X-Force Annual #1

I know I reviewed the majority of Shattershot months ago, but I just got the final issue through the mail over Christmas break. Mile High Comics rocks! So for your reading enjoyment, I present this summary of the conclusion to that story.  For the previous parts click here.

X-Force Annual #1
Writing: Fabian Nicieza, Gavin Curtis, and Dan Slott
Art: Greg Capullo, Gavin Curtis, and Sandu Florea

What Went Down: Shattershot Part 4: Instead of getting an immediate resolution to Arize’s story, this issue takes us a couple of decades into the future. A group known as the Freeman Armed Network is engaged in combat with a group of spineless ones, members of the same race as Mojo. This battle turns out to be a gladiator style performance for an audience on Mojoworld. The spineless ones are killed, and we discover that the new ruler of Mojoworld is Shatterstar, a member of X-Force in the present. Shatterstar has been the master programmer for a decade, after overthrowing Mojo V, but he is frustrated that he has essentially replaced Mojo’s rule with an equally barbaric one, except this time the spineless ones are the persecuted race instead of the humans.

Outside Xavier’s mansion (in the future, mind you), Arize and two spineless ones named Milton and Shecky teleport in. They are looking to acquire X-Force’s help in overthrowing Shatterstar’s reign. Because the spineless ones were formerly enemies, X-Force attacks them, and we get introductions to the future members of X-Force. The team consists of Cannonball, Siryn, Sunspot, Cyberlock—a combination of the deceased characters Cypher and Warlock, Darkchylde—a grown up Illyana Rasputin, and Powerpax—a descendent of the siblings that make up Power Pack. The team beats on the rebels until they realize their ally Arize is one of them. At the Freeman Network, Shatterstar and his scheduler discuss the missing Arize.

Back at the mansion, using an interface with Cyberlock, Arize shows the history of Mojoworld up to this point. It turns out that the signal he was trying to broadcast in previous issues of Shattershot became distorted through time and space and served as a catalyst for driving his people insane. Later, the group traveled into the future to depose Mojo V and Shatterstar was put in place as the ruler of Mojoworld. The Spineless One rebels are now striving for true equality and democracy, something that interests X-Force very much.

In Mojoworld, the Scheduler plots to kill Shatterstar. Elsewhere, X-Force sneaks into the coliseum. As the battle commences, a mysterious helmeted stranger joins the rebel side and helps to defeat the Freemen. After winning the battle, the stranger reveals himself to be Arize. The Scheduler tries to have him arrested, but X-Force gets in the guards’ way, allowing Arize to speak to his people. As Shatterstar tries to speak reason to his people, the Scheduler pushes him off of the balcony. It’s okay though, because Shatterstar is fine, despite landing on his head.

X-Force fights the Freemen, with Shatterstar joining in the effort. The Scheduler injures Arize with an axe, but Shatterstar defeats her, and then spares her life. Arize gives a nice speech about tolerance and the entire crowd cheers. A hooded individual pulls down his hood and reveals himself to be an elderly Longshot, smiling because he is seeing the fulfillment of his dream after so long.

What Else Went Down: The Wiz Kid, Artie, and Leech are at a private school playing. Taki, the Wiz Kid, has used his amazing technical know how to make TIE Fighters and a lightsaber out of Legos. When the teacher, Mrs. Huntington comes in, Taki turns off the Legos, but the teacher notices the mess and scolds the mutants. Taki has a crush on his teacher, and dutifully brings her the Legos after cleaning them up.

Mrs. Huntington gives Taki a lecture on the responsibility of his powers, then her boyfriend Patrick shows up. Taki is insanely jealous. During the night, he discovers Patrick going through the school’s files and talking to someone on the phone about eliminating filthy mutants. Artie, Leech, and Taki follow Patrick in a hovercraft made from the Wiz Kid’s wheel chair.

The children discover an anti-mutant group and Leech falls out of the hovercraft. While the racists shoot bullets at them, Taki grabs the stolen files just in time for the police to show up. Patrick and his friends are arrested and Mrs. Huntington learns that she was being used. The next day Taki offers himself as a potential future boyfriend in a couple of years.

