alternate universe but, not to get too nerdy (haha, jk, I run a comics blog), I think Captain Britain revealed in Uncanny X-Force that Fantomex is the only one of his kind in the multiverse so that seems a little unlikely. I do get the appeal in writing a fairly sexploitation book with a character who, in truth, kind of calls for it but it's a little weird to have the EVA plot thrown in. The art is pretty MAX, showing off scantily clad and impractically designed women at every turn, but it is definitely intentional and fits with the tone of the writing pretty nicely. I haven't seen much of Shawn Crystal's art before this (though I just discovered his Ink Pulp podcast and it's pretty awesome, when you actually get to the interviews) but it impresses here without a doubt. There's enough to like about this book to come back but it's still kind of hovering on that line of too-over-the-top. We'll see how it progresses.