14 july 2002

CABLE winds up this week with issue #107, although since it's going to be back in broadly the same form later this month as Soldier X, it would be pointless to pretend that this is meaningful in any way beyond a name change.

Thus far, Darko Macan has been loosely playing along with the direction set by his predecessor, David Tischmann. Broadly speaking, this involved Cable visiting assorted trouble spots off the established tourist tracks, and getting involved with local politics. Macan maintained the world tour theme although shifted the emphasis back towards Cable's character and away from the politics.

This issue, however, signals a drastic shift of emphasis and suggests that Macan may simply have been biding his time until the upcoming relaunch. Possibly that was a commercial mistake, as the poor sales of Tischmann's run suggests that it would have been a brighter move to make a clear break from that approach in advance of the relaunch. In any event, this issue seems to be setting the stage for a direction change in Soldier X.

No third world politics this time round. Instead, we have an utterly bizarre subplot about Cable being hassled by an idiot mutant with the power to heal from apparent death. This isn't a totally original idea, but the angle here is that "Lazarus" is shooting a TV special to consist entirely of footage of him dying and returning from the dead. He'd like Cable to blow him to smithereens so that he can have a particularly impressive finale. Everyone else, rightly, thinks this is the worst idea for a TV show that they've ever heard.

This weird idea is joined halfway through and, to be honest, never really goes anywhere. Perhaps Macan is setting up the character to play a part in Soldier X - he's certainly not without possibilities. Alternatively, Macan could just be throwing some random plot elements in there to emphasise the main theme - Cable's general lack of purpose and direction.

For our main plot, though, Cable is brought in to meet rich eccentric Mr Singapore (who was mentioned in passing at the end of last issue). Singapore's agenda is left unclear here, although the general impression is that we're meant to take him as a villain. He thinks the whole world is lacking direction and wants Cable to act as his "messiah" to introduce new ideas into the world. Quite what those ideas are, we don't get told, but this guy is pretty clearly a recurring character for the new book, so fair enough.

In any event, it seems that Singapore's agenda is going to drag the book clearly away from the Tischmann direction - Singapore is given a few panels to generally deride the whole idea that recent plots made a blind bit of difference when it comes to changing the world. ("Tell me, who cares who's in power in Peru?" "The Peruvians." "Would you bet on it?")

Singapore undoubtedly has some kind of point here - Tischmann's stories were largely of the "status quo maintenance" variety, and seemed to lack any kind of larger agenda to make up for Cable's previous messianic role. Macan seems to be taking the line that Cable is still feeling directionless now that his raison d'etre has been completely eliminated by the passage of storylines. It's certainly a positive sign that he isn't taking the cheap way out (ie, bring back Apocalypse and have Cable go back to business as normal). What remains to be seen is whether Macan has a new direction for the character which is going to give him a point again.

Taken in isolation, this issue tends towards the enigmatic and elliptical. But its real purpose is to set up Soldier X, and in that regard it does serve as a teaser for some new ideas. Macan may be going in a less obvious direction with this book than it had first appeared. It may have been a mistake, though, to leave it this late to make it clear.

Also joining the "technically cancelled" list this month is DEADPOOL. Unlike Cable, clear indications have been given that replacement title Agent X is going to be significantly different in some respects, and this issue is at least partly concerned to give the series a bit of closure.

Bearing in mind that everyone, including me, thought Marvel were insane to launch a Deadpool series in the first place, it's really quite impressive that the book made it this far. Joe Kelly's initial run on the book was one of the high spots of Marvel's output at that time, and immediately turned the character from a wisecracking generic mercenary into somebody worth reading about. Unfortunately, and partly due to continual rescheduling depending on whether the book was likely to be cancelled or not, the Kelly run tails off near the end. And much of what followed was not really comparable to the standard that had been set.

Still, the book came in with a standard that surprised everyone, and thankfully it's going out - or at least transmuting into Agent X - on a high as well. There's a lot crammed into this story. It's got the resolution of Sandi and Ratbag's subplots, and the defeat of the Black Swan to deal with - all serving to give the book a relatively "up" ending. It's also got the compulsory raft of cameos from supporting cast members, although that's neatly dealt with in half a page or so and isn't allowed to intrude on the story.

Given the amount of material in this issue, the book could probably have sustained another issue on this storyline. But ultimately it doesn't seem too cramped, and it does manage to give over enough space to play Deadpool as a straight character without sacrificing his comedy aspects.

A couple of glitches need to be pointed out. For one, the Black Swan seems to be suffering from conveniently fluctuating power levels. Why is he having to swordfight Deadpool in this issue, when previously he's never seemed to have much problem defeating anyone with his mental powers alone? Wouldn't that be a quicker route to the same end? Also, once again, Udon really need to get past this idea that a few spherical bumps on somebody's face work as a shorthand for "ugly." God knows what they think those things are on Jerry's face after Deadpool's beaten him up, but they certainly look nothing like any bruises I've ever seen.

