Amazing X-Men #2

Amazing X-Men #2
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: The young boy abducted by Abyss last issue, whose name is Jeremy Graves, is being tormented by the mutant. Meanwhile, the X-Men are confronting a force of Apocalypse’s Brotherhood and reprogrammed Sentinels. Exodus mentions that he was experimented on by the Madri and can never forget the horrors he experienced. While most of the X-Men protect the humans, Quicksilver chases after Vanessa and one of the Madri. He finds his deceased sister Wanda, but really it is Carlyle using her powers to fool him; she is about to kill Quicksilver when Dazzler stops her. A Sentinel attacks Dazzler, preventing her from capturing the villain. Exodus is about to attack the Sentinels when Storm shows up and uses her powers to scramble the Sentinels.

In the air, Banshee is searching for the Madri and contemplating his decision to return to this life after retiring. He finds the Madri’s body, and Abyss appears, telling Banshee that he is the one that killed the Madri for failing in his mission. Abyss shows Banshee the captive child and tells him to go get the son of Magneto, Quicksilver. Banshee delivers the message, and Quicksilver decides to risk his life to save the child. Storm goes with him, and Exodus tells them not to worry because Storm and Banshee’s powers have apparently made it possible to reprogram the Sentinels again.

During the journey, Storm comes to realize that she is in love with Quicksilver. The two mutants find the boy, but Abyss attacks them. Quicksilver defeats Abyss by punching him and then shoving Abyss’ body into itself; because his body is a dimensional portal, Abyss becomes tangled in himself. Storm and Quicksilver take Jeremy back to his family, and the once-again reprogrammed Sentinels begin taking the humans to New Eurasia. In New York, we find out that Sebastian Shaw has captured Angel’s assistant Karma, and he is torturing her for information. Apocalypse announces that they are wasting time, and he is ready to attack Magneto’s base.

How It Was: Well, this issue is a pretty big letdown. Last issue teased a battle between the X-Men and the Brotherhood with the Sentinels on the Brotherhood’s side. Somehow, all of these conflicts manage to just resolve themselves, so it leads me to ask why any of the Brotherhood mutants bothered to show up in this book. Half of them disappear and aren’t seen this entire issue, while the others get chased for a few pages before getting away. I do like the way Copycat uses her powers to trick Quicksilver by turning into Wanda, but other than that moment, the entire battle with the Brotherhood consists of one energy blast from Exodus.

Then there’s the conflict with the Sentinels, which also sounds promising; the X-Men have to protect the humans from them while not damaging them too much so that they can still be used as transport later. Instead of a tense battle, we get Storm’s power stopping all of the Sentinels quite easily, and then all of them get fixed off panel. All of this comes off as very rushed and inconsequential; it’s really disconcerting to see the majority of the threats to the X-Men solve themselves so easily. And Banshee’s powers include harmonics now, which is some kind of sound that allows him to reprogram robots? This definitely reeks of plot convenience and laziness.

It doesn’t help that most of the X-Men don’t have a lot to do this issue; Exodus, Dazzler, and Iceman literally contribute nothing to the issue except fixing the Sentinels off panel. All Banshee really gets to do is deliver Abyss’ message to Quicksilver.

As for Abyss, he’s a mess of a character. His powers include his tendrils that he ties people up with, limited telepathy, his body is some kind of portal or something, and I think that he might suck the life force out of people…maybe? A lot of these powers seem unnecessary, especially the portal that ends up being his undoing this issue. Plus he comes off as more of a bully than one of Apocalypse’s elite Horseman; he spends the issue picking on a little kid, and then gets beat by Quicksilver in all of one page. Pathetic! Compare that to Holocaust chasing after humans and cutting Sabretooth’s throat…now that’s a bad guy.

At least Abyss looks really cool because the art is awesome as ever. It’s a shame that all of these unnecessary elements are even in this comic. Nicieza has too many characters and not enough room/ideas to make them work, leading to a decidedly unsatisfying resolution.

D+

Amazing X-Men #1

Amazing X-Men #1
Writing: Fabian Nicieza
Art: Andy Kubert

What Went Down: We start off with a prologue following a group of vagabond humans in Maine. They are traveling to a meeting where they are hoping to be transported to Eurasia, since Apocalypse has taken over the United States. A hooded figure is talking with a family about the trek. Afterwards, the stranger walks off into the woods and reveals herself to be the shapeshifter Vanessa Carlyle—Copycat in the standard universe. Vanessa informs other agents of Apocalypse—this universe’s version of the Brotherhood—about the humans’ hope to escape.

