Fractal Matter

Writers: Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost
Artist: Clayton Crain
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $2.99
Release Date: 13th February

The return of X-Force to Marvel’s publishing roster is a very interesting venture. It delivers on the old marriage advice of having the bring using something old, new, borrowed, and blue. What X-Force delivers is a blood drenched, action filled tale that serves as a continuation of the broader themes that writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost dealt with in their New X-Men run, and serves as a good start to the restarted series.

The premise of the rebooted X-Force makes sense in context to the history of the team, yet the mission statement has changed. In the Messiah Complex crossover, Cyclops restarted the X-Force to hunt down and kill the enemies of mutantkind and after the end of the event; Cyclops decides that a kill squad would still be needed. So he has Wolverine, X-23, Warpath and Wolfsbane form a team that go hunt and kill.

The first foes of the new X-Force are the Purifiers, religious fundamentalists who want to kill mutants. With over 40 children killed by the Purifiers on the Xavier mansion, Cyclops decides to resolve to stop the death with death. The various character motivations of the leads are various and torn. Warpath wants revenge for a fallen friend who died in Messiah Complex. X-23 loves the work of murder because it allows her to avoid those messy feelings she had in New X-Men. Wolverine is more than willing to do the death himself and is happy that Cyclops will let him do what he does best, but has no interest in other people going on his path and Wolfsbane who wants to know why an old tormenter is involved with the Purifiers. As for the Purifiers, they are up to no good by digging up an old X-Men foe and returning this character in a manner that combines two concepts together that both makes sense in the context of the writing staff’s previously used characters, and fuses them with a long lost X-Men opponent with a similar methodology to the Purifiers to set up a foe of really dangerous intentions.

This mix of characters will bring many fun conflicts and lead to a lot of death. As for the characters, The Purifiers in action in the series are truly terrifying. The X-Force cast is very well handled. Kyle and Yost continue their long-term evolution of X-23 from cipher to mix up teen discovering love and now back to the road of that of killer afraid of being a person. Wolverine will be perpetually annoyed in this book. Between leading the team he also has to see first hand how X-23 falls apart. Wolfsbane and Warpath have grudges to settle with the Purifiers for very different reason and how these emotional issues can make both of these characters liabilities will deliver great drama in coming issues.

The scripting for X-Force is by the New X-Men writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. During their time on New X-Men they earned a reputation of being creators that are not willing to let characters get off easy. Characters have a habit of dying in their work and in a very ironic manner their previous work has built into X-Force in such a natural way that it allows them to continue their overall metaphor of updating the X-Men as a Parable about Intolerance and Racism. The writing of X-Force is both new-reader friendly to readers who came to the X-Men books due to Messiah Complex; whilst allowing those who were reading New X-Men to continue the overall plot of that title.

The art by Clayton Crain is very bloody and violent. Crain’s style of fully rendered computer generated art is state of the art. His style has evolved over the years and in X-Force his style of highly stylized art is both funky and communicative. The story is very well serviced by the art. Each character is distinct and well defined. The team outfits are both logical to the context of the series and allow a uniform look to the characters. Crain also draws claws, knives, and blood very well. His backgrounds sometimes can fade away, and sometimes get lost in the forefront character action but the emotional lines of Crain’s line art beyond all the digital work has helped define a new precedent for a series that has had the varied art style that has included Rob Liefeld, Adam Pollina, Jim Cheung, Whilce Portacio and Mike Allred. Clayton Crain delivers strong storytelling with a distinct style that delivers excitement and fun.

Overall X-Force is great fun that will expand and further the allegorical elements of the X-Men story while allowing the creators, readers, and characters question how far should a dream be protected and what does this do to the dream on how a final solution to violence creates greater violence. Marvel has a great book on its hand on X-Force and hopefully the series is embraced for trying harder that it needs to. Blood and murder can be easy, but it is leads to a slippery slope. X-Force is a compelling must read.

Ubu Bubu #1

Transformers Spotlight: Arcee

Fantastic Four # 554

Locke and Key #1

Kick Ass #1

Doctor Who #1

X-Force #1

Rambo

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/rambo/

First up we have the resurrection of an 80’s screen icon with the return of the troubled Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. Sylvester Stallone’s war on cinema continues on - having brought the ‘Italian Stallion’ Rocky Balboa out of retirement and back for one last round of fisticuffs - he now revives the mullet-haired super-soldier for a fourth movie outing.

