31 march 2002

At long last, the light at the end of the tunnel arrives, with Gail Simone and Udon taking over on DEADPOOL.

Billed as a prologue, this is something of a transitional issue. It's largely devoted to establishing Deadpool's new status quo and introducing a new lead villain. Come to think of it, he's been in dire need of one of those ever since an overambitious retcon rendered T-Ray's motives impenetrable to anyone without a degree in astrophysics.

After inadvertantly killing four villains at once in a complete fluke (or so he thinks), Deadpool's stock has rocketed in the mercenary world, allowing him to set up a ludicrously ornate office and support staff under the name of "DP Inc." And his arch-enemy, the Black Swan, is an old-school mercenary who finds Deadpool's whole approach thoroughly vulgar and annoying.

So in other words, we're focussing back on the core concept that the character is a somewhat demented mercenary. In recent years the "mercenary" aspect has tended to be given lip service only, while the "demented" bit has run riot. It's nice to see the balance redressed here, and while this is still in large part a humour book, it's also good to see it moving back towards actual stories rather than gratuitous lunacy.

Despite this, the shift in tone from Tieri's run isn't as drastic as you might imagine. Simone has commented, over on the Warren Ellis Forum, that "a little bit of this issue is saying goodbye to 'zany.' Stick with it for the next couple issues and I think you'll see what I mean, as the humor moves away from that." Most writers these days no longer seem inclined to do a gradual fade in style from their predecessor, preferring to make their mark immediately. Given that these are among the elements of Tieri's run that I found most grating, I would have preferred to see the clean break approach here. But at least it's going, and that's the main thing.

For the present, the result is at times a slightly odd mix of tone. The IQ level has shot up dramatically, though. We still have an eccentric homeless sidekick, but this one delivers out-of-context random dialogue instead of just vomiting every three panels. And the humour now complements the story, which is a decided plus. (Deadpool also seems to have started quoting Infinite Jest while answering the phone, which I strongly approve of.) This stuff is much more to my taste than the deliberately adolescent material of the last few months.

Udon Studios take over as the regular artists. As always, their art has a nice clean look to it, although it verges at times on blandness. They do a nice Deadpool when he's in costume; out of costume, his supposedly hideous appearance isn't really coming across. He looks like he has a serious case of eczema and a misjudged hairstyle, which is just a bit too understated. Some of the action sequences could use work as well, to be honest - the opening page in particular has some very shaky choreography, with characters inexplicably reversing positions between panels. Overall it's okay, but their work on Taskmaster is noticeably stronger.

Nonetheless, this is a solid start to the new run, moving in the right direction both in content and style. The art needs a little work, and the remnants of zaniness don't do much for me, but the signs are good.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #16 came out last week, but I only got my copy this week.

I was really souring on Mark Millar's work last year, as we got month after month of "let's torture the heroes" in Ultimate X-Men, only for Millar to to embark on pretty much exactly the same routine on Authority as well. Thankfully, it seems that he's now got that out of his system, with Ultimates taking a dramatically different tack, and Ultimate X-Men moving itself in a more character-oriented direction.

This issue still isn't exactly subtle, but there's a noticeable effort to establish some actual relationships within the team, rather than just treating them all as interchangeable characters. There's also some slightly heavy-handed moralising, to the effect that the X-Men need to emphasise social responsibility in order to maximise good PR for mutants. Still, at least we're away from pointless nastiness, so I'm happier.

Our villain for this arc in Proteus, played this issue as a fairly conventional, but legitimately threatening, vampire-type villain. Apparently Proteus comes from "Land's End, Scotland". I'll just shake my head in disbelief at that one.

Not as strong as Millar's work on Ultimates, but at least the book is out of its rut.

WOLVERINE continues the Logan Files, and keeps up the general pattern of the previous issue. Nasty villains torture Wolverine's friends, Wolverine fights back.

Typically for a Frank Tieri story, there's no sign of anything going on beneath the surface, and the surface itself isn't shiny and exciting enough to get away with lacking any actual content. Tieri rehearses some fairly standard plot elements with Wolverine fighting back against the baddies, and in fairness, at least the plot here holds together passably enough. It just isn't very interesting, and it certainly lacks originality.

Tieri generally seems more interested in hyping his upcoming Weapon X series, so at least that's one of us who's looking forward to it. Somewhere at the core of Weapon X there's an interesting idea, but so far it isn't linked to any particularly arresting characters. The Director is a one-dimensional loony, and Tieri's pet project Brent Jackson seems to change personality from issue to issue depending on whether the plot calls for him to be a stormtrooper asshole or a man with conscientious worries about the project's activities. If this is meant to indicate character complexity, it isn't working. Instead it's coming across like multiple personality disorder, with no consistency in the character's portrayal.

