X-Men vol. 2 #190
September 7th 2006 13:56
Wow Iceman, your tongue tastes like a Calippo!
It's fitting that my inaugural comic review for this blog involves the X-Men. Though they weren't my first comic book obsession (that distinction belongs to G.I. Joe, quickly followed by Transformers), the X-Men were the first superheroes I became addicted to, and have remained the most enduring part of my comic-buying habit. I'm a big fan of the characters, and remain so to this day.
Nonetheless, the last few years since the departure of writer extraordinaire Grant Morrison haven't excited me a great deal. Joss Whedon, better known as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has been turning out entertaining material on Astonishing X-Men, but it's release schedule has been erratic. Chris Claremont, long-time X-Men writer and one of my all-time favourites, did some fun stuff over on Uncanny X-Men, but his run suffered when Alan Davis left the pencilling duties, and it was honestly just a shadow of the man's former powers. Which brings us to X-Men vol. 2, the black sheep (translation: pointless comic) of the X-family. Chuck Austen had a run that can best be summed up as a blight on all humanity, and Peter Milligan followed him with a run that was well below his inspired best. It hasn't been a particularly interesting couple of years.
Mike Carey is the new writer of X-Men vol. 2, and he's joined by penciller Chris Bachalo. Carey is best known for a lengthy run on Lucifer, a title for DC's Vertigo imprint (comics for unattainable goth chicks!), while Bachalo is the co-creator of Generation X (a team of student X-Men that have since disbanded, with certain members shot, crucified, or badly written), and has also done a few X-Men runs before this one.
This is the third issue of the run, and it might say something that I can barely remember anything from the issue previous. My jogged memory tells me that the situation is thus: a bunch of new bad guys called the Children of the Vault have popped up out of nowhere, and they're hunting Sabretooth. Sabretooth has sought a haven with his enemies the X-Men, so the Children have brainwashed former X-Men allies Northstar and Aurora to kill him. Cue big fight.
This all sounds pretty good on paper, but to be honest I'm finding that I couldn't care less. I think the problem here is the villains. The Children are completely uninteresting, with generic pseudo-goth costumes and codenames that I'd have to look up to remember. They remind me of the Neo, a group of new X-Men villains who failed spectacularly to hold fan interest six years ago. I'm all for the creation of new X-Men villains - all of the best ones seem to be joining the good guys - but they need to be more distinctive to catch on. Something tells me the Children won't be seen much past Carey's run.
I do like the X-Men team Carey has put together, though. Rogue as the leader, Iceman and Cannonball for old-school stability, and former villain Mystique as the wild card. Cable joins this issue, with a reason for showing up that's brilliant in its simplicity - he's here to investigate! There's a lot of potential for conflict here, and a lot of history between the characters if Carey wants to use it. At the moment, with the issue taken up mostly by fighting, it hasn't come up.
Chris Bachalo's pencils are customarily cluttered and confused. He used to be genuinely very good, and his storytelling was easy to follow. Nowadays I find his work to be an effort to read. If the artist on a comic is doing his job then you shouldn't have to stare at a panel for a minute trying to figure out just what the hell's happening. Bachalo has done a better job here than on previous issues, but I'd honestly like to see what Carey can do with a different penciller.
When it comes down to it this is a pretty standard X-Men comic, with one long fight scene. Boring villains and cluttered art bring it down, but it's not actively bad. It's just sort of there, existing, taking up space in the same way that the third X-men title has always done.
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