For those too young to remember, Rambo’s first appearance was in First Blood (1982), and Stallone’s portrayal of a quiet-yet-emotionally-unstable soldier who returns back to an America that isn’t as welcoming as he remembers was memorable and successful enough to lead to sequels Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and Rambo III (1988).

The trailer for this fourth film (simply called ‘Rambo) begins by introducing John Rambo and the mythology behind this ‘Legend of War’ whilst showing images of conflict and slaughter. A group of missionary workers arrive seeking Rambo’s help (who has sworn against his violent ways and now works as a river boatman in Thailand) in travelling into Burma, to give aid in an area engulfed in civil war. Rambo refuses to help them at first but then agrees to take them over the border; not long after they are captured and Rambo learns that they never returned back and are being held hostage by Burmese soldiers. So Rambo has no option but to go behind enemy lines and do what he does best: preach pseudo-spiritual philosophy whilst killing lots and lots of bad guys.

The film is a throwback to the gritty old days of bloody action movies, and although this older and chubbier Rambo is bordering on OAP status he still looks like he can do the business.

Hancock

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/hancock/

Hancock is a comedic superhero film starring Will Smith, and is about a washed-up alcoholic hero named ‘John Hancock’ who has gained negative publicity due to his disastrous brand of heroism. A PR consultant tries to help the hero rebuild his reputation, however things get complicated when the superhero ends up having an affair with the consultant’s wife.

The trailer starts with the tagline: ‘There are heroes, there are superheroes and then there’s Hancock’. We meet the down-and-out superhero as he awakes from a drunken haze on a bench and, after being chastised by a kid, flies off to the rescue, only to cause more harm than good. He’s not your typical costumed hero either, looking more like a homeless person than a caped crusader. Then there are the inevitable scenes of Hancock flying drunkenly, landing drunkenly, throwing cars and trying to be ‘more powerful than a locomotive’.

Romantic comedies of the superhero persuasion don’t seem to fare well or live up to their own hype in experience - eg. My Super Ex-Girlfriend - and yet we get treated to another one. Hancock does look a little more fun though, despite the obvious jokes and the whale-throwing.

The Dark Knight

Trailer: http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/videopage.html

Finally the fan-anticipated sequel to the dodgy-titled-but-rather-good Batman Begins. Having successfully rebooted the film franchise, Christopher Nolan returns with the second instalment of Batman’s on-going fight against crime. This time we get a re-interpretation of the clown prince himself, the crazed criminal mastermind known only as ‘The Joker’ - who was briefly alluded to at the end of the first film - this new breed of criminal is as a direct consequence of Bruce Wayne’s actions in creating the ‘Batman’ and becomes chief antagonist.

The trailer starts with the Joker (talking to Batman) as he discusses Batman’s effect upon the criminal element in Gotham. We glimpse Batman racing along on a motorcycle, sitting in an office contemplating, as well as landing onto the roof of a car in typical ‘Dark Knight’ fashion. A shot of the Joker standing on a deserted street and a massive explosion that leaves trademark ‘Joker’ playing cards hint at the chaotic carnage wreaked by this new type of criminal and the further devastation to come. The battle for Gotham begins as Batman faces off against the Joker.

The trailer has all the right elements, from the action, angst and drama to the realistic incarnation of the Joker (portrayed by Heath Ledger) which will no doubt be an attempt to banish memories of Jack Nicholson’s over-the-top version of the purple-clad villain.

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When and How did you get into the comics industry?

I got into comics about 1985, I think, about a year after leaving art school. I’d done lots of fanzine work and via that I got to know Richard Starkings at about the same time he got a job on staff at Marvel UK. He managed to get my foot in the door, and I got offered my first regular gig drawing Zoids.

What was it like at the time when you started to break into the scene, in terms of Marvel UK and having so many Brits working there and on other titles?

Looking back it was a great time. There was lots of money sloshing around in comics, and there was a real sense of a comics community. There was a bunch of us sharing a studio in Brixton, where there was also Acme Comics who used to hold rather good parties!

How different was it to make the move over to Iron Man at Marvel proper? Was it similar to the work you had been doing for Marvel UK?

The big difference was in having 22 pages to play with, rather the 4 or 5! Apart from that the process was very familiar. Marvel UK was a very good training ground.

You got to design a lot of armour whilst on Iron Man - including War Machine which you co-created. In retrospect you got to do a lot of designing that other artists would probably have killed to do, did you feel like that at the time, or was it more of a chore?

Designing cool new stuff is always enjoyable, but I was always doing it under certain deadline constraints, so it’s only it retrospect that I can see how lucky I was. However, I’d have been luckier if I was going to see some royalties from the War Machine toys…

I presume you worked in the Marvel style on the book, with yourself working from a script outline and creating the artwork for it to be dialogued later. Did you like working in that way, I would imagine it allows the artist a lot more freedom?

