Trimming the Collection: Mutant X #1

I Can't Believe I Own This Comic
Mutant X #1
by Howard Mackie & Tom Raney

Okay, let me justify myself first. I am a sucker for alternate universe stories. Not the boring 'Nazis won World War II' stuff, but skewed versions of fictional worlds that I enjoy. It is a weakness of mine, along with dark-haired woman and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Secondly, my love of the X-universe from my early days of my comic book passion still affects me in strange ways. Finally, I really dig Tom Raney's art. It's got a cool, funky vibe, with a sharp line, and I've enjoyed it since Stormwatch with Warren Ellis. These are the reasons I bought this book. And not because it's a 'Collector's Item 1st Issue!' as it screams on the cover.


I won't go into too much bashing of Howard Mackie, as this has been done before by better and more-vicious writers than I, but it is quite awful stuff. This is apart from his attempt at lyrical prose: 'I remember dying.' (We wish.) He has Havok complain about the expositional dialogue he spouts concerning the Sentinels in the first pages, where they state everyone's names and powers so the readers know who everyone is, a bad sign when you have to take the piss out of your own poor writing ability. He follows this by having the Sentinels killed by the ultimate weapon – vampire-controlled rats! Genius. Why didn't the X-Men think of that before?

Anyway, for the sake of the story, the Havok of the normal Marvel universe somehow swaps places with a presumably dying Havok of this alternate universe. There could be many reasons for this, but I think it's because our Havok has a really bad costume; look at it, with all the straps and the completely pointless mask bits on his face. Does he have to use that skin glue that gymnasts and Gladiators use so their costumes don't ride up their arse cracks? It's so stupid.




















He's probably glad to be rid of it. It allows him to grow a Raney goatee: it's not quite a full-grown goatee, more stubbly in appearance, and seems to exist in an unnatural shape around the chin and up the side of the jaw. How the hell does he get it like that? I used to have a basic square goatee, and that was a nightmare to keep straight at the best of times; Alex must have to spend hours in the bathroom in the morning getting it to look like that.

The reason I liked the idea behind this book is presented in the page below. The use of X-book continuity to provide alternate versions of the heroes. Alex takes the place of Scott in the original X-Men, leaving with Maddie and child when Magneto (in his gay wrestling costume) takes over the X-Men after Professor X left in issue 200; Ororo is a vampire because of Dracula from an X-Men annual; Bobby is the super-cold version of Iceman from when Loki wanted him to start the last winter in Thor (when Walt Simonson was writing Thor and drawing X-Factor, and his wife Louise was writing the latter); Warren is the angel of death from the Apocalypse incident; Hank is extrapolated into the Brute from all the experimentation his body has gone through; and Maddie is still the Goblyn queen from the Inferno crossover. All extremely geeky, but I can't help but like it. Sad, isn't it?


The story is all very silly, with Nick Fury kidnapping Alex and Maddie's child at Liberty Island, with Elektra as his nanny of course, so we can finish with a fight, but it's not worth writing about. Mackie has taken an idea, slapped an X in it, got a decent artist to draw it and then frittered it all away. Why this was made into an ongoing series is beyond me. Surely it would work better as a small storyline in an existing series? I know that anything with an X in the title got its own book in the '90s, but Havok? When did he deserve that sort of treatment? He is a supporting character at best, not the person to base an entire series around. Did Mackie have incriminating photographs of somebody? Or was it because Mutant X was too good a title (in their minds) NOT to use?

Whatever the reason, I am ashamed to own this book. I can't believe I haven't thrown it in the dustbin where it belongs. I used to justify retaining it by saying that I liked the Raney art, but that's simply not good enough. It's time for me to let go. 'Indiana, let it go …'

Trimming the Collection: Ultimate Daredevil Elektra

Ultimate Daredevil Elektra #1–4
by Greg Rucka & Salvador Larroca

This Ultimatization is essentially a new version of the origin of Elektra; Daredevil does appear, in the form of Matt Murdock in a mask, but it is definitely how the Ultimate Elektra came to be. I'm not sure why they did this. It seems a strange mix of things. The covers have DD and Elektra in costume, when DD doesn't use it in the story, and Elektra doesn't use hers until issue 4. Even then, it is still a strange outfit she has, presumably to make it more 'real world', like the Ultimate X-Men leathers. Is this mini-series supposed to be picking up on buzz from the film? Is it supposed to make Elektra a viable character for the Ultimate universe? And why does it never once explain DD's powers in the book, even though he uses them extensively at one point?

