Honest truth? I’ve been waiting for Second Coming to wrap up so I could buy back into the X-Universe, and Marvel's NUMBER ONE stamp on this title gulled me pretty easily. So, putting away the cattiness, how is this new launch issue?
Short answer: it’s not bad.
Perhaps I needs must elaborate.
Paco Medina’s art is serviceable on this title, but does nothing to wow the reader. It’s all pretty average. Average isn’t necessarily bad, but it sure ain’t great. It gets the job done. Same goes for the characters. Successful comic characters all have a defining physical appearance which creates continuity across the varying artists across the years. Look at the X-Men: Wolverine’s claws, Cyclops’ ruby glasses, Storm’s white hair, Angel’s wings, Emma Frost’s corset and cape combo, etc. You get the picture.
For me, exciting and dynamic comic art arises from the interaction between such defining physical characteristics and an artist’s unique style. Remember Skottie Young on New X-Men? Remember Chris Bachalo during the Supernovas arc in Adjectiveless X-Men?
Skottie Young - New X-Men 43 | X-Men 188 - Chris Bachalo Bachalo and Young’s respective styles gave their renditions of the various X-Teams an ineffable quality; they leave a distinct stamp which states that they were there. They have added to the legacy of these characters.
Not every artist can achieve this. Paco Medina does not, at least not in this issue. Almost nothing truly leaps off the page to make me sit up straight and take it all in (though I will admit that his Wolverine in the two page spread near the end of the issue is quite solid). My biggest complaint has to be his characterization of Pixie and Jubilee. If they didn’t call her by name, I would have no idea who Jubilee's character was. She seems so bland here (a symptom of depowering and disuse, methinks). It will be interesting to see what the creative team’s long-term plans are for her re-introduction into the team. And what the hell happened to Pixie? It would seem that, like all X-Girls, she has matured into a beautiful, well-proportioned young X-Woman...with the exact same body type as every other young X-Woman. Honestly, if you took recent renditions of Pixie and just swapped heads with Kitty Pryde or the Cuckoos or whomever, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it was a shop.
DESPITE the pixels.
And DESPITE having seen several in my day.
But I should lay off Paco for a minute. I mean, the art may not be amazing here, but it’s not that bad either. And my characterization beefs are the legacy of other artists which he has inherited. The action is fairly well done, and I get the feeling that Medina’s chops are going to be more apparent when the vampires start coming up more in later issues and the X-Teams need to go to town.
Slack. I will cut him some.
On the scribe side of things, Gischler’s writing is pretty good. Really though, I read X-Men comics for the dialogue, the interaction between the team members. The ways in which all these folks all come together and try to be a team, try to be a family, is what gets me to open my wallet at my FLCS, and that isn’t really the focus of this issue. That’s to be expected somewhat, as this is the first issue. Gischler has to set up his story, set up the arc's main players, and set up the potential conflicts to come. He does that about as effectively as he does in Curse of the Mutants’ prologue Death of Dracula (read about it here). The difference is that the reader has particular expectations for Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine and Co. – these characters have baggage and so do we, the readers.
The same as with Medina, I have to ease up on any criticisms of Gischler here: this is only the introduction to our post-Second Coming X-Men. I will have to give the title a few more issues to see if Medina and Gischler can follow through on the responsibility of crafting a strong reading X-Perience (sorry...couldn’t help it).
Short and Fast:
• Art’s not bad, but doesn’t *pop*.
• Writing’s not bad, but doesn’t *pop*.
• Characters are not bad, but don’t *pop*.
Conclusion:
• Apparently there ain't a lot of *POP* in this issue.
All that being said, I'm still glad I picked it up. Curse of the Mutants seems like it could be a fun summer story-arc, and if nothing else, X-Men 1 does set the mood for this Vampire vs. Mutants slobber-knocker.
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