These are relatively minor points, though. The key thing is that, whoever Agent X turns out to be, this issue works as a send-off for Deadpool.

On to less interesting and important books, and SABRETOOTH. And yes, the stock X-books miniseries review applies. It's not awful, but god, what's the point?

Sabretooth's still on the run with the woman from the previous issue, and he spends a lot of time fighting the same people he was fighting in the previous issue. Writer Dan Jolley seems to be trying to sell us on the "all Sabretooth needs is the love of a good woman" angle, which is a complete non-starter. Creed is a one-dimensional character. He's a sociopathic killer and I simply don't buy the idea of him having any interest in the generic blonde besides her purely pragmatic value in explaining the plot to him.

Again, the art suffers from some glitchy storytelling - characters seemingly teleporting to their feet from a prone position on the ground between panels, and some unhelpful "crossing the line" mid-fight.

I've read a lot worse, but like so many X-books minis, this book fails the basic test: is there a good reason for it to exist?

X-TREME X-MEN has its first recap page this month, although that doesn't stop Claremont from spending the first three pages recapping the plot anyway. Perhaps the story had already been written by the time that decision was handed down - at best, though, it's still a good illustration of how much story space is going to be freed up by the recap page once writers stop duplicating its function.

More alarmingly, the recap page informs us that, despite being called "Final Gambit", this is not in fact the end of the seemingly interminable invasion plot. Rather, we're apparently on part 5 of a six-part arc entitled "Invasion From Dimension X", which sounds so unbelievably B-movie that I'm going to assume it was a working title never intended for public consumption.

Incidentally, this isn't actually part five. The storyline began in issue #10, so this is part six. That means that over half a year is being devoted to this storyline, which is excessive by any standards. At least two issues could, and should, have been removed from this storyline to get it down to a manageable size. Alternatively, much more material on the Vargas subplot could have been included. God knows there's the space for it. Plus, and I only repeat it because it's so so true, this means we're spending seven bloody issues on an arc which has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DIARIES. Is that plot ever going to go anywhere, on anything faster than a geological timescale? Does that plot even still exist?

I liked the diary plot! It was a nice idea for a overreaching arc plot which gave the team some kind of purpose and motivation! So why are we spending all our time watching them drift around aimlessly while Chris Claremont homages his favourite pulp sci-fi?

The Vargas plot actually does get some space this time round, as we finally establish why he's after Rogue. It seems that Destiny's diaries have predicted she's going to kill him, so he wants to avert that. I'd have to say that's a bit of a disappointment to me. It doesn't explain why he's after the damned diaries. Nor does it do much to tell us about Vargas' agenda more generally. We're over a year into this series by now - is it too much to ask that we should have at least some general idea of why the team's archvillain is supposed to be a threat by now? And if this guy has any kind of coherent motivation, intelligence and personality, why IS he raising this completely unrelated plot in the middle of a world- threatening invasion? On the assumption that he doesn't have a death wish, and he evidently doesn't, it would seem a downright idiotic time to pick a fight with Rogue.

Bluntly, in a manner unpleasantly reminiscent of Mr Sinister, Vargas is degenerating into a villain with no sensible personality or motivations who wanders around doing vaguely cool and enigmatic things which have no over-reaching point. There seems no purpose to the character beyond wandering around being suave and villainous. The whole is very much less than the sum of his parts.

Khan, at least, is a character who makes reasonable sense, and there are some nice scenes of his underlings in awe of him. Ditto the bitter harem trying to bump off Storm to secure their own position - it may be corny, but at least it makes sense. More than can be said for the Lifeguard/Shi'ar angle, which is still a mess. Aside from anything else, why does everyone else immediately recognise her as royalty when she comes from a completely different dimension (and looks nothing like any Shi'ar royalty we've ever seen)? And in an organisation entirely devoted to serving Khan as the sole source of power, why do they care whether she's royalty or not?

Despite a couple of good ideas, this storyline is a bloated mess - with the emphasis firmly on "bloated." Seven issues, for christ's sake.

Jimmy Palmiotti's run as writer of Deadpool wasn't too bad, so long as he steered clear of sophomoric jokes. He seems to be focussing on that side of his career now, co-writing two upcoming WildStorm books, and BEAUTIFUL KILLER. This one's from Wizard's spin-off imprint Black Bull, who no doubt loved all the stuff in Deadpool that I hated.

However, it's a pleasant surprise to see that Beautiful Killer steers clear of that stuff. It's not the most original book you'll ever read, but it's aiming a little higher than the Deadpool stories did. It's a spy story, in the sense of the word "spy" that bears no relationship whatsoever to the real world but which writers just about get away with because it's an establish genre convention.

Premise: Brigit Cole is the nineteen-year-old daughter of two spies. Actually, the series seems to be playing fast and loose with its timeframe, since the flashbacks to "twenty years ago" look more like the sixties to me. Anyhow, she's been kept safe from her parents' enemies all her life, but now the baddies have found and killed them, so she has to use the training her parents gave her to stop the baddies herself.

