Comic Review -- Uncanny X-Men #12 / Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, and Guru eFX

There are points in the Avengers vs. X-Men event--particularly in the main series--that I've all but given up hope for a decent, well-told epic that involves so many characters and locales.  Then we get little parallel stories like the one in Uncanny X-Men #12, that may as well be part of the main narrative, that are well written segments of the arc that really pop.  It makes me more certain than ever that this kind of story can work, as long as it's handled properly by the right people throughout the creative process.

What I really like about this cover is that it is, essentially, re-hashing the Thing vs. Namor fight that occurred in AvX Vs. #1, pitting them against each other in a grudge match that both relish.  It's very dynamic and well rendered, and you can clearly see that these two are never going to hold back against one another in a fight.  Very entertaining artwork here.

The X-Men have narrowed Hope Summers's location to five points across the globe, and Cyclops sends strike teams out to those locations in the hopes of finding and retrieving her.  After assigning Namor, Hepzibah, and Sunspot to the Tabula Rasa, we are taken to that location, where a strike team of Avengers--She-Hulk, Luke Cage, and Thing--have also arrived, intent on finding Hope as well.  When it becomes apparent that Hope isn't there, the Avengers are ambushed by the X-Men, and a grudge match begins.

It soon comes down to Namor and Thing, each content to slug it out with the other due to their mutual enmity.  As they beat each other senseless, one of the natives of Tabula Rasa, who had been observing the fight from afar, comes within arms reach of the two combatants, who tell him to leave.  He agrees to watch from afar, but asks to watch the rest of the event, asking if the two of them are about to copulate.  As Namor and Thing look on in stunned discomfort, Magik appears and grabs Namor, saying that Hope's true location has been found, and that he's needed.  Namor goes with Magik, where Cyclops names Hope's location: the moon, where the X-Men have fought the Phoenix before.

While this issue focuses on a small part of the overall global effort to locate Hope, it is nevertheless perfectly focused.  We see more than just a simple fight between the two squads, and a hell of a lot less than the glut of information that is essentially glossed over in the main narrative.  The personalities of both teams are on display here, from Namor and Hepzibah's sexual banter to Cage's exasperated approach to squad leadership, to even She-Hulk's admiration and apprehension about the environmental beauty at Tabula Rasa.  It's moments like these that differentiate these ostensibly "less necessary" parts from the larger, sweeping story and actually set up the argument that they are just as necessary, if not more so in some ways, than the main title.

Ben's expression here: priceless.

I'm also quite a fan of Kieron Gillen's use of sex jokes in this issue.  Hepzibah and Namor are shameless in how they talk about it, even drawing Namor's "friend" the Queen into a discussion of his prowess.  The protector of Tabula Rasa's interest in the fight set up a hilarious punchline at the end, where he observes the violence and passion of Thing and Namor's fight and assumes that they will be getting it on when they've finished beating each other up.  Even Namor's own certainty of his reputation with the ladies is funny, when he senses he is being talked about, and muses, "This is only correct."

One issue I did have with this story involved Namor's dialog with Luke Cage during their fight.  It relies too much on actions that occurred off-panel, with Namor wanting to avenge himself upon Cage for "surprising" him in their previous fight.  I still have yet to see a significant fight between Cage and Namor in this storyline, aside from the initial one that was so glossed over that it might as well have never occurred.  Clearly, someone in the editorial department needs to do a better job so that the dialog makes more sense here.

Artistically, I really enjoyed this issue.  Greg Land's work is new to me, but he does detailed facial expressions and gestures very well, and draws attractive women in much the same style as Terry Dodson, whose work I also love.  The action and fight scenes are also fun to look at, and he draws a myriad of poses, creature types, and environments with equal skill.  I especially like the gradual close-up of Namor and Thing as they get ready to throw down for a second time.

Overall, this was a highly enjoyable issue, and really makes the case for me that this AvX tie-ins are at least as important as the main story, which has had some highs and many lows in overall quality.  The action and characterization are entertaining, the artwork is great, and it leads into one of the presumably compelling points of the main story.  Highly recommended.

Comic Review -- AvX VS #2 / Steve McNiven, Kieron Gillen, John Dell, Salvador Larroca, Morry Hollowell, and Jim Charalampidis

I like the illustrations on this cover.  Colossus looks out of his mind with rage as swings at a nimble and no-doubt quippy Spider-Man, while Gambit and Captain America both look like serious business as they struggle against one another.  While I'm not crazy about the large title in the center of the cover, it does make for a nice divider.  Not bad.

These two match-ups go a little more in line with what I expected in terms of an outcome, with plenty of action, name-calling, and destruction, along with a peppering of more AvX Fun Facts.  Though they eventually end up proving pointless within the context of the larger story, it's fun to see these match-ups with some detail and dynamics, as opposed to the brief gloss-overs you tend to see in the larger story.  A fight will start, and then move to another fight, and so on, before getting back to the main story, and such a sprawling narrative really needs a companion series like this, where things can really get exposed a little more in-depth.

Gambit may be one of my favorite X-Men, but watching him get his butt kicked by Captain America was actually very satisfying.  Theirs was actually a good fight, and Gambit got in an especially clever move by charging up Cap's uniform and making it explode while it was on him.  While I was a little surprised at how quickly Cap got up from that, I wasn't at all surprised when it came down to a fistfight, and Cap royally beat the crap out of Gambit.  I mean, for pure melee combat, there aren't many heroes that I think could stand toe-to-toe with Captain America.

