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Comic Book Review: Weapon X #1 by Pak, Land, Leisten, D’Armata, & Caramanga
One of our household’s favorite movies, The Prestige, starts and ends by explaining the steps of a magic trick.
First, comes “The Pledge,” where we are shown something ordinary. Then, comes “The Turn,” when the magician takes the ordinary and makes it do something extraordinary. The best magic comes with a third step – “The Prestige” – where you bring back the ordinary, if you can.
Comic books are a lot like magic tricks, in that way. Every new series or story arc is a Pledge based on the creators and characters you can see when its announced. What happens within its issues is The Turn. And, whether or not the story returns its many pieces to where they can be used again in the future is The Prestige.
(Some fans love a good Prestige, while others see it as a cheat – but that’s a conversation for another time.)
As comic book magic goes, the Weapon X didn’t engender much excitement in readers when it was announced a few months back. Greg Pak isn’t a high-selling author on his own, penciller Greg Land is tolerated (at best) by most fans, and the title looked and sounded like another take on X-Force with its cast of Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Domino, and Warpath.
Is this book more than meets the eye?
Pak has never been a creator to give us a weak Turn. This is the man behind Planet Hulk and who used Dazzler to explore a whole multiverse of X-Men in X-Treme X-Men.
Greg Land is one of the most reliable monthly artists in Marvel’s stable, always on a standout book that are rarely destined for poor sales.
And, the cast is a mysterious mix – all hunter/killers, but without an obvious through-line between them all.
There’s going to be a major Turn here. I’m sure of it.
Weapon X (2017) #1 (digital)
Written by Greg Pak with pencils by Greg Land, inks by Jay Leisten, color art by Frank D’Armata, and letters from VC’s Joe Caramanga.
CK Says: Consider it.
Weapon X #1 is a solid opener to an intriguing new mutant mystery that feels less like a superhero comic and more like a bloody game of cat and mouse.
The mice in the game are Old Man Logan – an alternate future Wolverine stuck in our present – and his longtime foe and former fellow soldier, Sabretooth. Sabretooth had been on and off the straight and narrow recently, but this issue finds him holed up in the woods hundreds of miles from civilization.
That’s not too different from Logan’s location at the start of the issue, but the story doesn’t linger on the why of their chosen isolation. Instead, author Greg Pak quickly shifts the focus to on the cats in this game of chase.
They’re an upgraded version of the traditional half-human Reavers from the late-80s portions of Claremont’s run -regular people that are undetectable to the enhanced senses of our pair of clawed mutants, but beneath their skin these pursuers are killer robots prickling with blades.
Their sudden appearance is clearly tied to a very angry Lady Deathstrike, held in captivity in a lab that’s very interested in our other cast members.
(As for how she got there, it was teased in X-Men Prime).
Why is Deathstrike held captive? Why is a secret program out to capture Wolverine and Sabretooth? And, what do two very different mutants – Domino and Warpath – have anything to do with it? [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: Weapon X #1 by Pak, Land, Leisten, D’Armata, & Caramanga
Comic Book Review: X-Men Blue #1 by Bunn, Molina, Buffagni, Milla, & Caramagna – Nostalgia reigns supreme in this dull debut
Nostalgia is a tricky thing.
When we’re young, nostalgia allows us to unlock something secret and cool that we missed out on. I remember being so excited about flare-legged jeans and crazy-patterned polyester shirts in the mid-90s when the late 60s and early 70s were cool again.
They spoke to me because I felt like a kid out of time. I was more interested in actually picking out clothing than ever before. And, that hippy-influenced fashion let me into my own interpretation of glam rock tinged with goth, full of vinyl, flowy black shirts, and body glitter.
I’m not sure that anyone who lived through those fashions the first time was as eager as I was to see their return. Nostalgia is different when we’re older. Some elements might recall warm, fuzzy, pleasant feelings of youth, but we don’t get to pick and choose what our collective culture decides to recycle. Other throwbacks bombard us with the awful trends and noise we winced and tried to avoid back in the day.
For every transformative piece of nostalgia that is filled with a fresh inspiration, there are a hundred old things re-inflated like ancient hot-air balloons. These husks totter up into the the cultural horizon for a second flight, tattered and looming over our shoulders. They crowd out the sky for the young and old alike, strangling new ideas. Sometimes it feels like they even blot out the sun.