Basically, instead of a rich daddy's girl, Elektra is the daughter of a dry cleaner from Queens, who has done karate since she was 6 years old when her mum died from breast cancer, under the tutelage of Sensei Stone, an old white woman. She is starting her studies at Columbia University, meeting new friends and becoming smitten with Matt Murdock. The reason for her turning to the dark side in this world is the rape of a college friend by a stereotypical rich jock, and his escape from justice due to his father's political connections to powerful people.

After threatening Stereotypical Rich Jock Raper, after which she has a classic heroes-meet-and-fight with Matt dressed in black, the Rich Jock Raper gets people to bomb her father's business. While Matt finds the bombers and gets them to confess, Elektra has planned a trap for the Stereotypical Rich Jock Raper where she will kill him. DD finds out and goes to stop her, revealing himself to her, as she had suspected, but she turns away from DD after sticking a sai in the Raper's thigh.

It's not quite as powerful an origin story as the few pages of Miller's version, is it? Rucka does good dialogue and strong female characters, and Larroca's art is very pretty, pleasing on the eye while telling the story; I particularly liked his use of blurring for the Elektra-Stone sparring. But it serves a weak story idea, that feels like a waste of their talents.

Trimming the Collection: Ash (vol. 1)

Ash vol. 1 (Trade collecting #1–5)
by Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti

I can't recall if it was Azrael or The Ray where I first saw the dazzling art of Joe Quesada, back when he was just an artist, but I do know that I liked it. It sizzled with energy and a style created perfectly for the comic book. It was different, a little unusual, but detailed and dynamic, and he could tell a story. I looked out for his stuff thereafter, and was excited at being able to get this collection of his co-creator-owned series.

The central idea is a good one; a firefighter superhero. I don't think it's been done before (or since), and seemed an obvious idea when you think about it. However, the strength of the central concept seems to be handled in a strange way, with Ash being a, well, I'm not sure; an alien? A robot? Lifeforce suit? The juxtaposition of the surreal Ash with the real-world horror of people who risk their lives fighting fires doesn't work, seeming bizarre and uncomfortable. Especially when Ashley has to vomit fire in order to become Ash.

The story seems to involve Ashley becoming Ash, with deviations along the way to include other characters that deflect from the central one. The story lacks clarity, confusing the narrative with so many other people – the Brides, Covenant, the Actor, Gabriel – in just five issues that you just want them to slow down and tell the main story.

There are some nice asides, like the appearance of Clark Kent and Lois Lane on the television news, but there is a touch of the artist-proving-he-is-a-writer, with the excess of quotes by famous writers (Dickens, Elliot, Shelley) to justify superheroics. Quesada employs an overly fussy style here, with an excess of flaming lines surrounding Ash whenever he moves, and bizarre extreme close-ups in double-page spreads (well, it was the '90s after all) and there are quite a few of them. It's a case of too much too soon, with everything thrown into the pot without letting any flavours come through. I applaud the efforts of Joe & Jimmy in creating their own company for their own story, which has led to so much, but Ash didn't set my world on fire (apologies for the terrible pun).

Trimming the Collection – Nexus: The Origin

Nexus: The Origin
by Mike Baron & Steve 'The Dude' Rude

Some comic-reading history first. I got the bug in my teens, in the mid-to-late '80s, reading superhero comics, like most other people. For me, it was the X-books; I couldn't get enough Claremont and mutant soap opera. However, by my early 20s, at the start of the '90s, I was beginning my journey into the world of 'other' comic books; non-superhero comics, indies, even, gulp, black & white books. It was a journey of discovery that led me to the wider world of comics, and this book was supposed to be an in-road.

This book was published by Dark Horse in 1992, after unwrangling some of the legal difficulties of the ownership rights. Nexus was one of the great indie successes, starting at Capital before 80 monthly issues at First Comics, before they went tits up. This story was the introduction to the world of Nexus and the amazing art of The Dude. I wasn't going to start tracking down an independent with 80 issues to go through, so this seemed like a perfect sampler.

