X-Chat #9: the Fall of X looms in X-Men #22 and more!

X-Chat returns with three big issues!

The war between Logan and Beast escalates in Wolverine #33 by Benjamin Percy, Juan Jose Ryp, Frank Martin,

Orchis wages war on Krakoa in X-Men #22 from Gerry Duggan, Joshua Cassara, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles.

Kid Omega returns in X-Force #40 from Percy, Robert Hack, Paul Davidson, Guru-eFx, and Joe Caramagna.

Getting Ugly (Wolverine #33)

Tony: We keep thinking Beast has hit rock bottom, and at the beginning of the next issue, he pulls out a shovel and starts digging.

Last month, Hank sunk Maverick’s sub, with all hands aboard. Lucky for Mav, he took out one of the mindless Wolverines. This issue opens with Maverick towing him around underwater as Hank begins to panic. This is exactly the sort of thing that would be Hank’s undoing. He thought he had a perfect plan, and even though his Wolverines are little more than weapons, they’re still human beings. That means they can make mistakes.

But man, I love how much this series has hit its stride. How about you?

Matt: This is what this book needed: direction. The early issues were all over the place, between Russia, vampires and crossovers. But Wolverine having a target, having a purpose? That makes for a much better book. We have a stable supporting cast with the Bannisters and some of X-Force hanging out. But for all the other characters, it’s Wolverine’s book, and it’s doing what a Wolverine book does best: dirty deeds done not so dirt cheap.

But the book balances the Wolverine stuff with the Beast stuff, making this a real two-hander. I feel like Beast having his own clones massacred by the Wolverine clones is not just prophetic, but also is somehow indicative of the self-loathing that has underpinned a lot of Hank’s life. It would be tragic if he weren’t such a bastard.

Tony: Oh yeah definitely. And having Logan’s only ally in the field (for reasons we’ll get to a little later) being another ally-turned-enemy adds layers to the story too. Maverick has gone from a lesser stereotypical Jim Lee creation to a complex protagonist/antagonist. I mean, the plot is pretty standard for the most part — Hank’s mission goes FUBAR, Logan and Mav join forces, and the CIA joins in the hunt. 

The real interesting stuff is in the details. You mentioned Hank slaughtering his selves — both indirectly with the one he sent to his death, and the trio he murders with his Wolverines. That’s real dark in some interesting ways. It’s also pointing out flaws in the Krakoan system in ways that I don’t think many of us have thought of yet. Best of all, it’s wrapped up in a great spy thriller.

Kinda wish the art matched though. Juan Jose Ryp had a few solid issues, and now we’re seeing the stiffness from the preceding issues creep back in. It’s decent but there are some really awkward scenes.

Matt: Ryp remains not to my taste. I agree, the past couple issues have been better, but I just don’t feel his art. He’s at his best at the goriest, most extreme stuff. He has some good moments of that here, especially with the Beasts being killed and some of the fight in the submarine. Where he is at his weakest is character work, so the scenes of Bannisters’ reunion or in the CIA fall short. That’s where that stiffness really comes in.

Tony: You can see he’s still heavily in his Avatar-inspired style. I would love to see Kubert back on the title. As good as the story is, it really could use an infusion of the sort of energy his art has. 

Matt: You talked about Logan’s one ally in the field being Maverick, and I have to wonder if Logan is counting on a double cross there. Even if we know that Maverick is legit right now, and he seems that way to Logan as well, how many times can this guy sell him out or double cross him before Wolverine decides it’s time to just kill him? Especially with the end of the last couple panels, I’m not liking Maverick’s odds.

Tony: Yeah, good point. Or maybe he makes a complete face turn, but ends up sacrificing himself. I’m not sure where its heading, but I don’t think Maverick’s going to end up in a good place.

Doctor Evil (X-Men #22)

Tony: EVIL SCIENCE!

I love evil science stories. And I don’t mean in the DC Comics sense of guys like Mister Freeze and Metallo, where there’s some pathos there. I mean MODOK-immoral geniuses doing evil things simply for the science of it. Lucky us, that’s literally every page of X-Men #22. There’s the Omega Sentinel, Hordeculture, Doctor Stasis, MODOK… It’s jam packed with the evil scientists that we haven’t gotten enough of the last few months.

Hordeculture has given Orchis their hacks for the gates. I still think these Golden Girls knock-offs are the worst villains of the Krakoan era. The “b-word” dialogue got old very quickly, and they really didn’t serve as much of a threat. Well, this pays off on two years of stories, and shows that they’re finally a threat, even indirectly. I’m pretty creeped out by what’s happening here. It looks like we’re seeing Orchis’ plan for the Hellfire Gala taking shape, don’t you think?

Matt: Now, now, Tony, you’re a fellow DC reader! I understand that the best known DC science villains are the ones with the pathos, but let us not forget the Oolong Island crew from 52 that gathered DC’s more villainous science villains: T.O. Morrow, Professor Ivo, Dr. Cyber, Veronica Cale and of course Thaddeus Bodog Sivana! That’s a group I have missed since the New 52 spread them to the wind. But I digress…

X-Men #22 is the key issue that is going to lead into “Fall of X”, and I have a feeling the Fall is going to be pretty literal, if the scene with Stasis and M.O.D.O.K. is any indication. This issue is putting all the pieces in place: we have the Trojan Horse in the Krakoan meds, the access to the gates, the adamantium from all those dead Wolverines. Add in what Duggan is doing with Feilong over in Invincible Iron Man, and he is the writer who is finally taking the looming threat of Orchis and all their little plans that have seemed like side quests, and putting them into action for the first time since Inferno. I have a couple theories about exactly how all these pieces will fit together, but I don’t want to weigh us down with supposition.