At the mansion in New York, Bishop watches while a team of X-Men performs a training exercise. This team includes leader Quicksilver, second in command Banshee, Dazzler, Iceman, Storm, and Exodus. The goal of the exercise is to get a control disk inside the Sentinel to reprogram it to recognize the X-Men as friends. The team completes the exercise, but Quicksilver’s time is a tenth of a second too slow. In actuality, the team is preparing for a real life mission where they will have to accomplish the same goal, using Dazzler’s hard-light holograms as a pseudo-Danger Room. Magneto shows up to caution his team about neglecting a fallen opponent; many members of the team show concern about the fact that Bishop is holding Magneto’s son, Charles.

Magneto takes the time to explain what is happening in all of the other AoA books, and tells the team that they need to leave. Iceman offers to invert their molecules through moisture, but there is concern that this will leave the X-Men weakened. Instead, Magneto tells Exodus to teleport the team to Maine, even though this is his first time using that power.

In the humans’ camp, the young boy and girl from the family earlier are chasing each other; the boy bumps into Quicksilver and apologizes. Out over the ocean, Storm flies through Apocalypse’s defense field to disable its sensors with electricity. Just when the tower is about to detect her, Sentinels burst through and destroy the tower. Fortunately Storm is cloaked with her electricity powers.

The next day as the group of people continues their journey, the young boy runs ahead, but he is captured by one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen named Abyss. The people reach the rendezvous point, and the Sentinels arrive to transport them to Europe. The X-Men install the disk in one of the Sentinels to reprogram all of them, but unfortunately the alternate version of Madison Jeffries has used his powers to reprogram the disk to target humans and X-Men as enemies. Iceman is blasted apart, but everyone notes that he will be able to pull himself together. A member of the Madri, Apocalypse’s cult-like soldiers, leads the AoA Brotherhood to attack the X-Men for the cliffhanger.

How It Was: All right, now we get to the adjective-less X-Men replacement. Actually, this issue follows the formula of Astonishing #1 pretty closely. Magneto shows up to explain the plot, the main players, the plots of the rest of the tie-in series, and the mission for the individual squad. Too bad this series isn’t quite as good as Astonishing, mostly due to the roster choice. Yes there are some interesting inclusions like Dazzler and Exodus, but nothing much is done with any of these characters. Exodus is still a zealot who will do anything Magneto wants, and the big twist on Dazzler’s character is that…um she smokes and acts cranky. Really that’s the only significant difference for most of the X-Men in this series; they’re the same characters, only angrier. As for the plotline of the series, the human exodus isn’t really that exciting, but that plot finishes up with issue two and then the really good action gets going.

Apocalypse’s Brotherhood also fails to inspire awe; who can say that they’d get really excited at the thought of a battle with Yeti, Copycat, Spyne, or Arclight? Nicieza is really scraping the bottom of the Marvel Universe Handbook with this book. Of course Abyss is the real antagonist, but whereas Holocaust wanted to murder hundreds of humans in Chicago, Abyss kidnaps a little boy to lure the X-Men into a trap. He’s not quite as menacing as most of the other villains in the AoA, which is a shame because to my knowledge he is one of the few original characters in this series.

There are a few good moments. I like how everyone mistrusts Bishop, and starts to question Magneto by association. Quicksilver is a much more likable character as a leader, and it’s neat to see Iceman demonstrate his full potential powers-wise. Regrettably, most of the characters don’t get a lot of room to develop, and a lot of ideas and plot points that get setup are pushed to the side or end up being forgotten about. Storm mentions that she is in love with Quicksilver, but nothing comes of it. The Sentinel redesigns look very cool, but they don’t get to do a lot either. The first half of this series does feel like a stall until we can get to the stuff with Apocalypse.

Well, the art is phenomenal with all of the redesigned costumes looking really great, except for Exodus’, which I always found kind of ordinary. Still, all the other costumes do a great job reflecting the characters' past selves while managing to maintain the darker tone. Kubert does some great work with what he’s given; the scenes with Storm and the Sentinels attacking the tower are particularly exciting. My only complaint is that Dazzler’s light blasts are rainbow-colored in this dimension, which always looked kind of silly to me. This is not a particularly gripping issue, but this book does improve over the course of the run.

C+