X-Chat catches up with Sentinels, X-Men and Phoenix

The bad guys take the lead in Sentinels #1, written by Alex Paknadel, drawn by Justin Mason, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Travis Lanham. 

Quiet, psychic rescue in progress, again, in X-Men #5, written by Jed MacKay; drawn by Ryan Stegman; inked by JP Mayer, John Livesay and Stegman; colored by Marte Gracia, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. 

And Jean Grey faces the God Butcher in Phoenix #4, written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Alessandro Miracolo, colored by David Curiel and lettered by Cory Petit.

Tony Thornley: So interesting question to put to you, Matt: What’s your favorite homage story in a comic book? A full story echoing another? 

Matthew Lazorwitz: That’s actually pretty easy, because of the number of these we do on BatChat: Batman: Dark Moon Rising. Matt Wagner takes two short Golden Age Batman stories, “Batman vs. the Vampire” and “The Monster Men of Hugo Strange” and writes two linked, six-issue miniseries that fit in between Year One and another favorite homage, the Ed Brubaker/Doug Mahnke story The Man Who Laughs.

Tony: Good picks. As a huge GI Joe fan, I think the entirety of ’Nuff Said Month was a major highlight, with the New X-Men issue an obvious highlight of the bunch.

But They’re GOOD Bad Guys (Sentinels #1)

Tony: I’m a huge fan of anti-hero-slash-bad guy books. Sentinels has been billed as that from the beginning, and I really liked it. Bad guys who are true believers in their cause are one thing. The protagonists here though are conflicted soldiers who have been harmed by superhuman conflict. But don’t get me wrong, these guys are bad guys. 

Paknadel is making a very conscious choice in making their targets in this issue entirely “evil mutants.” They’d be using the same tactics against, say, Jimmy Proudstar as they did against Omega Red, though. Mason is also a GREAT choice for this “anti-hero” story, too. He makes the tech feel grimy, and really knocks the action (violence?) out of the park.

Did you think there’s a deliberate choice in Paknadel using Omega Red and Blob in this story? Just thinking since they’re two that have had, if not full face turns, at least a lot of sympathy restored to them.

Matt: Oh, absolutely. You start out with Omega Red, who was a black ops guy on Krakoa, but still working for the good of the state. It’s easy to say, “Well, he has death spores and is a noted serial killer,” so while you might remember his time on X-Force, you’re able to sort of brush that away by the fact that he seems to have just slaughtered a whole town.

But then, there’s Blob. This is a guy who was living his best life as a bartender with a sweet ‘stache. And now he’s being experimented on in terrible ways. And they shaved his mustache! I know, somewhere out there, I heard many of our fellow staff scream out in agony at the loss of that great facial hair. I definitely think Paknadel is a smart enough writer to know that, if you started off with Selene, say, or one of the Shaws, there would definitely be none of the sympathy that at least Fred evokes.

Tony: Yeah, isn’t it amazing how Freddy Dukes — a character who had never been sympathetic — has shifted into a fan favorite based on one Leah Williams story and a (mostly) background character role.

I kind of have a theory about what the mansion stuff is building toward. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I think there were two things I especially enjoyed about this issue. First, getting to meet these characters was fascinating. They’re flawed and sympathetic, but absolutely the bad guys.

Then, getting to know Larry Trask — a character who’s been dead since, what, the early 1970s? — was great. It’s a lot of fun to see a Silver Age character get recontextualized like this. And here, he gets to live openly as a mutant.

Matt: Larry Trask absolutely fascinated me. I’d be curious when he was resurrected, as precogs only made it into the queue toward the end of Krakoa, and while I know that probably doesn’t matter, I’m interested in why he made it when other mutants didn’t. His idea, that his Sentinels are keeping mutants in line to stop a wider war, is perverse, but it makes sense from a certain point of view. But so do most depostic and fascistic philosophies, I suppose.

I’m looking forward to getting to know these characters better. After we read so much X-Force where characters we have affection for did terrible things, it’s interesting to view this as a counterpoint. That was good guys doing bad things. This is bad guys who we’re supposed to empathize with somewhat.

Tony: And still doing bad things. They’re bad guys, doing bad things, but maybe for the right reasons. But as the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.

