X-Men #15 Re-Opens the Vault in This Week’s X-Chat!

Branding reigns supreme, as we join our Batman and Superman-centric chat counterparts with X-Chat!

In X-Men #15, Forge brings the team back to the Vault from Gerry Duggan, Josh Cassara, Guru-eFx, and Clayton Cowles. It’s just a mission to rescue Darwin. Surely nothing will go badly.

Kraven challenges the biggest and baddest mutants on Krakoa in X-Force #32 from Benjamin Percy, Robert Gill, Guru-eFx, and Joe Caramagna.

In Wolverine #25, The Hand takes advantage of the Judgment Day to kill Wolverine and Solem from Benjamin Percy, Federico Vincentini, Frank D’Armata, and Cory Petit, plus a plethora of guest stars celebrating issue #25!

Tony Thornley: So this schedule is killing us. We’re back to biweekly on all three of these books. I’m kind of hoping that’s just catch-up from the crossover. It’s beating us up a little though.

Matt Lazorwitz: Yeah, we’re getting this out just in time to start writing about the next set of issues, and we’re not even considering all the other X-stuff coming out. Fortunately I have an easier time with my Batman related columns, where there are only… aw, crap, never mind.

Tony: Yeah, there’s never enough Batman content.

Hubris and Bad Ideas (X-Men #15)

Tony: So, X-Men is the first ‘main’ title to move past “Judgment Day“. It feels a little jarring, especially when every other X-book in October is in the middle of it. I think this goes back to what was said about Avengers: Infinity War — these stories are not about who’s going to win. They’re superheroes, of course they’re going to win.

It’s about HOW.

Matt: Especially in a week where we’re reading two other titles that take place not just during “Judgment Day”, but way earlier in the event than the other books coming out, it is certainly jarring. But yeah, there’s no doubt about the outcome, so we just move forward.

Tony: To the story at hand. I did not think we would be going back to the Vault in this manner. I could have sworn after Synch made it out, we saw Laura and Darwin come out of eggs. So while revisiting the Vault is welcome, revisiting for a rescue mission is unexpected.

My goodness though, with Joshua Cassara art, it was extremely welcome.

Matt: Is it ever. Cassara started out the HoX/PoX era on X-Force, so getting him to draw the bloody fantasy sequence of the  Children of the Vault massacring, well, the universe certainly fit in his wheelhouse; carnage never looked so good.

I’m pleased that we got an answer to what Forge’s secret project for the Quiet Council was so quickly. I don’t mind a long dangling plot thread, but this one seemed like one that could get really old really fast, with Scott and Forge playing all kinds of cat and mouse. But, no, we get the answer, and it’s… strangely humane. I wonder why this fell under the Council’s purview and not something they just turned away from and let Beast handle.

Tony: Forge being the only immoral jerk who could do this tracks for me. Of course, they’re going to turn to him as the sort of techsmith who could not only entrap the Children, but also ensure that the Vault never opens back up. You’re right in that it’s interesting that they didn’t seem to involve Hank, but then, I think we’re going to get to why not over the next couple of issues of X-Force.

Outside of the Children of the Vault conquering the world, there’s not a lot to this issue. It’s more or less a set-up for the next issue. That’s not to say the alternate timeline/simulation isn’t substantial. It’s always great to see how much of a threat a villain is, and here the Children are terrifying.

Forge’s suit, that sure was something else, wasn’t it?

Matt: Oh, it definitely is! Forge has always tread the line of morality, but doing what he did to poor Caliban is just Hank McCoy-level jerk. Is it cool? Absolutely. And I suppose it doesn’t violate any of the three laws, necessarily, since Caliban isn’t dead (and even then, does that even violate the laws? Way of X seemed to change that some, but I don’t think entirely). This absolutely shows who Forge is; this was the easiest solution to his problem. He drugged Caliban on Arakko, then… turned him into something he could wear? Not cool.

Tony: Yeah, this extremely immoral action has comeuppance written all over it. But hey, excited to see what’s next. It’s not a substantial issue, but I enjoyed it, and I really want to see what Cassara can do with this series.

Gross! (X-Force #32)

Tony: I know this is kind of the point, but I’ve never wanted to see a character have to go through the resurrection protocols more than I did with Beast this issue. We said it last issue, Hank McCoy is just irredeemable at this point, isn’t he?

Matt: No doubt. At this point, frankly, the sheer smugness is even worse than the evil. Did you happen to read X-Men ‘92: House of XCII, Tony?

Tony: Not all of it but enough that I think I know where you’re going.

