X-Men comics (September 24, 2014)

I’ll start by talking about last night’s Agents of SHIELD season premiere. It was good. The FitzSimmons reveal was creepy and sad and awesome. I’m a little disappointed at what happened to Lucy Lawless’ character – I’d hoped she’d be in more episodes. Absorbing Man was really cool. His power looked great. The best part was when he grabbed the ball and chain. That was a really cool shoutout to the comics. And the Agent Carter flashback at the start was really cool. I’m really looking forward to that show. So this season’s off to a good start. I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.

But now, for today’s comics!

Amazing X-Men #11, written by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, art by Carlo Barberi. Captain America, Northstar and Aurora are luring some Wendigos out through some woods and into the US, where they revert to human. Elsewhere, Colossus is getting fed up with the Wendigos howling. Rachel hits a couple that Sasquatch is holding. In the Spirit Realm, Rockslide and Firestar both feel like they’ve been walking for a while. Snowbird returns to the team to let them know the Great Beasts are at war. Tanaraq is tapping into the spreading Wendigo curse to get stronger, giving him an advantage against the other Great Beasts. Tundra and Kolomaq fall. The team checks out some Shilohs – innocent spirits created solely to worship their creators. Iceman’s cold revives them. Back at the border, Talisman’s in critical condition, and about to be airlifted to a New York hospital. Northstar tells Puck to go with her. Aurora figures Talisman would be better off dead than with Puck. And then the team in the Spirit Realm finds Tanaraq. This arc’s gotten good. Northstar and Aurora are getting some fun scenes together. There’s some pretty cool fighting. There’s some nice bits of humour. The arc got off to a weak start, but I’m enjoying it now. It’s cool. Barberi’s art is a good match for it. It’s got a classic feel to it. The Spirit Realm feels odd and ethereal, which works well. It’s all really cool.

Storm #3, by Greg Pak and Scott Hepburn (with David Baldeon). Storm is making it rain in the school’s greenhouse, much to the irritation of a kitty stalking around. Poor kitty! Then Beast comes in to let her know about an invitation. She accidentally fries the tablet he hands her, so he explains that it was an invitation to the unveiling of a new technology designed to bring rain to Kenya. Storm goes back, all the way back to the hilltop where Xavier found her. An old woman sees her, and they have a chat (the old woman says they knew she was just a crazy girl, but they needed the rain). She’s taken down to see some local farmland, which is struggling. Not enough water. Then she sees Forge. He’s the one who made the new technology, and he wants her help with it. They have a nice little chat while they work. And by nice I mean she almost hits him with a lightning bolt. This is another nice done-in-one issue. It’s good. It’s sweet. I still find Storm’s dialogue is a little more casual than it probably should be. On the one hand, I can sorta understand why Pak writes it that way – it humanizes her, makes her easier to like on a personal level. But I think he does take it a bit too far. The scenes between Storm and Forge are really good. They’ve got kind of a complicated history, and that gets explored, including Forge’s insanity from Warren Ellis’ Astonishing X-Men run. Hepburn’s art is OK. It’s pretty, especially backgrounds and landscapes. Characters sometimes have odd expressions, but it doesn’t happen too often. I’m enjoying this series.

Cyclops #5, by Greg Rucka and Carmen Carnero. While Scott writes another journal entry about being stranded on a planet he’s decided to name Doug, a bounty hunter finds the signal from the reactivated tracking device. The bounty hunters land, and go hunting. But Scott and Corsair are waiting for them, and have a plan. The plan works! It involves sword fighting! This is cool. Scott’s refusal to let anyone die is well-displayed here. The writing’s solid, and the art is good. The fighting is choreographed well, and easy to follow. Good issue.

Magneto #10, by Cullen Bunn, art by Javier Fernandez and Gabriel Walta. Magneto is strapped, with his helmet off, and the Red Skull comes in to mock him, and to torment him with the old Nazi commander Magneto once failed to kill. But Magneto knows how to block out the pain, and he thinks back to when he revealed himself as the father of Wanda and Quicksilver. Attilan starts shaking, and Magneto tells Wanda to fix it, and condemns her for doing nothing after almost damning mutantkind to extinction. He realizes something is wrong, and the Nazi rips apart the memory. Then he remembers the death of his daughter, Anya. The Nazi wants to know why Magneto chose that memory to bring up, and Magneto says he uses it as a reminder of why he fights. Next he remembers himself and Rogue in the Savage Land. This is a dark issue, as usual. I’m still not keen on the art style, but luckily, this issue has a little less of Magneto’s narration. It makes for a slightly more enjoyable issue. I’m still not able to really commit to this book, though.

Deadpool #35, written by Gerry Duggan abd Brian Posehn, art by Mike Hawthorne. Deadpool’s spending time with Ellie, who wants to know about her mom. Meanwhile, Dracula is setting up an old Spider-Slayer to kill Deadpool. Preston comes in to say it’s time for Ellie to go to bed. The scene is actually pretty sweet. After this, Deadpool goes to an assisted living centre to let an old woman know that her granddaughter is alive. She cries about Carmelita’s death, and asks why she shouldn’t shoot Deadpool. He says he’ll let her see Ellie, though not then, because it’s late. Then he visits the JGS, in time for the Korean X-Men to arrive. Storm and Nightcrawler welcome them warmly. Especially Nightcrawler. After that, Deadpool tries to visit the Fantastic Four, but their building’s been closed off. So instead Dracula attacks him in the Spider-Slayer. This is kind of a sweet issue. Dracula using a Spider-Slayer was a bit stupid, but I suppose it is the right kind of threat for Deadpool to face, in that it’s stupid. I don’t much care for the art, but I’ve never liked the art on this series, so that’s nothing new.

And that’s all for this week. It’s a very light week for my reviews.