What Else Also Went Down: Cable assembles his team X-Force for a test of sorts. On the screen he displays the various villains that X-Force has fought and asks different members of the team who they are and how to best defeat them. If this sounds really similar to the list of villains story in the X-Men Annual, well it is.

Anyway, the villains mentioned include: Masque, Garrison Kane, Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut, G.W. Bridge, Deadpool, The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Sunspot and Gideon, Proteus, Stryfe, and the X-Men. The team gets mad at Cable for the inclusion of Sunspot and the X-Men and they all storm out. Domino asks Cable what he was thinking, and Cable insists that his dream and Xavier’s dream are different and that he is trying to win a war.

How It Was: Well…it’s definitely an ending that I didn’t expect. The conclusion of Shattershot goes for a curve ball, and instead of concluding the story, it jumps to an alternate future to show Shatterstar replacing Mojo. It’s a very odd way to resolve Arize’s story. I usually enjoy alternate future/dimension stories, but this one doesn’t use the concept to the fullest. The beauty of the alternate reality is that anything can happen, and in this issue not a lot of anything happens.

The set up itself is okay. Having Shatterstar become what he has always fought against, an oppressive ruler that reinforces prejudice, is interesting, but the writing doesn’t really support this idea. Shatterstar obviously questions the oppression of the spineless ones, so it doesn’t really make sense as to why he’s allowed it to go on for a decade. The X-Force team is pretty cool and has some neat surprises on the roster. It’s a treat for fans to see a grown Illyana, a member of Power Pack, and Doug Ramsey/Warlock on the team. Unfortunately none of the members get any real characterization, and really the members of the team act as guest stars here in their own book. Shatterstar and Arize take center stage and do all of the work, leaving X-Force to stand around, fight a little, and comment out loud on what is happening.

Arize does get to step up as a fighter (complete with what looks like a lightsaber) and it is good to see him actually doing something in his own story. Really he has become an Xavier like figure for the Mojoworld, but it still works as a continuation of the evolution he went through in the first three issues. As for the villains, the Scheduler is pretty one-dimensional and the Freemen Network hardly puts up a fight. What makes this story laughable is that the ruling army has been in power for a decade, and it takes X-Force and Arize about five minutes to overthrow them. It makes you wonder why Arize waited so long at all. So a pathetic threat and an underutilized team that had potential make this one to skip.

As for the back ups, I would love to know who at Marvel decided to put a Wiz Kid story in the back of an annual of X-Force, the supposedly more edgier X-team. These characters all used to appear in the old X-Factor, and they sure are cheesy; I’m talking like Silver Age cheesy. The idea that three kids could overthrow some kind of mutant hate group probably means that the members weren’t all that competent to begin with. This kind of kiddy story is almost embarrassing to read; it’s got that kind of awkward, saccharine sweet tone to it that nobody but really young kids and the hardest of hard core fans could like.

As for the last story, Dan Slott writes the exact same story that he wrote in X-Men Annual #1. Sure the execution is slightly, and I mean slightly different, but the story concept was never really that strong to begin with. It’s not even really a story, it's a load of exposition that reads more like a series of trading cards than a narrative. And the end is really awful, since it involves Cable insisting that his vision is a complete departure from Xavier’s, when in practice it is the exact thing. Also the artist draws an uber-exagerated Cable with shoulders that he could rest televisions on. It looks really, really stupid. So to sum it up, three awful stories make for one obscure issue that isn’t really worth it unless you are a huuuuuuge fan.

D

X-Factor Annual #7

X-Factor Annual #7
Writing: Fabian Nicieza and Peter David
Art: Joe Quesada, Derrick Roberson, and Joe Madurieira

Update: Click Here for Part 4 of Shattershot.

