20 august 2000

Tons to talk about this week, so once again I'm going to skim past poor old BISHOP.

This is the second part of the Chronowar storyline, following which Marvel are apparently going to chuck the whole setting out of the window and go back to something a little less odd. This isn't something I'm particularly going to complain about, since the whole fantasy element has never really appealed to me. Fortunately, this issue stays fairly light on that stuff, concentrating instead on Bishop and Fitzroy's relationship.

One of the problems with using Fitzroy as the archvillain in this series was that he'd been such a hopeless loser in most of his previous appearances that he was almost impossible to take seriously, and even Bishop had pretty much given up looking for him because he just didn't matter very much. Joe Harris turns this to his advantage this issue, by having Fitzroy harangue Bishop for ignoring him for so long. Although Fitzroy's ostensibly pursuing the usual supervillain goal of personal power, he's quite evidently more concerned about proving to everyone that he's not just a third rate villain after all.

Now that the book has got around to focusing on the character material, it's a far more interesting read to me, although I can't say I was particularly delighted to see the Kith - one of Harris' Hobbit cast-offs - turning up halfway through. Still, the storyline seems to be building reasonably well, and while this looks likely to be relegated to a curio in the X-Men mythos, it's at least a respectable one.

It would delight me to write a review here singing the praises of Fabian Nicieza as one of the greatest scribes of recorded history, allowing me to shake my head sadly at the foolishness of Marvel, but unfortunately GAMBIT 2000 does not show him at his best.

Part of it is that, having deliberately held off reading Gambit #20 until this issue came out, I was expecting a major plot resolution rather than a major plot advancement. Nicieza gives us the latter, with Gambit finally getting around to fighting the New Son, who turns out to be a counterpart of him. The X-Men guest star, but mainly to run around as red herrings.

The other problem, and it's a big one, is that the issue is drowning in pseudoscience. The basic point that Nicieza is trying to get across when Gambit is fighting New Son is that their powers are the same and cancel one another out. Fine. But the narration only succeeds in blurring that fairly simple point by informing us that, and I quote:-

"Caught between two moments. Between the use of kinetic energy. New Son is controlling a suspension of that moment. And I have the ability to biokinetically charge the molecular structure of anything, basically to create a fission domino effect in anything, including the space between the spaces that New Son is freezing. Positive and negative - forward motion and locked stasis - smack into each other and they cancel each other out!"

Now, I've read that passage about ten times and I still haven't got a clue what it means. Quite honestly, I suspect it to be totally meaningless. From the rest of the issue I get the general idea that the New Son's powers are a more powerful version of Gambit's and that he can use them to freeze time (although I have not got the faintest idea why that's meant to be a logical extrapolation of Gambit's power to blow things up). But by describing what's meant to be a climactic moment in such bemusing terminology, the audience are left more confused than anything else.

It doesn't help, incidentally, that the New Son, without his glowing energy image, turns out to be wearing one of the ugliest costumes known to man. The cape is a particularly misguided element - while I realise there's a good reason to give him a different appearance to the real Gambit, what he's ended up with is a horribly retro affair.

Trim away the red herrings (including all the X-Men aside from Archangel), and you're left with the basics of a good story. Gambit and the New Son are clearly established on opposite sides; the New Son's identity is at least clarified if not fully revealed; and there's a nice twist with Archangel having sided with Gambit after all. But there's just too much confusion taking attention away from what ought to be the central story, and unfortunately it doesn't really work.

Oh, there's also a back-up strip, the gist of which is to establish that Jean-Luc LeBeau is still out there trying to prepare for something unhelpfully called the Recrudescence. According to my dictionary, by the way, a recrudescence is a re-emergence from dormancy. It's basically a teaser for the upcoming (or maybe not) story about the Guilds' beliefs in something called the Old Kingdom.

Art comes from a mixture of Thomas Derenick (who does some of the main story and all of the backup) and Cam Smith. Derenick's a decent superhero artist who does a rather good ariel fight scene with Archangel. Smith, to be honest, is rather average this time round. He's done decent work in the past, but this seems rushed.

I'd love to mark this up, like I say, but in all honesty it's far from what this series is capable of.

A brief word on GAMBIT #20, which I held off on reviewing three weeks ago since I was tipped off that it spoiled the plot of Gambit 2000 (and indeed it does).

This is basically a stock-taking issue in which Gambit and Fontanelle discuss the plot for fifteen pages. That's not an unreasonable thing to do once in a while, especially when the plot is as convoluted as it is here, but it still means that we've got an issue which isn't really a story as such. For long-time readers it's a useful explanation of what the New Son's meant to be up to (some of which is revealed here for the first time) and how all the enigmatic stuff in the past issues fitted into it, setting up for the next storyline of working out who the New Son actually is.

