X-Men: Powerless

Collects: Uncanny X-Men #379-80, X-Men #99, Wolverine #149, X-Force #101, and Cable #78 (2000)

Released: July 2010 (Marvel)

Format: 144 pages / color / $16.99 / ISBN: 9780785146773

What is this?: The High Evolutionary, laboring under bad advice, takes away all mutants’ powers.

The culprits: Written by Alan Davis, Joe Pruett, Joseph Harris, and Erik Larsen and drawn by half a dozen artists

X-Men: Powerless exists in an odd cul-de-sac of X-Men history, although no one knew and few guessed that when these issues came out.

Immediately before these issues came out, the X-Men fought their long-prophesied battle with Apocalypse, one that finally resolved the “Twelve” dangler and Cable’s raison d’etre. (That large storyline was collected in X-Men: The Shattering, X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 1: The Twelve, and X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 2: Ages of Apocalypse.) This was the last hurrah for issues that dwelled on Chris Claremont-era continuity, which was counterintuitive because Claremont himself returned for about a year — an uninspiring, frequently disappointing year. And then we got Grant Morrison’s New X-Men (and Joe Casey’s Uncanny X-Men), which led into the House of M Bend-over,²⁴ and the X-books haven’t been the same since.

These issues don’t feel momentous, however. There is little of the gravity one might expect for a jumping off point, the end of an era. Only Cable seems to have an inkling, with supporting villain / block of stone Ozymandias saying, “A new era approaches — one full of possibilities and potential. No longer are the days yet to come written in stone.” Of course, Cable was often filled with pretentious blather about the future, so this may come under the heading of “blind pig finding an acorn.”

Instead we get a time-killing story of the X-Men and other mutants losing their powers because of the interference of the High Evolutionary, a plot device / easily misled superscientist who wants to save millions of lives by eliminating the possibility of a race war between humans and mutants. He’s being misled by Mr. Sinister, but that’s to be expected. In any event, the crossover shows X-Force and Wolverine dealing with being powerless, while writer Joe Pruett wraps up the consequences from the Apocalypse storyline for Cable. (Cable #79 might have been a better choice for this volume, since Cable doesn’t feel the effects of the plot until the last page of his issue in this collection.) X-Men and Uncanny X-Men introduce and wrap up the storyline in three issues — hardly worth a crossover, really.

The thing is, this idea should be important. The X-Men lose their powers; how do they deal with it? Rogue’s life is completely different, as is Marrow’s and Nightcrawler’s. Colossus and Shadowcat have other lives they can explore, but what is Storm if she doesn’t have her powers or a superpowered team to lead? Is Gambit still charming? These issues are brought up and explained in a few sentences, which is nothing compared to the importance these issues should have. Losing their powers is worse for the X-Men than it is for other superteams; for mutants, their powers are their identity, something they gained when they began to figure themselves out in adolescence. All writers Alan Davis and Terry Kavanagh give us using this life-altering premise is three issues to fill the schedule until Claremont’s return: the setup, the brief exploration of the idea, and the perfunctory fight. Worse yet, we get the first appearance of the Neo, one of the worst parts of Claremont’s second run.

Only Wolverine and X-Force look at what it’s like to be without powers for a mutant. Wolverine doesn’t change what he’s doing, but he’s lost his enhanced senses and healing factor; writer Erik Larsen says Wolverine’s suffering from “adamantium poisoning” to slow him down further, but that doesn’t change Wolverine’s actions. X-Force does a better job, with Joe Harris writing a story in which Tabitha has to deal with the feeling of helplessness coming from being unable to help her former (?) boyfriend when his powers cut off hundreds of feet above the ocean and also counsel a young mutant who has lost his ability to fly and is in denial about what it (and his powers) mean. It’s the only issue in the book that’s really affecting, despite the potential of the idea.

The art is all over the place, with pencils from Tom Raney, Juan Santacruz, Brett Booth, Michael Ryan, Steve Harris, and Graham Nolan. Only Raney does more than one issue, penciling Uncanny X-Men #379-80. Although his work never really resonated with me, Raney is a good artist, one worthy of what was a top-tier title at the time. As for the others … well, if comic art circa 2000 is your cup of meat, you’ll probably find something from the other five artists that is to your tastes. None of them appealed to me, although I have to admit Graham Nolan’s work did seem to fit Wolverine particularly well.

