30 june 2002

Two good X-books, one bad. And I'm sure you already which is which, but that's not going to stop me from telling you anyway.

Good book #1 is DEADPOOL, in the penultimate issue of the "Healing Factor" storyline which is leading into next month's relaunch as "Agent X." As with previous issues, Gail Simone is aiming to strike a balance between a self-contained story in every issue, and advancing the ongoing Black Swan plot. This time round the wider arc takes priority, although there's still a neat enough mini-plot to give the issue some self-contained elements as well.

Despite his arc dominating the book, the Black Swan isn't actually in this issue (flashbacks aside). Instead, the Taskmaster shows up to brief Wade on his own history with the Black Swan and offer assistance. The Taskmaster was of course recently given a major overhaul by Udon Studios in his miniseries, and Simone runs with that admittedly more rounded version of the character. Given his relationship with Sandi (and the solicitations for upcoming issues of Agent X) the Taskmaster is evidently going to be sticking around, but given his line of work he's a good fit for the book.

The B-plot for this issue is a fairly elementary hit job with Deadpool being hired to eliminate a blackmailing business rival. It's not a very elaborate thread in its own right, but there isn't really space for it to be. It serves its function, since it gives a context for Deadpool's virus to get in the away again, and throws in some kind of motivation for him to get rid of the image inducer.

Although it's clearly back to being a semi-comedy title, Simone's version of the book is more character driven than it's been in years. Unlike, well, pretty much every writer since Joe Kelly, she's found the balance between writing Deadpool as an anarchic, random presence and still allowing him some proper character arcs.

A couple of glitches bring the issue down. For one, the Black Swan's been previously established as an assassin, which to my mind isn't quite the same thing as a mercenary. It begs the question of what he's doing on the mission in the Taskmaster flashback (liberating an occupied airport from military forces) which just doesn't strike me as being in his line of work, at least as it's been described before.

Secondly, Udon still seem to struggle when the script calls for characters to look hideous. Their Deadpool has got up to the stage of being passably head-turning, but doesn't really seem as brutally ugly as other characters seem to think he is. The precognitive mutant kid in this issue is supposed to be repulsively ugly, but while Udon sell Deadpool's reaction to it well enough, the kid looks fine. Sure, he's kept in shadow, but we see enough of the silhouette to give the impression of a pretty much normal looking kid. It doesn't come off.

But overall, it's another successful issue, all boding well for the relaunch - whoever the lead character turns out to be.

The last issue of WOLVERINE was, of course, ludicrously terrible. I regret to report that this issue is merely terrible, the comedy value of a conspiracy of evil cardinals having been largely exhausted last time around.

Once again, I have no good words to say for this issue. It is frankly diabolical on every level. A serious question for anyone reading this who knows - how did Matt Nixon come to be writing this book? Not a snarky or rhetorical question. I'm honestly curious, given that he's hardly an established writer.

In any event, the story. Wolverine storms the Vatican to rescue his friend Father Braun from the evil Cardinal Panzer. You can tell he's evil, he's named after a German tank. He doesn't succeed, and the Vatican people persuade him to piss off. There's another two issues of Nixon still to go on this book. Please god tell me that this arc isn't going to continue. Then again, the story's even more unforgivable if it isn't setting up for some kind of sequel.

The first page, at least, is good for a laugh. Dan Fraga's attempt to establish the Vatican setting results in a jumble of landmarks and statues in no discernible spacial relationship. The result looks like the outcome of a nasty accident involving a tourist guidebook and an experiment with Photoshop. Fraga's sporadic attempts to make the backgrounds looked live consist largely of drawing a set of three abandoned wine bottles in the background, which are present in two different scenes in the same issue. The lack of imagination is grinding. One set is lying in what I take to be either a graveyard or some kind of ruined temple, although given the level of detail in the art it's hard to tell which was intended. Evidently heavy public drinking and bottle-littering is a serious and previously unheralded problem in the Vatican.

Panzer's actual scheme remains totally unexplained. There's no further mention here of the "let's brainwash New York into Catholicism" scheme, and nothing about what Panzer's wider aim is meant to be. Evidently we're just meant to take it that he's corrupt and leave it at that. The only other indication we've had of his scheme was last issue when Braun mentioned in one panel that he was planning against the Pope. But that's never been referred to again, besides which an evil conspiracy against the Pope would seem a touch redundant given his current state of health. You'd be better off waiting six months and making sure your guy got elected as the new Pope.

What's most astonishing about this story is that Nixon has spent two issues writing about a corrupt faction in the Catholic Church without ever bothering to address what their political agenda is. This story is completely devoid of any actual material about Catholicism. If Nixon had written a story about a secret society scheming to get their man installed as the next Pope and thereby hijack the Catholic Church's influence for their own social agenda, then you know, that might have been quite good. But he hasn't.

After failing to stop Panzer from killing his mate Braun, Wolverine just accepts the word of another cardinal that Panzer will be dealt with, and goes home. This despite the fact that the other cardinal oh-so-conveniently has some kind of power that prevents Wolverine telling whether he's telling the truth or not. Wolverine looks like an idiot for taking something this ridiculous on trust. Panzer, meanwhile, also looks like an idiot as he explains in all seriousness that Wolverine would never make a move against the Catholic Church.

Marvel display perfectly good taste these days, for the most part. I would be fascinated to know the process of reasoning that led them to deem this mess worthy of publication. This would have been a stand-out bad comic back in Marvel's mid-nineties nadir. Today it is simply embarrassing for something this poor to slip through the quality control net.

But enough of that. X-FORCE comes to an end after 129 issues. In spirit, of course, it really ended a year ago and this week's issue is actually X-Statix #-1.

It's a transition issue, featuring the aftermath of U-Go Girl's death and dealing with the name change in advance of the relaunch. The focus of the issue, as you might expect, is Guy in mourning for Edie and losing patience with the manipulative X-Force machine. Ultimately, in an admittedly rather obvious piece of irony, he resorts to the same sort of tactics himself in order to get his way over the name change.

Granted it's a basic plot, but it does its job as a backdrop for the characters to advance their personal plots. Myles and Billy- Bob's relationship is now clearly established as a genuine one on both sides, with the tension now focusing on Billy-Bob's insecurity over admitting it publicly. Tike and Dead Girl start a romantic subplot which isn't so much seen as flashed up in passing throughout the plot. And there's a great scene with a bemused X-Force watching auditions for the vacant roster spots from their farm teams.

Milligan also takes the opportunity to introduce a new character, agent Solomon O'Sullivan ("50% Jewish, 50% Irish, 100% behind you"). As is the way of this book, O'Sullivan is initially presented in the least sympathetic light imaginable, coming across as a vulture moving in on Edie's family after their death. But then X-Force characters have a tendency of turning out to be less reprehensible than they originally appear.

O'Sullivan also has one of the weirdest "powers" in years, the ability to peel inexplicable written messages off his skin. This is an interesting idea to see cropping up in this book, since it echoes more towards Milligan's work on Shade, and for the most part that sort of weirdness hasn't been to prevalent in this book so far. Coincidentally, this month's guest artist is Duncan Fegredo, who's collaborated with Milligan on some excellent Vertigo projects in the past. Fegredo does the book in his own style rather than trying to mimic Allred, which makes this issue somewhat unusual in lacking its normal Silver Age veneer. It works, though, putting the emphasis more on the straight, character elements of the story.

Excellent book, all told.