25 june 2000

Ah, BISHOP: THE LAST X-MAN. Still plugging away.

This issue is billed as being chapter 2 of Preludes, leading up to the eventual confrontation with Trevor Fitzroy in issues #12-14. The series has taken an awfully long time getting here, and while I realise they're trying to build up the tension, I'm not convinced it really needed to take quite this long.

The point of this story is to introduce the Morlocks, although they're not much more interesting than their mainstream counterparts. Although there are some nice character designs here, none of them really do a great deal other than act as a rather generic bunch floating around behind their generic leader character. Given that this world already seems to be populated by the oppressed and the semi-humanoid hidden races, it's not at all clear that the Morlocks stand out here.

There are some very good sections in the subplot scenes with Fitzroy talking to Shard. What looks very like their simultaneous mental collapse is an interesting idea; hopefully Harris is going somewhere with this other than the obvious ending (which would be Shard pulling herself together and saving Bishop at the last moment).

All this post-apocalyptic fantasy stuff has never really done much for me. I know the book has its fans, but I'm hoping that the shift of focus due after the Chronowar storyline is going to kick it in a more interesting direction.

X-MAN brings its first Counter-X story arc to an end, rather better than Generation X did. It's not an unqualified success by any means, but at least some good ideas make it through.

We finally get around to being given a proper description of what the Broken Man's world is like. The line being taken here is that time moves more quickly and that they evolve drastically with each generation. The Gauntlet supposedly tried to trap them on their world, but they evolved their way out. The idea that the Broken Man has essentially sacrificed his place in society by stepping out of their time frame to pursue revenge is one that comes off very well, and Ariel Olivetti's art clicks perfectly in the flashback sequences. It would have been nice to actually SEE some of this race rather than just have one character speak for the lot of them, but it's better than nothing.

On the other hand, while the previously flat villain is made into a worthwhile character here, the Gauntlet are wasted. The original concept of a group of mutants combining their powers to go off exploring other worlds, while maintaining normal lives as well, was a genuinely interesting one. By the time this issue's finished with them, they're just a bunch of evil businessmen - a hackneyed old idea in the first place, but a total squandering of what should have been good characters.

Nate rounds the issue off by killing most of the Gauntlet and sending one to the Broken Man's world to suffer. It's a repeat of the intimidatingly-powerful-hero theme that Ellis used in Authority, but it works well for a character like Nate.

There's still far more potential in the new direction than this storyline ever gets around to addressing, but if it only scratches the surface, it's still an okay story in its own right. Still, the next storyline is going to have to do something more.

Oh look, no Neo. Maybe X-MEN will be good this month.

This is the issue where Rogue becomes leader. From the cover, I'd been expecting a retread of the issue where Storm and Cyclops fought for the leadership, which didn't sound very promising. After all, aren't these people adults? Can't they just hold a vote? Fortunately, Claremont's not doing that. This time it's Rogue getting ambushed and put in a fight with Wolverine in order to prove to her that she's good enough to be X-Men leader.

Well, okay. The confidence building exercise. If we're going to do the big fight scene to put a new leader in place, I suppose it's better than the usual format. As a lot of people have pointed out, the choice of test is badly flawed, since it's got absolutely nothing to do with leadership ability. Come to think of it, why can't she just demonstrate some leadership ability in the course of an actual story rather than just a gratuitous fight scene? Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.

But if we're going to have a pointless fight between Wolverine and a powerless Rogue (although she still seems to be able to do superhuman stuff when the plot calls for it, and since when can the X-Men cancel Rogue's powers at will?), it's a pretty good pointless fight. Nicely paced, some good set pieces, and well drawn by Tom Raney.

Equally, it's nice to see Claremont keeping his subplots in the air reasonably well in this book. The X-Men at least seem to be thinking about how to get their missing teammates back this time, and even if they don't get around to doing something about it, it's good to see it's not being forgotten about. Kelly's run for President is dutifully namechecked. Proper explanations are given for why none of the other X-Men want to be leader. I'm starting to feel favourably towards this issue. Stupid basic concept, granted, but I'm getting a sense of direction here. I kind of care about the characters. I'm reasonably happy.

And then the sodding Goth show up.

They're not the Neo (at least, they don't seem to be), but don't think this makes them any more interesting. Claremont desperately needs to shake this awful idea that a nice character design, a slightly unusual superpower and a snappy codename (for proclaiming) is all that's needed to make a new character interesting. The Goth display no remotely interesting character traits, no proper motivations, and ridiculously just blunder into the X-Men in a bar. I don't give a toss about these people. You can't just have them show up and beat the X-Men and expect me to care.

I almost hope they're actually the Neo. That would explain their utter lack of appeal without me having to abandon hope that Claremont has more interesting characters down the line. But I suspect not. They'll be back next month, anyway. And the enthusiasm I had five pages before is completely gone.

It's an okay two thirds of an issue, right up till it lapses into Neo (Slight Return). Still a step up, but still riddled with problems.

There are plenty of stories I give bad reviews to, but very few that I find utterly objectionable. Enter CAPTAIN AMERICA #32.

Now, before going any further, let me state unambiguously that I realise completely that my reading of the story is altogether not what writer Dan Jurgens intended. I realise that he's trying to do a heartwarming and inspiring tale of wartime heroism. My objection is to the actual story, not the intentions behind it. And I realise that, judging from the reviews, it hit the mark for some people. But not for me.

Here's what we're meant to see in this story.

It's the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Private Stanley Klein endures the hell of war, and is ultimately cornered with his dying friend Doyle with Germans closing in. "Weary beyond description and traumatized by the things I'd done to other men." He's got one bullet left. He considers suicide to avoid capture.

(Not bad so far, is it? Okay, it's a war-is-hell story, nothing new, but a good enough set-up.

And then...

Captain America and Bucky save him. Hooray! We are inspired and our hearts are warmed.

Sure.

What's the message here again? Presumably the inspiring courage of the ordinary man in wartime. But what Jurgens has actually done is to trivialise everything he's just set up. War is hell. People get killed and do nasty things to one another. All deliberately played in realistic mode. Now, if you take all that and put it next to Captain America, then all that happens is that the ordinary soldiers look like morons. An whole load of armed US soldiers can't achieve what Cap can manage armed only with a shield? What a bunch of losers! How shit must they be?

Of course, Cap's allowed to win because he represents American values, which prevail over everything, including common sense. This is, of course, bullshit, and pisses on all the people who died in the war. Apparently they didn't care enough.

You can do somebody like Superman in the war, since he's genuinely absurdly powerful and can credibly go in saving entire divisions in inspiring manner. You can't do it with Cap - not unless you're going to abandon realism altogether. After all, he was basically designed as wartime propaganda to begin with.

I feel kind of bad about coming down so hard on this issue, since it's so obviously not what Jurgens intended, and it IS a good build-up for the first half (though I could live without the horribly contrived framing sequence to get us to the flashback). And Jerry Ordway's art is perfectly good. But all this crap about inspiring concepts being all you need to win a war... Lies, all lies.