Nothing in this collection is particularly bad, but it is extremely forgettable, so I am still a little confused about why these issues were collected. There’s nothing that really recommends X-Men: Powerless, other than being a relic of a different time — a mutant fly caught in the amber, so to speak. That’s not enough of a recommendation, however. My theory is that someone in Marvel’s reprint department wants to start filling in the issues between X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 1 and 2, and the crossover that ended Claremont’s second run, X-Men: Dream's End. Uncanny X-Men #387 and X-Men #107 are already scheduled to be reprinted in Avengers / X-Men: Maximum Security, which is due out November 3. Mark my words: you should start looking for reprints of the rest of Claremont’s frustrating and disappointing run (Uncanny X-Men #381-6 and X-Men #100-6) in 2011.

Rating: (2 of 5)

X-Men: The Shattering (mini review)

I’ve been struggling with Peter Gross and Mike Carey’s The Unwritten, v. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity. I started the review last Friday, but I still can’t decide what to make of it: the beginning of an exciting metatextual saga or a lot of potential wasted on an overexposed copy of Harry Potter with a penchant for pointing out literary geography? It’ll probably be somewhere in the middle, but to which side of the middle? Find out Freya Day.

So, while I figure that one out, I will note that I just read X-Men: The Shattering. This book mainly duplicates the contents of Astonishing X-Men: Deathwish. Aside from the more appropriate name, there are two main differences: one, Shattering costs about $20 more new, and 2) it contains five more issues (X-Men #93-4 and Uncanny X-Men #372-4).

Is it worth the extra Jackson for five issues? No, not really, unless you’re slightly obsessive about your collected editions. (You know who you are.) Admittedly, X-Men #94 is a double issue, and there are a few pages at the end of Shattering from the X-Men 1999 Yearbook. But those pages are low-rent versions of the out-of-context ramblings that made “Stryfe’s Strike File” such a classic back in the early ‘90s. And the extra issues add to the crossover style conflicts, with the high point being Alan Davis (mainly) doing a workmanlike job. Do you get joy from seeing people do workmanlike jobs? I do not either.

On the other hand, the extra story does make the nonsense at the end slightly more comprehensible, and it does water down the bad taste that is Astonishing X-Men #1-3. The first time around, I found Astonishing inoffensive; this time, it was a chore to go through.

So if you need to read this — I don’t know why, maybe it’s an Apocalypse fetish, although that would make me weep — go for Deathwish. The stories haven’t really aged that well in the decade since Deathwish came out, and you can still buy Deathwish new online. (Although the price difference drops to about $10 on Amazon.)

Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand

Collects: Uncanny X-Men #495-9 (2008)

Released: September 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 120 pages / color / $12.99 / ISBN: 9780785119838

What is this?: The X-Men find their new home city of San Francisco is a bit trippier than they expected.

The culprits: Writer Ed Brubaker and penciler Michael Choi

You might expect the first X-Men volume after Messiah CompleX, which essentially stated things would be different for the X-Men, would seize the new direction and run with it. You would be wrong.

So instead, we get a five-issue stall in Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, in which the X-Men wait for issue #500 in Germany, Russia, San Francisco, and the Savage Land. Oh, Scott Summers tells us things are different, but the San Francisco storyline flashes back to the psychedelic ‘60s and the X-Men fight old villains throughout. And you don’t get much more classic X-Men than the Savage Land, although I’ve never understood the link between mutants, Tarzan knockoffs, and Lost Worlds.²⁹

After their vacation in the Savage Land, Scott and Emma head to San Francisco, where they find the city (and many of their teammates) are in the midst of a ‘60s flashback. Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus head to Nightcrawler’s and Colossus’s old European stomping grounds (technically, I believe Colossus is supposed to be from Siberia — Asian Russia — but I don’t think that’s spelled out). There, they run afoul of the Russian government and Omega Red … who I think is the only evil Russian mutant I can remember. It says something — and it isn’t good — that several years after M-Day, writers can still do stories about the obvious consequences of that story that no one else has done; in this case the Russians rightly wonder why the X-Men were relatively unaffected by M-Day but Mother Russia lost all their operatives.

