Essential X-Men volume 11 - creator labels

Once more there's a volume with a lot of creators so here's the separate labels post.

Essential X-Factor volume 5

Essential X-Factor volume 5 contains issues #60 to #70 & Annual #6 plus the crossover issues Uncanny X-Men #270 to #272, #280 & material from Annual #15, and New Mutants #95 to #97 & material from annual #7. The regular X-Factor issues see the end of Louise Simonson's run then subsequent issues see Jim Lee & Whilce Portacio plotting and Chris Claremont scripting then Fabian Nicieza and Peter David finish off the run and write the annual stories between them. The Uncanny X-Men issues are written by Chris Claremont and Fabian Nicieza with the latter handling the annual whilst the New Mutants regular issues are written by Louise Simonson and the annual by Fabian Nicieza. The regular X-Factor issues are drawn by Jon Bogdanove and Whilce Portacio with the final by Kirk Jarvinen and the annual by Terry Shoemaker, Steven Butler and Guang Yap. The Uncanny X-Men issues are drawn by Jim Lee and Andy Kubert with the annual by Jerry DeCaire. The New Mutants issues are drawn by Rob Liefeld and Guang Yap with the annual by Kirk Jarvinen. Due to so many creators, most of the labels are in a separate post.

This volume is almost drowning in crossovers, containing material from not one, not two but three of them. It kicks off "X-Tinction Agenda", a nine-part story also told in Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants. Then the annual is part of "Kings of Pain", a crossover between the three mutant titles and also New Warriors though their annual is not represented here, with a second storyline entitled "The Killing Stroke" running across the three mutant annuals only. Finally, the end of the volume encompasses the latter half of "The Muir Island Saga" which also runs in Uncanny X-Men and contains some major developments for both titles. It's lucky that not all of the latter two crossovers have been included here as it probably made the difference between getting up to issue #70 and not, but it reflects on an unfortunate situation whereby it became increasingly hard to follow an individual series without "having" to buy lots of extra issues in order to be able to read a whole story.

And the stories they got were simply not that great. "X-Tinction Agenda" is an overlong, excessively rambling storyline that X-Factor is clearly the least essential element in spite of the villain being Cameron Hodge. It's also poorly paced, most notably when a key character is killed off in a rush at the end of the issue, and it's the first of several signs in the volume that artists rather than writers have secured control of the general plot and direction of the various series but are exercising that control rather poorly, with the result that many issues are confused and dominated by action to the detriment of the overall storytelling. As for the content, it revolves around the African island nation of Genosha that was initially devised as an allegory of apartheid South Africa but in the year that Nelson Mandela was released we get a rather more violent overthrowal of the state and its apparatus than in reality. The plot hinges on the state's practice of enslaving, brainwashing and genetically altering mutants into "mutates" to serve as slaves for the country. A mixed group from the X-Men and the New Mutants are kidnapped by the Genoshan Magistrates and taken to the island where some are converted, with the remaining team members calling in X-Factor for help to rescue them. The story is grim and brutal, though some of the resolutions are rather simplistic in their effects, but it is hard to avoid the feeling that the story would have worked better as a six parter without including X-Factor since none of the current team go through any significant changes and there isn't really anything that comes out of Hodge's involvement in the storyline that hasn't been covered before. More so than any previous crossover, "X-Tinction Agenda" marks the point at which the mutant title crossovers ceased to be either major moments in the lives of all the titles involved or else wider events that individual titles brushed past and instead became regular events telling tightly connected stories in which titles participated simply because they were part of a declared "family" of books. The mutant books weren't alone in pioneering and developing such crossovers but as one of the best-selling set of titles at the best selling comic company they were amongst the most noticeable - and profitable - and so bear a great deal of responsibility for the development of such a mechanical process that interrupted and sucked the life out of so many titles. And when it comes to the collected editions this crossover takes up almost half the entire volume so it's not something that can be simply shrugged off as just a few issues amidst a much bigger whole.

