Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 21, 2015 13:03:27 GMT -5
All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men interested me enough to follow most of both runs through Marvel's small hardcover collections.
It was pretty clear what All-New X-Men would be about, and even if I definitely hated the idea of bringing younger version of the X-Men to the present (talk about recycling old stuff!) there were two things that worked well there: (1) the interaction between the modern characters and their younger counterparts, a theme that had been tragically sidestepped during a similar set of circumstances in the 5YL period of Legion of super-heroes, and (2) the amusing reactions of the young X-Men to the modern world (not understanding why water is sold in bottle, for example). All in all, this title worked pretty well as far as dialogue and character interactions went.
Uncanny X-Men was a bit more confusing. The initial concept seemed to have been "Cyclops as Malcolm X":
with Scott calling for a "revolution", defending the right of his people to a normal life free from persecution and discrimination, and not taking guff from SHIELD, Avengers, Purifiers or other bigots anymore. The book never quite seemed to explain how said revolution was supposed to happen, though, because the team was always facing one crisis after another... individual story arcs were fine, but the overall series lacks cohesion.
Where both mags had problems, in my opinion, is with overall plots and character development. Some nifty plot ideas of the past few years simply couldn't be left as they were without raising a lot of questions, but they were left dangling.
A few examples of such problems: one of the new characters introduced is Eva Bell, who can stop time or travel through it. Okay, neat power.
In a recent issue, she goes back in time to warn professor Xavier about a dangerous mutant who's on the verge of destroying the world. Xavier, who knew about the mutant in the past but thought he could be controlled, then goes further back in time to stop the mutant's conception; problem solved.
This is a nice solution to the problem (and it allows us to resurrect characters recently killed in the present), except that readers must then ask "okay, if that works so easily... how about going back in time to prevent Beast from bringing the young X-Men to the present? Preventing Cyclops from killing Xavier? Preventing AvX by warning Captain America of its consequences? Preventing Jean Grey from becoming the Phoenix? Preventing Sins Past? Preventing One More Day? Preventing the death of Doug Ramsey, or of Illyana Rasputin? Preventing Hank Pym from striking Jan? Preventing the death of Nanotron...er no, that one we'll leave well enough alone."
There is no reason whatsoever to keep Ms. Bell from doing so. She already lost her family to a screwed-up timeline, so what would she care if changing it some more alters the present unexpectedly? The same argument applies to Illyana Rasputin, who we now know can travel at will through time. Heck, even Beast's own time machine would fit the bill. The "damage to the space-time continuum blahblahblah" argument can hardly be invoked, since the X-Men modified the timeline on several occasions by now.
One story arc did have a nice concept revolving around multiple time travels. The time-displaced young X-Men, who now cannot return home for some reason, stay in our time... get older... and then return to our present (from the future), as part of the new brotherhood of evil mutants. Teenage Jean Grey grew up to become a villain, which is rather unexpected. But playing with time like that is a Pandora's box for any writer: one of the mutant from the future explains that each time their nefarious plans fails, all they have to do is write themselves a letter to be delivered in a few years time, explain what went wrong, and invite their future self to travel a bit earlier and save their time-displaced earlier selves. This endless temporal regression would make for a great storyline, probably culminating in dozens of iterations of the same people sharing the same moment in time, but for it to work it has to be carefully planned from the start and it should really have some sort of denouement. Here it was left sort of open-ended.
Character development in both books is generally good, but a few twists seem to come out of nowhere. Adult Cyclops and Teenage Jean probably have the best scene in the two books: that's the kind of stuff I wanted to see with adult Jo and teenage Tinya in LSH 25 years ago. Kitty really grows into her role as a teacher. Beast's guilt and sense of duty is admirable. Heck, I even grew to like Laura, the Wolverine clone! But Hank admitting a long and unrequited love for Jean Grey? Bobby Drake suddenly being gay? Professor Xavier secretly marrying Mystique and having a child with her? UH??? These developments seem to happen "just because" and don't make a whole lot of sense to anyone who has known these characters for years (or decades).
X-continuity also suffers from two things in these books: "movie syndrome" and "it's been so long, nobody will care anyway" syndrome. I wish an editor had pointed out that Magneto had nothing to do with Charles losing the use of his legs, and that Charles and Mystiques' relationship in the films is much closer than it is in the comics (where the lady is, simply put, a total sociopath).
We are promised some sort of satisfying conclusion for both series before the Marvel universe soft reboots... I hope it's true, and that Brian Bendis really had an end game in mind when he started. Right now, things simply seem to be petering out.