And while I'm a big Spider-Man fan--you've seen my picture, right?--I'm not too surprised about how the Spidey-Colossus fight turned out, for two reasons.  First, Spidey was very cocky and presumptuous towards Colossus-Juggs, which is never a good way to go into a fight.  I don't know enough about Colossus since he acquired Cyttorak, but I'm betting he's even tougher than Cain Marko's Juggernaut.  So I'm willing to concede he may have an edge over Spidey.  Second, though, I don't think they'll do an issue where there are two Avengers or two X-Men wins in the same issue.  Just not gonna happen, as you'd risk alienating Avengers or X-Men fans.

When Cap won, I figured Spidey was going to lose.  And so far, my logic's worked.  We'll see if it stands up over the run of these issues.

Artistically, I like Dell's art in the Cap/Gambit match-up better than Larroca's in the Spidey/Colossus fight.  It's more realistic, less cartoony, and nowhere near as overdone.  Cap and Gambit both look like actual people within their uniforms, and while Spidey looks good in his story, Colossus looks too extreme, particularly with his facial expressions.  It's not bad art, but there was a noticeable difference between the two.

It almost makes me wonder how they would look if the artists would switch stories and draw their own versions of the others.  That'd actually be kind of cool to see, now that I think about it.

Overall, I am enjoying this mini-series, and can't wait to see more match-ups.  Are they great storytelling?  No.  Are they witty?  In places.  Are they full of action and destruction as two heroes beat the snot out of each other?  YES.  And that's what this series promises.  Successful delivery.  Highly recommended.

Comic Review -- Uncanny X-Men #9 / Kieron Gillen, Carlos Pacheco, Cam Smith, and Guru eFX

I like the cover for this issue.  It's dynamic, not too crowded or busy, and it's always nice to see team-ups between groups of superheroes.  The composition is particularly satisfying for me, as you've got eight bodies on one page, which could be potentially taxing visually, but they're spaced very logically.  Iron Man and Magneto are back to back, knocking each of their opponents off-screen, while Cap in the front and Magik in the back do similarly with their opponents.

I know I've been on a warpath lately about banners (DC, I'm looking at you), but this one's not as much of an issue for me.  Sure, I'm not crazy about it, but I'm willing to give it a pass because it's advertising an upcoming in-comics event.  An event that's already been ridiculously promoted and which you can't go anywhere without hearing about, but hey, what are you gonna do?

Incidentally, I don't know what creatures the heroes are fighting on this cover.  Someone with more knowledge, please feel free to fill me on in whose butts they're kicking.  I would appreciate it.

The story begins with some observations from Danger, who is essentially Magik's jailer when she's not out on missions with the X-Men.  Her reservations about continuing Illyana's imprisonment are shared by Colossus, who starts to voice this to the X-Men leaders when a distress call from S.W.O.R.D. gives them an urgent mission to perform.  The Peak, S.W.O.R.D.'s prison for intergalactic fugitives, has been sabotaged in cataclysmic fashion, and several dangerous groups of criminals fall to various points in the Earth's surface.  The X-Men quickly take out a group of aliens in Nevada, and then agree to team up with the Avengers to take on multiple threats across the western hemisphere.

Meanwhile, a creature by the name of Unit, who is presumably the one who engineered the Peak's explosion, has landed in Canada, where he murders two human beings after cutting one of them open to see how they work.  After Hope Summers joins up with her team and teleports to his location, he sends the rest of them away and talks about how excited he is to meet her.  The issue ends with him advancing on her in a manner menacingly reminiscent of how he approached the man he dissected.

This was an enjoyable issue for several reasons.  First off, it was fun to see the Avengers and the X-Men teaming up and coordinating, even if the actual team-up was confined to just four panels spread out over two pages.  It's always interesting to see how such a diverse assemblage of skills and power sets can be blended to solve the more powerful problems.  And given that these two groups are scheduled to throw down on one another soon in AvX, you can bet this will be the last time they cooperate for a while.

Unit, the antagonist of this issue.

Unit is also an interesting character.  At times he seems virtually android-like in his detachment from emotional concerns, but he gets excited when meeting humans, and then mutants for the first time.  He seems to be able to make people do exactly what he says, and can spontaneously kick out a powerful mutant signature whenever he wants.  He looks, as one character put it, like an iPhone redesign, but he's clearly shown himself to be powerful and dangerous.  There's a lot of potential use for a character like this, and while I don't expect him to last very long in this story, he could be of interest down the road.

Finally, there's plenty of internal drama on the X-Men team, and while it doesn't take center stage, it's given various glimpses enough to show that some issues, like Illyana's imprisonment and Emma's recent trauma enduring the near-loss of her arm, won't likely stay on the back burner for long.  Given the amount of action that occurs in this issue, and the unspoken anxiety Scott is undoubtedly feeling at the impending return of the Phoenix Force, it's a testament to Gillen's deft plotting that these issues are able to receive their due coverage.

I do enjoy Pacheco's pencil work in this issue, though there are some places where I was distracted.  At times, the eyes on some of his characters seem a little too long for their faces, while at others, they're dead-on and perfect. His art style reminds me a little bit of John Romita, Jr.'s, though it's less distinctive, and I feel, more fitting to the narrative.  Pacheco clearly does action very well, and his linework on Unit, which could have been overwrought or underdone, was clean, efficient, and effective.  Smith's inks and line work frame everything up nicely and shade appropriately, while the colors provided by Guru eFX look vibrant and pleasing to the eye.  I'm overall very impressed by how everything turned out.

Overall, this was an enjoyable issue, with a lot of action, a subdued allusion to the standing drama on the team, and good artwork.  There's an inter-team team-up, and an interesting new creature who could be a formidable foe in the future.  All-in-all, an X-Men issue that was a worthwhile read.  Highly recommended.