Yes, I prefer working in the Marvel method. I think it allows the storytelling to flow better.

What was the most fun you had whilst working in comics?

The studio in Brixton was a laugh. I enjoyed getting to go to New York and working out of the Marvel offices for a week as well.

Come the boom and bust of the Nineties comic market, you were one of the artists who seemed to disappear. Did the collapse directly affect you or had you already seen it coming?

I knew something was a foot when the Iron Man royalties stopped coming! I left Iron Man to work on a creator owned comic for Epic, which disappeared when Epic went down the pan. All my contacts at Marvel seemed to loose their jobs at the same time, which I took as a sign.

Geoff Senior went into advertising work and is still there, what was next for you once you found yourself outside of mainstream comics?

I went into computer games for a couple of years and hid out there! From there I got contacts with Games Workshop and worked on their comic for a couple of years, as well as doing more mainstream publishing work.

Steve White somehow managed to get Geoff to emerge from his champagne, jet-setting lifestyle and draw a story for the new Transformers UK comic, have you had any offers that would tempt you back into the comics field?

I’ve just done a Warhammer comic for Boom Studios and a Spiderman story for Eaglemoss, so I may be drifting back into comics. I haven’t actively chased US work because the dollar exchange rate is so rubbish at the moment!

You do a lot of educational illustrations for various newspapers and magazines. What’s the strangest piece you’ve been asked to do?

I had to draw a “What if Spiderman was a goat” illustration for an article about gene splicing.

Director: Chris Weitz
Writer: Chris Weitz based on the novel by Philip Pullman
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Richards, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee

The Golden Compass is an adaptation of the first of Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy novels collectively known as His Dark Materials. The book was originally published in the UK as Northern Lights. The film jettisons some of the more complex and controversial aspects of the book, namely the role of religion, and instead concentrates on the journey of its young protagonist, Lyra, which takes her from the safety of a university campus, where she lives as the ward of an adventuring University Professor, to the frozen wastes of a fantasy Scandinavia populated by talking polar bears.

Reviewers and fans have drawn comparisons between The Golden Compass and other high brow fantasy series, namely LOTR and Narnia, but The Golden Compass cannot hope to achieve the same levels of success. LOTR plays with well established archetypes (Dwarves, Elves and manly heroes) that exist outside Tolkien’s universe, and which provide some context for viewers who are not already numbered among the books’ many fans. The Narnia books have been a staple of childhood reading for at least 3 generations and the first book (and film) at least contains enough familiar territory (a family escaping the blitz and the appearance of Father Christmas ) to give it some degree of broader appeal. The Golden Compass, however, has substantially more work to do in establishing not only the characters, but their context within an elaborate pseudo Victorian fantasy world. Perhaps wisely, the film makers simply show us the world and leave the viewers to accept and make sense of it in their own time. The obvious downside of this however, is that the characters can, and do, get lost amidst the spectacle.

The central premise of the film is that people in Lyra’s world have animal spirit forms, called daemons, which manifest outside their bodies. Children’s daemons are not fixed in their form and change from birds to mice to whatever, while adults’ daemons have a fixed form. These daemons connect people to a substance called ‘dust’, not the kind that gathers under the bed or on top of the bookshelves, but a magical substance that pervades the multi-verse, and which the Magisterium, a ruling oligarchy of clerics, believes is proof of the original sin.

The plot thread that takes Lyra on her journey of discovery follows on from two events. One is the disappearance of children from the town outside the University, the other is her guardian, Lord Asriel’s, discovery of a potential portal to another world somewhere near the North Pole and his capturing of the normally invisible Dust on film. Lord Asriel, played convincingly by Daniel Craig, sets off to return North, having secured funding for his expedition while Lyra’s friends, Billy and Roger, are kidnapped by the ‘Gobblers’ and Lyra herself is taken under the wing of a sinister Mrs Coulter, again well played by an ice cold Nicole Kidman. At this point Lyra is given the titular Golden Compass by the Dean of the University in the belief that she is one of the few people alive who can make use of it. Subsequently, Lyra escapes from Mrs Coulter and sets out to find her friends with the help of a group of Gyptians (a sort of gypsy underclass) many of whom have lost children themselves.

