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THE CREATORS: Peter Milligan and
Salvador Larroca.
WHAT HAPPENED IN 2005: "Golgotha",
in which the X-Men fought a giant mind-control mushroom;
Mystique tries to seduce her daughter's boyfriend in "Bizarre
Love Triangle"; the better half of a Black Panther
crossover; Sentinel Squad ONE arrive at the Mansion; and Lorna
and Alex go on a road trip.
This year, X-Men was not by Chuck
Austen, and was automatically much improved. It's been a
little over a year now since Austen's last issue, but it still
brings a warm glow. No more Chuck Austen. Ooh,
happy thoughts.
2005 was Peter Milligan's year on the
title. I was always sceptical about whether this was a
good idea. Milligan is at his best on books like
X-Statix or Shade where he can go completely off
the rails and follow mad ideas to their logical conclusions.
Although he's written mainstream superhero books before -
hell, he's written for TV soap operas before - that's not the
sort of material that made his name, and it's certainly not
his area of strength.
So I was braced for Milligan to either
provide a toned-down version of his good stuff, which most
fans would hate, or a straightforward superhero book, which
would be a bit of a waste. In the event, we've had a
book with a bit of an identity crisis. It knows it's
meant to be a meat-and-potatoes superhero book, and it tries,
but Milligan's skewed sense of humour keeps coming through.
Books like X-Statix and Human
Target work in large part because of their tongue-in-cheek
artificiality. The plots may be absurd, and the
behaviour exaggerated, but we can see that there's some
recognisable psychology at the root of it all. This sort
of stylised behaviour works on those titles, but Milligan
seems to be bringing a similar approach to X-Men while
plotting it as a straight superhero book. The whole
"Bizarre Love Triangle" arc is unthinkably silly unless you're
prepared to read it in that spirit, for example. And
only Milligan would have the obligatory anti-mutant psychos
led by a woman in a boiler suit and a blank mask calling
herself the Leper Queen.
 The result is
a bit hit and miss, to say the least. Even at its best,
X-Men depends on you sharing Milligan's unusual
sensibilities and getting his sense of humour. I do, and
for all its many failings, I often find X-Men
surprisingly entertaining. But it's a rocky read even
for me, and I can well imagine why those readers who aren't in
tune with Milligan's personal style would want to throttle him
by the end of his second issue. It's an odd approach to
take to the X-Men, and one that perhaps doesn't really work
unless you go nuts and take it all the way. Milligan
isn't able to be quite so demented here, and the result is a
comic that doesn't seem entirely sure what it wants to be.
Still, frustratingly inconsistent as it may
be, Milligan is certainly trying here. You don't produce
something this weird accidentally. And he's still got
Salvador Larroca, who's always good for a strong visual.
He certainly seems to be on the same page when it comes to
characters like the Leper Queen, too.
The book could be much improved, but if
nothing else, it's on an interesting direction. Well,
interesting to me, anyway.
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