2 may 1999

One of the interesting things about GAMBIT has been the title's reliance on one-issue stories. In a line as notoriously rambling as the X-books, it's actually very refreshing to see somebody writing good self-contained stories that stand alone.

Not that the format is particularly original. Short, self-contained stories with the obligatory two pages of subplot foreshadowing future events was the absolutely standard format for superhero stories for most of the 1980s. Unfortunately, it kind of went out of fashion in favour of the soap opera of interweaving storylines that the X-Men did so much to popularise - a style which works fine when the writer has a crystal clear idea of where he's going, but which has also allowed one too many clueless hacks to write meandering drivel which try and pass off big continuity developments as climaxes.

It takes skill, not to say discipline, to write a series made up of one-issue stories. What makes Gambit so appealing is the knowledge that while there's definitely an overall storyline here, every step along the way is a story in its own right. No ploughing through months of tiresome set-up in this title.

This issue ties up the subplot with the X-Cutioner which has been running since issue #1. The X-Cutioner captures Rogue and uses her as bait to lure Gambit to his lair. Unfortunately, the X-Cutioner has badly underestimated the degree to which Gambit and Rogue love one another, and it all goes a bit pear-shaped.

Now, obviously this has dangerously dodgy "love conquers all" overtones, something I've never been keen on because (a) it's bollocks, but mostly (b) it's a cliche. The story works nonetheless, because it's not really about Gambit and Rogue at all. It's a story about the X-Cutioner, and how he's hopelessly hamstrung by his rather narrow world view. Basically the man's a rather boring hypocrite, but he actually works here because this is precisely what the story calls for.

Yes, granted, this is not the greatest or the most original story ever told. But it's a decent story, and it's very well told. Fabian Nicieza's skill in pacing and dialogue, and Steve Skroce's wonderful artwork (now shorn of all those overly complicated trimmings that made it so hard to follow in earlier issues) make it a thoroughly entertaining read, even though it's no contender for classic status.

After his dire debut storyline, Erik Larsen has something to prove with his new WOLVERINE story arc. Thankfully, it's a great improvement. It's still not up there with his work on Nova, admittedly, but it's a big leap forward.

Of course, a lot of the improvement comes from the return of Leinil Francis Yu as penciller, replacing the miscast (to put it charitably) Jeff Matsuda. Yu gives the series the sense of atmosphere that has been pretty much absent while he was away. The opening scene takes place in the bar that we saw in the first Larsen/Matsuda issue. Where that issue gave us a pretty generic bar, Yu gives the place a decor, customers and such forth, and generally makes it come to life in a way it thoroughly failed to do before.

Credit has to be given for better writing as well, though. After the rather pointless fight scenes of the last few months, this is issue certainly has an extended action sequence, but it's one where everyone's acting sensibly. The plot hangs together in a way it hasn't before.

This time the plot hinges on genetically engineered creatures created by Arnim Zola who have been abducting lots of people. Wolverine and guest star Cable stumble across the whole scheme through a reasonably plausible plot device, and much fighting ensues. In this storyline we at least seem to have an intelligent villain with a proper plan of some sort, and a proper reason for having Wolverine involved in the plot, neither of which could really be said of the space arc.

It's not perfect by any means, though. For one thing, it doesn't really come to any satisfactory resolution. Sure, it's an introductory story for the new story arc, and it works well enough for that, but the fight seems annoyingly inconclusive - more like a preliminary skirmish to introduce readers to the villain than anything that's really going to be of particular importance.

Also, Larsen doesn't get much mileage from Cable's guest starring appearance. Cable and Wolverine have a past history hinted at, and it's alluded to again here, but other than making a few vaguely guru-ish comments to try and buck Wolverine up after his disastrous performance last issue, he doesn't really get much to do here. I can't help feeling more could have been done with these two characters, who haven't had that much screen time together in the past.

Kudos, though, for dredging up long-forgotten mercenaries Hardcase and the Harriers, who were given a big introduction ten years ago and were then totally forgotten about.

After leaving Siryn mute, X-FORCE #91 is a big character issue to deal with the effects and, effectively, to write the poor girl out of the book. Since X-Force don't have any telepaths, her only means of communication are writing and (theoretically) sign language - neither of which really work very well in comics. So much of this issue is Siryn wandering San Francisco delivering a rather depressed monologue as narrator.

There are some excellent parts in this story, but the book as a whole is rather unsatisfactory. Having Siryn toy with returning to drink and ultimately joining Alcoholics Anonymous is interesting, and it's good that Moore avoids the obvious route of having her sit down for a bracing chat with her dad. In fact, as a character study of Siryn, it's great.