On her travels, Lyra learns how to use the Golden Compass, which seems to act as a sort of oracle. She also befriends the exiled Prince of a race of talking Polar Bears and Sam Elliot, who plays to type as a grizzled frontiersman; although this time he is a balloonist. The film ends after a reasonably satisfying denouement, but like Jackson’s Two Towers, it ends before the book, leaving a pivotal segment for the next movie.

The film as a whole seems to fall between its two audiences. Those who have read the book are likely to find the most interesting elements of the story to have been watered down, and those who haven’t are in danger of being overwhelmed by the combination of world building and plot mechanics. Sadly the result is that character development is left behind and the young actress who plays Lyra, Dakota Richards, doesn’t quite have the skill or charm to breathe life into the main character. Eva Green, who appears as a leader of a group of friendly witches, and Sam Elliot both play important roles in the plot but are hardly more than character sketches. Daniel Craig gives a short but decent performance as Lord Asriel, which leaves only Nicole Kidman, as Mrs Coulter, to shine. She manages to do more than say the lines, and brings a much needed complexity to what could have been a one dimensional character.

Overall the film is certainly spectacular, with some exciting battle sequences and moments of dramatic tension. It is however ironic that a film whose premise is the search for the human soul, should be so lacking in heart.

Writers: Geoff Johns, Dave Gibbons, Ron Marz, Alan Burnett, John Rogers, Peter Tomasi
Artists: Ethan Van Scriver, Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Angel Unzueta, Adriana Melo, Patrick Blaine, Pete Woods, Gerry Ordway, Pascal Alixe, Dustin Nguyen, Rafael Albuquerque, Jamal Igle, Michael Lacombe

Now I look at it – that’s quite the creative roster when listed and for what? Arguably DC’s biggest and best story of 2007 though you may not know it! Within the Green Lantern title Johns had been laying the foundations for this epic over the course of some 15 or so issues, but the first pieces were laid right at the start. Meanwhile over in Green Lantern Corps Gibbons also laid a couple of pieces, especially in the arc leading to this tale. And after that? All that remains was to light the fuse and get to a safe distance…

Exploding out of the Green Lantern Special: Sinestro Corps Special, this tale of a galactic confrontation wound its way through Green Lantern 21-25 and Green Lantern Corps 14-18. There were also a number of specific character one-shots focused upon major characters, mostly villains and one tie-in with Blue Beetle. All in all, given DC’s tendency to link things together, Sinestro Corps was remarkably restrained as a crossover.

The story? Sinestro, who was once a Green Lantern himself and an upholder of galactic law but who fell due to taking too hard a line, has assembled his own corps. Never lacking ego he has named them after himself and organised them around the principle of fear. His plan is simple, having assembled an army twice the size of the Green Lanterns, he intends to kill them all, destroy their base, Oa, and take over the universe. Were that not enough, in his opening strikes he frees both Parallax and Superboy-Prime from Oa, slaughtering a number of Lanterns in the process. He’s also secured the services of the Cyborg and the Anti-Monitor. Oh and did I mention he infects Kyle Rayner with Parallax?

With such a gathering of villains Sinestro Corps throws down the gauntlet early – this is going to be a big deal, it’s going to involve huge fights and the good guys are in serious trouble. Not only that, but Sinestro has an overall strategy of which the strike on Oa was but the first step. As the Lanterns are reeling from the strike and the deaths, he sends his second, Arkillo, to assault the planet Green Lantern Mogo. In that battle Gibbons draws together various elements from the Green Lantern Corps title – notably the city of Ranx that despises the Lanterns.

Not only is there a massive amount of power arrayed against them, but the Lanterns are held back by their own rings, which do not have the ability to kill. Are they capable of it? Certainly, but they’re not permitted to. Johns poses the question: What is ultimately worth more: upholding principles to the point of extinction or compromising in order to survive to return to the higher ground later? Despite it causing great unease amongst some of them, the Green Lantern’s Guardians rewrite the laws that govern the rings, and grant the bearers the permission to kill. This enables the war to begin to turn in the Lanterns’ favour though they still lack the initiative.

If this were all the Lanterns lacked, things might be OK but they, and the Guardians, have miscalculated: They assumed the ultimate objective for the Sinestro Corps was Oa, for that is the centre of the universe. In the new post-Infinite Crisis world, however, Earth is the foundation point for the multiverse with 51 parallel Earths flowing from it. Take it out and it all collapses. They realise this too late, and the entire Sinestro Corps assaults Earth, drawing in quite literally all the other heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, JLA, JSA – you name it, they’re involved.

