X-MEN FOREVER #9 - December 2009

 

Sentinels - Reborn!

Credits:  Chris Claremont (writer), Steve Scott & Peter Vale (pencils), Al Vey & Gary Martin (inks), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Sotocolor’s C. Garcia (colors)

Summary:  The X-Men fight the Sentinels destroying a village.  Jean surprises the team by taking out numerous Sentinels simultaneously.  Shadowcat tours the inside of a Sentinel and hypothesizes that they’re being used as foundries.  Meanwhile, Daisy Dugan arrives and rescues Nick Fury from Ziggy Trask.  Daisy’s ship is shot down by a mystery opponent, however.  As Ziggy escapes, the situation is monitored by the Consortium, which includes her mother.  In the jungle, Ziggy discovers her Sentinels have created an army of newer models.

Continuity Notes:  

• This version of the Sentinels follows their last Silver Age appearance, when the robots declared that all humans and mutants must be killed.  This new model, however, is now able to assimilate raw material.
• According to the opening narration, Dr. Dietrich Trask was a noble man whose work was co-opted by the Nazis.  Dietrich created a method that allows DNA to be sampled remotely.
• Ziggy reveals that she is Bolivar Trask’s daughter from his second marriage, and that Larry Trask is her half-brother.  Ziggy also appears to be the exception to the Sentinel’s “kill everyone” rule.

Review:  Wow, this is really going to last three issues?  I guess there’s some significance to this storyline as the only Claremont story dealing with the Trasks (unless there’s one I’ve forgotten), but I can’t imagine why anyone thought there was enough material here to fill three issues.  This issue is possibly the strongest of the arc, since Ziggy is given a somewhat defensible point of view and there are two twists at the end that could lead to some interesting stories later.  (I also like the sudden appearance on the final pages of Peter Vale, whose work has a Brent Anderson quality, as the fill-in’s fill-in artist.  Future issues will not have fill-in art of this caliber.)  But the Sentinels remain so utterly boring it’s hard to get too excited about any scene they’re in.  They’re not even portrayed as real threats to the team, as Jean casually wipes them out in a scene designed to hint, yet again, that the Phoenix has returned.

Storylines with weak villains like this one are made even more annoying when you remember the original premise of this series.  Had Claremont continued with his X-Men run into 1992, would we really be seeing an extended Sentinel arc?  It seems unlikely.  Think back to the opening of Uncanny X-Men #273, when the united leaders of the X-teams looked at a globe marked with all potential threats to mutants across the planet.  I want to see the X-Men rescuing Gateway from the Reavers in Australia, or discovering what exactly Shinobi Shaw and Fenris are up to, or learning the true story behind Zaladane’s connection to Polaris.  Sentinels?  Unless there’s a great twist on the concept, it’s hard to care too much about them.  If Claremont ultimately wants to use the Sentinels as enforcers for the Consortium, as he’s used them in the past for Sebastian Shaw, that’s a reasonable move.  But dedicating so many issues to their return is an odd choice, and emphasizing that these Sentinels just want to kill everyone makes the Consortium seem either crazy or dumb.

X-MEN FOREVER #8 - November 2009

 

Fire on the Mountains!

Credits:  Chris Claremont (writer), Steve Scott (pencils), Al Vey (inks), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Lee Loughridge (colors)

Summary:  The X-Men defeat the Sentinel and explore the area.  They enter an abandoned complex and discover only one person conscious inside.  She claims to be a scientist, one hired by mysterious employers two years earlier.  SHIELD detects another village is being attacked by Sentinels nearby. The X-Men leave to stop the attack while Nick Fury stays behind to keep an eye on the woman.  She pulls a gun and reveals herself as Zigfried Trask.  Meanwhile at the mansion, Sabretooth is fitted with an ankle bracelet, and Gambit convinces ‘Ro to stay with the team.

Continuity Notes:  

• Beast has begun flirting with Jean, setting up a brief romantic subplot.
• Zigfried (Ziggy) Trask, the daughter of Bolivar Trask and granddaughter of Dietrich Trask, makes her full debut.  She’ll go on to become a major villain in the series.  Ziggy tells Fury that she wants revenge against him for his part in her grandfather’s death in WWII.
• Ziggy Trask is immune to telepathic probes, allegedly because of a cybernetic implant in her brain.

Review:  I think a bi-weekly book can be forgiven for a more leisurely pace, but this is a little much.  Most of the existing subplots are touched upon but not advanced, a regrettable new romantic subplot is introduced, and one of the behind-the-scenes villains comes out into the light.  To be continued.  Perhaps the issue wouldn’t seem so padded if Ziggy actually did something during the story, but that reveal is saved for the final three pages.  Instead, the X-Men spend what feels like forever walking around the complex and debating over whether or not Ziggy can be trusted.  This, combined with the tepid Sentinel fight in the opening, makes the issue feel as if it’s marking time.  I guess I shouldn’t complain, though, because in future issues the pacing will shift drastically in the opposite direction, giving the title an utterly surreal quality.  As for Ziggy, a part of me admires Claremont for just embracing the ridiculous name, and another part wonders how anyone possibly thought they could get away with naming a major villain that.  I’m tempted to make a joke connecting her to the comic strip character, but I honestly can’t even remember what Ziggy’s supposed to be famous for.

X-MEN FOREVER #7 - November 2009

 

Past is Prologue

Credits:  Chris Claremont (writer), Steve Scott (pencils), Al Vey (inks), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Lee Loughridge (colors)

Summary:  In the Andes, a SHIELD team is attacked by a mysterious force.  At the mansion, Xavier and Nick Fury monitor the situation.  After the team is killed, Fury takes Beast, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, and Jean Grey with him to investigate.  On the way there, he flashes back to his first encounter with Wolverine during WWII.  Fury’s Howling Commandos were teamed with British and Canadian troops and charged with stopping the work of Dr. Dietrich Trask.  Wolverine killed Dr. Trask and Trask’s work was destroyed.  In the present, the team arrives in the Andes and is soon discovered by a Sentinel.