None of it is terribly high-tension or earth-shattering, but not every storyline has to be about the end of the world. Besides, just because Divided We Stand is marking time doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. I’ve never seen what others have seen in writer Ed Brubaker — perhaps because I haven’t read his strongest work — but I get a glimpse here. Emma and Scott’s vacation is entertaining, and we finally get a glimpse of why Emma stays with Scott after she’s already cracked his nut. (Metaphorically.) Brubaker also has a good sense of the humorous interplay between Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. The dialogue is in character, and although it’s not quite as sharp as, say, Joss Whedon’s best, it’s still very good.

Penciler Mike Choi gets to have the great fun of putting the X-Men into ‘60s fashions — well, it looks like it’s fun. I’m not sure if I like his work; it’s clear and straightforward but a little soft and unassertive in its line. Choi also makes his males a little less rugged than you would expect from a superhero comic, especially Wolverine. (I’m beginning to think any sort of manga-influenced art is a bad idea for Logan, as it makes him look less animalistic and powerful, two of the keystones of his character, and more like a teenage manga character — the weird hair is mandatory for both, though.) Still, as I said, the ‘60s costumes are fun, and there’s nothing wrong with his work: I just find it a little … off.³⁰

Brubaker, through Cyclops, keeps promising things are going to change. I haven’t seen it yet. After the cause of the ‘60s flashback is revealed to be an amnesiac mutant, he even has Emma give a speech calling the middle-aged hippies “pathetic” for using the mutant to “relive [their] glory days.” I think the implications are clear: not only is Brubaker going to change things, but dwelling on those glory days is pathetic. I don’t disagree. The only way to go is forward. I resent having to wait for the next book, but the change is long overdue.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

X-Men: Messiah CompleX

Collects: X-Men: Messiah CompleX, Uncanny X-Men #492-4, X-Men # 205-7, New X-Men v. 2 #44-6, and X-Factor #25-7 (2007-8)

Released: October 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 352 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785123200

What is this?: A massive X-Men crossover in which the X-Men, Marauders, Cable, Bishop, and the Purifiers all fight over the first mutant baby born since M-Day.

The culprits: An accomplished crossover crew, including writers Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey, Peter David, Chris Yost, and Craig Kyle and pencilers Billy Tan, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, and Scot Eaton

I haven’t read much of the X-Men titles since the “House of M” event — haven’t read anything other than X-Factor and Astonishing X-Men, really, since Grant Morrison left New X-Men. (Also: X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which left me less than eager to read anything else with Ed Brubaker’s fingerprints on it.) But my local library’s getting in all sorts of titles, and this gives me a chance to read X-Men: Messiah CompleX and feel like a Usenet dino.

X-Men was better in the old days! Well, I’ve got that out of my system now.

For those of us who have been away, Messiah CompleX (man, do I hate that terminal capital “X”) is not a jumping on point. It sets up plots for the foreseeable future, yes, but it’s an exercise in clearing out the old. If you’re coming in with no knowledge of the X-Men — or if your knowledge is out of date — you’re going to be a little confused. Who are these New X-Men, and what can they do? Why are they so angry? Why do they die so easily? And why was Cable thought dead? Why does Bishop have a superplane? What happened to Cyclops’s father? There really aren’t any footnotes, although some of the information is given in context (eventually) and some of it doesn’t matter. Still, the New X-Men seem bolted onto the crossover awkwardly, and they aren’t very well explained, despite playing an important part in the crossover.

If you’re looking for action, Messiah CompleX has it. A new mutant baby is born —the first since the Scarlet Witch decreed “No more mutants” — and all the groups concerned with mutants want the baby: the X-Men to protect it, Mr. Sinister’s Marauders to control it, the Purifiers to kill it, the intensely stupid “Predator X” to eat it, and Cable to take it to the future. This gives rise to an intense level of action: the fighting is nearly non-stop, with numerous casualties. By the end, there’s a very real possibility the reader will be numb to the carnage; the number of mutants who are dead, dying, or deactivated is astonishing, given the restricted number of mutants at today’s Marvel.

The coordination of the crossover is a cut above what I’m used to; perhaps Marvel learned something about how to make the edges more seamless during the past decade. Writers Ed Brubaker, Peter David, and Mike Carey and New X-Men co-writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost do an admirable job writing a story in which the chapters and characterizations don’t contradict each other. This is partly because the big revelations from the ancillary titles, X-Factor and New X-Men, largely happen in those titles. Still, everyone seems to do at least a passable job with the other writers’ characters, and that’s a real accomplishment.

