22 august 1999

Now hold on just a minute here.

X-MAN #56 is a story in which Nate Grey is held prisoner in an illusory yet idyllic world where he is manipulated by a mysterious figure who is attempting to find out the true identity of Spider-Man. This sounds awfully familiar. Where does this sound awfully familiar from?

Ah yes. Amazing Spider-Man #7-8, in which various people who were connected to Spider-Man were held prisoner in an illusory yet idyllic world where they were manipulated by, well, Mysterio, who was attempting to find out the true identity of Spider-Man. And if I remember the solicitations correctly, Nate will be fighting Mysterio shortly.

So it's a repeat, basically. A duplicate of a story from another book. Oh dear.

Obviously there's a certain degree of logic to it. Yes, to be sure, Mysterio should be pursuing similar goals in similar ways. No question about that. But this really does go beyond that into being, in many key respects, the same plot.

But frankly, the Spider-Man books did it better. Those two issues had real wit and verve to them, freed from the shackles of regular continuity, as they wrote Flash Thompson as a ridiculous superhero, camped the whole thing up to the heights, and generally took the piss. This story tries to do something similar but never manages to make it work. A gag villain mumbling something about long term tax concessions doesn't play as well.

There is one twist here which is nice to see, namely a suggestion that Nate may have full scale reality altering powers that work on a subconscious level. There's plenty of interesting stories in that idea and it's something I'm happy to see pursued. And for that matter, no quibbles with the art either. Mike Miller does a perfectly good job.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, what we have here is a story I read a couple of months ago, in another book which did it better.

X-MEN, then, and for the benefit of any longterm readers who haven't been following the discussion, the return of Mastermind is not a mistake. Not only is it not a mistake, but all the clues are there to let you work out what's going on.

So why did so many people miss the clues and start complaining on first reading? Well, to be honest it's largely because the X-books now have such an atrocious track record for continuity that when something like this happens people assume that the explanation is a cock-up and don't look for the clues. It's been so long since the X-books saw stories with real forward planning, subtlety and foreshadowing that we're just not used to it.

Read it again, then, looking for the details this time. And my god, it's one of the best issues we've had in ages. The Shattering allows for a small cast of three - Rogue, Shadowcat and Nightcrawler - and Davis makes full use of this. Characters actually talk to one another. There are emotions. There are ideas. There's an excellent sequence dealing with how Mystique feels about Destiny's failure to warn anybody about her death even though she saw it coming. At long, long last the X-Men's reaction to Havok's death is addressed.

In fact, the thing I really like about this issue is that there's absolutely tons going on. It's densely yet clearly plotted; every scene serves a purpose; every character is here for a reason. And as it's a two-parter, we have the satisfaction of knowing it'll be tied up decently next issue (so far, Davis has been very good about keeping his story arcs self-contained).

The plot... oh yes, the plot. Basically, Mystique's being hunted down by the Japanese government while the real villains sit around rubbing their hands and giggling about the fact that the Japanese are chasing the wrong person entirely. Meanwhile, Polaris is being chased by unknown people for entirely unknown reasons. Oh, and we don't know who the real villain is either. So basically it just sets up a whole load of mysteries, but it does it so well.

Oh, and it's got some excellent Alan Davis art - not to mention Rogue written with some recognition of what her power levels actually mean, something we see all too rarely.

This is without a doubt the best issue since Davis took over - the best plotted, the best characterised, even the best scripted. It has so many of the things that made me love the X-Men in the first place, I want to give it a great big hug. This is the X-Men done right.

So, what else to review? What else is starting this week? Ah, KABUKI AGENTS. Heard of that. Give it a go.

Now let's see. What do I know about Kabuki? Well, it's by David Mack, the man who's going to write the next Daredevil arc. And... no, other than that I know absolutely nothing about Kabuki. Bugger. This is going to be a well-informed review, then.

What the hell. Every issue is somebody's first and all that stuff. It's a first issue and if I can't understand it, he's damn well doing something wrong.

So what do we have here? Well, Kabuki herself is (or was, I'm not entirely clear on that bit) a Japanese government agent, and this new title will carry self-contained arcs focusing on various other agents. Starting with Scarab, and in the manner of these things, starting with bits of her origin story. Oh, and it's an action-adventure thing with codenames and such. I'm tempted to use the phrase "Japanese version of GI Joe" but something tells me I would be stamped on by enraged fans if I did.

The plot of this issue is actually pretty conventional - Kabuki's been kidnapped by a rival agency (which I see is a plot from her own title) and Scarab and co make an attempt to rescue her. And of course it goes a bit wrong. Cue reminiscence and origin flashback. Nothing too unusual here, although all very well done.

However, there's obviously ideas in here that raise the book above just being another action adventure thing. I see from the letters column that masks are an ongoing theme in Kabuki, and the character designs bear that out. Rather than being the usual mask-and-cool-accessories costumes, characters here have very obviously and clearly theatrical costumes. With a few concessions to realism (no high heels, I see, but sensible boots - odd that such a series with such a stylised design sense should be one of the few to avoid this basic error), but theatrical for all that.

Pretentious bit coming up. As we all know, superhero costumes are about making the "dual identity" concept literal by creating an entirely different character design for each identity. (This is why costumes are an inherent part of characters like Spider-Man and Superman but are nothing more than a genre trapping for people like Wolverine or Cable.) Scarab seems very self-conscious about the fact that this is what the costumes are for - although Tigerlily undermines the entire convention by dumping her costume at the first sign that it's become a liability and telling Scarab that "we don't know each other's identity, we only know each other's face." I like this sort of thing immensely.

There's also things like a rather curious portrait of Scarab as Saint Sebastian (which I'm sure will make sense in a few issues time) and a nice ability to balance the theatrical and genre aspects of the book with much more down to earth conversation pieces. Rick Mays' artwork has obvious and entirely appropriate manga influences, but his storytelling style is actually very conventionally American beneath that surface. If there's a criticism to be levelled at the art, it's that it's rather hard to distinguish some of the characters on first reading (they change hairstyle when out of costume, and since that's their main distinguishing feature, that's a problem).

The flaws in the script really just lie in a few moments that seem overly contrived and a couple of fanboy fantasy moments. For example, the entire flashback sequence with Scarab and her first boyfriend takes place in the same evening, which makes his sudden proclamation that "since I met you, I have a feeling there is more to life than what I've known" seem absurdly rushed. I also couldn't help raising an eyebrow at the idea that Scarab was entranced by her first boyfriend's collection of hand- painted action figures and spends time with her friends discussing the lettering on issues of Gen-13 Bootleg (no, really). Jarring moments.

Still, I'm sufficiently intrigued by the book that I'll stick with it for a while. Maybe even track down one of the trade paperbacks. This particular issue may be conventional, but I get the feeling the series as a whole has more to offer.