Nostalgia can be dangerous to the young and old alike. It can crowd the horizon of new art, of fresh fashion and music. And, if you’re not careful, it becomes a self-sustaining feedback loop, constantly comforting you with copies of copies of copies of something that once made you feel something – or, worse, something that made other people feel a feeling that you’re eager to capture for your own.
Nostalgia is a tricky, dangerous thing. If you’re not careful, it can suffocate you.
X-Men Blue (2017) #1
Written by Cullen Bunn with line art by Jorge Molina (A-story) and Matteo Buffagni (B-story) with color art by Matt Milla and lettering by VC’s Joe Caramagna. Primary cover by Arthur Adams and Peter Steigerwald.
CK Says: Skip it!
X-Men Blue #1 is part of Marvel’s relaunch of its full line of mutant books, but this one is not like the others. Rather than inject new life into a battered franchise, it seeks to hook readers through nostalgia for a group of tired characters that weren’t even that great the first time around.
(And, that’s before we get to the crushingly stupid back-up story.)
On the surface, X-Men Blue is a zippy, one-shot “high adventure on the high seas” story with a recognizable team of the five original X-Men tackling some familiar foes. That surface level is going to play out fine for a lot of readers. It will push some nostalgia buttons for some and “access to nostalgia” buttons for others.
Both sets of readers might be forgetting that these original mutants have never been the most interesting team. What was so special about them back in the 1960s (and in many flashbacks to the period) was using these every-teen archetypes to uncover a world filled with vivid villains paired with disarmingly plain everyday discrimination.
Why invite them to the present day, aside from nostalgia? It was the handiwork of Beast in 2013 to try to show Cyclops how far he had strayed from when they were as wide-eyed teens. That’s a great idea for a single story, but editorially no one seems sure why the characters are still around other than the fact that a few thousand people keep buying their book.
Author Cullen Bunn has little to say on the topic in this first issue. He’s been his best at Marvel writing Magneto for the past few years, but X-Men Blue doesn’t yet have the morally gray allure of those stories (though, it would be a brilliant way to re-contextualize these characters). [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: X-Men Blue #1 by Bunn, Molina, Buffagni, Milla, & Caramagna – Nostalgia reigns supreme in this dull debut
New Comic Guide: All of the Robins!
This is the final of four weeks of Bat-Guides before we switch to a a more “universal” theme for the next few weeks. And, you can’t have Bat-Guides without The Definitive Guide to Robin(s)!
Yes, that’s Robins – plural.
This guide tracks each Robin for as long as they bear the title from Dick Grayson debuting in Detective Comics (1937) #38 to Damian Wayne’s current reign as the Boy Wonder.
Before starting this guide I knew there were four distinct Boy Wonders (and one Girl Wonder), but I was confused about who was Robin when. It seems like Grayson has been Nightwing since time immortal – I’ve never read a story with him as Robin that wasn’t a flashback! When did he get upgraded?
Plus, I remembered Jason Todd dying back in the 80s (and coming back in the 00s), but when did he initially arrive? And, while I’m now a Damian Wayne expert from working on the Morrison Batman guide, what exactly was a Red Robin and when did Tim Drake start calling himself that?
I untangle all of those questions in this guide. It’s Robin-centric, so it does not follow Nightwing and Red Hood into their post-Robin adventures (they will be covered by future guides).
What it does do is track every Robin title, plus all of the many Robins’ appearances in Batman flagships and Titans titles from the Golden Age through present.
Plus, the Robin(s) Guide has a few new elements, including collapsable sections for lengthy issue lists and links back to the top of the TOC.
Okay, now it’s time for the tough question: Who is your favorite Boy Wonder? Post-Robin careers don’t count (a-hem, Nightwing). I’m talking about who was the best Robin?
New For Patrons: Definitive Guide to Animal Man
Launched just moments ago to my Crushing Comics Club Patrons is a guide to my favorite New 52 hero, Animal Man!
I feel like I’ve always been aware of Animal Man, but had never read a single issue of him prior to Jeff Lemire’s wonderful run in New 52. Putting this guide together was an eye-opening experience about Animal Man’s history, and about ultimately how much of a blank slate he became in the decade after the end of his famous Vertigo series launched by Grant Morrison. The guide includes his every appearance, with brief descriptions of his action to accompany nearly every issue.
Want access to this guide? Right now this guide is planned to be available to the general public in May, but Patrons at the Crushing Comics Club level have access right now!