24 october 1999

The X-office is obviously having a sticky patch. There are now five late running books. But for the moment, all we've got is X-MEN, so let's make the most of it.

After Uncanny #375's paranoiafest, this issue comes as something of a disappointment. From full-on Skrull- related uncertainty and oddness, we're into rather more formulaic realms here, as the heroes go charging into battle to try to rescue Wolverine.

Which means that we get a bit of cheap irony as Cyclops disguises himself as somebody else in order to get into the Skrull base, and after that we're in straight fight territory. This means that the Skrulls end up being exposed as proper characters rather than a faceless and vaguely nasty mass, and unfortunately attempts to develop them here fall flat. The only two characters who emerge are both stereotypes - a vaguely uncertain conscientious objector, and an arrogant twat who's somehow risen to a command position despite having the IQ of a lobotomised dormouse.

While the Skrulls have been a useful device to generate tension and, to an extent, advance the Twelve plot, they're just not very interesting in themselves. When they're being used in paranoia stories, they can work. When they're fighting superheroes in their own forms, however, they're just little green men from outer space and they look rather silly.

Obviously the big news this issue is supposed to be the revelation that Death is really the brainwashed Wolverine, but although this raises some plot questions (how and why, basically), I don't really find myself being swept up in the moment. The least interesting thing to do would have been to have Wolverine sitting in a cell for the last five months. The second least interesting is for him to show up as a mind-controlled thug, and that's more or less what this amounts to. Really, who cares who the Horsemen of Apocalypse are? They're only the hired help.

Guest art comes from the ever-reliable Tom Raney, and his work here is... well, reliable. Decent, solid, gets the best out of the material, about all you can ask for from a fill-in artist.

This is a perfectly alright issue. It's just that the last few issues have been verging on special, and this isn't.

And now, a note of apology to Astonishing X-Men #3. It turns out that you actually do get worse comics. Ladies and gentlemen, BLADE.

I don't intend to go through the reasons for this in detail. If you're seen the issue, it'll be entirely obvious. Just as Astonishing #3 was quite undeniably a very bad comic, this issue is undeniably even worse. Its crapness really does leap out at you from the moment you open the cover, grab you by the throat, and leave you compelled to read through it to make sure that it really has managed to keep up that level of low quality. (It has.)

For those of you who haven't read it... it's a new series featuring the vampire hunter character Blade. The one who had the film, yes. It's written and drawn by Bart Sears, and it's awful - twisted and undramatic art which fails to tell the dreary and tension-free story. Oh, and the story not only fails but doesn't even try to introduce its lead character. Storytelling basics here, people. You want me to buy a Blade series, make me give a toss whether he lives or dies. But really, no words can sum up the story more effectively than just picking up a copy and looking at page 1. Trust me, it's representative.

Equally, I should, in the interests of absolute fairness, mention that the one redeeming feature of the issue is the sporadic appearance of good dialogue. Unfortunately, that's about 5% of the dialogue. Most of the remainder is pretentious crap.

Marvel seem to have no idea who this thing is being aimed at. Is it a superhero book? Seems unlikely. Is it aimed at the audience who went to see the hit film? Then why are you inflicting this incredibly difficult, confusing material on them, which just isn't worth the effort that a casual reader would have to put in to decode it? Is it supposed to be a horror book? Sears seems to think so, but why has he got SHIELD running around if that's what he's after?

Even the cover seems confused. The artwork says horror. The lettering says superhero (and bad, cliched superhero at that). If you've got a dark, murky piece of artwork, don't letter it with a brightly coloured aston. It sends a mixed message, to say the least.

Where was the marketing? Did Marvel see the first issue, realise it was going to be crap, and not bother promoting it? Nah, they'd just have not bothered printing it at all, I suspect. Surely Marvel can't have seriously believed that in this day and age they were guaranteed an audience because of the film? Not after what happened to the last miniseries, surely?

But perhaps they do. In any event, the only remotely scary thing about this abysmal issue is how it got published in the first place.