So...

This is where I'd normally do the weekly round-up of capsule reviews.  But this week, a few words about where the X-Axis is going, and the future of the site.

The X-Axis started back in 1996 with the project of reviewing every single issue of every X-book, and tracking the direction of the line as a whole.  With a handful of skip weeks, it's done that ever since. 

The most obvious exception was the semi-detached X-book Mutant X, which was terrible.  This in itself wasn't the problem.  Dreadful comics are easy to review.  The problem with Mutant X was that, until it hit heights of staggering incompetence towards the end, it was rubbish in exactly the same way every month.  And there's only so many times you can write the same review.  Eventually I gave up and started running the same one-paragraph stock review of Mutant X every issue until something changed (which it finally did, when somebody wrote a fill-in issue), and devoted the space to something more interesting instead.

I now find myself in a somewhat similar situation.

For one thing, the whole notion of a line of X-books has increasingly fallen by the wayside, save as a classification device for the solicitations.  The books tend to ignore one another as much as humanly possible, and there's little sense of any overall direction going on.  Marvel would probably argue that this is a good thing and indicates that each book is being allowed to pursue its own course.  There is a degree of truth to that, but it's not really relevant for present purposes.  (Having said that, I'd place money on a big resurgence in tight continuity over the next couple of years as the bean-counters observe the huge sales surges from House of M and Identity Crisis and demand more of the same - especially since the commitment to genuine experimentation which existed under Jemas has pretty much expired.)

But more importantly, the current format for almost every X-book is to write for the trade.  Virtually every story runs to at least four, and often six, issues.  There was a time when this was not the case, and the pace was much faster.  Every so often somebody did attempt a really, really long story, and generally they were a chore to review whether they were good or not, simply because there's only so many things you can say about one story.  Now every story is like that.

This isn't necessarily to say that the books are bad, or even that they're poorly paced, but simply that there isn't sufficient content there to justify reviewing every issue.  Mark Millar's Wolverine run is a one-trick pony, which is fine so long as it's a good trick that doesn't outstay its welcome.  But it isn't a trick that requires to be reviewed twelve times in a row.  Whedon and Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men is rather similar.  Beautiful as it may be, there simply isn't enough content in "Dangerous" to merit six reviews.  There just isn't that much to say about it.  And it goes without saying that almost every miniseries from the last two or three years falls into this category as well.

The upshot is that the X-Axis, in its current format, is becoming a chore to write.

Does this mean an end to the X-Axis?  No.  But it does mean a long overdue overhaul of the format, to reflect the comics themselves.  Every story will still be reviewed - but not necessarily an issue at a time.  Basically, what I'm going to do is review each storyline when it's complete.  Think of it as reviewing the trade paperback in advance.  First issues are also guaranteed a review, as is anything with a self-contained story (such as X-Men Unlimited and Giant-Size X-Men).  Otherwise, everything else goes into the capsules, unless there's something that I particularly want to write about at greater length.

The effect of all this, of course, should be to slash the length of the column - although the capsules will probably be more thorough than before, and there may be more reviews catching up on non-X-books as they complete their first storylines.  But yes, this is intended to make the X-Axis considerably shorter in order to free up time to write other things.  In part, it should mean that I finally make a bit more progress with the Index (which has its own, long-suffering audience).  But mainly, it should give me time to write stuff which is completely unrelated to comics.  Hopefully, if you like the X-Axis, you'll like some of that too.  Especially if you're one of my many readers who doesn't even buy the X-books.

Obviously, all this stuff won't really belong on the X-Axis.  Which is why I've set up another site for it - If Destroyed, Still True.  Bone for comics readers: it includes a bit about the UK premiere of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Mirrormask.  Go on over and say hi.

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art.  Boy, there's been a lot of reaction to that one.  You'd almost think some people had nothing better to talk about.  Perhaps they're just not reading the right sort of comics?

Next week, House of M continues with New X-Men #17 and Black Panther #7; Enemy of the State winds up in Wolverine #31; and Ultimate X-Men gets its first annual. 

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