Clawing For Relevancy: X-men Blue #4

The following is my review of X-men Blue #4, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for certain comic book characters to be too awesome. It's rarely the fault of the characters themselves. The problem is that when one writer finds a winning formula, a hundred others work tirelessly to recreate it, which leads to some predictably spectacular failures. With all due respect to characters like Hyperion and Sentry, the sheer volume of characters that try to match Superman's winning formula proves that even great success can breed greater problems.

When it comes to the X-men, Wolverine is the spitting, swearing poster boy of this issue. In terms of the overall X-men mythos, he is the standard by which all others are measured. He's an amazing character with a convoluted, but compelling past. He has personality, charisma, and mass appeal that's easy to stick on a T-shirt or lunch box. Few characters can hope to match that standard. Some characters, such as X-23, come surprisingly close. Others, however, fail miserably and become afterthoughts at best.

Up until Secret Wars, Jimmy Hudson was a case study in such failure. In the now-defunct Ultimate Marvel, he attempts to replace Wolverine and falls woefully short at every turn. He does nothing to distinguish himself. He brings nothing new or compelling to the story. He's basically just a teenage Wolverine, minus the skills, the mysterious past, the personality, and the overall appeal. At a time when there are so many other characters, such as X-23 and Old Man Logan, who do a much better job following that formula, Jimmy Hudson enters X-men Blue with some significant headwinds.

In some respects, he's entering a favorable situation. Like him, the original five X-men are exiled from their own timeline. They're also teenagers with lofty legacies to live up to. However, the baggage of being a failed replacement character from a failed series is not easy to escape. Cullen Bunn and Julian Lopez try to make the case in X-men Blue #4 that Jimmy can overcome that baggage. The verdict, however, is incomplete. The jury is still out, but the evidence is not on Jimmy's side.

The structure of the story, itself, as concise and well-crafted. The original five X-men respond to news of a distressed mutant. That's what the X-men of all generations do, time displaced or otherwise. Bunn establishes in the first three issues that this is the core mission of the team. It's simple, familiar, and functional. It works in the sense that it brings out the best in the original five X-men. It continues to work in X-men Blue #4. However, when Jimmy Hudson enters the picture, this core mission clashes with his heaviest baggage.

If Jimmy didn't have claws, wasn't related to Logan, and hadn't been part of a defunct world that stopped being relevant years ago, then his appearance would have some intrigue. Instead, he enters the world of X-men Blue in a way that's so familiar, so predictable, and so devoid of drama that it's hard to get excited about his arrival. Nothing he does sets him apart as a new and intriguing character. If anything, everything he does will just make Wolverine fans miss Logan.

It's one of Jimmy Hudson's biggest problems, both as a character and as plot for X-men Blue #4. It's a problem that has lingered since his first appearance in Ultimate X. The fact that Jimmy Hudson is Logan's son isn't the issue. The problem is he does nothing to really set himself apart.

In every comic since his first appearance, he doesn't carry himself as Jimmy. He carries himself as teenage Logan. It would be far more intriguing if someone had just cast a magic spell and reverted Logan back to a teenager. Given the abundance of overpowered sorcerers and time machines in the Marvel universe, that really isn't much of a stretch.

That all-too familiar tradition continues in X-men Blue #4. All the familiar Logan tropes are there. Jimmy is alone in a hostile wilderness, stuck in a blood rage, and can't remember where he came from. These are all core themes of at least a dozen other Wolverine stories since 1975. There's nothing distinct or memorable here. Jimmy once again conducts himself as a teenage Logan and nothing more. Unlike the original five X-men, though, he can't use time displacement as an excuse.

It might be understandable for Jimmy to struggle to escape his Logan's shadow in the sense that he sets the bar pretty high. Wolverine is one of the most popular comic book characters of all time. He's the one who helped make Hugh Jackman famous. Expecting Jimmy to even come close to that bar seems unreasonable. However, that excuse fails too because there is a precedent, which further undermines Jimmy's case.

