Comics for this last week...

[angelophile]

Quiet couple of weeks for comics. Lots of Ultimates stuff out, but since I'm no longer picking up any Ultimate titles that didn't mean much to me.

So, over the last couple of weeks, only five titles.

Wolverine 26
X-men Age of Apocalypse 2/3
Uncanny X-men 457
Young Avengers 2
District X 11

and as a bonus

Jeff Smith's BONE

SPOILERS AHEAD:



WOLVERINE #26 - The start of the new arc after Enema of the State and apparently Wolverine's going to be an agent of SHIELD. There's a few things that bugged me about this first issue - firstly the fact that the first major chunk of the book dealt with the history of a villain who's simply being set up as the next Big Bad and really has very little going for him. He's bland. He's boring. He's just another villain who's indestructible. Until he isn't.

The other developments deal with Wolverine being run through various simulations to try and de-brainwash him. Again, I have problems with this. For one, I've seen it all before. Wolverine isn't Wolverine unless he's slashing someone up and then it turning out to be a simulation. The action sequences are nicely illustrated by JMR, but it's pretty yawnworthy. And the other problem? Well Wolverine's an X-man who are led by the world's most powerful telepath. Why the X-men would stand aside and let SHIELD take him when it's been demonstrated they don't trust SHIELD and they also have more powerful means of removing his brainwashing is beyond me.

And there's the inevitable resurrection everyone was predicting, that leads to the only really nice moment of the book. I'm confused by a few details though. Apparently Northstar named Bobby in his will as one of those he wanted to read at his funeral, but he wrote his will when he was 14? What?

In short, loving the art, but an uninspiring script doesn't really float my boat.

X-MEN AGE OF APOCALYPSE 2&3 - A rather dull issue 2, some stupidness with the Morlocks that saw Mirage back from the dead and Weapon X and X-23 bonding. Chris Bachalo's artwork seemed a little off in this issue, some of the new costumes are just hideous, but he obviously had fun with the Morlocks.

Issue 3, however, I loved from start to finish. Okay, there are a few churlish problems. Logan's interaction with the X-men didn't ring true. I was under the impression he didn't know the X-men that well in the AoA universe, but instead they acted like old friends, up to and including Logan calling Ororo "Stormy". His characterisation was much closer to the 616 universe. Beak continues to be Leech in looks and colouration, I'm really not a fan of the Xorn redesign, the mask looking particularly dumb. However…

I loved the art from start to finish in this issue. The redesigns of the Guthries worked brilliantly and the splash page of Elizabeth Guthrie growing was totally rocking. Nice touches like Jay Guthrie having Archangel's wing worked delightfully and the battle scene that took up much of the issue was a joy with the Guthries showing just what they could do. Then there was the grand reveal of the villain of the arc. And while it was cheesy, boy did she look great and brought back a real sense of nostalgia for the AoA stories which I hadn't been feeling up til then. And her motivations ring true. Can't wait for next issue. It looks great.

UNCANNY X-MEN #457 - Claremont continues his attempt to take over the world with CHEDDAR in the utterly cheesy Uncanny X-men. Alan Davis' art adds to the sense of fun that's to be had here. It's not exactly going to test anyone but like the guy at the comic shop said last week "I'm really enjoying it - these are the X-men I grew up with." And they are. Cheesy, often very silly dialogue, ludicrous plot twists and an old fashioned mental control plot.

Claremont's not going to win any awards but, or probably new fans, but now Sage has disappeared from the book and we're left with a core cast of more classic X-men, rather than second stringers like Milligan's X-men, I'm enjoying it a whole lot more. Anyway, this month sees more in the way of silly dino X-men action in the Savage Land, Betsy and X23 interacting in a fun way (although was anyone else disturbed how gleefully Betsy, and indeed the other X-men, have approved of X23's murderous past?), Rachel turning into a dinosaur in a plot that's been used at least a dozen times before and decent Alan Davis art.

YOUNG AVENGERS #2 - Another strong issue this week, and another I thoroughly enjoyed. The parts of the puzzle are slowly dropping into place as to who the Young Avengers are and part of the issue deals with the origins of the delightfully whimsically named Iron Lad. There's a nice twist as regards his identity that ties into a Marvel villain I'm not that familiar with, but it seems like a fun idea. Meanwhile, Patriot, Asgardian and the equally whimsically named Hulkling tangle with some n'er-do-wells and generally get themselves into trouble. I'm enjoying Patriot, good to see that Captain America Junior is a complete ass. And the Hulkling/Asgardian duo is sweet. There seem to be hints that they're involved romantically although it's hard to tell whether they're gay or that Hulkling is, in fact, a girl under all the green and big muscles. Either way, the flitaion is fun and it's nice to see the pleasant angst-free relationship continued in this issue.