I never thought I’d see the day when Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos would be penciling half a major X-Men crossover. Both are good artists but decidedly non-standard; I don’t think either is particularly “hot,” the kind of sought-after artist who makes the lists on Wizard. I’m not sure whether this represents a changing aesthetic on the X-titles or if it’s attributable to the X-titles’ loss of prestige over the years.²⁷ As I said, both are decent artists, with Bachalo keeping his more eccentric tics under control this time around. I can’t tell whether Xavier disappearing at the end is an art mistake by Bachalo or a plot point, though. Ramos … Ramos is an artist who divides fans, and with good reason. I think his exaggerated figures are better suited for a more lighthearted title — I think he was a good fit for Paul Jenkins’s Spider-Man work a few years ago — but Messiah CompleX is not lighthearted at all. I believe Ramos can do serious stuff, but there are times his characters look more comically panicked than stressed, and his tough guys (and gals) will never look as tough as a more realistic artist’s.

The other half of the art is from Scot Eaton, who draws Forge as Robert Downey, Jr., and Billy Tan. The contrast between the two halves is extreme. Tan and Eaton draw a shiny, glossy world where everyone is pretty and even the dirt is attractive, and Bachalo and Ramos create a misshapen setting where even the bondage models are strangely offputting. All of them do a good job — well, except perhaps Marc Silvestri, who’s even more pretty and streamlined than Tan or Eaton in the Messiah CompleX one shot and manages to draw Wolverine with a hint of androgyny — but the differences are startling. Personally, for this crossover, I think I prefer Bachalo and Ramos’s side of the divide, since this is a gritty, not pretty, story. This flies in the face of my usual preference for attractive, clean art, but I realize that’s not appropriate for every comic book.

The blurb on the back cover quotes IGN as saying Messiah CompleX is “easily the best X-Men crossover in a decade.” Assuming the quote is in context — and Marvel has a bit of history of using out-of-context quotes — they’re not exactly setting the bar very high, are they? They’re competing against “Endangered Species,” which ran as backups in the books in 2007; “Eve of Destruction,” which led to the Morrison / Casey reign on the X-Titles; “Dream’s End,” the swan song to Chris Claremont redux; the Apocalypse crossovers of 1999; and various late ‘90s forgettables such as “Hunt for Xavier” and “Magneto War” and various two-parters. “Operation: Zero Tolerance” sneaks in as well; “O:ZT” is one of the few major crossovers during that span, and it’s one of the prime reasons the X-titles shied away from the megacrossovers. None of them will ever be held up against “Mutant Massacre” or “Fall of the Mutants” as a high point of the X-Men. Hell, I wouldn’t say any of them were any better than “X-Cutioner’s Song” of ’92-3, although I admit I haven’t read “Endangered Species.”

As a volume, Messiah CompleX is mediocre — it misses the sweet spot between ultraviolence and story development by a decent margin. It does, however, deliver violent action until you can’t stand it no more. As a statement, a manifesto, it’s much better. It puts a violent, definite end to the past and says the future will be different, something at odds with the directionless wandering of the last few years or the warmed-over Claremont that marked the ‘90s. Whether that future will be better (or even readable) remains to be seen.

Rating: (3 of 5)

X-Men: The Complete Onslaught Epic, Book 1

Collects: X-Men #53-4, Uncanny X-Men #334-5, Fantastic Four #415, Avengers #401, Onslaught: X-Men, Cable #34, and Incredible Hulk #444 (1996)

Released: February 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 256 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785128236

What is this?: Behold my mighty hand! Onslaught’s true name is revealed, and he begins his slow, ponderous march across the Marvel Universe.

The culprits: Too many to name or punish.

I remember the Onslaught “Epic”; although I did not behold his mighty hand first hand until years later, I watched the story unfold from the safety of Usenet in 1996. There was some excitement at the time, since the identity of the X-Traitor would finally be revealed and a big summer crossover would sprawl before the reading public. I don’t know that anyone was expecting it to be any good, though.

That was fortunate, since the crossover was widely panned at the time. But how does it stack up more than a decade later?

About as badly as you might expect. Wisely, the setup for the Onslaught storyline is omitted in X-Men: The Complete Onslaught Epic, Book 1. It was too large and too confusing; the writers admitted they changed the direction of the storyline and at times were working blind. But it’s helpfully referenced in footnotes (when you can read the footnotes, which are often the same color as the text-box background).