What Went Down: The first six pages are dedicated to Mojo angrily recapping the story thus far and taking out his anger on his second in command, Major Domo. Note that the art is backwards, depicting the events of Uncanny when describing the X-Men issue and vice versa. It appears that even though the Death Sponsors failed in their task last issue, everyone assumed it was Mojo, so he has continued to lose favor with the people. He decides to contact Spiral and have her deal with Arize.

Since X-Factor doesn’t have a Danger Room, they don’t start the issue in the middle of a training session. Instead, we are given an overwrought scene where the team is preparing lunch, and none of the characters can open a jar of mayonnaise, including Strong Guy, who should have super strength, shouldn’t he? Anyway, the whole scene devolves into the team making a mess, and it’s all meant to be very funny, but it isn’t really. Val Cooper pops in to tell the team that they have a mission: they are going to hunt down Spiral because she has been spotted making trouble. Val feels responsible because Spiral was a member of Freedom Force, a government sponsored group of villains that Cooper was in charge of prior to the nationalization of X-Factor.

In case you were wondering what Arize was up to, he has been working out a plan to broadcast all of Earth’s television to the inhabitants of Mojoworld as an alternative to Mojo’s rule. At the same time, Spiral is threatening a group of villagers in order to discover Arize’s location. By the time X-Factor arrives, Spiral has set fire to the whole town.

Spiral teleports to Arize’s cabin and cuts the connection he was using. The whole time she blames him for some unspeakable evil. She attacks Arize, but Val interrupts and tries to talk Spiral down; she ends up shooting at Spiral. The rest of X-Factor joins the fight. After injuring Polaris, Havok flips out and blasts Spiral with a heck of an energy blast. Spiral is then given the chance to explain herself, so she tells her origin.

Spiral was once an Earth stuntwoman named Ricochet Rita. She fell in love with Longshot, followed him to his world, and learned that Longshot was known as the Fallen Messiah—meaning he was destined to perpetually fail over and over again. Mojo had Arize turn her into Spiral (in Arize’s future, but Spiral’s past), and then had her travel through time to push her past self towards Longshot, perpetuating the cycle, and driving Spiral insane. Arize expresses remorse and offers to help her finally put an end to Mojo’s rule. The future savior of that dimension is said to be Shatterstar, so Spiral and Arize travel to the future of Mojoworld together. X-Factor wonders if they should do anything, but decide that there is nothing they can do. Havok feels sorry that his former teammate is destined to always fail at his goal, but Val thinks that everybody can learn from his or her mistakes.

What Else Went Down: Val Cooper is overrun with paperwork, but she decides to put it off until the next day because she has tickets to a Salute to Motown concert. However she decides to stay and do her work after Multiple Man calls Val and impersonates President Bush. Val reluctantly gives the tickets to him and Wolfsbane and goes through all of the papers. After she finishes, a dragon made of papers attacks her. It chases her all over the office until she manages to get it into a paper shredder. Unfortunately, after she shreds it, the shreddings make up another monster that attacks her.

Jamie wakes up Val and tells her that he feels guilty about tricking her, revealing that Val was dreaming about the paper monsters. Val rewards his honesty by chasing him with scissors and a letter opener.

What Else Also Went Down: A young boy named Cal, who is obviously modeled after Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, is being bullied at school. He decides to go to Strong Guy’s house and hire him to be his bodyguard. After telling him his story, Cal convinces Guido to go intimidate the bullies for him. After giving the kids a good scare, Guido leaves.

A couple of weeks later, Strong Guy decides to check in on Cal, but he is shocked to discover that Cal is now the bully, threatening to sick Guido on anybody that doesn’t listen to him. Guido shakes him down and tells Cal that he doesn’t want to ever see him bullying again.

How It Was: Well… it’s something. I’ll start with the good. Joe Quesada’s art is very good; all of the panels have a nice sense of motion and action, so it’s a solid effort from Marvel’s future editor-in-chief. Also, the origin of Spiral is surprisingly gripping. At first it seems that she’s just out for revenge because Arize helped turn her into a freak of nature, but the fact that she is forced to relive her own downfall over and over again is actually a really interesting take on a character that controls time and space.