The third subplot sees Cassie Lang, daughter of the sadly deceased Avenger Scott Lang, trying to track down the Young Avengers. The only slight flaw occurs here because when she's introduced she seems to be seeking the Young Avengers to join them, yet later in the book it seems she's instead wanting to get into the Avengers Mansion to claim her dad's stuff. The sudden switch between motivations jars a little, but then the twist at the end proves a nice distraction.

Over all this is pleasant, enjoyable, grit free, old fashioned (in the best possible way) comic storytelling and works nicely, with Jessica Jones stealing the best lines, as well she should.

DISTRICT X #11 - Last issue of the arc next month and unless something drastically improves in the next issue, I suspect I'll be dropping the book.

As I said before, Ortega just wasn't given enough buiold up before being set up for a fall. He was an enjoyable character in the first arc and now seems to have turned about completely, becoming a repulsive human being. The sudden switch was too sudden and frankly, I just didn't have long enough to start caring about and appreciating the character to want to deal with his collapse. With someone like Colossus breaking down, I cared because I had a history with the character. With Ortega I don't.

The plot seemed to be full of holes too and generally this was a lacklustre and uninspiring issue that does little to persuade me to stay with the book after the end of the arc.

BONE - ONE VOLUME EDITION

10 years, 1300 pages. It's not hard to see why comic writers, artists and critics have raved about this book for years. Finally it's been released in one volume and it's an epic read. It seems to be a book that's permanently in the top ten lists of people like Bendis, BKV and many others.

I bought the first 'coloured' edition the other day, the first book out of the nine collected in this volume and was so impressed that I bought the entire collection, although this collected edition is in its original Black and White state.

How to describe Bone? Well, by parts it's whimsical, funny, but rooted in much darker fantasy. Imagine Peanuts meets Lord of the Rings. Yes, it sound nuts but, to a degree, it works.

The main protagonists are the Bone cousins - Phone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone. The story of the Bones is a simple one at first. They are trying to get back home after being kicked out of town, thanks to one of the greedy Phoney's get-rich-quick schemes that goes wrong. During their travels, they get split up in a vast desert, finally making their individual ways into a valley populated by characters like the red dragon, Ted the Bug, the rat creatures and the other main focus of the story, Thorn Harvestar.

Characters are given life through their attitudes and peculiarities. Phoney has a near insatiable love of money, and Bone is obsessed with the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick , and Smiley is, well, the goofy participant in the other two's schemes. The light humor which is sprinkled throughout the story then slowly darkens with more character additions including the nightmarish Briar and the menacing Roque Ja, the disintegration of Thorn's sanity and the rat creatures surrounding the valley. It's during this vast middle section that my interest faded. The humor and character quirks of the early books drained away, the jokes about Moby Dick and the comedy pair of rat creatures slipped away and there was a looooooong and rather samey middle section where all anyone seemed to do was slip off in pairs and get lost in the mountains and get themselves into trouble. For me, this is where the story stalled.

I used to adore Cerbus th Aardvark and I guess Bone suffers from the same problems, though not to the same degree, that slowly the humor and whimsical charm of the book is pushed out to make way for heavy storylines. It's at this stage that individual books probably work better, rather than trying to wade through the central books in one sitting. The Lord of the Rings comparison rings true here, the middle books being rather slow and turgid building up towards the climactic final books.

While there's a lot of pleasure to be had in the final section, there's a lot that reminds me of the final episodes of Buffy. There's humor, there's loss, and there's also convenient plot devices that spring out of absolutely nowhere without any explanation or build up. After a massively log build up of the threat against the heroes, suddenly we discover the whole thing can be sorted with one single artifact and all you need to do is touch it. And so the finale turns into a rather damp squib.

However, along the way there are some delightful moments and Jeff Smith's crisp art is stunning and delightfully surreal. You really do care for the characters come the end of the book. The scope of this series certainly took me by surprise. It opens in a very down-home sort of way, and gently widens it's horizons to aspects of a world surprisingly grand and beautiful. The series has so many facets: humor of a particularly ingenious sort, action, monsters, history, magic, and fantastic places, all of which blend together seamlessly. The only problem is that sometimes, sadly, it's not always that exciting.

Still, at 30 dollars, 1300 pages and 13 years in the making, this is exceptional value if you want to read the Bone epic and haven't been attracted by the invidual editions.