THE CREATORS: Written by Frank Tieri, with pencils by Georges Jeanty and inks by Dexter Vines.

THE FILL-IN ARTIST COUNT: Nil.

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2002: Various "Draft" one-shots, and the "Hunt for Sabretooth" storyline.

The one ongoing X-book cancelled this year, aside from the three relaunches, was Brotherhood.  Its place is taken by the one new ongoing X-book this year, Weapon X.  No doubt Marvel will be hoping that that analogy doesn't hold true in any wider sense - although initial orders aren't desperately encouraging.

Counting the one-shots that appeared before the series officially launched, we've now had nine issues of this series, and it still hasn't done much to impress.  I've written about its failings at length before, but let's summarise them one more time.

The book is sorely lacking in sympathetic characters for the audience to root for.  There's Agent Zero, but he's only in two issues.  There's Wild Child up to a point, but the creators can't even make up their minds what his personality is, which makes it impossible to identify with him - is he an animal, or just a mute?  Almost all the other characters are violently dislikeable, and the Weapon X Project has a tendency towards pointless torture of its staff that renders it simply incredible that any of these people would stay there voluntarily.  Characterisation fluctuates alarmingly from issue to issue as the Director's sanity level lurches all over the place, and Brent Jackson tries to make up his mind whether he's somewhat sympathetic to his charges or just a total asshole.  Sauron can't decide whether he's a psychopathic killer of normal intelligence, or a retarded goof.

The quality of characterisation in this book is really appallingly poor, demonstrating the sort of inconsistency in motivation and behaviour that puts Howard Mackie's X-Factor to shame.  Characters in that book might have shifted personalities and motivations whenever it became convenient, but at least they retained them long enough for readers to work out what they were and recognise when the goalposts were being moved on them.  In Weapon X, the goalposts veer haphazardly around the pitch, as if under the combined power of some bungee ropes and two competing pendulums.  You can't expect readers to care in the slightest about the characters when they don't even remain the same characters from month to month.  And in this book, they don't.

Barring a drastic improvement in the near future, Weapon X deserves the fate that its present sales decline would seem to suggest is coming for it.

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