Now for the bad. As I stated before, the first two opening sequences are absolutely pointless and contribute very little to the overall story. But the major fault of this story is the boring fight that takes up most of the issue. I know before I complained about villains being one dimensional, and Spiral definitely isn’t. The main problem is that Spiral is outnumbered by six, and the fight is completely one sided. There’s just not a lot she can do against characters like Strong Guy, Quicksilver, and Havok. Furthermore, Arize’s plan to free people of Mojo’s signal seemed pretty dumb since Earth TV is just as monotonous and insubstantial as anything that Mojo could show.

Unlike the other issues, the back-up strips are actually better than the main story. Peter David’s humor is always what made X-Factor work, whether it’s with Madrox impersonating George Bush or Cal’s great line at the end of his story, David has a lot of fun with these quick, silly tales. They are by no means his greatest work, but they are a lot better to read than any part of Shattershot or any of the other mini stories thus far.

C-

Uncanny X-Men Annual #16

Uncanny X-Men Annual #16
Writing: Fabian Nicieza, Chris Cooper, and Skip Dietz
Art: Jae Lee and Herb Trimpe

What Went Down: We are introduced to the Death Sponsors in their one and only appearance, as far as I know. They are a group fighting for a pirate channel that is seeking to usurp viewers from Mojo’s channel, thus placing them in charge because in that world whoever has the highest ratings controls the world. The team consists of Sweepzweak, Deadair, Lead-In, Cancellator, and Timeslot. Are you laughing yet? Their shadowy boss is Mojo II, and he sends them to Earth to complete one of three tasks in order to gain higher ratings; either find Spiral, Arize, or Longshot. Since Arize is the focus of the crossover, he is their target for this issue.

Cut to the mansion where—surprise, surprise—the Gold Team is in the Danger Room running a simulation; this one involves rescuing innocents from a burning building. Can you tell Nicieza was having trouble filling up pages? At any rate, Colossus is stuck holding up the building while Storm, Iceman, and Archangel are looking for people. This leaves new recruit Bishop to be blindsided by Apocalypse. Rather than allow Colossus to decide between saving him and holding up the building, Bishop brandishes a gun and threatens to kill himself rather than be used as a bargaining chip. Professor X ends the session, and everyone comments on how unpredictable Bishop is.

Meanwhile Jean is sifting through Arize’s memories, trying to help him remember who he is. Essentially he is responsible for creating any humanoids that are in Mojoworld, and he feels bad that they are all slaves. He also created Longshot, and gave him self-determination. Arize worries that he is responsible for many deaths even though he can’t remember how; the Professor and Jean console him.

For some reason, the Death Sponsors appear in Japan. Shortly after that, they detect Arize and teleport to the mansion. What’s the point? Why to fill up three pages.

Back at the mansion, Bishop questions the Professor about why they are bothering with Arize. The answer is basically: because that’s what heroes do, although Jean makes a weak attempt to frame Arize as a mutant in his world because he is different and an outcast. The alarm goes off and the Gold Team fights the Death Sponsors. The X-Men hold their own until one of the Sponsors activates a power disruptor that turns off all of their powers. Bishop draws his rifle while one of the Death Sponsor’s restores Arize’s memory. As they teleport away with Arize, Bishop shoots the teleporter, which causes them to teleport without Arize because they are all mind linked, for some reason. Bishop even throws in a groan inducing “Hasta la vista, baby.”

After regaining his memory, Arize decides to leave the X-Men to try to help save his world from Mojo. The rest of the Gold Team comment on Bishop and his unpredictability again; they wonder whether or not they can trust him.

What Else Went Down: Archangel is fighting Mandroids at a laboratory of some kind. While rescuing a scientist, he gets shot. As he lays dying, a blue woman named Amalgam appears and talks about how this is the second time she has met Warren.

A flashback occurs to the Morlock tunnels during the Morlock Massacre, after Angel was stabbed in the wings. She offers Warren the chance to give her his powers and memories so that his death will not be in vain. Then she turns into Cyclops and Beast to try to convince him. Warren finally agrees, but as she absorbs his powers, she uses Destiny’s powers to see that he is needed in the future.