So I think I am seeing something build in the background of the prison here. There’s enough now that I have a theory. We know that Siryn is a prisoner. We see Blob here. It’s been hinted that a LOT of missing mutants are in Graymalkin. But Charles is alive and conscious in Graymalkin.

I think we’re headed toward a story (if not a series) where some of those imprisoned mutants are about to become a mutant Task Force X that’s also going to secretly work with Xavier. I mean Siryn was even offered a role as one of the prison’s “trustees” over in Uncanny. And if that’s the direction we’re headed, it appears this series is going to do a lot of the footwork to get there.

Matt: Hmmmm … Especially with Thunderbolts* coming out. We know how much Marvel loves synchronizing their movies with the comics. Maybe a Thunderbolts team akin to the movie and another here? There’s potential for two teams of semi-reformed or press-ganged villains having to work at cross-purposes.  

Tony: Could be. Apparently Previews has a listing for an XSE book, with no details though. Might be legit, might just be dumb rumors, because I couldn’t find it myself.

All of that is fun supposition though until the crossover hits.

What isn’t is that final-page stinger. It appears that Onslaught is back? I think there’s a lot of reason to doubt what we’re seeing here, but it’s one hell of a final page.

Matt: We’ll talk about it in a minute more fully with another character, but Onslaught? This is a guy who it once took the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the X-Men to take out. Now he’s going to be defeated by some techno-enhanced humans? Diminishing returns right there.

Tony: See, I think it’s a fakeout. Each of these characters had life-changing injuries as a result of a Marvel Comics event story. And what event did Drumfire’s injuries come from? Onslaught! I think her implants are making her hallucinate.

We’ll see, though.

Matt: Oh, I think there’s a more than even chance this is a fakeout. I kind of hope it is.

Buy Sentinels #1 here.

Same Story, All Over Again (X-Men #5)

Tony: Saying it right up front: When you’re doing an homage to a story done first by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, then second by Jonathan Hickman and Russell Dauterman, you have to be SO on your A-game that it may not be worth doing. I like MacKay and Stegman, but they fell short here.

So Psylocke and Quentin Quire perform a psychic rescue on Ben, the new mutant from issue #2. That’s it really.

Matt: It moves the plot along a bit, revealing the big bad behind 3K, and I assume does some setup for the upcoming Alyssa Wong-penned Psylocke series, but I don’t think this issue is going to go down with the other two. I don’t like comparing creators, because everyone brings something different to the table, but when you’re doing an homage this strict, it begs for comparison. And while I like both MacKay and Stegman, they’re not quite up to either of those other teams. 

While I like the fact that Quentin not shutting up while doing the psychic rescue is very much in character for him, I don’t feel like it added anything to the story, and it interfered with the thing that made those other stories so impactful: the use of the visual storytelling that only comics can do.

Tony: Yeah, that’s exactly where it fell short for me. By using Quire, the surreal journey that happened with Xavier in New X-Men and Storm in Giant-Size X-Men was not present. Also, this is a deep dive into a character we don’t know. Not to say that couldn’t work, but having this be an homage with completely new character Ben sets up readers to already be knocked back on one foot. Then having someone other than Jean and Emma be the psychics just didn’t work.

Maybe if Scott had asked Jean back to Earth to guest star in this issue, it could have worked significantly better. It also would have given the line some cohesion it’s been sorely lacking.

Matt: Ah, but Jean is busy, as we will be talking about shortly.

Focusing this issue on Ben Liu makes me think he is going to be a more important character. If we’ve spent so much time getting (literally) into his head, he has to become a more important character, right? My concern is he isn’t, and we just needed him to forward the story.

Also, and pardon my cynicism here, but is there a character who has had more diminishing returns on each reappearance than Cassandra Nova? 

Tony: I’m going to keep my opinions on her last appearance to myself, but yes, you said it perfectly. She hasn’t felt like a threat since at least Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing. Maybe earlier.

I think this 3K group has some potential, and the mutant activations could definitely be an interesting long-term plot. It’s running into an issue that I keep seeing with the current line, though: I’m not sure why I care. The creators are kind of moving through plots at lightning speed, and it’s making it hard to get invested.

Compare this to the issue that we were unfortunately unable to cover — X-Men #3 — in which Scott Summers gets to be both incredibly competent Cyclops with the government, and deeply traumatized Scott privately, and we’re getting a difficult seesaw. I loved X-Men #3. Best issue of this volume to date. But compare it to this — a deeply flawed homage to Morrison and Quitely and some “yeah, so what” revelations — and I’m struggling to care.