Nexus is 'the cosmic avenger, the reluctant executioner', an ordinary man given extraordinary powers and haunting dreams about the most despicable beings in the universe, handing out summary justice on them. This story tells the full backstory to his family, how his father was a genocidal army officer who destroyed an entire world, even though he married a woman from the planet and fathered Nexus. It is a strong tale, told well, despite the obviousness of the stand-in bad guys (Sovs and some rather blatant Nazi-types), and the fact that Nexus is essentially a superhero, albeit with a great costume.

The magic here is the art. The Dude can draw something fierce. The art is beautiful in itself, and is powerful and stunningly designed. The visual sense is strong, the singular, easily identifiable style of Rude a feast for the eyes, the soft lines underpinning the dynamic feel. It is quite something. However, this glimpse isn't enough to make me dig through the back-issue bins; I know I'm probably missing out on something quite special, but it's a decision with which I'll try to live.

Trimming the collection: Bastard Samurai #1–3

Bastard Samurai
Conceived, co-written and inked by Mike Avon Oeming
Written & co-created by Miles Gunther
Pencilled, coloured and co-created by Kelsey Shannon

The book has a cracking title and a good idea, as quoted by our protagonist: 'I fight in black market death matches run by the Yakuza.' Issue 1 sees some discussion about Kuji No Ito meditation, for the cerebral aspect, but we also our protagonist in well-choreographed, big fights that end up with him realising that he has killed his own brother. The next issue has him take out the enemy school of swords before going to his own school. The final issue sees him fighting his old master for most of the length of the book and killing him. Although the art is visually stylistic, dynamic and cinematic, with some artistic flourishes in places, the story seems quite slender for the three issues. I have a weakness for modern samurai stories, and Oeming has brownie points from the excellent Powers, so this book was an almost obligatory purchase. However, the narrative didn't hold up and warrant repeat viewings; enjoyable while it lasted but the combination of the whole didn't add up to a satisfactory experience. At least it still has a great name.

Trimming the collection: Suicide Squad v2 #1–12

Suicide Squad (Volume 2) #1–12
by Keith Giffen & Paco Medina

The original Ostrander/Yale Suicide Squad had a lot of charm and took a great idea and played with it. This revival plays on that charm and history, but bypasses a lot of grounding and characterisation to try something that never completely clicks.

Giffen is excellent at providing the minimum information required for the reader to understand what is going on in the story. He does this mostly with dialogue and hints of backstory, but it can leave you needing a PhD in DC Universe history to comprehend who everyone is and about their interactions. This worked to much better effect on his reboot of the Legion of Superheroes, which I thoroughly enjoyed, with the strongly defined characters, it doesn't quite work with some new players and a bunch of minor supervillains.

There is a lot to enjoy in these twelve issues. The banter and pacing is fun, and some of the new characters are intriguing. However, the mix of humour and death that Ostrander and Yale achieved isn't matched here, not hitting quite the right note. We almost get to know the people involved enough to care about the outcome, which is given away by the title of the series (absolutely great logo, by the way), but don't reach the same level as the previous incarnation.

One aspect that I enjoyed without fail was the art. Medina has a funky, muscular, cartoony, chunky style with expressive faces, which helps with the dialogue scenes, and dynamic camera movement in the action scenes.

It's a strange mix of storytelling. The first issue has in media res and flashbacks and dialogue, then we move into action. Then issue 3 has people being eaten by ants. Issue 5 brings back Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, which brings a smile to the face of a fan of the old Squad, but it is brought down by the presence of an annoying old woman who knows it all but doesn't tell everything – I wanted to wring her scrawny neck by the end, which could be what Giffen was going for, but left me hating the story. Issues 6–8 sees the appearance of a mysterious island near Kooey Kooey Kooey, only for the Squad fail to do anything effective at all.

Issue 9 is all talking heads, and nothing to do with the cover, which Medina livens up by having Havana wear a blouse that is practically cut to her navel to expose her cleavage in some scenes; this seems an odd choice given that she is meeting with her mother, Amanda Waller, former head of the Squad, who gave her up for adoption.