The plot has the X-Men discovering the identity of the ultra-powerful psychic entity Onslaught, who happens to be one of their own; once he’s flushed out, Onslaught starts gathering his power by collecting Franklin Richards and brainwashing the Hulk. There’s unrealized menace and handwringing and angst and oh God text balloons everywhere. You might expect better from writer Mark Waid; keep right on expecting, because you’re not going to find it here. Waid wasn’t happy with the direction of the X-books or the freedom he was given; that probably explains the wretched pile of X-cess he and fellow writer Scott Lobdell handed in to editor Bob Harras — or maybe Harras ordered them to give him that. I don’t know.

Here’s what happens over 250+ pages and eight issues (plus a larger special issue):

• Buildup to the revelation (Onslaught taunts Jean, Juggernaut punchy-punchies his way into the Mansion) (X-Men #53-4 and Uncanny #334)
• Revelation — which was completely obvious by this time — plus fight (Onslaught: X-Men)
• Yak with the Avengers, during which nothing happens (Uncanny #335)
• Cable and a mind-controlled Hulk punch each other (Cable #34 and Incredible Hulk #444)
• Joseph (who was thought to be Magneto) introduced to the plot, for non-obvious reasons (Avengers #401)
• Onslaught kidnaps Franklin Richards (Fantastic Four #414)

The pacing is appalling. Interestingly, the ancillary titles actually have a decent pace — well, all right, two issues for a Cable / Hulk fight is excessive, but I’ll blame that on Cable. None of them stand out as particularly good examples of the comic book arts; even Hulk, written by Peter David, is sapped of all its individuality by the crossover. They’re either padded or unremarkable large-scale fight scenes.

The art is all over the place, but fortunately, since it’s the X-titles of the mid-‘90s, Marvel had a lot of their best working on this crossover. The two X-Men issues feature the flashy if a bit underdeveloped early Andy Kubert, while the Uncanny pencils are from the manga-influenced Joe Madureira. These work together about as well as you might expect. Kubert and Dan Green get the important X-Men: Onslaught issue; Green’s work resembled John Romita Jr. at the time, and Green had been an X-Men artist earlier in the decade. Interestingly, there are parts that look like the work of neither, but whyever that is, I’m sure the orange milk isn’t either’s fault.

But with the crossover issues, you have the early Mike Deodato on Avengers, which I didn’t care for, and Carlos Pacheco’s early American work on Fantastic Four. Then to end it you have the pretty-but-stiff Ian Churchill on Cable and the hideously unattractive work of Angel Medina on Incredible Hulk. (Those last two are one hell of a whiplash, I can tell you, since they are linked and back to back in the collection.) It’s a real mishmash with the ancillary issues added in. There’s nothing that can be done about it now, and it doesn’t detract from the readability (except for Medina’s work), but it’s a real range of styles.

The back cover and indicia claim Book 1 contains Fantastic Four #414 and Avengers #400; it doesn’t. There’s only a page from each of these comics in this book, and it’s deceptive to claim otherwise. (It’s the same practice that allows retailers to claim X-Men Visionaries: Jim Lee TPB has Uncanny X-Men #252, 254, 260-1, 264, 280, and 286 when in fact the book contains only the covers from those issues.) On the other hand, it’s better information than you can get on the Internet. The usually reliable (and invaluable) Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators claims X-Force #57 and X-Man #18 are included as well; they are not. Marvel.com makes the same claim, as does Amazon. In fact, wherever you look on the Internet, the listed contents of the four volumes in the series are contradictory or overlapping. (If anyone knows the true contents of these volumes, leave them in the comments.)

Much as you’d expect, the Onslaught crossover is best experienced through Wikipedia. Read X-Men: The Complete Onslaught Epic, Book 1, at your own risk.

Rating: (1 of 5)

Astonishing X-Men: Deathwish

Collects: X-Men #92 and 95, Astonishing X-Men #1-3, Uncanny X-Men #375 (1999)

Released: October 2000 (Marvel)

Format: 160 pages / color / $15.95 / ISBN: 9780785107545

What is this?: The X-Men shatter, help a child in trouble, learn a shocking secret about Wolverine, and are attacked by Apocalypse’s latest horseman, Death.