Other characters inspired or derived from Wolverine have succeeded. Both X-23 and Daken have established themselves as solid, compelling characters who can hold their own without being too similar to Logan. X-23 does such a good job of this that she went onto become one of the best parts of the last Wolverine movie. Jimmy Hudson, though, gives no impression that he deserves a role next to Hugh Jackman.

Unlike Daken and X-23, Jimmy does nothing to stand out whether he's in a fight or standing on a street corner. His only distinguishing feature is his blond hair. If Molina were to use the wrong color, then few would be able to discern Jimmy from an overly youthful Logan. Given all the other distinguishing traits of Daken and X-23, which include tattoos and different claw configurations, Jimmy feels less like a derivation and more of a rip-off.

At the very least, his presence doesn't derail the story in X-men Blue #4. Bunn never makes him the primary focal point and that keeps the narrative on-track and consistent with the themes of the series. Jimmy's presence even manages to incur a distinct twist to the story that couldn't be done with X-23 or Daken. He acts primarily as a catalyst for the original five X-men's next challenge. He succeeds in this, but fails be distinct or compelling at any point in the process.

He's still that character who failed miserably to fill the void left by Logan's death in Ultimate Marvel. Now, he's in a world where two other characters can claim some measure of success, one of which made Dafne Keen famous. Jimmy is a long way from that kind of success. That baggage is still as heavy as ever. He's still that character few mourned when Ultimate perished at the end of Secret Wars. Escaping that baggage isn't easy and with X-men Blue #4, he's off to a poor start.

Final Score: 6 out of 10

An Original Cast With Renewed Energy: X-men Blue #1

The following is my review of X-men Blue #1, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Some concepts work well in any era, no matter the context. Those concepts are few and far between, but their universal appeal is what helps make them iconic. When it comes to the original five X-men, as created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby over 50 years ago, they check all the right boxes with respect to those concepts.

They're young, idealistic, vulnerable, determined, anxious, eager, and even a little arrogant at times. They believe in following a dream. They also haven't experienced the harshest realities of the real world, which tend to crush dreams like Juggernaut in a china shop. Since arriving in a future where they find out their future selves are dead, disfigured, or had lost their minds, they fight desperately to cling to those dreams. Despite the knowledge that those dreams shattered under the weight of cosmic forces, psychic manipulation, and evil clones, they still fight for that dream. It says a lot about both their youthful spirit, as well as their youthful arrogance.

They may not need that arrogance quite as much these days. After the events of Inhumans vs. X-men, the dream the original five X-men fight for isn't quite as shattered as before. Mutants are no longer being gassed to death by a giant green cloud and the Scarlet Witch hasn't had a mental breakdown lately. That means mutants have a future again and, despite being the product of an out-of-control time travel plot, they seek to forge part of that future in X-men Blue.

Cullen Bunn and Jorge Molina bring the original five X-men back together in X-men Blue #1, attempting to capture as much of those classic concepts as possible while fitting them into a new status quo. That includes everything from teenagers complaining about random things and fighting the Juggernaut. By all those lofty standards of the Kirby/Lee tradition, it still checks the right boxes boxes.

From the outset, the story is fairly basic. The Original Five X-men go up against an old enemy in Black Tom, but from their time-displaced perspective, he's a fresh face with a sinister mustache. There's not much to Black Tom's plot. He's just holding a lot of rich people hostage, twirling his sinister mustache, and generally doing all the things Lex Luthor used to do before he got into politics.

There may not be much complexity to that plot at first, but it still leads to some entertaining theatrics that allow the time-displaced X-men to stop lamenting about their future selves and just be heroes. Given that they're still teenagers, there is some lamenting, but Bunn makes sure it's doesn't devolve into the kind of teen angst that often plagued the characters after Secret Wars. That makes the effect of X-men Blue #1 all the more profound because it shifts the tone back to a sense of youthful idealism. After surviving a poison gas cloud, it's a shift that needed to happen.

As the story unfolds, new complexities emerge. The narrative doesn't just rely on a group of teenage mutants flying in and saving the day. The battle also illustrates some new dynamics within the team. Most notably, Jean Grey is now the leader. It may not be akin to making Doop the leader, but the change is notable in the way the X-men conduct themselves.