(Issue 9 has 'Begin Phase Two' on the cover, which is a little unfortunate considering the series ended three issues later.)

Issue 10, like issue 4, is a Rock and Bulldozer flashback, with some old school art, whereas issues 11 and 12 kill off the current team, using a connection to the old Squad, by bumping off the two characters, Havanna and Modem, who were genuinely interesting, and keeping mysteries around in case the book gets a reprieve. Apart from the art and Giffen banter, there was no 'magic' to this book that drew you back to it each month. It seemed to trade off a name and an idea, but not succeeding in doing anything special with it. Mark it as good effort but could do better.

Trimming the collection: I Die At Midnight

I Die At Midnight
by Kyle Baker

The Cowboy Wally Show and Why I Hate Saturn are sublime in their beauty, wit and charm. Baker need never work again, if the quality of work was rewarded. In the real world, artists need to create to live. I want to support comedic geniuses, which is why I bought this book.

I Die At Midnight does not compare to the two former works. This is a more traditional, narrative-driven story, which, although maintaining the appearances of a Baker book (the expressive and exuberant art, the captions underneath the panels, the strong characters delineated with minimum fuss), feels more like an overheard anecdote, or the start of an odd joke, that has been riffed upon via a Hollywood script machine to produce a chase film.

A man takes an overdose on New Year's Eve because his girlfriend has dumped him. However, she turns up to rekindle their love. He doesn't want to tell her he has taken an OD, in case it scuppers the relationship, so attempts to cure himself without her knowing. He goes to extreme and silly lengths to accomplish this, involving running and jumping and tall buildings and thuggish ex-boyfriends and flying in helicopters.

I feel that I didn't enjoy this by comparing it to his earlier work, wanting more of the same funniness and satire of modern life. It just didn't feel like Baker to me or, rather, not the Baker I wanted. I wanted the comedy; Baker brought a light, unengaging work that, even when I reread it for this post, I zipped through, not caring about it all.

Trimming the Collection: Just a Pilgrim (Series 1)

JUST A PILGRIM (Series 1)
Garth Ennis & Carlos Ezquerra

Even if Ennis wasn't a great writer, he demands attention for having written Preacher and Hitman, among others. So, the chance of seeing him let loose on his own creation seemed like an obvious choice, and it had the pleasing art of Ezquerra, with his Spanish brand of futurism and grime I'd come to love from reading 2000AD in my formative comic book years. However, the five issues of this story never quite hit the same high marks of previous Ennis work.

'Eight years after the burn.' That's a good line, and gives you all you need to know; a post-apocalyptic world in five words. But then, a boy runs out into the middle of a firefight to look for his diary – how implausible is that?

The Pilgrim is a nice design, mixing a simple approach with a hint of superhero motif, with the cross over the eye, the large coat and hat of the cowboy (to which Ennis admits), and the Bible angle allows for an unusual approach (after shooting an annoying, yappy dog for no reason, he explains: 'Devil got into him.')

However, the story of a group of people heading out to a promised land with the Pilgrim as a guide seems like a mix of western and a leftover Judge Dredd story where he wanders out to Cursed Earth. Castenado might have sounded funny in Ennis's head, but is just the wrong side of silly for the story, especially when mixed with the unpleasantness of some of the deaths.

Ezquerra is his reliable self, bringing his Dredd licks to the US market, and he draws a good weirdo. Ennis can tell a story, but this one doesn't hold much to it. The cannibalism/soldier/finding Jesus seems to be stretching in order to justify this thin piece of silliness. A down-ending leaves you with a feeling of, 'So what?', which is not the emotion I want to have after reading my comics. I mean, not all stories should have a point, but there should be some reason for reading it in the first place, other than for Ennis to use an idea he had of mixing Pale Rider, Mad Max and Judge Dredd (as he talks about in the letter column). Perhaps I was expecting too much, because I know he can do better.