Warren then wakes up as Archangel in the present in the infirmary of the mansion. All of the X-Men comment on how happy they are that he survived.

What Else Went Down: Bishop is outside brooding, and Storm decides to make an attempt to get him to open up. Basically Bishop is homesick and feels guilty about letting his companions Malcolm and Randall die. He also brings up a tree that survived in his time as the only remaining marker of the school. The original class of X-Men allegedly planted it, but in the present it doesn’t exist. Storm leaves Bishop to his brooding, and he falls asleep outside. When he wakes up, it is raining and Storm has planted a tree in the spot, giving Bishop hope for the future.

How It Was: A minor, oh so minor improvement over the first part of Shattershot. On the one hand, the Death Sponsors are a lot cooler looking and more imposing than Mojo’s assorted henchmen from the first part. But unfortunately they are stuck with the gimmicky names and barely half a personality to share between the entire group. But the fight is far more entertaining then the previous one, and Nicieza manages to get some tension going towards the end, although he has to have a contrived power neutralizer to get the rest of the team out of the way. And Bishop gets a legitimately cool and redeeming moment, and then ruins it by quoting the Terminator.

But the same problems also crop up in this issue. Once again Nicieza starts with an unnecessary Danger Room sequence for lack of a better idea. Once again there are scenes with the villains that add nothing to the story, such as having them appear in Japan, realize they are in the wrong spot, and leave Japan. And there is Arize, whose origin is given a little more detail, but most of it was easily pieced together from the hints last issue. Plus, if you’ll remember my X-Cutioner’s Song reviews, Jae Lee’s art continues to not impress me. Although I will go as far as to say that the Death Sponsors' designs really benefit from his style, and the fight scenes and dream scenes he draws are pretty dynamic. However, the scenes where everybody is talking just look odd when matched up with the art. Probably the best chapter of Shattershot, but that isn’t saying a lot.

As for the back up stories, neither one really affects the overall narrative of the X-Men or makes a huge impression. The Archangel/Amalgam story is just weird and feels like a part of a bigger story that never got started. Also, if her thing is to take dead people’s powers and memories, why does she use Cyclops and Beast as examples? If she can travel throughout time, why doesn’t she go to Warren’s actual final death? It just doesn’t feel like it was that thought out. As for the Bishop story, it’s kind of mushy and doesn’t really matter at all. Both back up stories are pretty bad for this chapter.

C

X-Men Annual #1

X-Men Annual # 1
Writer: Fabian Nicieza and Dan Slott
Art: Way Too Many to List and Karl Altstaetter

Sorry it has been so long, real life and all that. Let's try this again. It’s a retroactive review since I didn’t have these issues at the time. I’ll be putting them in the appropriate order later down the line. The Shattershot story takes place before Uncanny #289 because Forge is still around, but after X-Men #9 because Bishop is around and an established member of the team. Also, each issue is 64 pages long, so these are gonna be some loooong posts.

What Went Down: This story takes place before the Mojo story in X-Men #10-11.
The story starts off in Mojoworld where a rebellion of bipeds has formed to fight Mojo’s tyranny. Most of them get slaughtered and the rebel leader Quark, a goat man with an eye patch…seriously, gets captured for brainwashing. Also getting captured is Arize, the star of this crossover, but he manages to teleport to earth. Mojo mentions that without the time dancer Spiral, Arize will surely be driven insane.

In the Danger Room, Psylocke and Beast are competing with Gambit and Rogue to reach a button. Psylocke wins, and is rewarded by having Wolverine try to gut her. Cyclops explains that the mission isn’t over until everyone gets home. Fortunately Professor X interrupts the rest of his lecture.

Forge and the Professor explain that Cerebro has picked up a non-human signature in Afghanistan. So the blue team goes off to investigate.