On that level it works quite effectively, but it's still ultimately a story that won't do a great deal for you without a working knowledge of what's come before.

Guest art comes from Joe St Pierre, who starts off in a rather over the top cartoon mode before settling down as the issue goes on. It's unusual for this series, but works fairly well considering that the entire issue is effectively a dream sequence.

This is closer to what Fabian's capable of - but it's still a set-up issue at the end of the day.

Over in the realms of books that can be understood without a flowchart and a physics textbook, GENERATION X continues its Shockwave storyline.

It's simple, it's basic, but it's effective. The obvious problem with having Generation X operating out of a school of normal children was the implausibility that nobody else would notice. There are two ways to deal with that problem - skim round it, which is what Faerber did, or charge it head on and make it the subject of the story. That's what Warren Ellis and Brian Wood are doing here, and Generation X being beaten up at school is far more powerful material than anything else from the X-office this week.

Although it's part of the Counter-X line, this is really cutting right back to the basic premise of the entire X-Men line - mutants just aren't all that popular, and they're an analogy for teenage outcasts of all types. It's rarely been done quite this effectively in recent years. While we've had plenty of Operation: Zero Tolerance style hopelessness, by keeping everything small scale, this story carries far more impact. Less is more, and all that.

The published artwork still doesn't match up to the reports from people who've seen the (supposedly beautiful) pencils, but at least there are good elements coming through. Adrienne comes out well, and Pugh turns out to do excellent versions of Penance, Artie and Leech - characters that aren't being used, of course. On the other hand, whoever inked the last few of Pugh's pages seems to still be having problems with his faces. Oddly, Ron Lim pops up to draw the last few pages, and not at all badly, although the shift to house style melodrama is noticeable.

Right now, Generation X has to be the book most in tune with the whole X-Men premise.

X-FORCE also belatedly lumbers into its Shockwave arc, a month later than the others. While the other two books are doing stories set during the six month gap, X-Force has opted for a story in the present with extensive flashbacks to the gap period. Given that the death of Pete Wisdom really required some fall-out to be shown, this seems reasonable enough.

It comes as something of a pleasure to see that a different artist is being used for the flashback sequences. Although Portacio isn't being anywhere near as annoying this issue as he was in the first story arc, and Lan Medina is not a particularly distinctive artist, at least he's not as harsh on the eyes. And he gets to draw the team in much better costumes, to boot.

The team's roster change in the flashback sequence doesn't really work. Domino and Dani are acting as though Pete Wisdom was offering to take the team off on some borderline suicidal, morally bankrupt new modus operandi. But all they seem to be proposing, at the end of the day, is that they go out and beat up some villains. That's what they all joined X-Force for in the first place. Dani and Domino's disapproval is wholly unconvincing. It doesn't fit with their characters at all - or, at the very least, the supposed radical aspects of the team's new direction are not adequately explained for the scene to come off.

Realigning X-Force with Domino in this issue also begs the question of what's meant to have become of their supposed new direction, since they're now apparently back with a mentor figure who doesn't aprove of it (whatever it was). Still, the issue does give us a helpful recap of what Domino's been up to while she's been away (mercenary work - and uh, she's meant to disapprove of Wisdom?) and set up a reasonably intimidating assassin as the villain for the rest of the arc.

Although this is a decided improvement on the first arc in terms of pacing and art, this remains the weakest of the three Counter-X books, and unfortunately the blame for that does seem to lie with Ellis. The concepts driving the Counter-X relaunch here really are not up to much - the team's new direction just isn't as radical as we're all being invited to believe, because it doesn't really seem like a new direction at all. Still, Ian Edginton has improved the pacing and characterisation, and there may be a good enough story in Domino and her assassin. This is certainly a readable issue, but it isn't delivering on the level that the Counter-X books were meant to.

On with the Counter-X books, and X-MAN, which was actually meant to come out this week.

The purpose of this arc is to bridge the gap between the book's previous status quo and Nate Grey's new "shaman" role. It's now apparent that Warren Ellis and Steven Grant are setting about that by playing off the original concept of Nate Grey as a biological weapon from another reality, which (a) gives Madelyne the excuse to look for him in the first place, and (b) gives him some real connection to the whole alternate reality theme.

For some reason this issue the story is suggesting that Madelyne was always an impostor from another reality right from the beginning of the series. I'm bemused as to why this was thought necessary. It creates serious continuity problems for some of Madelyne's guest appearances in other books, and it's entirely unnecessary for this story to work. It's not like the status quo of Madelyne was a plot point that desperately needed addressed - she hadn't actually appeared in the book since issue #52, and so she'd effectively been written out anyway. Other than allowing some lines about Nate being a destroyer rather than a creator, it doesn't really add much.

