I think Uncanny was a mixed bag. They needed to take things easy for a bit alright and I think that the idea of having two different plots was quite interesting, but the execution wasn't great.
Carey had some good ideas, but didn't know where to go with them in the end. The link between the sixties San Fran story and the Red Room caper seemed to be that both plots were a little retro in nature. You don't get that many evil KGB-type Russians as villains in comics these days, and while played straight, the idea of brainwashed sixties styled X-Men turn on Cyclops and Emma Frost was fun. It would have all been a little but more interesting if Cyclops and Emma had won through the use of intelligence rather than brute force. I think that Carey started out with the intension of making some point about not dwelling in the past and that things have to change, but somehow that took a back seat to a couple of pretty standard fights.
And what the hell is the story with Wolverine these days anyway? As a member of the New Avengers, he must be on some sort of SHIELD wanted list. But he's still able to call them up to come collect Omega Red? And for that matter, can anyone explain to me what the story is with SHIELD these days? I mean, I know that they're supposed to be some sort of UN backed agency, which would explain what they're doing in Russia, but why then do they enforce the domestic laws of the US?
Lastly, any thoughts on the end of Whedon's run on Runaways or the first issue of the Runaways/Young Avengers mini? Mike Carey's Crossing Midnight finished up this week, did you follow it to the end Paul?
It may seem arbitrary, but given the current state of San Francisco politics, I could totally see the mayor and city council randomly deciding to invite in an outlaw team of mutant superheroes. It's a weirdly enthusiastic place about embracing far-left politics so the city might honestly see itself as the perfect haven for mutants.
See, San Francisco is only tolerant to the far left in politics. If you are conservative, even just a middle right person, the people get all arrogant and condescending. It is an absolutely beautiful city but suffers from a severe case of smug.
I would like to see it addressed where, say Wonder Man visits Beast and the city is all pissy and spiteful about a registered hero (a Narc or Ikeman or whatever they want to call him) coming in meeting with his friend, kind of showing the hypocrisy that is apparent in San Francisco.
San Francisco can work mainly as a place where a big team is stationed on the West Coast, but if it just sticks to the whole stereotype of San Francisco (how ironic for a book about mutants) being this far left sanctuary, I don't think it will work out.
Also, why is Astonishing coming out before Uncanny, which I presume would be the one to introduce SF to the readers? The preview of Astonishing #25 kind of detailed that they have multiple bases and live in a hotel or something.
Anyways, as long as Astonishing can ship on time, I'll give it a shot.
Also, X-Men First Class was a great read. Robert Cruz's current style is a treat to look at. I do like how Parker could be setting up some revelation about FBI agent Baker.
Of course, the American idea of "far left" is something like "centrist" for audiences in other Western nations on a good day; for example, same-sex civil unions and marriages are legal in several countries in Europe and Socialist and Social Democratic parties are mainstream political options. San Francisco is still nowhere near, say, France or the Netherlands in terms of its official policies.
Thatcher's now-abolished Section 28 notwithstanding, the UK has established a system of same-sex civil partnership that all but identical to marriage as a legal construct. It's been in effect in Scotland since late 2005.
And then there are the extensive social services that seem to be the norm across the Atlantic but which are considered outright Marxism by a significant part of the population here in the States. It's less that San Francisco is "far left" than that the rest of the country is, by global standards, fairly right-wing in orientation.
As to Paul's question about Madame Xanadu's usual portrayal -- she's more of a cynic and a trickster in most portrayals. Essentially, she has minimal magical power these days, and compensates with manipulation; at one point, she gained immortality by cheating Death at a game of cards.
My guess, then, is that the Vertigo series is aiming for . It sounds alarmingly like Hellblazer to me, actually, but the cynical mystic (not to mention the jaded and demotic immortal) are Vertigo standbys. Considering what happened to most of their previous wave of new titles, the ones that got away from DC backwaters and Gaiman spinoffs, they can hardly be blamed for returning to the well.
It shocks me that Daniel Way is doing a 2-part story seeing as most of his 5-part stories actually contain only a total of 2 issues worth. The art was decent enough, much more in tone with what should have been in the book from the start.
Niall: Just an FYI, Uncanny is written by Ed Brubaker, not Mike Carey.
I share your confusion on SHIELD, though...it's rules generally seem to change depending on who's writing it.
Omar, my problem isn't with the politics; I don't care the politics in a book as long as it's within reason and not a soap box for the writer. It's the belief that out of everywhere in the country, San Francisco is the most tolerant.
A lot of places are tolerant, they just don't act like arrogant asses doing so. You bring up Europe, and places like Amsterdam put SF to shame policy-wise. But they don't make a big deal about it, they just do their thing. Having been to both cities, Amsterdam doesn't have the aura that they are doing so just to get attention like the annoying little brother who tells on you and your friends when you don't let him play with you.