What was an already insanely ambitious tale takes another step up as Sinestro Corps members and Manhunters attack, and Earth’s heroes respond alongside the Lanterns. Even so, it may not be enough, the Guardians attempt to counter this by creating a new Ion, who takes on but is unable to defeat Superboy-Prime. Despite that loss the other Lanterns – Hal, Guy and John have taken out Parallax and freed Kyle, so that only leaves the thousands in the Sinestro Corps, Manhunters, Superboy-Prime, the Cyborg, Sinestro and the Anti-Monitor to deal with!

Attention Geoff Johns: Your mission is to conclude this story in a fashion befitting it and to do so in one super-sized issue, do you accept? Of course he does. Johns has only 54 pages to bring this epic to an end and for all he has to cover it isn’t much. There are so many villains to deal with of such a high power level – are these able to be defeated without cheating and reducing their threat level in the space of a single issue? If so, will their defeat satisfy or will it be rushed? It could have easily been anti-climatic. It wasn’t – instead Green Lantern 25 has to be in the list of best issues of 2007.

The issue revolves around various axes: the future of the Lanterns in light of the new laws and the dangers that heralds, Hal versus Sinestro, the Guardians versus the Anti-Monitor, Superboy-Prime against everyone, the Lanterns versus the Sinestros. Nor is this everything – the sheer amount of plot and grand spectacle Johns packs into the issue is staggering. Everyone gets what’s coming to them and if some fates are left a bit more open than would be expected, the final pages make it clear: This isn’t over. Oh the Sinestro Corps are defeated, Sinestro is captured, Earth is saved, the Anti-Monitor is vanquished, but there are more stories to come. This is another impressive achievement: Johns very explicitly flags up that this will be continued, that the story began in 2005 with Rebirth and will conclude in 2009 with Blackest Night, but you don’t feel cheated. Instead it’s a very clear indication that this is all planned out, the only question: Are you going to be coming on this ride?

The Tales of the Sinestro Corps were, far from being optional extras, fairly major pieces of the story, with each delving into a particular character: Parallax, Cyborg-Superman, Superboy-Prime, Ion. Each set up plots that conclude later, the majority in Green Lantern 25. The art was generally pretty good, of them all Parallax was probably the weakest as it seemed to do little, but its plot paid off later in how Parallax was expunged from Kyle Rayner. On the other hand the The Blue Beetle tie-in was adequate but I’m not sure it was needed.

The only other weakness the story has is not embracing its status as a crossover right from the start. At the start Sinestro Corps was sold as 2 stories that would run through the respective Green Lantern titles for 5 months, readers would have the choice which to read and both would be freestanding. While this is understandable, DC wanted to avoid giving the impression people had to buy issues, once the scale of the story became apparent people did start buying both. The issues literally started disappearing out of shops! The down side of this being that each title’s recapping of the other became tiresome. Fortunately this is the only real weakness in the project but it’s probably something to be bourn in mind for future projects: If the story is good enough, people don’t mind buying 1-2 extra titles.

One minor point is there are a couple of places where the story suffers from excess, whilst these are minor they do detract from an otherwise great story. The Cyborg pays a visit to his wife’s grave, then rips it open, grabs her corpse and rips it apart. Later, over in Green Lantern Corps, the battle between Ion and Superboy-Prime ends up barrelling into a cemetery, where it continues. Both have a distasteful aspect to them, which may be the point, but neither is either really required – the story would do just as well without them.

Back to the good points and one huge achievement by the artists – they all delivered stunning art, for a story like this relies upon art to depict it and what the writers are asking isn’t minor. A galaxy-spanning war involving thousands of participants and numerous battles, each of which needs to be rendered uniquely. It’s a massive task.

Whilst the art of Ethan Van Scriver has been known to fans for a while, Ivan Reis has been less well known, I’m using past tense as that’s unlikely to be the case post-Sinestro Corps, for his’ work here has really sparkled magnificently. Splash pages are sometimes derided for occupying too much space at the expense of the story, but used correctly they are an invaluable tool and Reis demonstrates this superbly. His splash pages are packed with detail to the point where you can look at them time and again and still spot something new. He’s equally adept at conveying emotions, from the sadness in the aftermath of the strike at Oa to the elation of the final victories.

Nor should I overlook the artists who gave Gibbons final Green Lantern Corps story some amazing visuals, from the entry of Ranx, to the planetary assaults engaged in and the final outcomes. It’s in Green Lantern Corps we see the first application of the newly authorised lethal force and it’s a great moment. Another is the rematch between Kilowog and Arkillo, with the latter getting a decking from the Lanterns Sergeant-Major.