Matt: For those who haven’t, in that alternate world, Hank is killed on the Otherworld analogue, and comes back wrong, resurrected more or less as Dark Beast. And yet, I’d take that guy over this Hank. Although they are both equally smug.

Tony: Yeah, this story is basically Kraven tearing through Krakoa while everyone is distracted, and X-Force tracks him down. The whole time Sage and Omega Red are tracking Kraven, Beast is sitting in his office smugly saying “glad it’s you, and not me.” Naturally that means that he’s going to get smacked by his hubris.

The other plotline is Deadpool trying to get away to warn everyone (which artist Robert Gill gets most of the credit for pulling off). Or so we think. In actuality, he just wants revenge on Omega Red. I know I struggled with Wade last issue, but this kind of cracked me up.

Matt: In-fighting on X-Force is not unexpected, but I figured it would be Logan who went after Red first. But then again, I never expected him to feed Deadpool to a polar bear. This felt like it worked better for me in the Deadpool plot too. The pettiness of the whole thing is very Wade, and I like his new Krakoan body. It’s cool to see a new use of the island.

We talked about this last time as well, but the biggest character arc in this series so far, aside from Beast, is Sage’s slip into alcoholism. And this issue, for the first time, we see her absolutely fail because she was too busy drinking, something she admits before she redacts it herself. I think this is a turning point for this plot. How about you?

Tony: If not a turning point, then a significant milestone. After this series spending so much time on plot and not as much on character, I think this is a welcome story. Sage is one of those characters I’ve always thought was cool but thinly fleshed out. This is great for her humanity and for the series as a whole.

Matt: And we’re left with a big action set-piece: Logan vs. Kraven in a Danger Room like simulation of the Savage Land for the life of Beast. Is it too much to ask that Wolverine just lets him die while he takes out Kraven? Gill draws great action pieces; I’ve been a fan of his since Valiant’s Book of Death and Wrath of the Eternal Warrior, so it’s cool to see him hit the big times and with a book suited to the kind of fight scenes he has drawn so well in the past.

Bar Fight! (Wolverine #25)

Tony: I feel like this might be damning with faint praise, but this issue was an improvement over last issue. But it still was rough.  

Matt: This was a decently-constructed story that felt like it was playing for time. Wolvie needed to be off the board for the plot developments in X-Force, and we’re in the middle of this event, so… let’s do a Wolverine/Solem story! It could probably have been one issue, removing the Bride of Hell stuff, but maybe this is part of a wider tapestry we’re not seeing all the pieces of yet. I just wish I cared more about the stuff feeding into this plot. 

Tony: I think the lead story was an interesting internal monologue wrapped around a pretty generic monster fight. The internal narration was interesting, but I think you nailed it — it seems like part of something bigger. Whether it’s reaching a midpoint or wrapping it up is unclear.

The Hand stuff still kind of feels out of place considering what’s going on in other corners of the Marvel Universe, though. I mean, I guess Percy could be working with Aaron and Zdarsky but it’s so tonally different.

Matt: No doubt, Percy has Logan’s voice down pat. The narration is very much in character. As is his reaction to being judged. Regardless of yea or nay, Logan would have none of that.

Tony: I was a little surprised to see the issue wrap with Solem running off with the Hellbride, so we’ll see if that goes anywhere.

Otherwise, the rest of the issue is the classic “Wolverine walks into a bar” routine. It’s a trope that every Wolverine writer uses. I mean, Percy himself did it in the first vampire arc. It’s another monologue, but it’s also an art showcase. My only problem is that the artists featured, while good, didn’t have much of a connection to Logan. It would have been cool to see artists with stronger connections to Logan’s history instead of a handful of “hey, they’re great artists with no sentimental attachment for readers.”

Matt: My thoughts exactly. Wolverine has had an ongoing series pretty much non-stop since the late 80s. Marvel couldn’t lure Mark Silvestri, Adam Kubert, John Romita Jr. or Lenil Francis Yu, all of whom had notable runs on the book and are all still pretty active in comics, to at least draw a couple of these pages? No shade to any of the artists on the book, it just felt like they got who was available vs. thinking deeply about who to select.

Tony: Exactly. They were good (yes, even the Greg Land page), but it really would have been great with some of the legends, and maybe even some artists who are still notable but not as well remembered for Wolverine, like Renato Guedes, Ron Garney, or Steve McNiven.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• The Krakoa era has not been kind to its super-scientists.
• Everything about X-Men #15 felt like “well, this will come back and bite them in the ass.” I think it made the book stronger.
• More villains crossing over from other parts of the Marvel Universe, please?
• Fighting that ice Celestial, I bet Wolverine really wishes he still had his hot claws.

Matthew Lazorwitz

Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.