Continuity Notes:  

• New costumes debut this issue for Beast, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Gambit, and Shadowcat (who also has a shorter hairstyle).  Cyclops remains in his early ‘90s costume.
• One of the SHIELD agents killed by a Sentinel in the Andes is Tommy Juniper, the great-nephew of Junior Juniper.  Junior Juniper was a Howling Commando killed during WWII, sometimes cited as the first death scene in official Marvel continuity.
• Wolverine’s rank in the Canadian army is given as Captain this issue.  He also makes a reference to “Raven’s intel,” which indicates that Wolverine is still partners with Mystique and Destiny, a concept Claremont previously explored in X-Men: True Friends.

Approved By Modern PC Police:  Nick Fury chews on a long straw during the WWII flashback, instead of smoking his trademark cigar.

Review:  Notice that this issue has a fill-in penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer.  The bi-weekly schedule of this book could be brutal, so it’s somewhat remarkable that the series has run six issues with a fairly consistent creative team.  As far as fill-ins go, this is better than you might expect.  Steve Scott has a decent handle on the cast, and he’s able to adjust to the abrupt WWII flashback quite well.  The letters are also reasonably Orzechowski-esque, so much so it’s not obvious he’s missing at first.  The colors aren’t on the level as the previous issues, the palette just seems dull, but overall the issue looks presentable.  

The main plot advances only incrementally, perhaps because Claremont’s waiting on Grummett to return before truly moving forward.  The Sentinels’ return is teased throughout the issue until one finally shows on the final page, there are numerous talking head pages, a lengthy discussion over which X-Men should travel to the Andes, and a WWII flashback suddenly pops up for a few pages in the middle of the book.  Claremont manages to maintain some humanity by emphasizing Fury’s reaction to Juniper’s death, but it’s odd to see him spend so much time building up the Sentinels as a major threat.  It’s my understanding that Claremont always dismissed them as dull, which would explain why they so rarely appeared during his original run.  As X-Men Forever continues, the reader is suddenly expected to treat Sentinels and the Task family as if they’re the team’s greatest threat, a creative decision I still can’t understand.

What’s truly incomprehensible are the new costumes.  After appearing on the cover for months, they finally make their in-story debut this issue.  It’s a remarkably quiet debut, too, since no one comments on the fact that virtually the entire team has switched outfits in-between issues.  I’m assuming that Steve Scott was sent those costumes as the new models, and no one in editorial  noticed if the X-Men were supposed to be wearing them by this issue.  It’s hard to make an objective judgment on the designs; just the concept of new costumes in this book is perplexing.  Even if you ignore the established continuity that the existing costumes are already new at this point, it’s hard to deny that an entire generation of X-fans consider these outfits to be the “classic” looks for the team.  Since all of these costumes have been abandoned over the years, the existence of one X-Men comic with the “classic” costumes on the cover had to work to the title’s advantage.  And now that’s gone.  Also, the X-Men change costumes all of the time these days, so there’s nothing special about seeing new outfits in this book, too.  There’s nothing out of the ordinary about new X-costumes, but seeing the characters the way the audience remembers them actually was unique.  Why throw away one of the title’s strongest hooks, especially so soon?

WOLVERINE #138 - May 1999

Doomsday!

Credits: Erik Larsen (writer), Jeff Matsuda, Steve Scott, & Yancey Labat (pencilers), Jonathan Sibal, Scott Elmer, & Scott Koblish (inkers), Mark Bernardo (colors), Comicraft (letters)

Summary: Wolverine helps dozens of the aliens escape before joining forces with Torgo and Aria to stop Galactus. Their plan fails when Aria is unable to possess Galactus and Wolverine’s bone claws aren't sharp enough to destroy his cosmic converter. The Starjammers rescue Wolverine and Aria, but cannot save Torgo. Wolverine watches in horror as Galactus consumes Prison World. He’s also informed that Aria did not survive her injuries. Upon returning to Earth, Wolverine meets with Warbird again and apologizes for hurting her while possessed by Aria.

Review: And now we’ve reached the rushed, chaotic conclusion. I can see what Larsen’s going for here, and on paper it sounds like a decent ending. Wolverine is forced to learn that he isn’t truly “the best there is” after facing a resounding defeat, and is now given a motivation to regain his adamantium. To throw in a few more angst pains, he loses the new alien friends he’s made and is unable to rescue the family of the kid asparagus alien (who’s already lost the rest of his race to Wolverine’s teammate…or however you choose to define Dark Phoenix). Larsen also hammers home the idea that Wolverine refuses to ever quit in a fight, even against Galactus, a side of the character that’s usually glossed over in favor of tired machismo.

That’s all fine, but the execution reads like a long, exasperating sequence of Wolverine running around in circles as aliens get blown up around him. The story’s almost over before we even get to see Wolverine make his move against Galactus. Making matters worse is the trio of pencilers, accompanied by a trio of inkers, that have somehow ended up in the same comic. Jeff Matsuda is Jeff Matsuda (and he’s still looking rushed), Steve Scott’s work is reminiscent of Cully Hamner’s, and Yancey Labat’s pencils resemble early Stuart Immomen. Who could’ve possibly thought this was going to look right? Am I to believe that Marvel didn’t have a dozen manga-style artists on speed dial in the late ‘90s? It’s hard to believe that a title like Wolverine could be such a shoddy production, especially during the debut of a new creative team.