The culprits: A crossover crew including writers Alan Davis and Howard Mackie and penciler Brandon Peterson

Astonishing X-Men: Deathwish comes from an early time in the development of Marvel’s graphic novel program. In 2000, the Essentials line was in its infancy, and Marvel was scrambling to put some of its classic storylines into print while also getting “new classics” into circulation. Deathwish belongs to that latter category, as the book was published under the “Marvel’s Finest” banner soon after the floppies were released.

So what we have here is fin de siècle X-Men. All the stuff between Chris Claremont leaving and Grant Morrison arriving should be regarded with suspicion, but writer Alan Davis’s run was a rare bright spot during that time. Unfortunately, we get only glimpses of what he was doing as plotter of X-Men (script by Terry Kavanagh) and writer of Uncanny X-Men.

Deathwish runs into the fringes of “The Shattering,” in which the newly returned Xavier seems to be having a mental breakdown. Most of the team says, “Sod it,” and takes a vacation; the rest don’t leave quickly enough and get drawn into the eponymous Astonishing X-Men miniseries. Bad luck for them, then. When Astonishing is over, everybody gets pulled back to hear a couple of shocking secrets, be psychically beaten by Xavier like a rented mule, and then get in a fight with the real villains.

The scene with Xavier spoils the straightforward charm of Davis’s work in Deathwish. X-Men #92, in which Davis and Kavanaugh set up the miniseries, works well, with Davis showing Xavier’s apparent instability and paranoia believably and giving nearly everyone a reason to skedaddle. He portrays the reactions to the death at the end of Astonishing well, and the final big fight is clever enough. But Xavier … to test loyalties, he merges the Danger Room and his psychic abilities to make the X-Men think they’re killing one another. Not satisfied with that, he makes the survivors watch their loved ones die. It is, frankly, a horrifying experience, especially since a teammate had just died in reality, and I’ve never been sure how the psychic test part worked. The worst point is no one calls him on it. It seems out of character that no one except Gambit would complain about him putting the team through a simulation that called for betrayal and death.

Unfortunately, Davis’s work on the X-titles is marred in the reprints by other titles. In this case, it’s with the miniseries Astonishing X-Men, written by Howard Mackie. Nothing puts the fear in an X-fan like realizing they’re reading Mackie’s work, except perhaps the Onslaught crossover. Fortunately, it’s not as bad as Mackie’s reputation might lead one to think.

It’s not great either; it’s a forgettable story, saddled with the Mannites, who are a bunch of childlike ciphers who are supposed to be even mutantier than mutants. The cobbled-together team, which includes the alternate universe X-Man and Cable, works together far more smoothly than it should, and the plot is more overwrought than necessary. The story doesn’t flow all that smoothly, either; there were a few points where I wondered what was going on and how far the two groups of people were from each other and how did they get there, anyway? It’s all just three issues in search of a dramatic revelation, and it delivers that in the end. I won’t spoil it, but it’s better if you just have someone tell you that revelation and skip those three issues.

The art is very good for a crossover, especially Adam Kubert’s issue of Uncanny X-Men. I’ve long been a fan of Kubert, ever since I first saw his work in Wolverine in the early ‘90s. This isn’t as vibrant and sharp as those issues seemed to me, but it’s still quality work. Brandon Peterson does a good job on Astonishing — the art certainly outdoes the writing — and although the style of Bret Boothe, who assists with pencils in #2, is noticeably different, it isn’t jarring, especially by the standards of crossovers. Jeff Johnson and Tom Raney work ably on the X-Men issues.

The book is out of print at the moment, but an expanded version of the title (X-Men: The Shattering) is listed as a future release by Amazon.com. The book hasn’t shown up in Marvel’s solicitations yet (and perhaps never will), but that listing plus the publication of the following Uncanny X-Men / X-Men issues is a small indication these stories will be back in print again.

I can’t particularly recommend Deathwish because the Astonishing X-Men miniseries takes half the book, but with the expanded contents, The Shattering might be worth checking out.

Rating: (2 of 5)

X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 1: The Twelve

Collects: Uncanny X-Men #376-7, X-Men #96-7, Cable #73-6, Wolverine #145-7 (1999-2000)

Released: March 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 312 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785122630

When I started buying trade paperbacks in earnest four years ago, I was obsessed with value — how many issues I could get for the dollar. I think X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 1: The Twelve would have made me very happy back then, with eleven issues for less than $20 at Amazon. That’s less than I would have paid for the individual issues.