Of course, while normally this sort of retcon draws screams of horror, nobody really cares about this one. It's just an X-Man supporting character, and they're totally unimportant. Entirely true, but having Madelyne be an impostor all along really does seem to me to create unneeded confusion to no real benefit.

Anyhow, we get some nice scenes of Madelyne using Nate as a weapon, with him being forced to kill people, and an interesting set-up for the shaman theme, which is presumably coming in next issue. Ariel Olivetti's art is also growing on me, although his pencil and ink work doesn't begin to compare to his cover work.

There are interesting ideas here which aren't quite being delivered on yet. Still, the story's doing its job well enough - making the rather contrived shift to a shaman figure work. The character's still rather watery, but he's being steered in the right direction.

X-MEN #105 is, according to a lot of people out there, even worse than Uncanny X-Men #385. Not quite sure I agree with that. After all, Uncanny #385 was an ungodly mess which made no sense on any level. This is just a vacuous fight scene with some villains nobody cares about. It's merely bad and boring rather than actually incomprehensible, so it has to be viewed as marginally better.

The plot: Archangel and Psylocke are attacked by a group of villains they (and you) have never heard of, the Twisted Sisters. The other X-Men show up. Big fight. Heroes win. Obligatory ending bit where ungrateful citizens blame heroes for property damage. Villain stands in shadows and vows further nastiness.

Claremont has devoted nineteen of this issue's twenty-three pages to the big fight with the Twisted Sisters, which is at least fifteen too many. If there's a point to this issue, and that's highly questionable, the point is to have some henchmen attack Psylocke so that the villain can then deliver a monologue advising us that further attacks will come. The main villain gets his point across with relative economy in a one page monologue, which is what it needed. The attack could have been done in four pages and would have served the same effect. In other words, this is a subplot masquerading as a story.

The only reason for devoting such an enormous amount of space to it would be to put the Twisted Sisters over as major villains. If this was the idea, Claremont again fails utterly to make us care about his villains. While they've at least learned not to proclaim their names in mid-fight (though the X-Men inexplicably learn them halfway through the issue, presumably by reading the narration), they're still a generic, personality-free group of villains with nothing to distinguish them from a thousand other groups of low- grade henchmen.

Which is odd, because... well...

Let us go back to Claremont's Fantastic Four run. Issues #17-18, to be precise. That's the two parter where the Fantastic Four are trapped within a virtual reality called Shadow City, if anyone remembers. The idea of Shadow City was that it was an entire planetary population in the Negative Zone that had been driven underground for some reason and had all been put in suspended animation while their minds continued to live in Shadow City. More specifically, Shadow City was a sci-fi variant of Gotham City which allowed Claremont to introduce its protectors, Lockdown and Rosetta Stone, a rather pallid duo who vaguely echoed Batman and Robin. You might recall that they showed up for no good reason in Contest of Champions II.

Anyhow, the point of all this is: the Twisted Sisters were a bunch of villains in Shadow City. And if Claremont had bothered to explain all of this to the readers of X-Men then at least some vaguely interesting questions arise - such as, why are a bunch of villains from the Negative Zone who are supposed to be in suspended animation suddenly turning up on Earth? Well, okay, that's one vaguely interesting question and I can't think of any others. But it's one more question than the story currently raises.

If Claremont was assuming that X-Men readers would all know his obscure Fantastic Four plots, he's nuts. Judging from reaction to the issue so far, I seem to be in a minority of one in even having heard of the Twisted Sisters. If Claremont was planning to raise this stuff later, he's made a bad pacing error, since this issue could only have benefitted from inserting it now.

Oh, and if you're wondering: no, the Twisted Sisters were a generic villain group in the Shadow City story too. But that wasn't so bad then, because that was their role in the story. They weren't in a prominent role. They certainly don't have what it takes to carry an issue, which is what they're being asked to do here.

The allocation of pages in this story just baffles me. The two-page subplot with Mystique contains tons of material, much of it genuinely interesting. Cable is apparently now undercover with Robert Kelly. That may be a Lobdell plot that's been shoved in the microwave for thirty seconds, but it's still more interesting than watching the fight. Yet it gets two panels. Mystique's apparently impersonating Moira MacTaggert on Muir Isle; that merits one panel. This is a perfectly decent subplot scene but could do with at least one more page to get its point across clearly. Why is space being given to the damn Twisted Sisters instead?

Leinil Francis Yu is on relatively good form this issue, meaning that at least the fight scene gets to have some good villains (the sequence with Wolverine covered in webbing is particularly good). His work has still looked better, but he at least seems to be getting more suitable inking these days, and we're losing the awkward panels that were cropping up a few months ago.

This is not quite as bad as some people are suggesting, but it's still weak, devoting an enormous amount of space to a fight scene that simply does not deserve it, and not even giving the fairly basic background information that would at least have given some intrigue to the Twisted Sisters' presence, if not to the characters themselves.