I accept that, at best, I’ve only sketched the broad outlines of this epic story and detailed some of the creative teams’ achievements but that’s all that can be done here. After all, the story spans some 14 issues, 2 of them double-size. If you’ve read this story you know there are many wonderful moments that can’t be conveyed in a review; if you haven’t I’d hope I’ve got you curious enough to give this a try – if only to see what people are talking about.

For myself, it’s a wonderful story that really shows off Green Lantern as one of DC’s flagship titles. It brings to a conclusion some 2-3 years worth of work. At its best, a long run on a title is satisfying because of the way a skilled writer will spin and assemble plots together like a mosaic. At the same time it also has a surprising ability to provoke the reader to thought: Could Sinestro have a point? If so, what of it? On the surface it’s a bright colourful tale, but underneath, there’s a good amount to ponder. At the other end of the scale it has moments of incredible action and heroic feats, which is surely the point of any comic that claims to be about superheroes.

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SCRIPT: MIKE MADDOX
ARTIST: PRADEEP INGALE

PRICE: $4.99

The Masked Magician is the star of the Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed TV specials, made by Nash Entertainment, the people behind such series as Who Wants To Be A Superhero? and Court TV’s “Most Shocking. Originally portrayed by Val Valentino, the identity of the current man behind the mask is unknown.

Until now. Virgin Comics, together with Nash Entertainment, bring us the story of the Masked Magician. His name is Tom Worley, and he helps to design tricks for a big, flashy, slightly outdated magician. To put it another way, he’s Jonathan Creek without the quirky personality. The magician he works for, Mark Swain, is secretly a very bad man indeed. He’s attempting to assemble a collection of four magical statues that will enable him to rule the world.

Sounds OK, doesn’t it? Could be a reasonably entertaining made-for-TV movie, like an American Jonathan Creek meets FX, meets those Librarian movies with Noah Wyle.

Well, it isn’t.

This is absolutely the worst comic that I have ever read.

We start ten thousand years ago with a statue that falls out of the sky into Britain. It gives the finder the ability to control the world. His wife eventually tricks him and steals it away, channelling the power into four statues and sending them all over the world. These statues are guarded by a group that becomes known as The Society, hiding in plain sight and using their tricks to distract us away from the real magic. Swain wants to get these statues together, and The Society has to stop him – and Tom Worley ends up being the man to do it for them.

The basic storyline is reasonably good. Like I say above, it could work reasonably well as a TV movie. The execution is where it falls down.

The dialogue is often clumsy, to the point where lines such as “The whole world saved through the healing power of light entertainment.” make an appearance, and you genuinely can’t tell if it’s the character being silly, or if the writer thinks it’s deep and profound. Odd comparisons are made – a Minotaur enters the scene, and is told to “Take off the ‘Freddy Vs Jason’ head”. Characters move from location to location at an alarming and needless rate, almost as if the artist was attempting to get as many different backdrops in as possible.

The artwork is among the worst that I have seen in a professional publication. Poor anatomy, wonky perspective and some of the most amateurish CG work ever. There is a single panel which features two cars passing one another that appear to have been drawn by a 12 year old learning to use the 3D drawing program they’ve just picked up… back in 1998. The background of the panel is a poorly photoshopped-in shot of London, which is amazing considering that the cars are on a single-lane motorway where the signs are in the central reservation, and they are written in both English and Welsh (and we’re somehow only 20 miles from Cardiff on the M4).

I cannot make this point to you strongly enough – please do not buy this book. Those of you that read my Howard the Duck review may recall that the poor quality of the issue made me lose interest in picking up Essential Howard the Duck. This title has made me lose what little interest I had in reading anything else from Virgin Comics at all – it’s so bad that it has turned me away from an entire publisher.

I read this as a free .pdf format review copy, and I still want my money back. Avoid.

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Writer: Various
Artist: Various

Price: $3.99

Another year, another Holiday Special from Marvel. If you’re the kind of person who likes a little bit of silly fun in their comic books, and doesn’t immediately recoil in terror from stories set at Christmas, these titles have turned out to be a dependable favourite. The last two years alone have given us tales of the Mole Man’s Moloids kidnapping Santas, Wong and Fing Fang Foom versus the hordes of Hydra, the AIM Christmas party, and the incredible tale of the Avengers versus “Santron”, a favourite of both Chris Sims over at Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog and of myself, which is about the highest high praise combo you’re going to get.

