30 may 1999

For the second time in three issues, GAMBIT involves a load of captive children being raised by a rather questionable father figure. This time round it's the Pig rather than the Antiquary, and it works better. The earlier story was trying to tiptoe around any sort of explicit abuse references and ended up with a community that was never obviously that unpleasant. This one is rather more obviously weird, but succeeds by leaving the reader to work out what must be going on behind the scenes of the relatively innocuous scenes we get to see.

This is the first half of a two-part story (the first multipart storyline in the title) which starts to tie together some of the plots we've seen so far. Nicieza brings together the stolen gas canister from issue #3 with the Japanese kid who's been running about in subplots for the last couple of issues, as well as bringing back the ever ridiculous Mengo Brothers.

The story also finally brings in the Pig as a major villain, devoting half the book to an extended flashback showing Gambit as a teenager meeting him for the first time (and taking the opportunity to show why he took up a weapon as gimmicky as playing cards). Long time readers may have to suppress a shudder at the appearance of Candra, suggesting that we'll be seeing her again, but then perhaps Nicieza will be able to rescue this dreadful character as well.

This being a Gambit story, it's full of large scale action sequences, but without seeming gratuitous. Gambit's ridiculously large scale diversion in the flashback scene is a character point as much as anything - the fact he chose to do things that way is significant.

Steve Skroce's artwork has settled down into some excellent (and very clear) storytelling, and the title continues to sustain quality levels nobody had ever expected of it. If anyone's still avoiding the title because of its let's-shove- out-another-X-book origins, this is as good a time as any to relent.

I'm rather less certain about WOLVERINE. It's certainly enormously better than it was during the Prisonworld storyline, but this still isn't a great issue.

Nightcrawler guest stars, and he's here to serve as the voice of reason while Wolverine gets more and more irascible and irrational. That's fine - he's an ideal character for that, and the X-Men titles haven't given these two anywhere near enough screen time together given how close they used to be.

The problem is that the plot really just hurls a load of disjointed events at them, giving Nightcrawler plenty of opportunity to comment on Wolverine's reactions but not making for much of a story. The story starts off with a big fight with a load of robots in a junkyard (looking decidedly like the same idea Larsen is using in this month's Nova), which is kind of tied in to the plot because of Wolverine's attitude to Magneto.

After that, the plot trots off to a brawl in a cafe, notable mainly for Wolverine uncharacteristically using his claws against the public, following which Cardiac and Solo pop up, still hunting down Wolverine from the big fight in issue #134. (Not a story I particularly want to be reminded of.) All of these scenes are okay in themselves - Larsen does a good job of keeping it ambiguous whether Wolverine has totally lost it - but there's no real story linking them.

The book is getting back on track, but it's still got a way to go before it gets there.

Then we have X-MAN, an increasingly painful experience.

How long has it been since we had a good issue of this title? The months are stretching out, and despite a promising idea, this issue is no different. The premise is that chunks of the Age of Apocalypse have inexplicably appeared in the Alaskan mountains and loads of Infinites are now wandering about wondering what Apocalypse wants them to do.

There's nothing wrong with this idea, but yet again the execution fails utterly. Nate turns to Scott and Jean for help, but rather than pick up on the antagonism that Nate has invariably shown to the X-Men in the past, Kavanagh shows them being chatty and friendly, as if they'd always been the best of mates. It comes totally out of the blue and genuinely had me wondering for several pages if I'd missed an issue.

On top of this, of course, there's the fact that Nate, Scott and Jean decide to climb the mountainside the conventional (and rather dangerous) way, all conveniently forgetting for the sake of the plot that two of them can fly. This sort of thing really gets on my nerves.

Throw in a supposedly threatening cyborg villain who just looks laughable and you've got another dreadful mess best left on the shelf.

HULK #4 will get a higher rating, but I want to make it clear from the start that this is purely and simply because of the artwork of Ron Garney. Byrne still has no clue what to do with this character other than fill up page after page of his book with scenes of destruction, and Garney draws them wonderfully. Nobody could complain about the art.

But four issues in, and Byrne is still making an awful mess of the plot. After three solid issues of the Hulk being mind- controlled, this should be a gripping climax. But it isn't. It's a farce. Tyrannus loses control of the Hulk for no better reason than that he can't understand his technology properly. The Hulk gets up, grumbles a bit, and stalks off. That's it.

That's the climax? That's the best Byrne can come up with after eighty pages of build-up? This simply won't do.

I can only assume that Byrne is intending this arc as a set-up for further Tyrannus stories in future - surely he hasn't lost his concept of how to tell a story this badly. But even there there's no excuse. This desperately thin plot could have been fitted into two issues - probably even the double-sized issue #1. Nor does it adequately introduce Tyrannus, who comes across as simply a ranting lunatic with no plan, no personality and no complexity. Why does Tyrannus want to control the Hulk? Byrne gives us no clue. We are left to assume that Tyrannus just wants power, but this is a tired old motivation for a villain in this day and age.

It's almost painful to see Garney being wasted on nonsense like this. His art remains as powerful and dynamic as ever. He's an ideal Hulk artist. If only he had stories worthy of his talent.