13 june 1999

The strength of Jay Faerber's GENERATION X has been in his characterisation, so I suppose it shouldn't really surprise me that he tends to falter on the big fight issues. But in any event, this is a big fight issue, and it falters.

The problem with issues that really consist entirely of people pummelling one another is that it's awfully hard to work in characterisation. A tiny number of writers do it extremely well, but although there's certainly character material here, it feels tacked on. The core plot is just heroes fight villains and recover stolen object, and I'm simply not very interested.

It's also, to be honest, not that great a fight. The Rising Sons have absolutely no sense of teamwork in this story; they split up and just get beaten as individuals (not surprisingly since, despite numbering equally with Generation X, each of them somehow contrives to be outnumbered 2:1). They don't seem terribly competent. Their personalities don't really come across very strongly either. They've got them, yes, but I don't feel I know them much better than I did after their two-page meet-the-cast introduction in the previous issue.

None of which is to say that this is a bad issue; it's just an average one, and consequently a bit disappointing given what we know Jay's capable of. There's some snappy dialogue, there's good art, and I do quite like the idea that Adrienne wants the sword so she can use her psychometric powers to enjoy the death of somebody she had killed with it. On the whole, though, this is pretty missable.

MUTANT X #11 is a story focusing on Scott Summers. That's the child of Havok and Madelyne Pryor from the Mutant X universe, if you're not a regular reader. I hate to be negative about two stories in one week, but this doesn't work either.

One of the fundamental problems with Howard Mackie's X-Factor stories was the characters' inconsistent motivations; the way they would retroactively develop new plans that didn't make sense in the light of previous stories, and so forth. In fairness, that faded towards the end of his run, and it hasn't been much in evidence in Mutant X.

But it seems to be rearing its head in Scotty. Mackie doesn't seem to have a clear idea of who the character is supposed to be. In previous issues he's been terrified of his mother and her henchmen, and has had an instinctive sense of when he's in danger. Suddenly, in this story, he goes trotting off with Bloodstorm (whom he knows full well is an agent of his mother), despite all the rest of the cast screaming at him not to. This momentary lapse into brainless idiocy is awfully handy for the plot, as the moment he gets to her headquarters, he suddenly decides he doesn't want to be there after all.

This has been a slight recurring problem with Scotty all along, as he's fluctuated wildly between being pitifully naive and wise beyond his years, but since he was a rather minor character it never really mattered before. Here, we discover that Scotty's had the power to free Madelyne's thralls all along (it doesn't seem to cause him any difficulty at all), but just never bothered to use it in any previous stories when they were attacking him. Annoying.

Unless Howard Mackie is deliberately trying to write Scotty as mentally disabled (and he doesn't seem to be), I'm not sure what he's playing at here. Scott's intelligence, level of knowledge and general maturity are all over the place according to what the plot requires. This is just about forgiveable in a plot device character, but it all collapses on its arse when he's asked to take the lead role in a story.

I really can't stand PLASTIC MAN in JLA. I only picked up his Special because of good reviews.

Ty Templeton's stories prove something beyond all doubt. Plastic Man is not an inherently annoying character. He's annoying in the JLA because he's not being written very well. Sorry, Grant Morrison fanatics, but it's true. Morrison's making a dreadful hash of him. This is how to do it.

In this book, Plastic Man's appearing in pretty silly, surreal stories, but he himself is actually more or less sensible. Therefore he is funny. In JLA, he's appearing in adventure stories where he does nothing but throw in zany asides. He is therefore the worst thing it is possible to be - zany, but not funny. Consequently he is extremely annoying.

This time, there's enough ridiculous stuff already in the plot that Plastic Man doesn't need to act like a moron in order to keep up his image. I like him again. I want to see more comics like this. It makes me laugh. So few comics do. (Well, intentionally, anyway.)

The lead story is a relatively sane (and I suppose in- continuity, if you're bothered) affair with Plastic Man and his sidekick taking on the job of advertising Nike shoes in order to get publicity in their hunt for costumed terrorist the Supreme Caribou ("Cut off one antler and two shall take its place!"). Its jokes about fame and the US media aren't exactly original, but there's some wonderful one-liners in there.

The good stuff is the utterly ridiculous origin for his sidekick Woozy Winks (no, honestly, I'm assured this guy's a pre-existing character), which involves him getting his nickname after spending too long in a poorly ventilated cupboard, and a villain who is "the master of sharp, pointy things"; and a shameless pisstake of the last couple of years worth of crossovers (thankfully including the execrable Kingdom along with the more conventional choices, which is nice to see).

Books like this really just boil down to whether you find them funny or not, of course. I did. It's silly, but it's clever silly.