Marvel Round Up 22/1/14- Part 1

It was an insanely busy week for Marvel, with the schedulers apparently losing control of their senses once again. Most of the Avengers and X-Men books were out this week, so reviews will be split between today and tomorrow.

Wolverine & The X-Men #44

This loose arc spanning the past few issues hasn’t been named, but as of the apparent resolution in this issue it turns out that it’s a pretty important comic. Well, as important as an X-Men comic can ever be I suppose. The issue features two related plots wrapping up the Westchester school’s involvement in the current conflict between the two mutant schools and S.H.I.E.L.D. The first plot features the kids squaring off against the two undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and it seems to be acting as further proof of concept for the upcoming shift in focus on this book from teaching staff to students. To be fair, this comic hasn’t focused that much on the teachers in quite a while and I’m really looking forward to seeing what direction Jason Latour takes Idie, Quentin Quire and Genesis in. I hope the secondary kids like Kid Gladiator and Shark Girl get to stick around too.

The rest of the book features Cyclops and Wolverine squaring off against S.H.I.E.L.D.’s sentinel force. It’s the first time the two have shared panels and not been directly at each other’s throats. There’s a moment where their argument about how Scott views himself begins to escalate and it feels like they schism is going to widen even more. However, Jason Aaron cleverly side-steps this, defuses the situation and has the two damaged men calm down, even going so far as to have them share a drink. It’s a lovely scene and reminds me of how much I miss their old relationship (even though the current status quo for the X-books has borne some of the best X-Men stories since Grant Morrison). I’m not sure if it hints at a softening to their relationship, perhaps leading to the end of the schism in the not too distant future? 

The issue looks great too, with Pepe Larraz’s pencils tonally matching what has come before. I’ll say this much for Wolverine & The X-Men- it’s the most visually consistent X-book out there and doesn’t experience the same art schizophrenia as Uncanny X-Men.

Mighty Avengers #5

The writing on this book impresses me enormously. Since it was launched it hasn’t had a single issue to itself, being forced to participate in Marvel’s two recent events, Infinity and Inhumanity. In this issue, writer Al Ewing pays lip service to the Inhumanity stuff, sending White Tiger and Power Man off to the wreckage of Attilan to find some Macguffin relating to supernatural story-line that ties into the “mysterious” Ronin’s reasons for being on the team (I’m pretty sure everybody in the world knows Ronin’s identity is Blade at this point, right?). Anyway, all that stuff is pretty inconsequential, with the real star of the book being Al Ewing’s excellent character work. He writes Jessica Jones and Luke Cage perfectly. There’s a great moment when they both punch Spider-Man in the face when they can’t take his crap anymore. It would have been a classic moment if it weren’t rendered almost unintelligible by Greg Land’s awful art. I can’t wait for another artist who doesn’t trace porn stars to start drawing this book. Shudder. There’s one particularly egregious moment where She-Hulk is supposed to triumphantly join Jessica and Luke in their smack-down on Spider-Man, but Greg Land just draws it with She-Hulk’s ass sticking out and slaps a generic porno face on her. It’s depressing stuff.

Fortunately, Ewing’s writing rises above the limitations place on him by editorial and art. There’s some really interesting thematic stuff about the ethnic make-up of the team and I hope they return to it in the future. Really starting to look forward to this book more and more.

 All New X-Factor #2

I just want to lick Carmine Di Giandomenico’s art. It’s an especially good fit for Peter David’s mutant team as it’s incredibly evocative of Larry Stroman’s art in the 90s. I know you could make the argument that Stroman could still be drawing the book (as he did occasionally during the X-Factor Investigations era of the last few years), but the sad truth is that Stroman’s art has become increasingly looser and just not very good. My only issue with the new costume designs are the goggles. You don’t get to see the character’s eyes while they’re wearing them and this can occasionally be detrimental to the story telling. It’s a small criticism of an otherwise very pretty looking book.

On the writing side of things, Peter David continues the slow burn of establishing the new team.  Quicksilver and Polaris are good choices. The half-siblings have a lot of issues to work through, as well as a lot of poor choices weighing on their shoulders. This issue hints at some of the character work that David might be trying to get at with Quicksilver. Here he’s confronted by three characters he previously screwed over and it doesn’t go especially well for him or the rest of the new team. Gambit is fun in the book too, which is something I rarely get to say about the character, who is far too often bogged down by his destructive relationship with Rogue and his tedious links to the Guild. Here he gets to be the debonair wise-guy. I’m intrigued to see who take up the other three places on the team.