I did say it wasn't the most original book you'll ever read.

But if you're prepared to allow for the rather corny idea, it's actually not bad. The basic idea is that Brigit has got plenty of training from parents but absolutely zero experience, and Palmiotti plays quite nicely off that. There are a couple of good comedy sequences. There's one grindingly unsucessful scene transition that doesn't manage to get across the fact that time has passed and just winds up being confusing, but on the whole it's a fairly entertaining story, if thoroughly a genre affair.

Phil Noto provides painted artwork, and thankfully the book steers clear of the "bad girl" cliches that usually come as standard with Wizard. I could live without the decision to make Brigit an albino, which just adds an extra layer of improbability to an already credibility-straining character, but it admittedly makes for a rather good character design.

Not bad, all told, although held back mainly by a lack of originality. Still, better than I was expecting.

Ah, STORMWATCH. The trademark in search of a point.

Other than the Warren Ellis run at its tail end, StormWatch was always a classic example of everything people didn't like about 1990s Image - a spin-off book from WildCATS which didn't have a terribly strong premise or particularly striking characters, and left you with the distinct suspicion that it only really existed because somebody thought there was a market for a spin-off book from WildCATS.

This is really a different book altogether - this time round, they're still a UN strike force, but they're conventional soldiers whose job is to keep the superhumans under control. It's got more in common with GI Joe than with the original title. Presumably the name is being revived for whatever brand value it still has.

Supposedly this is a mature readers title, although god alone knows why. Aside from a couple of uses of the word "fuck", there's nothing in here which would strike me as out of place in a mainstream Marvel or DC title. The plot is pretty straightforward - the UN building comes under attack, and since the new StormWatch team isn't actually operational yet, Santini and Coleman have to try and defeat the attack with a half-completed base and little in the way of support. I assume the idea is to do the first issue with a reduced cast and then introduce the rest of the team next month, which is fair enough.

Whilce Portacio is both pencilling and colouring, which history suggests will condemn the book to irredeemable lateness by issue #3 at latest. However, Portacio seems to be back on track compared with his take on X-Force. The style here is to make StormWatch themselves look relatively normal and down to earth in contrast to the lunatics they've got to fight, and so there's none of the ridiculous costuming this time round. There's also a lot less of the unpleasant scratchiness, perhaps because Portacio is back to having Scott Williams as an inker. His colouring is more questionable - some pages are very pleasant, other drenched in a bilious combination of green, orange and purple. I assume it's meant to reflect coloured lighting, but it's not nice.

All told, though, the art looks pretty decent. As for the story, it's serviceable enough, and does the job of introducing the core cast members. The basic premise of a group of soldiers trying to keep the superhumans under control has potential, and it's an enjoyable enough read once you twig that the Eye of the Storm imprint doesn't mean anything terribly different at all and stop waiting for it to happen.

Nothing you wouldn't expect from the premise, but it does it quite nicely.

VERTIGO POP is the banner title for a group of miniseries which are, apparently, "focusing on American pop culture's far-reaching influence on the planet at large." Each of the announced minis has a different creative team, which would normally set off the warning bells that somebody had had a cute idea for a title and then started phoning round people to write them. However, this being Vertigo, they get the benefit of the doubt. And fortunately, this first issue (from the Japan miniseries) does suggest that the editorial approach is more curatorial than prescriptive.

The story is about Steve, an American living in Tokyo, who's moved there largely because he wanted easier access to all those fabulous gadgets they have over there. He gets mixed up with Maki, a teenage girl who's into very unusual dressing up, and her brother, who's an underachieving Yakuza. Well, it wouldn't be a comic set in Japan without the Yakuza, would it?

This first issue isn't really about "American pop culture's far-reaching influence on the planet at large" at all. It's about Japanese pop culture, and as everyone knows, Japanese pop culture is weird and insane to western eyes. The creators, Jonathan Vankin and Seth Fisher, have both spent time living in Tokyo, which means they're writing from a reasonably informed perspective. Like most readers, of course, I've never been anywhere near Japan in my life, so it's really up to them to convince me that they're not just making it up. Particularly the bit about gangsters standing around on the streets with placards, solemnly protesting about the anti-gang laws.

But whether any of this is true or not, it's certainly convincingly told. The usual stuff about exceptional politeness is in there, but in substance it largely boils down to characters saying the same thing as a vastly more formal way. Fisher's art walks a fine line between realism and caricature (his characters frequently have pinpoint dots for eyes and such forth), and it's very effective at the hyper-real impression he's going for.

The "American influence" angle doesn't put in a prominent appearance here, although the groundwork is obviously being laid for that in Maki's interest in Steve. High concept aside, though, it's a great looking book which has fun with the oddities of Japanese pop culture without making fun of them.

Worth a look.