19 august 2001

Shall we start with one of my pet hates? I think we shall.

NEW X-MEN 2001, brought to you in thrilling Sideways-o-Vision, is hideously late, for no adequately explained reason. New X-Men #116 is also hideously late, for barely explained reasons. It will be out next week. But some of its key plot points are helpfully revealed in advance here.

Now, let me explain this slowly.

The fact that New X-Men 2001 gives away large parts of issue #116's plot would have been a very good reason to delay its release until issue #116 actually came out. Had Marvel actually explained this to us, it would have been perfectly acceptable. As it is, we have a book which is already absurdly late blowing plots that were going to be out in only seven days.

This is extremely irritating.

Anyhow. Let's leave that point aside and review the annual as if issue #116 had actually come out. It goes without saying that the most notable thing about this issue is the decision to publish it sideways with the staples at the narrow end, meaning that while we have exactly the same amount of space per page, the pages are a different shape.

I have seem some grumbling from the widescreen purists that Morrison did not pack the story with double-spread splash pages. Obviously, these people are entirely wrong. For heaven's sake, it's only a 42-page story. He's got a lot to get through. Nonetheless, if that's what you're expecting from this story then you'll be disappointed. There are a few spreads of that sort, but if anything this is a more chatty and small-scale story than Morrison has been writing in the monthly format. (Admittedly, this might suggest that it was a questionable choice of story to use the format on.)

There is more significance to the shape of the page than the tiresome cinema comparisons. It affects the whole style of the visual narrative, because it drastically cuts back the use of tiers of panels. One of Scott McCloud's more interesting arguments for the benefits of web comics is that pages are an annoying limitation on comics which impose all sorts of arbitrary breaks when really the story generally just wants to scroll uninterrupted from left to right. This format still has the page breaks, but it does scroll a lot more smoothly. Yu seems to be groping his way a bit, but it generally works quite nicely once you get used to it.

But what about the story? Well, the purpose of this issue is to introduce two new Morrison concepts - Xorn, who's presumably going to be a new regular character, and the U-Men. One of these ideas is immediately interesting. One is not.

Xorn really doesn't do a great deal for me. Since this issue involves the X-Men rescuing him from his prison, he does very little other than sit around waiting to be rescued, and has no real opportunity to display a personality. There might be something there, but it doesn't come across here.

The powers leave me entirely cold, though. Much as I like Morrison's tendency to add demented throwaway ideas in his comics, it doesn't work so well when he starts chucking about pseudo-scientific gibberish in the actual plot. The plot relies on us accepting that Xorn's powers are very dangerous and exotic. Unfortunately, it entirely fails to communicate what they are. There are vague mutterings about him having microscopic suns and black holes in his head, but this tells us very little. Whatever he has in his head, it obviously isn't a sun or a black hole in any conventional sense, otherwise he'd be dead and so would we. In effect, Xorn has a Thingy in his head, and Morrison has chosen to label said Thingy a "microscopic sun" because it sounds awfully good even though it means nothing.

Maybe this will be clarified in future stories, but I'm left completely clueless as to what, in practice, Xorn's powers are. I'm not altogether convinced that Morrison's been thinking it through either. He kicks off with that old staple, the power demonstration scene, in which two children are apparently incinerated when they are exposed to Xorn's face. Oddly, this seems to pose no problem to the characters who are standing next to Xorn at the end of the issue. This is a problem which will need to be addressed in future stories.

The U-Men, on the other hand, are much more interesting. These guys are an extension from the commonplace observation that mutants are an analogy for homosexuals. Following that train of thought, Morrison gives us the Marvel Universe analogy for transsexuals - people who claim to be mutants in human bodies and who want public access to the scientific procedures that could give them superhuman powers.

This is a fascinating idea. Morrison perhaps overplays the difficulty of humans becoming superhumans in the Marvel Universe (let's face it, it does seem to happen on a daily basis), but what really distinguishes these guys is their motivation. It raises some interesting ideas about identity, as well as carrying some decidedly un-PC implications about transsexuals. Of course, it's not a totally original idea - the Marvel Universe has had people selling superhuman powers before, and the idea of humans trying to transform themselves into aliens and such like has cropped up in places like Transmetropolitan. Still, it's an interesting thought which fits nicely into the X-Men's themes.

Slightly more questionable are some of the seemingly unrelated ideas that Morrison has welded onto this concept. We're told that some of the U-Men are refusing the breathe the "tainted air" until they receive their surgical upgrades and are insisting on wearing armour to protect themselves from the world. I have no idea what that's meant to have to do with anything. The central concept here is about personal transformation, not any kind of rejection of the world. They'll still be living in the same world post-surgery. This is a stray concept which belongs on other characters and doesn't work with these ones.

More generally, Morrison has some good repartee between his characters, the usual cute one-liners ("Don't worry, Scott's very good with the depressed") and a good use of Domino. Yu's artwork is excellent throughout, giving us the most convincing reminder in while of why we all thought he was good in the first place. There are a few moments of shaky storytelling where the scene transitions don't work (notably Domino and Wolverine's raid on the U-Men's building, which takes several pages too long to establish that there's a fund-raising party going on at the time). The curious decision to kill off Risque off panel, when she wasn't even established as having an X-Men connection in the first place, also seems to have caused more confusion than anything else.