It's different in that Cyclops doesn't go barking out orders while everyone else jokes about how uptight he is. Jean Grey's style of leadership is different in that she'll spearhead the charge, but trusts her teammates to handle themselves, even against someone like Juggernaut. This style isn't without its faults though. They quickly get overwhelmed and end up having to wing it in order to save the day, so much that they end up having to cheat with magic.

This is where X-men Blue #1 ties itself into the larger narrative that has been unfolding with the time-displaced X-men since they arrived in the future back in All-New X-men. Bunn doesn't ignore the nuances have emerged with certain characters. In this case, Beast's newfound appreciation of magic proves pivotal, both in terms of resolving a conflict and establishing new levels of tension. It makes for different tactics, but it also leads to arguments and uncertainties about how the team operates. In a team made up of entirely of teenagers, that's always fertile ground for conflict.

It also establishes that while X-men Blue is relying on more traditional X-men dynamics, the team is still very much a work-in-progress. Jean Grey is still learning how to lead. Beast is still learning how to manage his new mystical abilities. All the while, Cyclops has to resist the urge to start barking out orders again. As a team, they're not a finished product. They're still rookies who have the potential to be all stars, but are a long way from that level.

That sense of growth is one of the greatest strengths in X-men Blue #1. Even though it uses a team line-up that was introduced during the Kennedy Administration, it still comes off as novel. It's very much a product of an evolving narrative, one that has taken many twists and come dangerously close to being derailed. Magic and tactics aside, Bunn seems to have the original five X-men back on track and Molina's artwork makes them look good while they do it.

That track even has some interesting turns towards the end. While the story starts off as fairly basic, it gains greater intrigue towards the end. There are hints and teases about the Original Five X-men's larger goals and how they intend to go about it. Coming on the heels of a classic clash that brings new energy to a team that underwent so much upheaval, X-men Blue #1 creates a new foundation for an old cast of characters. For characters are teenagers, time-displaced, and dabbling in magic, that's quite an accomplishment.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

X-men #32 - Secrets, Lies, and Awesome

When I was in middle school, there was this gym teacher that everyone agreed was a complete douche-bag. For the sake of argument, let's call him Coach Babydick. Every day at gym class, Coach Babydick would find new ways to torment us. He made us do push-ups over piles of dog shit. He made us run laps while he blared Barny songs from a boom box. He made us throw eggs at the car of the cute history teacher that wouldn't go out with him. I'm pretty sure there was no information whatsoever regarding the value of physical fitness, but I also know that every now and then a student wouldn't take his shit. That student often got punished, sent to the principal's office, or humiliated by having to sing "We Built This City" while wearing a dress. But our class always looked up to that student because we knew they were doing what was right and just. I'm not sure if Coach Babydick is still teaching, but I would be shocked if nobody planted weed in his office yet.

Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that Cyclops is worse than Coach Babydick in the X-men comics. However, I think it's more than reasonable to say that he's let his leadership role and the constant influx of Emma Frost's pussy that he enjoys has gone to his head. Sometimes, it's not a bad idea to go behind his back and do what you think is right. Sometimes that's a piss poor idea as well because as I said, this guy is boning Emma Frost so he has the balls and the resources to royally fuck your shit up. Someone has to have a damn good reason and Olympian sized balls to do that. That's exactly what Storm has in abundance in Brian Wood's ongoing adjectiveless X-men run.

Wood's first arc has taken this series into a different direction. No longer the series that Marvel uses to shamelessly milk withering teat of vampires. Instead, Wood has been telling a story using a unique cast of X-men led by Storm. They're supposed to make up Utopia's security team. However, they're also Utopia's de-facto CIA, minus the illegal torture facilities. For the past few issues, they've been investigating an unusual uptick in mutant activity in the form of monsters that crumble faster than Mitt Romney's support with the NAACP. That activity yielded the discovery of an entire new race of proto-mutants that for some reason are pissed off at natural selection for not picking them. Now they seek to take it out on the X-men and anything that gets in their way.