Trimming the Collection: Bulletproof Monk

The credits on this book are very bizarre. Produced and conceived by Michael Yanover and Mark Paniccia (who are both publishers, and President and Editor-in-Chief, respectively, of Flypaper Press). Written by Brett Lewis & R.A. Jones in various proportions, but based on characters created by Brett Lewis. Story edited by Gotham Chopra, which is perhaps the weirdest credit of all. It all sounds like comics done as a film, with the production company coming up with the idea, hiring people to make it, and having the 'story editor' to do the day-to-day production. Which makes for a bit of a mess of a comic.

The name and concept is pretty cool: Bulletproof Monk sounds great, and the idea of him fighting the Nazis in Tibet is a lot of fun. However, that's about it. The story is, if I may keep up the film production analogy, an executive mixing kung fu and Joseph Campbell's work on mythology, as Kar becomes the one, the bulletproof monk. It takes him three issues to do this, after falling for a girl who becomes leader of the Chinese gang he falls in with in San Francisco. Optimistically, they end the third issue with 'The Beginning'.

The art is good, as Mike Avon Oeming provides his cool and kinetic pencils to elevate the story, but the text boxes and dialogue are sometimes torturous to read, and is dull and annoying when it just tries to be poetic. Kar decides to do things because the plot calls for it, as do many of the characters in the book, and you're left wondering why it was picked up to become a movie in the first place, even if the movie was an unbelievably diabolical stinker that did the impossible of making Chow Yun-Fat look uncool.

Trimming the collection: nobody

nobody by Alex Amado, Sharon Cho and Charlie Adlard

nobody is a very good comic book. It is well written, tells the story well visually and has an interesting hook. However, it does not reach the level of must-have or essential reading that my Trimming the Collection rules require.

The story is intriguing: combining hard-boiled with demonology, Jessica Drake is nobody, a sort of freelance agent in the world of demons, magic and the spiritual. She is given assignments by a shadowy contact, and is helped by Marcus, confidant and computer person. Apart from being a tough, feisty, driven, morally centred woman, Jessica also has the ability to morph her face into the image of a person she has seen.

The story joins her as she prevents some silly, rich white men from performing a ritual to conjure the dark lord himself. However, the young man to be sacrificed dies in the process. To save his soul, she blesses him before he passes away, which causes consequences that follow her throughout the rest of the book. Meanwhile, one of the silly white men who escaped has started killing young children under the orders of the devil, who wants payback for failure of the original ritual, and who brutally slayed his wife and child. Jessica catches up with him in New Orleans, the place she grew up, but things don’t go as smoothly as she hoped.

The story has many positives. Jessica is a strong and multi-faceted female character. The art, by Adlard, is earthy, able to convey the reality of the streets but also the otherworldliness of the occult. The mixing of hard-boiled and occult is a good combination – I’m reminded of the film Fallen, which mixed the police procedural with the occult. They both have a bit of bleak ending (the film moreso than this book) which, although appropriate, doesn’t leave you wanting more. Also, by having Lucifer as your nemesis, there is a limit to the scope of your story and the extent of the villainy: you can’t get worse than Satan himself, and he will never be destroyed, so what’s the point? A good, well-crafted book but without the magic sparkle of something, be it dialogue or a certain stand-out quality, to elevate it permanent collection status.

Trimming the collection: Channel Zero

Channel Zero by Brian Wood; sorry, 'created, written and illustrated by'

The excessive credits for Wood on the front cover should have given me a hint about what to expect. Something where the author (if that isn’t too limiting a description for Mr Wood) believes they know better, is going to tell us stupid people and we’d better listen.

As Warren Ellis writes in the introduction, Monoculture is a depressingly awful state of affairs, with everyone suffering the same cultural pap, and makes for a good starting point for a story. However, this isn’t really a story, it’s Wood railing against it in a comic book. There is nothing wrong with that; it is a good thing. But I wanted to be entertained during a diatribe, not feel that I’m reading an exercise in design. It is not a guide to or an example of the central idea – it is just Wood musing about it, using his stunning designs.

Wood does have a gift for placing strong images on a page – from the ‘Photocopy this page’ collection of images for stickers/flyers/t-shirts, to the stark, black and white artwork that is laid out like an artist’s portfolio. The visual aesthetic is raw and real, snap shots of life captured and spat on the page, with little info-bursts in the corner or in the gutter between panels. Personally, I don’t like the way he draws people, but he knows anatomy and how to place the camera.