I've read far worse, but ultimately Wolverine remains a hollow affair with little to offer beyond stock elements arranged in the usual order.

Meanwhile, whatever else it may be, WOLVERINE/HULK is certainly not going through the stock plot elements, and that along is enough to endear it to me.

Sam Kieth is continuing his puzzle-box approach, in which the plot is simple but quite openly makes little or no sense, leaving most of the dramatic tension to centre on quite what the hell is going on. However, unlike the similarly structured Four Women, this series breaks up the story with Wolverine and the Hulk beating the crap out of one another in absurdly over the top fashion.

It goes without saying that for most people, this will be a love it or hate it book. Personally, I always like to see something different, although I have some doubts that this book is really going to have a pay-off that will justify four months of buildup.

But the art is endearingly ridiculous (and it knows it), and for the moment the book is having fun rather than trying to be too smart for its own good. I'm getting a kick out of it.

Marvel are having another stab at MARVEL KNIGHTS, for reasons best known to themselves. The concept of this series always seemed a little pointless - various solo heroes with no motivation to work together do so anyway. And Chuck Dixon's attempt did nothing to suggest that there was any better idea lurking in there. It was a highly generic affair which generally seemed to be floundering around in search of a purpose.

Now the series is being relaunched with writer John Figueroa and artist Alberto Ponticelli. This first issue is certainly more in keeping with the ethos of the Marvel Knights imprint, in that it's not so obviously generic and it's full of rather odd ideas. For the moment, it's running with an impromptu alliance of Daredevil, the Black Widow and the Punisher, and so it doesn't yet have to deal with the problem of why they'd form a recurring team.

It's more promising than the first series was, but still not wholly convincing. At this stage, there's a sense that the villains are weird for the hell of it, rather than that any actual point is lurking in here. Weirdness for its own sake is all well and good, but it tends to wear thin. Still, it's possible that some kind of theme is lurking in all the apparently random material, so I'll give it a few months to see if anything emerges.

This story introduces new villains the Brothers Grace, criminal brothers obsessed with plastic surgery, and with a sidekick whose hobby is mutilating bodies as a supposed work of art. They're obviously supposed to be sinister, but none of them come across as actual characters, so much as a selection of oddball gimmicks. As a result, I'm not all that interested in their story.

Alberto Ponticelli's artwork is a little inconsistent, but the tone is generally appealing, despite the odd awkward panel. He certainly does some nice backgrounds. Nathan Eyring does an excellent job on the colouring, as well, which helps the atmosphere considerably.

This could go either way, depending on whether there's actually a point in here or just a load of gratuitous oddity. Too early to judge, but it's at least trying to avoid the formula that the previous run fell into.

After the largely unconvincing X-Men Icons range, it came as something of a surprise to see Marvel launching an Avengers Icons range as well. And it was even more bemusing to see that the first "Icon" selected was TIGRA.

Tigra is a weird choice of character on all counts. About all she has going for her is a nice visual - albeit that the sight of what's essentially a werewolf in a bikini can all too easily look rather silly. But the character hasn't had her own series since 1973, and hasn't even been in print on a regular basis since she left the West Coast Avengers - which must be getting on for a decade ago. Nor did she ever really strike me as a very interesting character - the handful of Tigra stories I can remember were largely concerned with magical Cat People, a concept which doesn't much excite me.

The writer on this book is Christina Z, best known for her work at Top Cow. She appears to share my lack of interest in the Cat People, and instead has built the plot on Tigra's late husband, police officer Bill Nelson. No, I didn't remember him either. A quick check of the Official Handbook reveals that even back then, he barely merited a mention in Tigra's entry. Still, it's something to work with, and it beats the Cat People, so why not?

The twin plot threads here are Greer's failure to move on following the death of her husband, and her investigation into some kind of vigilante cop group called (ahem) the Brethren of the Blue Fist. Despite the dodgy name, the vigilante concept is sound enough. As for Greer's emotional hang-ups, it does seem a little forced for her to suddenly rediscover an obsession with such a long-forgotten plot thread after all these years, but it's fairly well written.

There's some dodgy pop psychology in here, and sporadically corny dialogue, but all told this really isn't bad. If nothing else, Christina Z seems to have an actual story to tell about her lead character, which is more than some of the other Icons minis have suggested. It's a pleasantly engaging read, and better than I'd been expecting. Oh, and I belive Tigra may have just become the first Marvel heroine to deliver the line "If you try to run, I'll castrate you."

Mike Deodato's art (and that of his studio) can be awfully inconsistent, but he seems to be on form here. He's a good storyteller, and there's some good use of shadow here, helped by some good colouring work from Chris Sotomayor. Given that this is a miniseries about a woman in a bikini, it's mercifully low on the cheesecake - although, admittedly, not entirely free.

Much better than it sounded in the solicitations, although I suspect it may still struggle to get attention.