X-men #32 has Psylocke chasing down a suspected proto-mutant that looks like a guy who lost a battle with a blow torch and wants to take it out on the nearest den of baby rabbits. He also happens to be 80-feet tall, but since the X-men regularly battle giant robots his name might as well be John Smith. Storm uses her powers to create a little cover from nearby populated areas, hoping that these people don't get their power from Pepco. Then Psylocke tries to attack the creature and to her surprise, it actually shrinks to that of a normal-sized man who just looks like his ex-girlfriend threw him out and burned all his shit. But unlike the other proto-mutants they've encountered, this one doesn't turn into mush. He actually remains intact long enough to meet up with the rest of the X-men for a little chat.

Now when monsters start threatening to stomp over major cities, that is usually a good time to contact your fellow X-men buddies and let them know they should have their spandex cleaned and pressed for action. But just as she did in the previous issue, Storm makes it clear that Cyclops is not to know. She makes this clear even as Colossus, who has the power of the fucking Juggernaut mind you, tells her that it's a bad idea. It's another great scene that shows Storm asserting herself in a way that reminds readers that she was once and probably still is considered a top level leader with the X-men on the same level as Cyclops. But she does make a compelling argument in that she's not trying to serve Cyclops with this team. She's trying to serve the cause. And Cyclops is NOT the cause even if he is boning Emma Frost.

This is a great moment for Storm fans of all stripes and for all the Cyclops haters out there that would French kiss a goat if that goat somehow undermined Cyclops. However, at this point in the story it still doesn't quite explain why the hell Storm has it out for Cyclops. I get that she's trying to lead her own team, but at this point in the arc just fighting for the cause doesn't exactly explain why she's doing this. Is it just because she wants to prove she can lead as well as he can? Fine, I can get behind that. But at least make that shit clear. Don't make us just assume that she's doing this because Black Panther isn't buying her enough Wakandan brand panties.

This rather extreme aversion to enlisting help from Cyclops is made even more apparent when she gets a call from her human buddy, Dr. Hunter. In the last issue, she was enlisted by Storm to study some of the gunk they gathered from the dissolved monsters they faced. She was the one that helped them uncover that these creatures were actually proto-mutants. Well now it turns out that someone doesn't like her helping Storm. She tells her that her lab was trashed like a frat house on St. Patrick's Day. It sounds like another good reason to call Cyclops and Colossus points that out yet again, but Storm continues to refuse his assistance. She goes so far as to tell Dr. Hunter to keep working, lay low, and put herself in even more danger with no guarantee that they'll be able to protect her. There's undermining Cyclops and then there's just being reckless and Storm is dry humping it.

When she's not undermining Cyclops, however, Storm is still investigating these proto-mutants. At first she thought Pixie would be able to talk to the creature because let's face it. No matter what type of humanoid you are, the presence of a teenage girl helps you relax in a way directly proportional to the size of the thong she's wearing. But it turns out this creature speaks Russian so Colossus takes a stab at it, eventually getting Magik involved as well. As in, the same Magik that has to be locked up in a cell when she's not helping the Extinction Team. I would ask whether Storm was willing to call Cyclops now, but I'm pretty sure she would use a bolt of lightning to give me a circumcision.

With Magik's help, they find out that this proto-mutant has a name and it's called Ister. It sounds like the name of an 80s metal band, but he's actually a mutant that's over 600 years old that lived in the equivalent of a hippie commune back during a time when people thought that thunder was actually God farting. But like any commune of minorities back then, they were blamed for a plague that swept through a nearby village and probably for bad weather as well. So they were slaughtered, which is basically akin to complaining about it on the internet in medieval times. And Ister's own sister was taken from him so the humans could kill her, drink her blood, and hopefully cure themselves. It's basically akin to pre-modern homeopathy.