But Twelve isn’t actually a good deal, and you know why? Because almost two-thirds of the book is useless and irrelevant. If this collection had added the Uncanny X-Men and X-Men issues that preceded the ones included here and dropped Cable and Wolverine, this collection might have been worthwhile. I mean, it’s a simple story: genocidal, idiot-Darwinist Apocalypse and his religious-themed henchmen capture the long-prophesied mutants called the Twelve and try to drain their powers to make Apocalypse all powerful. But no, you’ve got to slog through ancillary stuff to get to the meat.

Wolverine #145-7 is a distraction to the main story, and without earlier stories, the tale of how Apocalypse made him “Death” and how he reclaimed his soul (or some such thing) isn’t important. Everyone at the time knew his turn to the dark side wasn’t going to stick, and everyone knows it eight years later as well. And then Angel, another former “Death,” takes over the Wolverine story with his struggles with what Apocalypse had done to him. No one cares about that; that was resolved years ago. Let it go.

The Cable issues are no treat. They too are irrelevant to the main plot, showing who the new “Pestilence” and “War” are but not much else. It doesn’t take four issues to do that, believe me. Cable #75 takes the cake: Cable, captured by Apocalypse, very briefly escapes and is recaptured; #76 takes place entirely in Cable’s mind and doesn’t move the story forward at all.

(The weirdest part of the Cable issues is that the art is split between enemy of perspective Rob Liefeld (#73 and 75) and Bernard Chang (#74 and 76), presumably because Liefeld needed the break. But Liefeld’s art is actually better. I’m not saying Liefeld is good, but his work has an intensity and seriousness Chang’s cartoony style can’t match. I mean, you have to deal with Liefeld’s weirdly creased faces — everyone’s faces fold inward toward the eyes — and perspective problems and odd feet and … well, you get the idea.)

And the lettering … I never mention lettering, a credit to the many professional, competent, occasionally brilliant people who have lettered comic books over the years. But the lettering in Cable — ascribed to “RS and Comicraft’s Said Temofonte” — is godawful. I’m assuming RS refers to Richard Starkings, and Starkings and Comicraft have done a lot of Marvel’s lettering over the past decade. But man, this painful stuff: an unconventional font that makes it seem Cyclops, Cable, Caliban (a simple-minded, mutated mutant), and Jean Grey all speak in the same tone. … I think this font is my least favorite part of Twelve, and that’s saying something.

The main issues are no picnic either. I know writer Alan Davis is trying hard, but without the proper setup and foreshadowing, the conclusion to Twelve looks slipshod. The four issues of the X-Men / Uncanny X-Men crossover seems to almost be as much about mutant Skrulls as about the X-Men themselves. The X-Men fall into Apocalypse’s clutches without putting up much of a fight, and they escape their prisons to stop by accident, not something they did. (You can argue it was a miscalculation on Apocalypse’s part, but I don’t believe it.) The cast is far too sprawling for a mere four issues, and it doesn’t help that some people pop in solely for the purpose of being used by Apocalypse and pop out for their own stories / plot convenience (Bishop, Mikhail Rasputin).

And the shifts in art styles throughout the books … Davis on X-Men, Roger Cruz and Tom Raney on Uncanny X-Men, Liefeld, Chang … There’s a different penciller on each issue of Wolverine: Leinil Francis Yu, Mike Miller, and Cruz. It’s a mess, and the artistic continuity is nil. Chang’s and Cruz’s exaggerated, cartoony styles contrast with Davis’s elegant pencils and Yu’s gritter realism. Raney’s style works pretty well with Davis’s, and Miller’s work is a good fill-in for Yu, but although Yu and Miller’s work appear in consecutive issues of Wolverine, they’re separated by three issues in Twelve. And then there’s whatever Liefeld does; that doesn’t play well with anyone at this end of the ‘90s.

Twelve could work as it was originally structured in the original core X-Men titles: meandering stories with a bit of foreboding, a bit of Skrulls, and a lot of Apocalypse. (And a goodly amount of Alan Davis.) Instead, with the tie-ins, well …

Sadly, despite knowing better, I’ll probably end up buying X-Men vs. Apocalypse, v. 2.

Rating: (1.5 of 5)