Counter X - X-Force Part 2

"Shockwave - Murder Ballads" (X-Force#106-109) - Warren Ellis (based on a story by), Ian Edginton (writer)/Whilce Portacio, Lan Medina, Ariel Olivetti, Enrique Breccia

For their second arc, each of the Counter X titles went back to explain how the Counter X status quo came to be, in four-part stories dubbed "Shockwave." Instead of doing on a full-on flashback, X-Force juxtaposes the flashback scenes with a present-day story in which the team reunites with Domino in the wake of Pete Wisdom's death and helps her combat a murderous pursuer. It's safe to say neither story sets the world on fire. There's definitely an effort to create a group dynamic for the cast, as well as attempts at starting ongoing mysteries, but uninspired plotting and action scenes, fairly lifeless characters, haphazard plot elements, and general malaise prevent this story from being any good.

As mentioned, the story follows two threads. In the past, Pete Wisdom recruits all willing members of X-Force to join him in combating wrongs perpetrated in the Black Ops community, and former team members depart in anger. He proceeds to teach the team new ways of accessing and expanding their powers, while indoctrinating them to his mission. In the present, the team mourn Wisdom's passing, and reunite with Domino, to help her combat Marcus Tsung, a mutant killer who is pursuing her, using 'virtual bullets' to kill his targets from afar. They also investigate an alien device implanted onto Domino's back, while Pete's sister Romany Wisdom hangs around the fringes of the story to hint at her brother's less than heroic past.

The flashback material is really thin here - to the point where, in the final issue, it gets all of one page. Unlike, say, Generation X, which devoted the full four Shockwave issues to flashbacks, this title intersperses a small number of flashback scenes with the Domino story. The only reason I can see for this is that there isn't much of a story to tell for X-Force. Outside of the old team splitting up, it's ground that we all covered in the previous story (in terms of Wisdom’s mission and the powers stuff). The break-up of the previous team is really contrived stuff. Domino and Moonstar have such an adverse reaction to Wisdom taking over and using the team for a bigger purpose, but it doesn't make much sense. Neither of them offer an alternative, and they agree that the team needs a purpose. So Edginton tries to create tension but having everyone yell a lot. Beyond this, the other scenes are fine. There is a nice idea behind expanding the team powers - the last story before Counter X saw the High Evolutionary wipe out the mutant gene. When it was returned, each mutant now had complete access to their full potential, hence, hence things like Proudstar flying. Beyond this, the flashback scenes are thin. The characterization doesn't really work in the break-up scene, and, beyond that, the team kind of just listens to Wisdom talk and shouts about their powers.

So it falls on the present-day scenes to carry the story. It's fairly uninspired on that front. The gist of that story is that Marcus Tsung is trying to kill Domino. Seems simple enough, but Edginton can't seem to decide what he wants the story to be about - is it about Tsung cutting a swath of destruction across America as he looks for her? There are a few simple scenes showing his cold bloodshed, and they are actually good. Unfortunately, the story is cluttered with a bunch of unnecessary crap - extended nonsense about a living alien device growing in Domino's back, the introduction of three Black Ops types to help determine what's going on with the device (all pointless characters, very quickly killed off), and the machinations of Romany Wisdom and her crew, who pop up when necessary. The problem is that the Tsung story doesn't have anything to it. Edginton tries to pad it out with his backstory, but that gets convoluted when we learn Domino has already encountered him and it resulted in this thing growing out of her back. Huh? That just seems to come out of nowhere, and I don't understand why she didn’t tell the team right away. Any intrigue surrounding Tsung’s character is ignored in the final issue, a big fight in the streets with helicopters and explosions. It looks dreadful, has no life to it, and removes any interest from this story. Tsung is also never given a proper motivation. He is killing all mercenaries hired for an old mission (of which Domino is one). Ok. For what reason? The final big fight doesn't even try to discuss that. By that point, we'd become so embroiled in the thing in Domino's back that it's possible Edginton hoped we forgot the villain had no motivation. I'm not even going to touch further on the crap with the three agents investigating Domino's back - what a pointless, waste of time.

The Romany Wisdom scenes are really the only ones of note. Her changing appearance (which I initially figured must have been an art error - I wouldn't put it past this book - until one of the characters mentions it), and general benevolence towards the team are interesting. We don't know where her loyalties lie, and that's potentially a good story here. She drops a bomb on the last page - that Pete himself used to perpetrate the same type of black ops crimes against mutants that he assembled this team to fight against. Yes, it's contrived, clunky, and presented to us as a big exposition dump on the final page - but it could potentially be an interesting story to pursue.