There are some ideas here that just don't quite work, and it doesn't have the pure simplicity of the so-called monthly series. Xorn, in particular, is not yet working. But as with most Morrison books, if you don't like one idea, there's another one along in a moment.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #8 comes closer than before to actually giving its cast distinct personalities. They're still a very homogenous group, but at least here they show some signs of being multi-dimensional characters. It's taken him long enough.

To be perfectly honest, though - and I know this is a heresy in some circles - I can barely work up the enthusiasm to bother reviewing this book any more. It's just so empty. There's nothing there other than a general sense of how pleased with itself it is. It looks pretty. The art has some nice throwaway jokes. It's heading somewhat in the right direction.

But I don't care. At all. I find it dull to read. I certainly find it dull to write about. I feel nothing for any of Miller's characters, not even a recognition of them as people.

I can't honestly say it's bad. Yet I instinctively hate this book. I will have to explore why.

Remember when GEN13 was Wizard's favourite book? Yes, me too. That's why I don't buy it.

Which turns out to be a horrible mistake on my part, since Gen13 #68 is really very good indeed. When did this happen? I must pick up back issues.

Adam Warren is writing the book these days, which sounded a curious choice given that his main area of interest always seemed to be manga. But Warren has managed to work his personal obsessions into this book without turning it into a weird niche audience title. This is a book driven by character and, in this issue at least, character-based comedy.

This issue focusses on Roxy and Grunge's relationship. Warren sets the story up nicely, despite the rather convoluted backstory. Roxy is besotted with Grunge. Grunge, on the other hand, hasn't noticed that they're meant to be any more than just good friends, largely because he's under a hypnotic suggestion not to think about her in that way. (Warren quite rightly recognises that for today's purposes it doesn't matter why that happened.)

Now, this has recently been complicated further by Grunge turning up in an issue of Authority to make a cameo appearance where he was very obviously having sex with Swift. Rather than choose to ignore this, Warren has picked up the ball and run with it, giving us a romantic triangle between two airheads and a character from another book entirely whose mates keep telling her that she's displaying appalling taste. This is funny. Trust me.

Warren brings his Japanese pop culture obsessions into play by having it as Roxy and Grunge's shared interest. You might well argue that he's indulging in a bit of wish fulfilment here, to be honest. Fortunately for those of us who don't share their interests, neither do the rest of the cast, who find it all as bafflingly pointless as we do. You'll empathise with one side or the other. Admittedly, if you're totally hostile to the whole subject you might find it annoying, but really, have a go.

Yanick Paquette is drawing the book and is looking a damn sight better than he did on Gambit. The change of inker probably helps; Andrew Pepoy gives the art a nice clean look, not too far from Gary Frank's style (who's the last artist on this book that I can remember). The layouts haven't changed much, but the art is looking more polished.

And if that doesn't interest you, this issue also features a rare sighting of the Authority displaying personalities.

This is one of those books which would probably be enjoyed by tons of people who won't go within a mile of it because of its earlier incarnation as fanboy junk. Rethink your position. I have.

Finally, HOPELESS SAVAGES #1.

This is an idea which has been floating around the corners of Oni publications for a while now, finally making it into print in something more than a one pager or a short story. The gimmick is that the Hopeless-Savages are two married punk musicians and their kids, who have (for the most part) inherited the lifestyle.

The plot: the parents are kidnapped by parties unknown. The three kids - Skank, Arsenal and Twitch - must retrieve their missing brother Rat, who has abandoned the lifestyle to become conventional, and rescue the parents.

This really shouldn't work. Punk, after all, was twenty-five years ago. It has spiritual descendents, but punk itself is a bit of a nostalgia thing these days. And there's something oddly conformist about the idea of second-generation punks which doesn't quite fit with the spirit - though that's one of the points that gets dealt with by bringing in the rebel member.

Nonetheless, it's a fun book. The kidnapping plot is a bit contrived for my tastes, but it's all basically a framework to display the characters. The cast are likeable, and are fleshed out beyond being mere punk stereotypes. Skank's relationship with Rat, and her feelings of betrayal when he leaves to work for (a thinly disguised) Starbucks are nicely portrayed. Both Christine Norrie, on the main story, and Chynna Clugston-Major, on the flashbacks, do good work bringing the characters to life.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that this book has a slightly different idea of punk than I do. These people have gold discs on display in their house. That doesn't strike me as very punk. It's a very apolitical punk, which is opposed to Starbucks more on lifestyle grounds than anything else. It doesn't feel terribly relevant.

It doesn't necessarily need to if they're going to do a family based light comedy, which seems to be the idea. But it's not what I associate with punk, making the whole thing read rather oddly to me. I enjoyed it, but it does feel like it's largely a celebration of the creators' record collections.