6 february 2000

God, this is a frustrating issue of MUTANT X. It starts off looking as though the story might have some real point to it for once, and then just when you've perked up enough to pay some proper attention, it switches back onto autopilot for the second half.

It's a henchman story. Not an original idea, to be sure, but still one with some mileage left in it, and something worth dropping in to books like these so as to humanise the villains. It's supposed to be the story of Jack and Dianne, two kids from different backgrounds (but presumably a common interest in John Cougar Melloncamp) who have signed on to join the Children of Humanity movement. The CoH movement looks to be some kind of anti-mutant version of the National Guard, although its precise relationship with SHIELD is never established very clearly.

This ought to be an interesting story about love among the henchmen, which is a perfectly good idea. It should provide an opportunity to say something worthwhile about the characters. Mackie's trying to do the story about how come otherwise sane people could have joined the Hitler Youth, which is fair enough, but it never really comes off. Yes, it's got the broadly sympathetic characters, but they're still in an organisation of over-the-top cartoon villainy.

In any event, halfway through the issue, Mackie seems to lose interest in Jack and Dianne and does a story about Havok rescuing some local kid from mutant hunters which we've seen plenty of times before. The loss of focus isn't helped by the arrival of Jean Grey to set up a subplot which could have waited perfectly well till next issue, and a completely gratuitous and unnecessary appearance from the Punisher.

Somewhere this has got the germ of a good idea, but it doesn't go anywhere with it.

Somebody, I forget who, was suggesting that the lack of a script credit on UNCANNY X-MEN #379 might mean an uncredited job by Chris Claremont. I was sceptical, but the more I look at this the more I wonder if he might be right. Just look at that dialogue. Consider the evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury:-

"Not even the most transcendent artifice can ease the pain of that loss."

"I've never heard so naked a confession from him. Or such torment."

"Fabian Cortez, you're talking treason! Our lives, our loyalty, are sworn to Magneto!"

"You call yourself X-Man. It's past time you earned yourself the RIGHT."

"Hardly coin of the realm, sport."

God. How did I miss this? If this isn't Claremont doing a ghost job, it's somebody else doing an amazingly good pastiche. In any event, it's quite a good script, whoever it's by, and I suppose that's what I'm supposed to be writing about.

This is a bridging issue, providing a degree of aftermath to Scott's death (let's take it for present purposes that he's actually dead) and setting up a lot of the new status quo before leading into the High Evolutionary's new plot. Many of these changes are pretty welcome. Xavier's off into space again; great, have fun, don't come back. Polaris is being installed in Genosha to boost Magneto's powers, rendering Fabian Cortez redundant, which should make for some good stories. Hank is doing something about the Legacy Virus; we're not actually going to make some progress on curing the bloody thing, are we?

After devoting most of the issue to set-up (but quite good set-up), the supposed main plot turns up towards the end, with the High Evolutionary removing all the mutant powers on the grounds that they're too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Let's be honest, he has a point, and the X-Men's counterarguments in this story are pretty weak. "Would you eliminate racism by making everyone white?" Well, he's not trying to eliminate prejudice, is he? He's trying to eliminate dangerously powerful people, and you can see his point. Of course, we all know it's going to be a three issue filler until the new creative team starts, but it's a good idea, and it does have the merit of a villain who's really got a point.

Decent writing, combined with the usual reliable fill-in art from Tom Raney (who to be honest I'd probably rather have on these kind of talky stories than Adam Kubert). Definitely back on track after the disappointing Ages of Apocalypse crossover.

Oh good, X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS is finally getting out of the Savage Land. Only took five months.

This is basically an entire issue of the X-Men escaping from the Savage Land by stowing away on a load of balloons in a storm. No, really, that's it. But Byrne does get some good material out of it, with the sort of stunt scenes that you really couldn't do with today's higher-powered team. It's not the best issue of the series, but it holds interest surprisingly well considering that, basically, not very much is happening.

Granted, the series is now onto pushing the buttons of Byrne's critics. His Magneto is a ranting lunatic, which may be pretty much accurate for the period, but really only serves to show why he was changed. And yes, the idea of Hank just happening to crashland a few meters away from Storm is stretching credibility just a touch - though at least he's chosen the one X-Man who wasn't there when she eventually joined the team.

I'm still finding the pace aggravatingly slow, but it's definitely the best thing Byrne's doing at the moment.

DC are having another stab at a BATGIRL series. This time it's another new character, introduced at the tail-end of No Man's Land, with the original Batgirl (now Oracle) being used as a mentor figure.

The book's been taking a kicking over on the DC groups, which surprises me, since it's really not that bad. It's certainly got it's problems, and it's a clear attempt to milk the renewed popularity of the franchise, but there's potential in here. If they're going to make it work, though, they're going to have to take the character in a new direction quickly.

This being a Batman book, our lead character is contractually obliged to be emotionally damaged. This, however, may be overdoing it. The heroine has been raised from birth as an assassin and has been given so little training in anything else that she has the linguistic ability of an infant. So basically, what you've got here is an uncommunicative killer who Batman has pressganged into service as a vigilante.

But the creators aren't quite willing to embrace the implications of that, since that would prevent her from communicating with anybody else. So apparently she can understand people from their body language. To an extent this might have been a good idea, but it's overplayed; the effect is just to make her silent and moody, when it would have been far more effective to have her genuinely unable to communicate and baffled by everything around her.

Neither, though, is really going to sustain a title indefinitely and at best this can be seen as a good starting point from which the character will rapidly have to be taken somewhere that frees the options up a bit (and which would render the extremism of the current concept a bit less obvious). If they're just going to do a load of stories about a silent vigilante, then the book probably isn't going to work. And it'll be fifteen years too late.

I've got mixed feelings about the art. Unlike a lot of people, I like the weird mask they've given her, with the ill-fitting hood and visible stitching. Fits the character. Penciller Damian Scott gives some nice scenes, and does a decent Batman. Some of his characters haven't aged sufficiently from a flashback seemingly set about a decade ago, but on the whole it's a decent looking book.

It'll take a couple of issues to see whether they take the character into more serviceable areas, since in her current bizarre form she's never going to sustain her own book. It's a decent start, but everything depends on where they go from here.