Matt: Just need to absolutely hard agree on X-Men #3. I’m a Cyclops fan from forever, and that was some great Scott work there. Looking forward to being able to talk about the next issue when he comes into the spotlight.

Buy X-Men #5 here.

A Little Fun, A Lot of Fury (Phoenix #4)

Tony: After saying what I just did about X-Men #3, Phoenix #4 opens with a very similar quiet character moment. Jean Grey and Carol Danvers go to a cosmic fireworks show. Legitimately, this was fun, with a great bit of character interaction. I’m so glad that Marvel writers are starting to remember that Carol Danvers and the X-Men typically have a good relationship. It made for a good, endearing opening scene to this issue.

Matt: Is it weird to you that the X-corner of the Marvel universe is where we’re getting the most cosmic stuff right now? No Guardians of the Galaxy or Silver Surfer books. Thanos is barely a cosmic threat anymore; he’s just a bruiser who happens to be cosmic. Here we get the Galactic Council doing their usual arguing and getting nothing done (still better than the entirely evil United Planets Council in Green Lantern, to be fair). 

But yes, I am glad we’re seeing Carol as the glue that holds so much of the Marvel Universe together now, whether it’s here, in her own book, in Avengers, or in the recently ended Sensational She-Hulk. This is such a natural evolution for her character.

Tony: She’s like Jessica Drew in that way. She has a lot of connections to the larger Marvel Universe from bouncing around as a cult favorite character during their limbo years. So Chris Claremont would do a story here, Ann Nocenti there, Kurt Busiek there. … Suddenly when the character is popular again, they actually have a huge network of connections that could be the backdrop to stories. I’m glad to see it getting picked up with Carol.

This issue was otherwise pretty slight. The Galactic Council decides Jean is a huge potential threat. They bring in Perrikus. Then Gorr the God Butcher attacks and kills Jean.

There are two big revelations that sort of elevate that slight plot, though. The first — Gorr sorta has symbiote powers now but not fully — is kind of cool. It almost justifies his return, and makes it not just a rehash of his last appearances. The idea of Jean saying the Phoenix is not a god, while Gorr says basically “are you serious?” is good and really should knock her down a peg in a good way.

Matt: I am not really familiar with Gorr outside of Thor: Love and Thunder. I didn’t read the Jason Aaron run (although I recently found all five of the Complete Collection trades on sale, so I now have them and will get to them … someday). So the symbiote powers are new? That’s neat.

I agree, though, that Jean’s relationship with her godhood is something worth exploring. I’m surprised we aren’t seeing more of Jean and the Phoenix force interacting. With it being reborn from Hope, I was kind of expecting a sassier Phoenix Force. 

Tony: That’s a good point. I mean, we know the Phoenix is sentient. Why is it so silent?

The second, though? Yes, Jean dies after Gorr guts her. But the Phoenix immediately brings her back. I mean on an intellectual level, that makes sense, but how Phillips wrote it and Miracolo drew it actually gave it a much better impact than I expected. Combined with the opening scene, it actually made me sit up and take notice of this series more than the previous issues had.

Matt: I definitely agree this issue was a step in the right direction from the first couple issues we covered. This book should be the character piece for Jean that we’re seeing. And while it still is a little more Asgard-heavy than I would have expected, it’s giving us a look at Jean that I am enjoying now.

Tony: The character stuff is what makes this book worthwhile, and I think those moments made it hit much stronger. It’s almost like as soon as Phillips got her footing, she’s starting to cook. I hope that’s the case.

Buy Phoenix #4 here.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Psylocke addresses Amelia Voght as “Amy.” I don’t think I have ever heard that done in any other comic, and I don’t think Voght would like it.
• With Larry Trask back, could his retconned sister, the time-traveling Askani high priestess Madame Sanctity, be far behind? Yes. Yes, I believe she is far, far behind.
• Fun fact: Sanctity was the lead character in one of the first X-Men issues I ever read. Thus, I thought she and Larry were bigger deals than they actually were.
• We thought about reviewing X-Force, but the most we can really say about it is that we’re glad that Marcus To is getting work. It’s not good, it’s not bad, but it is basically nothing.

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