Unlike the first story, there was some effort at characterization here. Unfortunately, most of it is shrill and whiny. The bulk of it is built around the fact that the team went with Wisdom and not Domino, and now they've all got to work together. Most of it falls flat, because Edginton insists on having everyone gripe, bark, and shout at each other. Gone are the Cannonball and Proudstar of old, two sensitive, intelligent young men, or the energy and fun of Meltdown. They're all replaced by whiny kids who yell at each other, when Edginton even bothers to give them dialogue. There is also a lot of talk about how this group are the outsiders, marginalized by the rest of the mutant community. It's all talk, to make this an 'edgy' title, from what I can see. This group is deliberately cut off from the rest of the mutant world because the Counter X titles deliberately did that, not because of anything happening in the story. (Also, I have to mention the high rise tower the team now resides in ... actually, the less said about this twist the better).

It doesn't help the art is a haphazard mess - two issues co-drawn by Portacio and Lan Medina, one by Olivetti, and the final by Breccia. Olivetti actually does a great job, for the most part. His angular, expressive style is more in keeping with the tone of the book than Portacio's art has ever been. He makes use of open space nicely, as well. Medina's clean style does the job on his flashback scenes. The other two are terrible - Portacio has one good scene (when Tsung invades a birthday party and kills everyone). The rest is rushed and ugly. Breccia is perhaps the worst offender. His closing issue, the big fight scene, falls completely flat, with stiff figures, cramped settings, and ugly characters. The big fight was already a cop out from a story point of view, and the art certainly doesn't help it. The whole story feels rushed and ugly as a result of the changing art.

So, another story down for Counter X X-Force and nothing's changed. The plotting is completely uninspired, the characters are miserable to read about, and, with Ellis' influence diminishing, Edginton takes the story in completely unnecessary directions. With the rotating art teams, it makes the book feel like a rushed product, running to keep up.

Counter X - X-Force Part 1

"Games Without Frontiers" (X-Force#102-105) - Warren Ellis, Ian Edginton/Whilce Portacio

Counter X was a last ditch effort to salvage three flagging X-spinoffs in 2000 - X-Force, Generation X, and X-Man. Warren Ellis was pegged as sort of a plotmaster who redefined the concepts behind the three series, leaving the scripting to other individuals (who eventually took over as full writers). This launched in March of 2000, the same month of Chris Claremont's ill-fated return to X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, an event branded "Revolution." All in all, it was a pretty dire time for the mutant books. Outside of Fabian Nicieza's strong work on Gambit, a stellar arc on Wolverine by Steve Skroce, and a well-received run on Cable by Robert Weinberg, Revolution was basically panned. A blight on the X-franchise that required a further creative reshuffle in May 2001.

A few years back, Marvel released the first eight issues of each Counter X title in a series of trades (each book went on to have one further story before concluding). I thought it was an odd decision given their legacy. They’re not seen as Warren Ellis' strongest work. They really struggled to come into their own and do anything interesting with their redefined concepts. The art was of wildly varying quality. Still, I took it as an opportunity to finally read these stories. Prior to this, my collection of these issues was pretty spotty.

So I'm starting off with the first story in the Counter X: X-Force trade. Ellis plots, with a script by Ian Edginton and art by Whilce Portacio. It's worth noting that the second arc of each Counter X title was devoted to filling in the gap as to how the characters changed - the first arc threw us into a new status quo, hinting at what had changed. I had been a fan of X-Force prior to this and thought John Francis Moore did a great job on the book. This new status quo was a complete re-imagining of his approach - it wasn't bright and fun, it didn't have warm, considered characterization, and it was almost deliberately alienating. So how does X-Force's first story hold up?

Well, it wasn't awful, which is what I was expecting. Its heart is actually in the right place, in terms of the new concept. Part of the problem is that you can see where Ellis' concept stops and Edginton's weak attempt to do anything with it starts. Choppy characterization and plotting, weak art, and a fairly bland story are the other problems. Still, some of the ideas here aren't bad.