So, what does this year’s Christmas special bring? Well, we open with an incredibly uncommercial pairing – Spider-Man and Wolverine. Written by Shaenon K Garrity (who gave us the Moloid and AIM tales mentioned above) and Andrew Farago (Garrity’s co-writer on the AIM story), with art from Lou Kang and Craig Yeung. It is the tale of Spider-Man’s attempt to get a cake across town for Aunt May’s Christmas Eve party, and how it gets interrupted by Wolverine’s battle against a rogue Sentinel, which is being piloted by a fired department store Santa Claus. It’s not the most essential story in the history of either character, but it’s a fun little tale.

A reprint of a two-page Fred Hembeck spread (from a 1984 issue of Marvel Age!) is followed by the standout story, a Christmas epilogue to the recent Loners miniseries. The team have gathered in Turbo’s apartment to exchange Secret Santa gifts and to take stock after recent events. Written by C.B. Cebulski with art by Alina Urusov, this little treasure is the perfect conclusion to the latest chapter in their lives, and at the same time begs to be followed up by another miniseries… or maybe even an ongoing? Note to Marvel: More Loners, please. Thank you.

Just like the previous two specials, the final tale is by Mike Carey. Unfortunately, also like the previous two specials, it is the weakest of the three stories. A lowly Daily Bugle reporter hops around the universe in order to question many and various of the great and the good (or otherwise, on both counts) about the true meaning of Christmas. It’s not too bad, but it isn’t anywhere near the standard set by the rest of the book.

By the time you’ve read this, it will be January. You won’t want to read Christmas comics. Still, this one may be worth picking up and stowing away for next year – unless you’re a Loners fan, in which case it’s nigh-on essential.

Merry Chri… oh, wait. January. Yeah. Forgot, sorry.

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Writers: Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente
Art: Khoi Pham & Stephane Peru
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Marvel

With the Hulk out of commission after the events of the World War Hulk miniseries, the task of keeping his title going falls to two of his supporting cast members over the last few months – seventh smartest person on the planet Amadeus Cho and hard-fighting demigod Hercules.

We open the story with our heroes being confronted by (and surrendering to) the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the issue deals with their interrogation and (yeah, not exactly a spoiler here) eventual escape – not to mention setting up just who will be going after them.

Regular Hulk writer Greg Pak is joined for this storyline by Fred Van Lente, writer of the recent Super-Villain Team-Up/MODOK’s 11 miniseries. Between them they craft an appealing opening chapter, with a good mixture of unfolding events and re-capping of Hercules’ pre-superhero life – specifically, his labours and the death of his wife and children.

There seems to be a movement at Marvel over the last couple of years to push Hercules in a different direction to his standard portrayal. The hard-drinking, hard-loving, Brian Blessed-voiced (in my head, anyway) amusing character best shown in the classic Prince of Power miniseries seems to be almost gone; replaced by a more serious take on the character – effectively giving him the same makeover as the current take on Thor, right down to the distinctive speech patterns being replaced with a more standardised, formal speech. The old Hercules would never have said “Whoa”, as this one does. The old Hercules was a lot more fun, but that’s not to say that this version is totally without merit.

Despite the above reservations about “New Herc”, this tale is off to a good start, and it will be interesting to see where they take the Lion of Olympus next.

Discuss this topic here.

X-Men Messiah Complex: Chapter 6-9
Writer: Ed Brubaker/Peter David/Craig Kyle & Chris Yost/Mike Carey
Artist: Billy Tan/Scott Eaton/Humberto Ramos/Chris Bachalo
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $2.99 (x3)

Well, here I am again with the monthly Messiah Complex round up, taking in the latest issues of Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, New X-Men and X-Men. After Carey’s previous issue of X-Men injected a bit of umph into the proceedings at the end of last month, I had high hopes going in this month. Sadly however, I’ve come out of the experience rather ambivalent and with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

This month kicked of with Brubaker’s Uncanny issue, and, like most of his Uncanny issues to date, it isn’t bad. It’s just not that great either. Brubaker gets the luxury of a fairly focused issue this month, something the other writers certainly don’t. Almost all of the pages are taken up with a massive sentinel attack on the Institute, which both Tan and Brubaker handle competently, but you can’t help feeling you’ve seen it all before; literally and several times. The end of the issue sees the formation of the much touted new X-Force team, which I have to confess seems like a recipe for utter drivel to me, but I’ll withhold judgement until a final product appears next year.

