The other Claremont book this week is X-Treme X-Men #19, which gets marks immediately, simply for getting the hell out of Madripoor.  About bloody time.

This is a bit of a stocktaking issue, trying to establish a new status quo for the book's cast.  The original justification for this series was that the cast were going to go off on their own and hunt down Destiny's diaries.  For reasons which are somewhat tenuous, they seem to have decided that they're not going to bother any more.  The diaries plot never really went anywhere, and the general impression I get from this book is that the series has been given a serious rethink.

The logic being used to get rid of the diary-hunt plot is a bit confused.  According to Bishop, Rogue told them that they broke one of the predictions in the Diaries and therefore their timeline has been averted - presumably making them worthless.  (Well, what he actually says is, "The wheel of fate created by the Diaries has been broken", but I assume that's what he means.)  The prediction in question was the one that she would kill Vargas, and of course the last issue ended without us seeing on panel whether she killed him or not.  The general hints in this issue seem to be that she lied to them.  The Beast seems to think she killed him, and to be pleased about it.  But then, that would fulfil the prophecy so it wouldn't devalue the diaries.  Yet if she didn't kill him, that doesn't mean that she won't do it later.  The logic of this plot gets more and more tortured, the more I think about it.

But whatever the reasoning, the splinter X-Men are no longer looking for the diaries and have relocated to New Orleans (where Rogue has inherited another conveniently-located house).  This means that another rationale is needed to prevent them going back to the real X-Men team, and so this issue gives us the core X-Men coming to visit for Thanksgiving, and selling the X-Men on the idea of coming home.

This means that Claremont has to engage with the storylines in New X-Men, which you might think would be an awkward clash.  The eventual reason for sticking to a separate team seems to amount to a continued distrust of having everything concentrated at the increasingly-visible mansion, not to mention suspicion about Xavier and the other telepaths over there.  Stories like this, which amount to an argument over direction between the casts of two different books, are almost inevitably won by whoever's book happens to contain the story.  But the argument works here, and Morrison's cast are allowed to turn up and make a perfectly legitimate argument in favour of what's going on in that book.  Claremont makes a surprisingly convincing case in favour of Morrison's plots, albeit for the primary purpose of making sure his own cast have to make a real decision.

A concern, though, is that while this story gives the X-Treme X-Men cast a continued rationale to remain away from the core X-Men, it's about not fully buying into the New X-Men direction.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a negative reason, and it doesn't in itself establish a positive new direction for this book to replace the missing diary plot.  Of course, maybe that's been marked aside to take place in X-Treme X-Men: X-Pose, in which case, fair enough.  (And yes, I know that the diary plot never in fact gave this book any direction.  That's been one of its problems.)

A whole load of characters get written out, most of whom I won't be missing.  Lifeguard is among them.  Break out the confetti. Of course, a lot of them will be back in due course, but I can dream.

In amongst all this, Claremont brings in a whole load of cast members and allows them to interact as part of one of the traditional "re-establish the X-Men family for a holiday issue" stories.  Aside from a slightly strained self-parody sequence at the outset, it works pretty well.

Larroca's art is on form this month, and he gets to enjoy himself by designing new costumes for his cast in the style of Frank Quitely.  To be honest, aside from Sage's, they're a massive improvement on the ones they regularly wear in this title.  Shame we won't be seeing more of them.

As with Mekanix, this is still very definitely Claremont.  But it's decent Claremont, which is the important thing.  This seems to be the first stage in overhauling the book, and if they want to give it a directional rethink, I'm certainly not going to object.  Of course, now we'll have to wait and see what the new direction turns out to be...

Rating: B+

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