First Relaunch, Then Refocus.

Not as good as the first volume, but not the worst.

This week is the continuing saga of Grant Morrison and the X-Men or, as it is also known, New X-Men Ultimate Collection Volume 2. The Amazon thingo the kids all bang on about can sell it to you for about $23 US which is reasonable value for 360 pages. It's just a pity about some of those pages.

You see, this volume contains a number of stories which have good ideas, but don't quite hit they way they should. It's also fair to say that this volume does most of the real set-up work for what should have been Morrison's final New X-Men story (more about that next week). What you do get are more hot Xorn action (that also give hints about his real identity), the introduction of Fantomex, Beak and Angel forming a relationship, Scott and Emma getting caught psychically cheating (what you thought Scott and Emma just hooked up after Jean died? For Shame!), Polaris in Genosha, the introduction of Dust, the whole Riot at Xavier's story, and the Who Shot the White Queen.

No X-fan could pass up this cat-fight.

It sounds like a lot to read, but a number of those stories are one or two issues long, and a lot of them can be ignored. The Scott and Emma stuff is great, Riot at Xavier's was solid, but could have been so much more (it did give us some of the more juvenile humour I can recall in an X-Men title in the last decade), watching Jean grow towards Phoenix level powers is great, and Who Shot the White Queen was also enjoyable. But all the Fantomex stuff is so easily passed.

RIIIIOT! All the dweebs are doin' it.

The art varies from issue to issue depending on who out of Igor Kordey, John Paul Leon, Phil Jimenez, Ethan Van Sciver, Keron Grant, and Frank Quietly. Apart from most (there's the odd panel or two that are pure gold) of John Paul Leon's work, there should be no real complaints about the art, so becomes clear that the downside is the writing. The thing is every complaint I have is based on how much better things could have been. How much better Riot at Xavier's could have been if the riot had lasted more than part of an afternoon. How much better Kick could have been explained. How things would have been different and maybe better if Jean had found Scott and Emma earlier (before going on crowd control duties - as I'd like to see her take the same mindset out on the mere humans). Most importantly, I'd like to have seen Quentin Quire take his psychic abilities and do something that is truly apart from the Xavier/Magneto divide: cut mutant hatred out of the minds of humans.

Would I recommend this book. Not really. I don't see any of it as required reading for the current status quo. I don't see any of the plot lines (apart from Scott and Emma getting found out) as becoming classic. I see this as nothing more than a stepping stone on the road to the "stunning conclusion" in volume 3. If you don't intend to read that, don't read this.

If you own this already, would you really re-read it if you weren't reading the whole of Morrison's run? Really? I can't admit that I would.

Next Week I'll polish off New X-Men and allow us all to exhale and get onto something a fair bit different.

100% more controversial than anything reviewed thus far.

Not So New X-Men

Funny how a lot of X-Men relaunches feature
 "X-Men walking towards the camera" type shots.

Grant Morrison's New X-Men is, in my honest opinion, a bit too highly regarded. Yes it has moments of greatness, yes it has moments that are appalling, and yes it has everything in between. What it manages to land at almost every point is "original". There are a number of formats to collect the entire run in be they single issues, trade paperbacks, the huge Omnibus, or the form I chose - the Ultimate Collection of three volumes. The first volume (this week's topic of review) is available from Amazon for around the $23 US mark at present, and contains issues 114-126 and the 2001 Annual, totalling some 376 pages (including bonus covers and sketches).

I need to be up front here and go on record as someone that does knock Grant Morrison. I also need to go on record as saying that whatever you've heard about this book, it's probably true. Because there's plenty of room for interpretation of quality here, and it's not possible to put it down to any one thing. Yes Kordey's art is terrible. Yes Quitely does great art (if you like his style, which I can never seem to decide on). Yes some of the ideas are wonderful. Yes some of those ideas are poorly executed. And, yes, Morrison changed the status quo and moved the X-Men away from the typical plot-lines of "mutants are an analogue for minority x".

I mean, it could have been "Alas poor Yorrick!"
Whether that would have been better or worse is up to you.

That last one is important, because Morrison actually begins to set the Mutant Race up as it's own minority, with its own problems unique to themselves. And it makes sense, because no other minority group in the world has the same powers mutants do. It becomes hard to say "mutants are like gay people" or "mutants are like asian people, or black people or indigenous people" because while mutants may also be those things, they are also powerful enough that they could, for example, take over a nation through force without having numerical superiority. And that's just the logical consideration, without bothering to mention that the old minority issues usage had become tired and played-out decades ago.

As a run down of some of the other sweeping changes that occur, New X-Men sees:

• Beast's secondary mutation into a leonine form;
• Genosha's annihilation (it's hard to be a minority when you control a nation);
• Emma Frost's secondary mutation to have her diamond form (as well as joining the X-Men permanently);
• No more spandex uniforms;
• The School for Gifted Youngsters actually functioning as a school;
• The introduction of Cassandra Nova, Xorn, John Sublime, Beak, Angel, and the Stepford Cuckoos; and
• The beginning of the end of Scott and Jean.

There's also a decent fight with the Shi'ar Empire, and imagery involving Charles Xavier's conception that really was a bit unnecessary.

On the face of it, it's not that big a deal, and this volume doesn't contain some of the most talked about points of Morrison's run, however this collection (and the two that follow) are crucial to Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run, which in turn has been pivotal to Matt Fraction's work on Uncanny X-Men.

In the end I think there's a few things to weigh up before deciding on this, the first being if you want to really want to read a well written X-Men book, the second being if you can handle some of the poor art, and finally what format you'd like it in (keeping in mind that the Omnibus now costs an arm and a leg on eBay).

Personally I enjoyed it. I think there's the odd issue (or half issue) here and there that I could skip (really I could probably skip the entire Shi'ar side of things, as I've never found that side of X-Men to be as much fun) without missing too much. But for a fifteen issue collection, it's good value, and also more than a little necessary for reading before next week's review.

Bring it.