And I respect your feelings about Hordeculture, but I still get a kick out of them. I want to see them throw down with the cyborg Crimson Commando and his pals, a Krakoan resurrected Super Sabre and Stonewall. It would be the Bout of Ages! [Ed. Note: Murder Grampas & Grammas for the win!]

Tony: I need to catch up on Iron Man. I almost feel like you and I might need to do a special catch-up discussion on the series prior to the Gala. 

I suspect that you and I have similar guesses for what they’re planning. What Orchis is plotting though is pretty damn scary. That MODOK/Nimrod sequence was a short horror story, and the Cyclops/Firestar/Forge fight was incredibly tense. A Wolverine-boned Sentinel? It’s like we said about Percy and Wolverine — Duggan is taking some of the unspoken details of Krakoa and transforming them from dropped plots and continuity errors to important plot points.

And hey, that fight finally made me like Angelica’s Krakoan costume, and Cassara and Gracia really made her kick some serious ass. I’m again giving my vote that Angelica stick around for the next year of the series.

Matt: Cassara and Gracia are an excellent team, and they look great on this book. I’d usually complain about so many artists on one book over short periods of time, but every one is an all-star, so it’s hard to find fault.

This book has done such an amazing job of developing Forge. Sure, his time on X-Force was fun, but here and now, with the text page we get here? This is taking the Maker to the next level. If we didn’t know the gala was going to go completely off the rails, I’d be looking forward to this being his crowning achievement. Instead, I’m looking forward to how horribly it can go wrong.

Here’s something that could have wound up in the notes, but I want to toss out as a fun question for us to bounce back and forth. Woofer, introduced here, transforms light to sound. Dazzler transforms sound to light. Would they create a feedback loop?

Tony: Yeah, I had a very similar thought! I love how the circuit idea keeps coming up in the current era of the line. Let’s have more complementary mutations.

Time Travel Stinks (X-Force #40)

Tony: After three and a half years, Ben Percy paying off years worth of stories is just incredibly satisfying. Even better, the plotting is just unhinged in the best ways. Where Wolverine has Beast fighting a shadow war with a plant skeleton kaiju and a bunch of clones, X-Force has Colossus, Domino and the squad fighting a time war with Old Man Omega and Wolverine-in-a-Jar against cosmic horror Beast.

Good grief, I like this book now.

Matt: This is, quite possibly, my favorite issue of X-Force to date. Sure, there are issues that were filled with more pathos earlier on with Quentin, but there is so much action and so many crazy ideas here. I love it. Especially coming out of “Sins of Sinister,” where Sinister failed to become something akin to a god, seeing that Beast could make himself god of all mutants shows that the student has now become the master.

Tony: Oh definitely. There’s lots of great elements and it’s all wrapped up in typical X-Men time travel nuttery. And strangely enough, it looks like a few elements of the last forty issues are going to pay off. Quentin’s back. The Chronicler has lost control of Colossus. I have a gut feeling Domino is finally going to confront Piotr about altering her memories.

Matt: The Chronicler losing touch with Colossus really grabbed my attention. Piotr’s plotline has been the slowest of burns, right up there with the Man With the Peacock Tattoo, and it feels like, once Beast is taken care of, it’s the last of Percy’s long form plots that will be left. I wonder how much of what he’s done is going to come back to Piotr, or I guess more appropriately, how much he is going to realize he was not in control of himself while doing.

Tony: Yeah, it really seems to me like there’s going to be a bit of a reckoning in this arc, now that Piotr is clear headed. And I mean that both with Domino and discovering that he’s been controlled.

Matt: My biggest concern for this plot has less to do with an anti-climax like Peacock Tattoo, but more that Colossus’s story might be co-opted by the more high profile Immortal X-Men. The end of the most recent issue indicates that we’re getting a Colossus spotlight in the next Immortal, and I’m curious to see how much of what has been happening with him here will be reflected there. If it’s just hinted at? I think the Mikhail/Chronicler stuff will wrap up here. But a more direct address of it might mean it’s moving to the flagship book, and that would be a shame for something that has been built up for years in this book.

Tony: That’s a good thought, but I feel like Immortal has been good about leaving the characters’ plots in their books if they have one. Storm and Nightcrawler’s Immortal spotlights were either complementary or completely separate from Red and Legion. So maybe Gillen is planning on showing how Percy’s story affects the larger tapestry of Krakoa? I guess we’ll see though.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Quentin leaving Deadpool behind is really a good gag. There’s really no room for both of them, at least for the moment.
• With Scott and Jean on the outs, The Summer House on the moon must be pretty lonely. We started with all the Summers up there, along with Logan. Now Alex is with Maddie in Limbo, Gabe is on Arakko, Nathan is on The Point, Rachel is hanging out in the UK and Logan is hunting Beast. Scott needs a roommate.
• X-Force has to feature my favorite Chronicler page to date.
• The Gill-to-Davidson shift as X-Force bounces into the future might be one of the best artist transitions in an art jam issue in ages.
• As a big fan of Gene Luen Yang’s work, seeing Wolverine team-up with Sister Dagger in the back-up in Wolverine was a lot of fun. But I kinda wish it was Laura rather than Logan, or better yet Gabby. I think that would be a very Cass Cain/Stephanie Brown dynamic.
• That Yang back-up just shows me how much I’d like to see him on an A-list book. His Spider-Man shined in Shang-Chi, and his Wolverine was pitch perfect.

Matthew Lazorwitz

Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.