It's enhanced even more with the X-Men, and the constant beat upside your head in the past about how everyone's "out to get those dang muties." Marvel is basically saying no city is tolerant of mutants anywhere in the country except San Francisco, which just reads like a bad Claremont take things to the extreme story.
And that kind of brings up something else Marvel is doing with reverting to a persecuted aspect with the mutants after everything Morrison tried to bring in as a new culture. The focus should not be they are persecuted (yet again), but that they are a dying species and are trying to save the mutant gene. One angle has been done to death and really doesn't reverberate with me and my generation as a 23 year old who was never taught to discriminate. The other has more potential until the next big event just brings it back because the writers have no idea where to take it.
I thought Whedon's Runaways was very similar to his Astonishing, in that he understands the voice of each character almost perectly, can do plots well enough, but it's all really a moot point because it comes out so late to the point of being almost un-readable. It was a particular problem here because the simple time-travel/sight-seeing story would be easy to read in one sitting but Whedon introduced at least 20 new characters with multiple alliegences and I'd well forgotten who the hell any of them were supposed to be by the end of it.
Ken: That was sort of my point, actually. That San Francisco would invite the X-Men in partly to spite the government for forcing them to register.
Cheers Kevin, Legacy and Midnight Crossing are both sitting on my desk. I got Carey on the brain.
I didn't read the San Francisco invitation as being particularly about Mutant Tlerance. It seemed more of a Anti-Registration protest. An outgrowth of when some placed declared themselves nuclear free zones to protest government policy on nuclear weapons.
Now, I'm not sure that totally makes sense. The mutants got "protected" by ONE. I didn't think they actually had to register under SHRA. It's too bad Marvel never got around to making the SHRA rules clear, because an organized civilian protest to Registration might be an interesting way to deal with the issues of the post-Civil War. I gues we'll see where it goes.
I thought since they were all catalogued as the 198 to begin with, they were registered by default.
Dan's right. Basically, if you were already registered with the O*N*E, then it was automatically converted into a registration under the SHRA whether you liked it or not. There's a scene in WOLVERINE which spells this out.
Ken: Even on your view of San Francisco, it would still make perfect sense for the city to invite the X-Men to move in. In fact, if anything, it's precisely the sort of meaningless gesture that you think the San Francisco authorities would go in for.
I have to admit that relocating the X-Men to San Francisco is a clever idea; the parallels are obvious (even if I disagree with them as an anti-gay Christian, they obviously work well for what Marvel's world view) and it gets the X-Men out of New York and into a fresh locale.
After reading the reviews yesterday I was trying to decide why I've found the last set of stories kind of unsatisfying. I think my problem is that the Messiah Complex stories came out once a week and were a big actiony rush that seemed like it was going somewhere important. And when we got there it just kind of stopped. Cyclops seemed to have some big plan in disbanding the team, but it hasn't been mentioned in months. Nobody on panel has asked how a mutant baby could be born and if that means that Wanda's curse is lifted. And in the big reveals of the last month the villains turn out to be a Mastermind and Mr. Sinister. They were just revealed as the surprise villains for the last story arc. Did Messiah Complex do anything except blow up the mansion? Maybe if the stories were still coming out weekly it wouldn't seem so slow. But really if they had spent an issue of Scott telling the Professor he wasn't wanted and the X-Men deciding they'd had enough of the ONE and fighting the sentinels, we'd be in the same place.
I basically agree with that. They had a lot of momentum coming out of "Messiah Complex" and they haven't managed to capitalise on it.
But haven't they kind of done everything backward?
Whether or not X-Force, Young X-Men, Cable or even Legacy are to your taste, had they been released after, or around the same time as the move to San Fran, then the entire line would have a real sense of momentum behind it. Uncanny seems to be the flagship for now, but it's only just arrived at its new status quo, whereas almost all of the other X-titles started their new directions months ago.
Marvel seemed to want to begin the new status quo with #500 but that decision has cost the line. Had they timed Messiah Complex better, or if they'd simply waited till Uncanny had hit #500 before launching Cable, Young X-Men and Legacy, then things would feel much better.
That would seem to make more sense. I think they wanted to launch Messiah Complex out of X-Men 200 and the new overall direction out of Uncanny 500 but ended up with a four month gap in the middle. I'm not sure why they didn't fill the intervening time dealing with the fallout from the series and revealing Cyclops plan. Maybe all will come clear next month?
The basic problem is that the "disbanding" was a train wreck - it was undermotivated (out of the blue even) to start with, and Uncanny proceeeded to treat it like a fake-out where no other book did (hell, the DWS two-shot had most of the stories predicated on the fact that these guys really were turfed out on the street - why would any of them go back when Cyclops says "just kidding!")
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