THE CREATORS: Chuck Austen and Salvador Larroca on issues #437-443.  After that, Chris Claremont and Alan Davis.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Four, all during the Davis run.  Basically, he's drawing alternate story arcs.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2004: "She Lies With Angels", in which Shakespeare is reinvented with added firepower.  "Of Darkest Nights" is the funeral of Magneto.  (Come to think of it, wouldn't that have been a better way to start Excalibur?)

What a year of changes it's been.  Not only did Grant Morrison leave us, but only a few months later, Chuck Austen joins him.  Of course, he spent the last few months on X-Men, but I'm not going to write about him twice, so I might as well cover it here.

This week's X-Men #165 contains a letter from editor Mike Marts thanking Chuck Austen for his work on the book.  "I've rarely worked with a writer with as much talent," says Marts.  Hmm.  One of the interesting things about Austen's career is that he seems remarkably popular with the editors who work with him, but even more remarkably unpopular with the poor readers who have to put up with his output.  If Mike Marts truly thinks that the last couple of years of Uncanny X-Men have been good... well, the mind boggles.

After a period of seeming ubiquity, Austen's career seems to have been strangely derailed in 2004.  Gone from Exiles.  Gone from X-Men, for reasons that still aren't entirely clear.  Assigned to Avengers, and given a low-price issue to start his run, only to have the title promptly drop to its lowest sales all year.  Removed from the book after only two storylines, as Marvel suddenly decided Avengers Disassembled might be a better idea.  Assigned to work on Invaders, and disappeared after only co-writing issue #0.  Moved to DC and started work on Action Comics, only for his departure to be already announced.  And his creator-owned title, Worldwatch, has performed disappointingly - issue #2 placed at number 241 on the charts, just above Veronica #156, with sales under 2,400.  He's really not had a good year. 

It does rather seem that, however much the editors may like him, the market does not agree, and the reality of that has finally caught up with him.  Who says capitalism is a bad thing?

At least this year Austen was joined by Salvador Larroca, a talented artist who got some strong visuals out of the stories.  "She Lies With Angels" was dreadful, but it often looked gorgeous.  Yet no amount of beautiful art is going to save a five-part adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" with mutants and munitions.  It's all over now, thank god.

Austen was replaced by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, in a broad continuation from Claremont's X-Treme X-Men series.  It's been a mixed bag thus far.  Davis can make anything look good, of course, and even the fill-in art has generally been solid.  But the stories have been chaotic and illogical, with a Viper story set in London standing out as particularly incoherent.  Claremont's tendency to overpower all his characters is increasingly irritating, and with occasional exceptions, it rarely feels like we're reading a story about real people.  There are moments when it clicks, but for the most part it's a pale echo of better work.

back | continue