Writing: Scott Lobdell and Ben Raab
Art: Carlos Pacheco
What Went Down: We begin outside of the Scottish home of British Secret Service agent Clive Reston. Shang-Chi—The Master of Kung-Fu has been summoned by his former handler, but he doesn’t know what for. Outside the door, an army of ninjas belonging to the order of his deceased father attacks Shang-Chi. Shang holds his own until the ninjas pull out guns. Luckily for him, Wolverine shows up to lend a hand. Because this is a super hero comic book, Shang-Chi has to mistake Logan for an enemy and attack him, but Wolverine is pretty quick to put Shang in his place. Storm prevents him from going too far.
Later, after being introduced to the X-Men, Shang-Chi thinks about how interesting they are. He senses Jean and Cyclops observing him and flings a statue at them. Clive Reston shows up to deliver the exposition to Shang and the X-Men. The death of Shang-Chi’s father left a power vacuum in China that is being filled by the Hellfire Club. The club is seeking to recreate the Elixir Vitae, a potion Shang-Chi’s father tried to use to live forever. It is believed by Sebastian Shaw that the elixir might be used to cure the Legacy Virus, and in turn the Inner Circle would use that fact to exploit people and make billions.
In another part of Hong Kong, a mysterious villain contemplates how soon the British territorial claim will expire on the city. One of his minions tells him that the heroes are on their way. Downtown, the heroes are driving down the crowded streets in cars, or maybe they’re parked…I can’t really tell. Anyways, one of the cars the X-Men are using is attacked. Jean puts up a teke shield just in time for the team to confront a group of four cyborg ninjas (not to be confused with the Cyburai).
How It Was: Alright, X-Men finally has a regular penciller again. Carlos Pacheco comes on board, and even though this isn’t the most auspicious story to debut on, he really makes the most of it. His opening pages of a moonlit mansion on the water are just gorgeous and his action sequences featuring the ninjas are nicely posed and organized. My one complaint would be his version of Troll Wolverine, but then again I’ve never liked anyone’s version of Troll Wolverine; Pacheco’s pretty much looks like Sabretooth with Wolverine’s haircut and extra arm hair. It’s a very pretty looking story, though.
As for what’s actually going on, poor Scott Lobdell is being stretched really thin with writing duties for three X-books. Ben Raab is brought in to do dialogue, and while it’s adequate, it definitely doesn’t have that Lobdell touch. Most of it is unnecessary internal exposition from Shang-Chi as he shares his impressions on every single detail of the story. There is also a particularly wordy lecture from the shadowy villain about the history of Hong Kong and China that is fit into a single panel.
Looking past the dialog, this story is just odd. Some readers might’ve gotten excited by the idea that the Legacy plotline was about to be furthered… it’s not, so don’t get your hopes up. What’s really strange is the inclusion of Shang-Chi, a character that hasn’t had any real success since the seventies and early eighties. If Marvel’s idea was to test the waters to see if readers wanted a Shang-Chi solo title, surely they could’ve done better than this; the Master of Kung-Fu doesn’t even get to look that great since Wolverine drops him in two panels. Plus Shang-Chi just doesn’t have a lot to do here; he gets to gush internally about how awesome the X-Men are and then takes their presence as a threat and attacks them. His history is used as a vague justification for the story, but really Shang-Chi himself isn’t needed for this story, since Clive Reston could’ve just filled the X-Men in himself, being one of Wolverine’s numerous old war buddies. In case you’re wondering why Shang’s father isn’t mentioned by name, that’s because the character’s name was Fu Manchu (the Yellow Claw) and he was a vaguely racist Chinese stereotype from the seventies. Definitely not a character to bring up in the politically correct era of the 90s.
This is just all set up. It introduces us to one of the most random guest stars in any X-book, and ties some obscure twenty-year-old stories together as a potential plot thread to the Legacy Virus. Even most of the X-Men are basically standing around this issue, waiting for some action to happen. Still, it’s not blatantly bad, just a little slow and a bit out of left field.
B-
No comments:
Post a Comment