The story involves a streamlined X-Force roster (Cannonball, Jesse Bedlam, Meltdown, and Proudstar), now led by Warren Ellis creation Pete Wisdom, acting as a covert mutant squad who police scientific groups that have perpetrated crimes against humanity. In this story, Wisdom leads them to dismantle a bioreactor buried beneath San Fransisco that activates the mutant gene in latent mutants, causing their powers to emerge violently as they mutate physically. The reactor is leftover from a decommissioned project called Cuckoo from the 1950s. Meanwhile, as the team do this, Wisdom himself is pursued by a mysterious man, who may be the mutated remnants of Cuckoo's creator, Dr. Niles Roman.

It's a fairly standard story, from the sci-fi tropes at its core to its execution. I do like the high concept Ellis brings to the book. It's not that innovative or unique, but this book needed a concept. Since Age of Apocalypse, the book has been fairly directionless. An often great portrayal of a group of young mutants? Yes, but one without a core concept in sight. I like the idea of paring down the roster and giving them a purpose. The idea that Wisdom has made them test their powers in new ways is also good. The problem is that the cast don't connect to this premise - Pete Wisdom knows everything about the case and the team just listen to his stories and follow his orders. They don't seem particularly motivated to right the wrongs of underground scientific activity. Ellis builds on a tradition that includes Black Air from his run on Excalibur and the Captain Britain Warpies story. That stuff all gets lips service here. The problem is that those stories play into the lengthy Marvel UK traditional and history, and Sam, Jesse, Tabitha, and James have nothing to do with that.

The other problem is that the story presented here is pretty basic stuff. To the creative team's credit, they pull off some wordless scenes, where powers erupt out of people in San Fransisco, which are pretty good. But the story doesn't go anywhere. The final issue is a big fight scene in San Fran that is kind of dreadful in spots - full of the team using their powers in new ways and congratulating each other, as the background visuals get sparser. And there's a weird plot problem here - Wisdom says mutants can't deactivate the bioreactor because going near it will cause their powers to go out of control. Then X-Force go off to deactivate it. Ok. The story also has an utterly bizarre ending. The mysterious man pursuing Wisdom finds him, kills him off panel, and then the team abruptly discover his body in the final panel. It's choppy, arbitrary, and not pulled off effectively. There's no effect from it - it happens and there's no chance to react. So this book, which has no unique qualities outside of the Pete Wisdom character, just lost that character?

At the same time, I think Pete Wisdom is kind of the problem here. Ellis has been allowed to bring in the prototype Ellis character – the chain-smoking, wise-cracking, cynical trouble-maker with a hardened worldview. Hell, Ellis created Wisdom when he was writing Excalibur! That’s all good, but Wisdom completely overshadows the rest of the cast. He has some amusing lines, but it’s almost as if the writing team go out of their way to marginalize the rest of the team. In the first issue, the most they do is exhibit new uses of their powers. Proudstar doesn’t even speak. This continues in the rest of the story, with nary a shred of personality shown by the four X-Force members. Besides a single scene where Sam and Tabitha argue about Sam handing leadership over to Wisdom, the four characters are complete ciphers here.

It feels deliberate. We’re being alienated from the characters we’re comfortable with and thrown into a world where Pete Wisdom has all the answers, gives all the speeches, and sets all the priorities. The old cast do no more then marvel over their powers and gripe at each other. It makes the book feel unwelcoming and unpleasant, and not in an effective way. It’s not like the villain or black ops squad concept is so strongly conveyed that this doesn’t matter. It makes for a hollow product.

Whilce Portacio is a polarizing artist, but I tend to like his work when he is really on. The true energy of his work back in the day is no longer there, but there are some strong set pieces and character expressions. Unfortunately, the rest is pretty weak, with choppy storytelling and dropped backgrounds. I don’t know if he’s the artist for this type of story. His depiction of the battle scenes and underground stuff is so bland that he doesn’t sell it as a strong new direction for the book.

And, at least in this opening story, this Counter X revamp kind of flunks. The concept has legs, but Edginton doesn’t take it anywhere. His attempts to mimic Ellis poking fun at superhero comics (Wisdom constantly calling the team “My X-Men!”) fall flat, and he brings no life to the cast or their mission. Each issue opens with a splash of the team horsing around like kids. Fine, but why didn’t we see any of that in the issues? All we got were four ciphers who stood around waiting to hear Wisdom’s stories and instructions. With Wisdom dead, where exactly can things go from here?