Mojo and his lackey Major Domo discuss plans to retrieve Arize. After once again establishing that Spiral is necessary to teleport people between dimensions, Mojo decides to televise the hunt, as if the reader couldn’t have called that twist from a million miles away.

As the X-Men approach the Afghani camp, they are attacked by the militants there. Because this is the 90’s, and pre-9/11, the X-Men actually take a sympathetic stance towards the rebels; if you know your world history of the time, Afghanistan had helped fight the Soviets and were actually able to keep a Soviet dictatorship out of their country, due to the U.S. backing them with weapons and supplies, but afterwards it left a power vacuum where the rightful government and infrastructure of the country should be. Regardless, the X-Men beat up the soldiers until Beast explains their true purpose to the leader of the camp; apparently the Beast speaks fluent Pushti.

Arize is discovered under the care of the Afghani people with no memory of who he is or where he came from. At the same time, Mojo’s soldiers arrive on Earth, notably without Spiral. Semi-important characters include the brainwashed Quark, who we met at the beginning of the issue, and the father/son team of Gog and Magog, who believe it or not do appear in later X-Men stories. Psylocke scans Arize’s mind and discovers some vague hints about the rebellion and a fallen messiah who is not named, but is obviously Longshot. Suddenly she senses another presence, which happens to be the bad guys.

The X-Men fight off the bad guys. During the battle, the bad guys express the fact that they have no choice but to obey Mojo, otherwise their lives and families would be forfeit; the X-Men are completely unsympathetic and explain that everybody has free choice. The bad guys mention Longshot before escaping through a portal—please note that once again, they are without Spiral. Cyclops prevents Wolverine and Rogue from following, even though Longshot was their friend and teammate back in the late 80s.

Back in Mojoworld, we learn that the ratings for the battle with the X-Men were huge, but they were detrimental to Mojo because they made him appear incompetent. A mysterious individual oversees Mojo on a monitor. This shadowed character turns out to be Mojo II from X-Men #10-11.

What Else Went Down: In the back up story, Jubilee decides to prove herself by programming all of the X-Men’s greatest enemies into the Danger Room. Wolverine stops her, and then as a quick educational experience, goes through the top ten X-Men villains. In order from ten to one they are: Mojo, the Reavers, Sentinels, the Brood, the Upstarts, Omega Red, Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, Magneto, and the number one enemy is…hatred and intolerance. Nitpicks of note: Wolverine is wearing his brown costume even though this story has to take place after the introduction of Omega Red, where he started wearing his yellow outfit again. Also, most of the Upstarts are completely wrong except for Fitzroy and Cortez, but Cortez is supposed to be a secret at this point.

How It Was: Shattershot is a pretty weak story all together. It deals a lot with Mojoworld, which has never been too central to the X-Men, and it deals with a lot of really awful villains, except for Spiral. While there are some attempts to expand on the origin of Longshot, you can pretty much guess that Arize is his creator from the start.

This issue starts the mediocrity off. A lot of space is padded with exposition, such as the discussion about the necessity of having Spiral, even though she never shows up in this issue. And the Danger Room sequence at the beginning could also be labeled as completely unnecessary. Plus Arize isn’t really interesting at all; he’s mainly a plot device to be passed from X-team to X-team to continue the story. His arc consists of going from amnesiac to guilt ridden, tortured genius to crusader working towards redemption. It’s not bad; it’s just that none of it is particularly compelling or stands out in any way; the bad guys in this issue don’t help as you’re never convinced that they have a chance of defeating the X-Men.

I will admit that considering the number of artists on this issue (seven pencilers and six inkers) it doesn’t really look too bad. Also, there is a really funny speech from Beast when he tries to describe the differences between all of the X-groups. But all told this issue, and the story in general, is for completists only, and you can easily ignore it and not miss out on too much, unless you’re a huge Longshot or Mojo fan for some reason.

As for the back up strip, it isn’t anything to write home about. It is early Dan Slott, who recently finished up a really great arc on Mighty Avengers, so there is that. But outside of that, it isn’t even really a story, and the ending is so cheesy your eyes just might roll so hard as to get stuck.

D+