By Mike Carey, Chris Bachalo, and Others
This book collects X-Men (1991) #188-204, the initial phase of Carey's long run on the series, before the title switched to X-Men: Legacy. It starts off well with the 'Supernova' storyline, which centres around a strike team made up of allies and enemies led by Rogue and introduces an interesting new foe in the Children of the Vault, but after two short arcs you can tell editorial stepped in and started to direct Carey towards helping set up the 'Messiah Complex' crossover, which disbanded the newly formed team. This is a problem I have with a lot of X-Books in recent years. Teams are shaken up so frequently they never really have time to gel. I also think Carey was lumbered with more characters than he knew what to do with. Sam and Bobby effectively get lumbered with the same arc where they fall for a female villain, get betrayed, and brood about it. I've loved Bachalo's art since I first read Generation X way back when, but he's one of those artist who never really sticks around for long. He'll do an arc or two and then hand over to someone else. Also many of his character designs don't work as well when someone else is doing the art.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
By Kurt Busiek and George Pérez
In the early 80s Marvel and DC agreed to publish a crossover featuring the Avengers and Justice League of America with art by George Pérez. He completed about 21 pages of material before the entire project was scrapped due to disagreements between Marvel and DC editors. The project was revived in 2002, now with Kurt Busiek attached as writer. Busiek is a fine writer, but he has an unfortunate tendency to get lost in previous continuity, mostly to show off how much he knows about previous continuity. As such, JLA/Avengers is less of a narrative and more a chaotic joyride through the respective histories of both teams. Pérez is in typical great form, but Busiek throws in so many heroes and villains that half the time it feels like you're flicking through a Where's Wally? book. All in all, even a comic veteran like myself couldn't help but feel more overwhelmed than entertained by the whole thing.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds
What if every crazy conspiracy theory, from flat earth to the JFK assassination, was true? Not because they actually really happened, but because enough people have come to believe in them that it warps reality and they become true. That's what Cole Turner discovers when he's recruited into the shadowy government agency tasked with dealing with these anomalies, run by none other than Lee Harvey Oswald. This is what The X-Files would be like if you ramped up the paranoid and threw in a lot of Lovecraftian horrors, with Simmonds' art keeping things suitably unnerving. I loved what this series was doing for the first half dozen issues, but as it went on it became increasingly bogged down in exposition, as various characters took turns explaining the various ins and outs of how everything works, which blunted the impact of the horror considerably. By the time I got to the Big Foot issue I was desperate for everyone to just shut the hell up.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
By Fiona Stables and Brian K. Vaughan
This is the life story of Hazel, a child born to star-crossed parents from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war. Saga is somewhat reminiscent of Moonshadow, J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth's classic 1985 cosmic coming of age story, but isn't quite as absurdist and often gives as much focus to the day to day difficulties of parenthood (finding a suitable babysitter, dealing with in-laws, paying the bills, etc) as all the war and interstellar shenanigans. I got the three hardback collections, which cover the first half of the series (issues #1-54) before it went on hiatus. I loved the first two, but the third was way too downbeat for my liking, killing off a lot of the regular characters, and left me unsure if I really wanted to continue. I also found some of the violent and sexual content to be unnecessarily graphic at times.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
By Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero
After the fall of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Kate Pryde has retreated back to her home town of Chicago to try and live a normal live, but she soon finds herself training a new team of young mutants alongside Emma Frost. This is one of the relaunch titles I was most looking forward to. I loved Kate and Emma's relationship during Krakoa era and was happy to see it was going to be continued. Alas, they quickly became supporting players in their own book, frequently pushed aside in favour of their students, a trio of the most ignorant teens in the entire Marvel universe. Like so many titles from this relaunch you can just feel editorial backseat driving on practically every page. So far Kate's arc has ended up a predictable "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" narrative with few surprises; even the long overdue exploration of her bisexuality feels trite and undercooked.
Rating: ⭐⭐
By Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay
The small town of Evergreen (geddit?), home to the likes of John Stewart, Hal Jordan, Jo Mullein and Guy Gardner, suddenly finds itself encased in an emerald container by the alien Abin Sur, who starts passing judgement on the locals. Al Ewing is a reliably good writer, and yet this is the Absolute title I'm struggling the most with, but I can't quite work out why. Maybe it's the slow pace and the flashback structure that just isn't working for me, I dunno. Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Flash had their flaws, but have still managed to keep me invested while I'm already considering dropping this after three issues.
Rating: ⭐⭐
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig
Well, that cost me a few quid. The Department of Truth is really quite amazing; the artwork is fantastic. I haven't reached the 'please just shut up' stage yet, thankfully!
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