Unfortunately, we also have the artwork of Tommy Lee Edwards to contend with. Edwards obviously isn't a bad artist at all - the first few pages are actually very good indeed - but he's patchy, and totally unsuited to some of the material. He's obviously been hired because this is a downbeat character issue, and he's a downbeat character artist of the sort you might find knocking off a miniseries for Vertigo.

But some of his artwork crosses the border between being minimal and just being hard to look at; and there are moments where his figures aren't really that good at all. It doesn't help that although he gets Theresa pretty well, a lot of the other cast members are barely recognisable (or in a couple of cases, totally unrecognisable until they get dialogue). He also makes a dreadful hash of some of the flashbacks to superhero scenes; and a couple of panels of Sean and Bobby using their powers are just monumentally ugly.

Hopefully Siryn isn't going to drop out of the book altogether, as there should be plenty of good story material in seeing her adapt to being mute. Some of it's here; but so is a lot of pretty average stuff.

X-MEN UNLIMITED is rather misleadingly solicited. This is not, whatever Marvel might have you believe, a story about Xavier reassessing his relationship with the other X-teams, guest starring X-Force, Cable and Generation X. There's a scene where he does that, and those characters pop their heads round the door. But that's not the story.

This story is part of the ongoing storyline with Xavier becoming more and more cynical about this whole X-Men enterprise. Belatedly, he's finally twigged that the dream just isn't working - that his X-Men have achieved next to nil in affecting the public's view, and that the tide is turning against him with Magneto's recent victory in Genosha.

Although this story ends with Xavier getting his faith boosted a bit by seeing the X-Men in the Danger Room (and if that's supposed to be an upbeat ending, it really doesn't work), it's at its strongest in showing the trouble Xavier has in dealing with challenges to his dream. He doesn't seem able to take a step back or reassess his strategy; all he can do is put his head down and plough on even harder, even though he knows it isn't going to work. Not surprisingly, it's getting to him. He's become as dogmatic in his way as Cyclops.

This is a basically good idea, and I'm pleased to see that the core titles are picking up on it, even if it does mean we're going to have to suffer through yet another roster change (for christ's sake, can't we hold a line-up for six months?).

While the central idea is good, though, I'm not sure there's enough here to sustain a double-length story. Nor is it really a particularly strong narrative, given the rather weak pay-off. There's also a really rather contrived comic relief scene with Gambit and Colossus (sorry, but why doesn't Gambit just steer the damn bike aside?). Flawed, then, but still a decent enough read, and a useful attempt to make sense of some of the recent chaos in the main titles.

FLINCH is a new title from Vertigo which bills itself as a horror anthology. One wonders what exactly Vertigo mean by "horror", since their definition is evidently some way different from mine. Frankly, the most disturbing thing here is the cover, and by a very long way at that.

When I was a kid, I used to read a long forgotten and rather obscure British weekly whose name escapes me. Buddy or something like that. Anyhow, it had a regular feature for short gimmick stories with a twist in the tale, which I think went by the name of The Amstor Computer or something similar. "Rocket-Man" reminds me distressingly of the sort of story that seemed awfully clever when I was eight. Now, it just seems like a nice but inconsequential little story that makes its one point quickly and then buggers off. Bland, really.

The biggest question this story raises in my mind is what on earth it's doing in a horror anthology. I've seen scarier episodes of Sesame Street. This is not horror by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, there's a ghost in it. So what?

The story is worth seeing, though, if only to shatter a few preconceptions about Jim Lee. This is his first work for Vertigo, and it's almost totally unrecognisable. If it wasn't for the costume design of the rocket suit, which is vintage Jim Lee with its not-as-functional-as-they- first-seem pouches and so forth, I'd swear it was a mistake in the credits. The man has more range than you might have thought. (Oh, and the story looks great, by the way.)

What else do we have? "Nice Neighbourhood" is another one joke story, although it does rather more with its one joke. Teenagers are hunted by rampaging gangs of old people, high on drugs and up for a nice bout of violent crime. This is a little more interesting, since at least it makes a passing swipe at actually being about something, but let's face it, it's not horror. It's black comedy. It's silly. Like "Rocket-Man", it's alright but it's not going to win any awards.

"Wolf Girl Eats" is definitely the best thing here, even if it does lose points for that dreadful old cliche, Man From Civilisation Visits Small Town With Dreadful Secret. A travelling preacher brings his entourage to a small town where he falls in love/lust with a carnival freak and outrages his obsessive sidekick. This has got some interesting stuff melded in with the cliches, although it's also got some painfully obvious bits that hammer the point home with a dreadful lack of subtlety - did the town really need to be called Angel Falls?

So is this really a horror anthology in any sense that somebody other than a Vertigo editor might recognise? Not really. Understandably Vertigo want to get away from the cliches of the genre, and that's all well and good, but I have to draw the line at eliminating any actual horror from horror. This is an anthology of three good but unexceptional stories with nothing really in common. It's alright, but nothing more.