Chapter 7 sees us return to the pages of X-Factor, and as usual the quality is fairly high. Peter David gets to focus about 40% of his time on Madrox and Layla as they explore the apocalyptic anti-mutant future they find themselves trapped in (again…). Another 40% is taken up with the new X-Force tracking Cable, and to be honest some of my worst fears regarding this group were actually belayed. In David’s hands at least, the team works, there’s a balance of personalities and Wolverine is as an effective leader for this kind of team, which is a role we rarely see him in. The remainder of the issue sees a brief Predator X scene, just to remind us we care, Cable runs into a bit of trouble when the Purifiers catch up with him and we get yet another confrontation between the Professor and Cyclops. These arguments were quite worthwhile the first few times, but at this point it’s just driving the point of conflict home a little too hard. We get it already, Scott has had enough, the Professor is on his way out, we don’t need a reminder every other issue. Scott Eaton’s art is as always a fine balance between detail and deadline meeting. It does it’s job but it’s not going to blow any minds.

Our penultimate chapter this month is in the pages of New X-Men, which ironically doesn’t actually feature many of the New X-Men. Almost all of this issue is taken up with the confrontation between Cable, Lady Deathstrike, the Purifiers and X-Force. If someone had described that to me as a story for almost a whole book, I would have told them it was trash, in the execution though it’s pretty entertaining. In no small part that is down to Ramos’ art. I realise a lot of people can’t stand him but personally I think he’s fabulous. There’s an energy to the art in much the same way there is with Bachalo, only with Ramos you can actually follow what is happening. In this issue in particular there are some great single and double page spreads that really made me smile. This issue may not be anymore original than the others this month, but at least it has a sense of fun. I have to say though the death of a team member seemed utterly pointless to me. It served no valuable purpose as a story telling mechanism and it isn’t a character anyone cares enough about for the shock value to be valuable in and of itself. If I hadn’t been paying attention I might have even missed it.

Once again we finish up in the pages of X-Men, and once again most of the story progression seems to have been saved for Carey. This issue kicks of with us back in the future, where we get a bit more of a sense of setting and tone for the apocalyptic future as Madrox is tattooed and dumped into a concentration camp. Progression of the story in this X-over has in general been slow, but for the Madrox/Layla thread in particular it has been achingly so. It’s been fed to us in a drip drip fashion and at an inconsistent speed, which makes it very hard for the storytellers to maintain a sense of tension and difficult for the readers to maintain any sense of interest. The remainder of the book, happily, works a bit better. Cyclops and the X-men seniors join up with the X-force team in the aftermath of their battle, while the Cuckoos and the X-men juniors fix up Cerebra (probably should have done that earlier) and locate Cable, who is with the mutant baby and en route to Forge. The physical meeting up of the two senior teams, together with the communication from them to the junior team in the house and the mental tracking of Cable by the Cuckoos serves to create a good flow between the different threads of the story, and really this issue is one of the few times, since the X-over began, that those threads have really pulled together in any way. In that respect this issue at least feels like a coherent story, rather than a disjointed collection of 4 different stories. I won’t spoil the reveal at the end of the issue in case you haven’t read it yet, but like Carey’s previous issue it serves to inject a sense of impact that is distinctly missing from all the other chapters so far. You can at least leave this issue with the sense that something has happened, and against all my previous prejudices I actually found Bachalo’s art totally clear, digestible and at times quite beautiful this month.

I’m not sure anyone is still caring about, or indeed reading, Marvel’s massive X-over at this point, and to some degree I can see why. The format of multiple story threads told in bite sized portions over several months hasn’t really worked well for maintaining tension. I can’t help feeling that it would have worked better if New X-Men had been canned before the event began, the main X-men story line could have been compacted down and published in X-Men and Uncanny, each released on alternate weeks. The Layla/Madrox story could then be held by itself in X-Factor, which could be released weekly with issues having been prepared up front. In that format the event could have been compressed down to 5 weeks, rather than almost 3 months, less writers and artists would have made for a greater sense of artistic identity, the change in publishing schedule might have grabbed the attention of some new readers and the whole thing would have been more coherent, punchy and engaging. What do I know though?

To be fair, despite these complaints, the quality of dialogue and art in all four of the X-books has been consistently acceptable, and more often good throughout Messiah Complex; probably the best the line has seen in years in fact. The problem is that in terms of storyline we’ve all been there before: Sentinel attacks; apocalyptic future; cameos by every x-villain in history; almost pointless character deaths. At a time when characters like Captain America, The Avengers and even Iron Fist, of all people, have been given a fresh lick of paint and a contemporary direction, it’s sad to see a flagship line like the X-men still choosing to re-hash the same storylines. I think a lot of people really felt that this X-over might actually see Marvel push these characters in a new and inventive direction. I guess at just over half way through that still might happen, but for now it’s all a bit of a let down.