As discussed last week, the X-Men '92 mini-series tapped into sufficient nostalgia to get an ongoing series greenlit. Which ended after 10 issues, but that's how things go with Marvel in the 2010s, isn't it?
Picking up sometime shortly after the mini-series, with Jean and Scott on a honeymoon (which turns into a time-traveling jaunt to the future to deal with Mr. Sinister), while Storm, Beast and Xavier act as the heads of the school. Which is back to being a real school, with dozens of students if not more roaming the halls.
The first arc involves vampires, I'm guessing because Chris Sims couldn't pass up the chance to use Dracula in an X-Men comic. The second arc starts with a local concert involving Lila Cheney, shifts to an encounter with a bunch of mutant Brood and the Imperial Guard, and ends with the Earth being threatened by a rogue Celestial. Sims and Bowers pull out the end of that one Grant Morrison JLA story for that one. Rock of Ages, I think. And during all that, you've got Jean and Scott's honeymoon as a time-travel disaster.
So the book is all over the place. Sims and Bowers pull in all sorts of stuff, although a lot of it doesn't get much time to go anywhere. They start a version of that plotline from the '90s about the Upstarts having some kind of contest to earn "points", by defeating certain characters, but that gets abandoned in the rush of the quick cancelation. While the X-Men are halfway across the galaxy (teaming up with Death's Head and Agent Brand while they're at it), X-Factor shows up at the concert and gets into a fight with a group of mutants lead by Adam-X the X-Treme, who is played as a loud joke, basically.
I will say there's not a lot of time wasted on mutants moping or being depressed. No time for that shit.
Alti Firmansyah draws issues 1-4 and 6-9, with Corey Hamscher handling the other two issues. Hamcher is close to Koblish in style. A heavy line, with a grittier texture to it. Guess it fits for his issues being set in crappy future timelines. Firmansyah's work is closer to the cartoon's look. Not simple, but but not nearly as many little shading lines all over the place like there are with Hamscher's. Both artists are able to handle the seemingly constant crowd scenes all the fights between large groups demand, and Firmansyah can manage the exaggerated expressions for the more comedic parts. Hamscher doesn't really get those opportunities, but he does give Cable an exaggerated and ridiculous looking firearm when he shows up.
4 comments:
I'm still not sure why Death's Head is in this comic.
In-story, because someone (I don't think we learn who ) put a bounty on Lila Cheney. Out of story, because Sims and Bowers like using Death's Head, I think. They used him in the Darkhawk mini-series they wrote a few years ago, too. The one where the artist drew DH's skull like it was made of bone.
Ah they wrote that? That makes sense.
I thought it was odd DH turning up in a comic based on the animated series, when he had zero connection with said animated series, but I get it now.
Yeah, like in the mini-series from last week, Bowers and Sims seem to throw any other Marvel Universe concept they like into the cartoon's setting. Hence, Adam X the X-Treme. Abigail Brand is actually the one who gets Death's Head to stand down through her mutant power of bureaucracy.
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