Regarding the story: the Clean Act has been introduced, silencing freedom of speech, and TV is controlled. Jennie 2.5 is a hacker who puts out illegal broadcasts on network channels. She then gets caught, followed by an interlude where a cleaner (a police force assassin) is on assignment – there is nice misdirection as to who is who in this interlude – followed by Jennie being sent into exile, and then returning to New York because she likes dim sum. And that’s about it, really.

I didn’t have a satisfactory reading experience. I can appreciate the imagery and creativity involved in putting together the comic, but I didn’t feel a connection to the protagonist, even if I can understand what Wood is discussing in the book. I read to be entertained, and will take education as a side dish; I don’t order a steak for the accompanying salad, to use a silly expression. I’ll still eat the salad, but the steak has to be good. The book didn’t speak to me, or change my world view, so I can only assume that I’m not using my mind as a weapon, as the book tells me to do. But at least I remember the Public Enemy song of the same name; does that make me hip enough to be part of the gang?

Trimming the collection: Grrl Scouts

Grrl Scouts by Jim Mahfood

I really like the 'food. His art has this great, funky, angular, graffitti-cartoon vibe going on; his characters are visually unique and compelling; and there's a 'comics are fucking cool' attitude to his work. Some of his one-pagers are very funny, as can be his autobiographical stuff. And, he's a white boy who digs funky music and cool flicks, just like me.

However, Grrl Scouts doesn't work for me. It tries too hard to be hip and cool, his three ethnically distinct lead girls being so implausible in their traits. I couldn't handle one of the characters, the white girl who wants to be black, spouting lines like 'This is da' shit!! Saturday morning with the three essential Cs – coffee, cartoons, and -- da chronic!!!' before having the girls spout extended author rants on how cartoons brainwash kids.

Essentially, the story is about the three girls, who deal drugs to get by, and enjoy life in Freak City, before their lives are changed by the intervention of the Brotherhood of the Cracker and the Nykee Corporation, both of which should win special awards for total lack of subtlety. The girls retaliate, with extreme and over-the-top violence after a week (a week!) of training from one of the girl's long-lost father, and win the day.

The whole thing feels very juvenile, with gratuitous joke about Daphne being a noisy, sweary girl during sex, which goes on 3 panels too long, followed by a spot of fourth-wall breaking, and even an appearance from Jim in the book himself. The white male fantasy of cool, sexy chicks with guns who take no shit and stand up to The Man felt, well, a bit sad. I bought the book because I enjoy Mahfood's cartooning skills but felt rather disappointed in the result. I'm amazed it got a second series.

Trimming the collection: the explanation

My comic collection is quite large. This is understandable, as I've been collecting for a while now. I try to keep it controlled, with occasional pruning. In some instances, this has lead to me donating comics to a children's hospital (my karma was smiling that day), but sometimes I have just put them in a recycle bin, so completely horrible were the comics and the state they were in. (Don't worry, they weren't precious comics, just some old Marvel and DC rubbish that were produced in bulk.)

I am currently going through another rethink of my collection. There are comics and trade paperbacks that I have bought that I don't re-read. I believe that this is a sign that I don't really want them, as I would be dipping back into them on a regular basis. Looking at the titles in my spreadsheet that documents my collection, I can vaguely recall why I purchased them in the beginning. Sometimes, it was a recommendation from a good source, that didn't reflect my tastes. Sometimes, I was buying to support a title I thought I would like and would get low orders, only for me not to enjoy the title. Sometimes, I bought it and then found that it wasn't as good as I originally thought. So, it is time for them to move on.

I'm still thinking about where they will end up. I won't throw things away if possible, but they do have to go. eBay is an option, although it seems to be quite labour-intense. Giving them away is an option, but I would have to make sure that people actually wanted them. Another possibility is some sort of book exchange with like-minded individuals, the sort of people who might read this blog. Whatever the result of these ruminations, I shall be going through the collection and trimming it down to the books I really want, and subsequently reviewing them for the purpose of reminding myself and for honing my tastes and, hopefully, learning lessons about what to buy and what not to buy.

Trimming the collection: reviewing comics I don't want anymore …