10 march 2002

Back to a nice, sensible volume of books this week, and we have one good book, one middling, and one really rather bad.

The good one, you will not be surprised to hear, is EXILES. Now that we've got rid of that Galactus storyline, which really did not play to the creative team's strengths, we can get back to the exciting work of character relations. This is actually a story which takes place prior to the Galactus arc - presumably to avoid the team being in a state of shock or to deal with the arrival of the new member, given that this story actually focuses on Morph and Sunfire. This would have fitted in much more naturally in the place of the silent month issue, but then we wouldn't want to sacrifice the precious gimmickry, would we?

But I digress. This issue picks up with the Exiles on a very nice world with a week to spare before their next jump. The team want to go for some naked sunbathing and have decided they don't want Morph around because he'll be childish. Presumably this is a mega-tolerant world, which isn't going to be surprised by two brightly coloured people and a giant naked killing machine, as otherwise you'd think Morph would be the least of their problems.

So, having been packed off together, Morph and Sunfire talk and dutifully explain some of their angst points to one another. This is the kind of thing that can be painfully bad if done in a going-through-the-motions kind of a way, but Judd Winick excels at this kind of dialogue, and succeeds in fleshing out his cast while producing entertaining scenes at the same time.

Art this month comes from recurring guest artist Jim Calafiore, who's got a good handle on how far to push the visual gags with Morph without losing sight of the story. Calafiore's a great artist, and it seems a waste that he seems to spend most of his time on fill-ins.

Anyhow, after a rather shaky attempt at cosmic epic, it's good to see Exiles returning to what it does best.

MUTIES moves on to its second self-contained story, and it's becoming dismally apparent where this series is headed.

Last month, you will recall, Muties #1 did a thinly veiled Columbine story, in which a bunch of stock characters added very little to the sum total of human knowldge on the subject. This month, the book takes much the same approach to the theme of domestic violence.

Now, the trappings are all quite neat - our mutant this month is the child of the abused wife, and he has the mutant power to bring his toys to life. Since he has a fantasy life revolving around Japanese animation (we're in Japan, by the way, not that it has the faintest relevance to anything), his animated toys are therefore Very Cool.

Well, that's all very nice, and it does make for some good visuals (as penciler Patrick Spaziante displays some obvious affection for the Transformers, among others). But it's got nothing to do with the story.

The story is a bog standard array of cliches which you've seen a thousand times before. Nice little withdrawn kid and long suffering, loving mother live with (oh, dear god, this was old when the Brothers Grimm retired) their wicked stepfather. He is bad. He beats mummy. When he finds out that nice kid is a mutant, he wants to sell kid for money. He is very, very bad! But eventually nice kid fights back using his mutant powers and kills him, so that's alright then.

And, uh, that's pretty much it. All the stuff about Japan and toys is really little more than a bit of local tinsel draped awkwardly over these three one-dimensional stock characters lumbering their way through a TV movie. As with issue #1, there's a glaring lack of character depth to any of these people. The result is a very shallow story (and a waste of some perfectly good art).

If you want to see the "child living through fantasy crosses over into reality" theme explored with a bit more depth (and, for that matter, better art), pick up a copy of Kaare Andrews' issue of Tangled Web instead. It didn't have any clodhopping domestic violence themes, but that's really a plus.

I wouldn't go as far as describing Muties as tacky. But it's a book which acts as though it's addressing serious issues, when in fact it's just retreading stereotypes and barely scratching the surface.

Over in UNCANNY X-MEN, the X-Corp storyline continues along the firmly middling line which was established last month.

It turns out that Casey was going for the middle line in terms of explaining everyone's out of character behaviour - a mixture of mind control, and Sean being a bit out of sorts after Moira's death. And that more or less works.

It will surprise nobody to learn that the baddies free themselves from mind control and turn on Sean in this issue, since that was possible the single most obvious way for the plot to go. Somewhat more interesting is the odd discrepancy between ARM claiming to have killed Surge, and what we saw in the last issue.

But the book remains largely an example of some stock plot ideas going through the motions, and it's difficult to get worked up about any of this. Casey still hasn't really sold me on the idea that the X-Corps' image justifies the X-Men's reaction to it; ARM, at this late stage in the story, remain utterly generic; and the mind control elements are not what you'd call original. The exposition also remains a little ropey - for reasons I find completely impenetrable, Casey still doesn't clearly explain to the audience who the woman in the test tube is. If you have a working knowledge of X-Men history, you'll be able to follow her explanation of who she is. If you're a new reader - not that Casey managed to hold on to any of them, admittedly - you'll be pretty much lost.

Art comes from Sean Phillips this month, who keeps his head down and ploughs through the story in thoroughly competent manner. It's perfectly acceptable fill-in art, and at least he has less of a glaring style clash with Ron Garney compared to some of the previous artists on this title.

HAWKMAN is one of the numerous DC heroes who are apparently institutions of the comics world but who have somehow managed to avoid ever holding the faintest interest for me. There's something about the visual which, while rather impressive, is also deeply stupid at the same time. I think it's the bare chest and the silly hook-nosed face mask that do it. Oh, and the Thundercats logo. I don't care if he had it first, that's still what it is.

This is a new ongoing series, spinning off from JSA. Geoff Johns is writing, and takes the odd approach of dispensing altogether with the obligatory origin flashback. All of that material is stubbornly relegated to the banner over the opening credits. (You know, the blurb that Marvel publish as a lead-in to the words "Stan Lee Presents." That bit.)

However, despite omitting all of the actual events, the basic themes come across clear enough. As Hawkman's origin presently stands, thousands of years ago two lovers were affected by alien energies from a crashed spaceship. They're reincarnated repeatedly, and are "destined to meet and rekindle their love" each time. Hawkman and (god, I hate DC sidekick names) Hawkgirl are the current incarnations.

All basically clear enough, and the focal point of this series looks to be the relationship between two characters who are aware of all of this and yet find themselves not quite clicking. Hawkman in particular seems to spend much of the time comparing his partner unfavourably to her own previous incarnation. It's quite an interesting set-up for a relationship, and I've got some general interest in seeing where this is heading.

The issue could probably have stood to include a little more of the back story, however - the current one raises from pretty glaring questions, not least how the current Hawkgirl can be a fully grown reincarnation of the previous one who, judging from the story, was only killed off a few years back. As near as I can decipher, this calls for them both to have been alive simultaneously, and it would have been better to see this explained (or at least acknowledged as an oddity, if the explanation has yet to be revealed).

Art comes from Rags Morales and Michael Bair, who are working pretty much in classic DC superhero house style, but do it very well. There's some attractive use of shadow, and the flight sequences are suitably graceful.

It's nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but it's a solid superhero title which does what it does well.