While tragic, this whole story was rather cliched. So he's a mutant that was the victim of pre-modern people who didn't know shit about shit. You could say that about every Jewish community in Europe at that time so it's really not all that compelling on the surface. At least it offers some insight on where these creatures came from. In the first issue of this arc, we saw that this shit began in a lab with a scientist of questionable ethics as so many X-men arcs often do. They don't know why someone sees fit to just resurrect these beings and sent them out to die. It may just be for shits and giggles, not unlike the CEOs of major banks when they buy vintage cars they know they'll never drive or marry women they know they'll never willingly fuck. Storm makes it clear their mission is to find that lab. Again, she says no Cyclops and no fucking time travel as Magik suggested. Storm is old school like that. If you can't kick it's ass in the here and now, you might as well put on a dress and sell yourself at the nearest club in Bangkok.

The mention of the lab finally sheds some light on something that was overlooked in the last issue. We even get a brief glimpse into what's going on while the X-men are uncovering more secrets. Apparently, Ister's sister was next in line to rejoin the world of the living and offer more shits and giggles to the nameless lab jockey. We still don't know much about him. He's no Sinister. He looks only mildly more insane than the guy that invented crazy glue and the snuggie. Again, the revelations about why he's doing this isn't as ground-breaking as you wish. He reveals that those first monsters were basically his method of trial and error. I'm sure there are more efficient ways to test your army of monsters, but I guess that's just not as much fun.

At this point he seems to be minimizing the errors because he also reveals that he has control over when the creatures turn into mush. So before Ister's sister can awaken and have a tearful reunion, he uses what looks like an app on his cell phone that's far more devious than the Shake a Baby app that causes Ister to start dissolving. This surprises and frustrates the X-men, who are still trying to get answers form Ister. But before he can return to that cozy little pasture we call death, Psylocke is able to get the necessary answers in a way that's not even as exciting as it sounds. She reveals that the name of the Sinister wannabe is David Michael Gray. She also reveals she knows where his lab is and he's a pretty sick bastard that's in need of therapy that includes a few severe concussions. It's a rather contrived way to get the X-men to source of the conflict and it wasn't all that exciting either. But it offers the promise of more monster battles so I guess we have that to look forward to.

Usually when an issue is more dialog than action, I find plenty to rant about. I tend to have a short attention span, depending on how much weed I have on hand. However, I am capable of enjoying a story that doesn't rely on blowing shit up every third panel. If the dialog is awesome and the story is compelling, I can do without the explosions and bad one-liners. Brian Wood is clearly setting up a very different style for his first arc. He's not relying on big, flashy battles like Gischler did with Curse of the Mutants. He's telling the story that revolves around a mystery and a dramatic struggle with Storm. At times Wood came close to overblowing Storm's intent on keeping Cyclops out of this comic at all costs. However, he was able to walk a fine line here and make this issue extra dramatic by having the proto-mutants do more than just dissolve into mush.

While I like what Wood did with Ister and Storm's leadership dramas, there were still a few areas that left me scratching my head as to why this is part of the story. I get what Storm is trying to do by keeping Cyclops out of the loop. I just don't get why the hell she's doing it. I know this shit takes place before Avengers vs. X-men. I can't recall too many instances where Storm and Cyclops were really at each others' throats and I can't recall when Cyclops really gave Storm a reason for wanting to go behind his back like this. In addition, the whole story with Ister just seems a little cliched. So he was a monster back at a time when even Jews were considered monsters. That's really not much different from every minority the Spanish Inquisition ever assaulted. It could have been more exotic, but Wood still found a way to make Ister lovable even if he's not someone you would want to invite to a baseball game.

Brian Wood's run hasn't been spectacular, but it's been interesting enough to keep me reading. He definitely has demonstrated the ability to tell compelling stories. He's set up plenty of interesting elements here. He just hasn't made them resonate on a sufficient level of awesome. This issue didn't have a lot of action, but it had plenty of melodrama and did fill in a few blanks that had been lingering from the previous issue. It's still a bit too subtle for the sake of being subtle though. I give X-men #32 a 3 out of 5. Now that the enemy is known, this arc has the chance to do more than just fight monsters that dissolve into dust. It also has the potential for Storm to make Cyclops's oversized balls shrivel somewhat and that's always makes for a fun story on some levels. Nuff said!