The X-Axis - 28 December 2008
There's virtually nothing out this week, which is hardly surprising. In the circumstances, over the next couple of days, we'll take a quick look at the current state of the X-books as 2008 draws to a close. This won't be one of those detailed "Year in Review" things I used to do, because frankly, those took a ludicrous amount of time. But a few months into "Manifest Destiny", it seems a good time to take a look at how things are going. And I'll throw in the November sales details, since they haven't gone up at the Beat yet.
This week's X-books:
Wolverine: First Class #10 - The First Class books really do love their random guest stars. This time round, it's Jack Russell, star of Werewolf by Night. Considering that the book ran for less than fifty issues in the mid-seventies, it's amazing that creators continue to dig Jack out whenever they want to do a werewolf story. But here he is, contributing his presence to a story where Kitty and Logan find a bunch of werewolves in the woods, complaining, of all things, about pollution from the local camera factory. (Because there's silver in photographic film, you see.) Francis Portela draws some quite good werewolves, but there's something a bit pointless about doing horror characters in an all-ages book, and ultimately it's a bit insert-tab-A-into-slot-B. Perfectly inoffensive, but you don't need it.
Wolverine: Origins #31 - With the "Original Sin" crossover behind him, Daniel Way returns to his previous story, as Wolverine and Daken set out in pursuit of Romulus. Even as the series closes in on him, there's still no indication whatsoever of why we should care about this guy. In fact, as if he wasn't enough of a generic villain already, we're told that the best way to find Romulus is to follow the trail of senseless violence. Wow, it's like the Shadow King without the charisma. Making matters worse, after "Original Sin" more or less managed to make Daken a workable character, he turns on Wolverine already within a single issue. Even the art takes a downhill turn - it's by Yanick Paquette, who's perfectly good, but seems to be in "fill-in" mode, and suffers from some heavy inking. "Original Sin" had actually done some work to win my interest in this series, but what do you know, take away Mike Carey and we're back where we started. That'll teach me to get my hopes up.
This week's X-books:
Wolverine: First Class #10 - The First Class books really do love their random guest stars. This time round, it's Jack Russell, star of Werewolf by Night. Considering that the book ran for less than fifty issues in the mid-seventies, it's amazing that creators continue to dig Jack out whenever they want to do a werewolf story. But here he is, contributing his presence to a story where Kitty and Logan find a bunch of werewolves in the woods, complaining, of all things, about pollution from the local camera factory. (Because there's silver in photographic film, you see.) Francis Portela draws some quite good werewolves, but there's something a bit pointless about doing horror characters in an all-ages book, and ultimately it's a bit insert-tab-A-into-slot-B. Perfectly inoffensive, but you don't need it.
Wolverine: Origins #31 - With the "Original Sin" crossover behind him, Daniel Way returns to his previous story, as Wolverine and Daken set out in pursuit of Romulus. Even as the series closes in on him, there's still no indication whatsoever of why we should care about this guy. In fact, as if he wasn't enough of a generic villain already, we're told that the best way to find Romulus is to follow the trail of senseless violence. Wow, it's like the Shadow King without the charisma. Making matters worse, after "Original Sin" more or less managed to make Daken a workable character, he turns on Wolverine already within a single issue. Even the art takes a downhill turn - it's by Yanick Paquette, who's perfectly good, but seems to be in "fill-in" mode, and suffers from some heavy inking. "Original Sin" had actually done some work to win my interest in this series, but what do you know, take away Mike Carey and we're back where we started. That'll teach me to get my hopes up.
posted by Paul O'Brien at 4:37 pm
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