« Book Review: McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 13
Main
The Hulk has a Blog »

(B-)
This seems to be about the point where this ongoing title begins to run out of steam. The usual self-referential humor and post-modern superhero storytelling is not as sharp here as it has been in past volumes. This volume is also a bit of a hodge-podge, containing a couple of very short arcs from the regular title plus a short story from X-men Unlimited and the odd 2-part Wolverine/Doop mini-series.

What this volume has going for it is some interesting character development of relatively new member, Venus Dee Milo. She is pretty much the focal point here as she learns to get close to a man for the first time in her life both physically and emotionally. Professor Xavier from the X-men has a very peculiar role in this story as he develops a suit for her that will allow her to have sex for the first time. He takes a pretty active interest in helping her in this respect.

As usual lately with this book, the story centers around a Guy and one or two other characters, leaving the others in the background. Though Milligan even refers to this with Vivisector and his constant attempts to find a gimmick that will get him more attention from the media and the fans. He's tried being gay and wound up liking it, now he tries making "stupid statements". He's an interesting character that deserves more time.

The main story here is bogged down by a bad guy named "Bad Guy" that is too silly even for this series. The Wolverine Doop story is fun and actually refreshing in that Wolverine isn't running around in a beserker rage all the time and having inner monologues about how he's the best at what he does. He's more Wolverine as played by George Clooney. A well dressed, perfectly rational ladies man. Darwyn Cooke's artwork here isn't up to par with the work he's been doing on New Frontier lately though. It doesn't have that same sense of cinematic composition. Granted the tone of this story is more of goofy cartoon.

The highlight of the book is probably the last story, a funny quick re-telling of the film "A Hard Day's Night" featuring the male characters of X-Statix.

Posted at July 22, 2004 1:01 PM