Say, I didn't mention the art. It is stellar on both books, with Bachalo and Immonen providing gorgeous page after gorgeous page.
It was pretty clear what All-New X-Men would be about, and even if I definitely hated the idea of bringing younger version of the X-Men to the present (talk about recycling old stuff!) there were two things that worked well there: (1) the interaction between the modern characters and their younger counterparts, a theme that had been tragically sidestepped during a similar set of circumstances in the 5YL period of Legion of super-heroes, and (2) the amusing reactions of the young X-Men to the modern world (not understanding why water is sold in bottle, for example). All in all, this title worked pretty well as far as dialogue and character interactions went.
Uncanny X-Men was a bit more confusing. The initial concept seemed to have been "Cyclops as Malcolm X":
with Scott calling for a "revolution", defending the right of his people to a normal life free from persecution and discrimination, and not taking guff from SHIELD, Avengers, Purifiers or other bigots anymore. The book never quite seemed to explain how said revolution was supposed to happen, though, because the team was always facing one crisis after another... individual story arcs were fine, but the overall series lacks cohesion.
Where both mags had problems, in my opinion, is with overall plots and character development. Some nifty plot ideas of the past few years simply couldn't be left as they were without raising a lot of questions, but they were left dangling.
A few examples of such problems: one of the new characters introduced is Eva Bell, who can stop time or travel through it. Okay, neat power.
In a recent issue, she goes back in time to warn professor Xavier about a dangerous mutant who's on the verge of destroying the world. Xavier, who knew about the mutant in the past but thought he could be controlled, then goes further back in time to stop the mutant's conception; problem solved.
This is a nice solution to the problem (and it allows us to resurrect characters recently killed in the present), except that readers must then ask "okay, if that works so easily... how about going back in time to prevent Beast from bringing the young X-Men to the present? Preventing Cyclops from killing Xavier? Preventing AvX by warning Captain America of its consequences? Preventing Jean Grey from becoming the Phoenix? Preventing Sins Past? Preventing One More Day? Preventing the death of Doug Ramsey, or of Illyana Rasputin? Preventing Hank Pym from striking Jan? Preventing the death of Nanotron...er no, that one we'll leave well enough alone."
There is no reason whatsoever to keep Ms. Bell from doing so. She already lost her family to a screwed-up timeline, so what would she care if changing it some more alters the present unexpectedly? The same argument applies to Illyana Rasputin, who we now know can travel at will through time. Heck, even Beast's own time machine would fit the bill. The "damage to the space-time continuum blahblahblah" argument can hardly be invoked, since the X-Men modified the timeline on several occasions by now.
One story arc did have a nice concept revolving around multiple time travels. The time-displaced young X-Men, who now cannot return home for some reason, stay in our time... get older... and then return to our present (from the future), as part of the new brotherhood of evil mutants. Teenage Jean Grey grew up to become a villain, which is rather unexpected. But playing with time like that is a Pandora's box for any writer: one of the mutant from the future explains that each time their nefarious plans fails, all they have to do is write themselves a letter to be delivered in a few years time, explain what went wrong, and invite their future self to travel a bit earlier and save their time-displaced earlier selves. This endless temporal regression would make for a great storyline, probably culminating in dozens of iterations of the same people sharing the same moment in time, but for it to work it has to be carefully planned from the start and it should really have some sort of denouement. Here it was left sort of open-ended.
Character development in both books is generally good, but a few twists seem to come out of nowhere. Adult Cyclops and Teenage Jean probably have the best scene in the two books: that's the kind of stuff I wanted to see with adult Jo and teenage Tinya in LSH 25 years ago. Kitty really grows into her role as a teacher. Beast's guilt and sense of duty is admirable. Heck, I even grew to like Laura, the Wolverine clone! But Hank admitting a long and unrequited love for Jean Grey? Bobby Drake suddenly being gay? Professor Xavier secretly marrying Mystique and having a child with her? UH??? These developments seem to happen "just because" and don't make a whole lot of sense to anyone who has known these characters for years (or decades).
X-continuity also suffers from two things in these books: "movie syndrome" and "it's been so long, nobody will care anyway" syndrome. I wish an editor had pointed out that Magneto had nothing to do with Charles losing the use of his legs, and that Charles and Mystiques' relationship in the films is much closer than it is in the comics (where the lady is, simply put, a total sociopath).
We are promised some sort of satisfying conclusion for both series before the Marvel universe soft reboots... I hope it's true, and that Brian Bendis really had an end game in mind when he started. Right now, things simply seem to be petering out.
Say, I didn't mention the art. It is stellar on both books, with Bachalo and Immonen providing gorgeous page after gorgeous page.