The annuals show an alternative way to do crossovers. The "Kings of Pain" storyline ran in the lead stories of the annuals for X-Factor and also New Mutants, New Warriors and Uncanny X-Men but only the X-Factor chapter is included here, (this isn't the only way to collect it though - both Essential X-Men volume 11 and New Warriors Classic volume 2 contain all four chapters) as this is the point at which the team get involved in the main storyline. X-Factor arrive in Scotland to find that Proteus has returned, fused with an energy absorbing mutant and is now converting Edinburgh into a strange computer mathematics environment of structure and order. Together with the New Mutants, New Warriors and the "Muir Islander" X-Men, X-Factor have to find a way to persuade Proteus to stop, one way or the other, whilst from afar both Aim and the Toad & Gideon - the self-proclaimed "Kings of Pain" - have been manipulating events. It's a so-so annual story but with only the X-Factor portion included here it doesn't take up too much space needlessly. Also included are a few other stories from the New Mutants and Uncanny X-Men annuals. A three-parter, with the concluding chapter in the X-Factor annual, entitled "The Killing Stroke" sees the rump of Freedom Force - the Blob, Pyro, Avalanche, the Crimson Commando and Super Sabre - on a mission in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation, with orders to either extract a German scientist or prevent the Iraqis finding him. However it goes badly wrong when they encounter "Desert Sword", a group of Middle-Eastern heroes including the Arabian Knight, Black Raazer and new characters Aminedi the Invisible One, Sirocco and the Veil, and Freedom Force is further depleted. Another back up in the X-Factor annual sees Mystique coming to terms with Destiny's death and taking a cruise to scatter her ashes. The oddest inclusion is a short story from the New Mutants annual in which former X-Terminators members Leech, Artie and Taki meet an eccentric old woman who resembles Leech's late adoptive mother, whilst a mob assembles outside. It's a nice character piece but it has no particular reason to be included here. All in all the annual material here is forgettable but there isn't too much space taken up with stories from non-X-Factor issues and so it's not as bad an offender as the "X-Tinction Agenda".

Over in the regular series there's a real sense of a protracted winding down with a variety of elements brought to the fore and wrapped up prior to a crossover covering the final two issues. Louise Simonson's final storyline in issues #63 & #64 was the very first X-Factor story I ever read when I was lent these issues back in 1991. Today it still holds up well as it focuses upon Iceman's girlfriend Opal when she's kidnapped by the Cyburai, cyborg warriors working for her natural grandfather, Lord Tatsu'o, and taken to Japan where she is expected to marry a warrior and provide an heir. Bobby heads off to rescue her with the help of Jean and Mariko. It's a good intense personal story, particularly the scenes involving the warrior Hiro, and it answers various questions about Opal, but it's not the most exciting storyline for the series's longest running writer to go out on. In a way that should have been the next storyline, a four parter that sees the return of Apocalypse as he seeks to reclaim Ship. The early issues also contain extracts from "the Apocalypse Manifesto", single page profiles of each team-member with in character comments by their greatest foe. The story shows its age in the names of Apocalypse's new henchmen, Foxbat, Tusk, Gauntlet, Psynapse, Hard-Drive and Barrage, collectively known as the Dark Riders, but it gives a good exit for Ship and also a team-up with the Inhumans in a showdown on the Moon. However it's let down by introducing a mystery woman called Askani who declares baby Nathan Christopher to be both "the Chosen" and kin, as part of attempts to save her timeline. The story ends with Nathan being infected with a techno virus and taken off to the future. Children have always been problematic in long-running comic series and Nathan has not really aged at all during the run of this series so it's a neat way to remove the problem but it also has the consequence of once more wrenching Scott away from another family member.

The final two issues form the penultimate chapter and epilogue to "The Muir Island Saga" which sees X-Factor and the various groupings of X-Men reunited in battle against the Shadow King, with Professor Xavier returning and reuniting with his original students for the first time since this series began. It's a strong reunion that has clear repercussions but it's also very clearly an X-Men story that X-Factor have wandered into midway through and explanations for those who haven't read the earlier parts are somewhat lacking. The story sees the original X-Men return to the team but the final issue of the volume and indeed of the original incarnation of the team just doesn't feel like an appropriate wrap up issue with too much emphasis on Xavier and Legion or Rogue and Mystique rather than on the actual X-Factor members. As a result X-Factor dissolves itself into the older team in a blink and you'll miss it moment and the final page of this book is more concerned about what to do with so many X-Men. This is a real letdown as X-Factor deserved a much stronger ending on its own merits. Instead it goes out with a whimper, playing second fiddle to another team which is what it's done for much of this volume.

This is frankly the worst of the five Essential X-Factor volumes, largely because the regular series is swamped by all the crossovers and the original is wound up rather suddenly without a proper final issue. There are some good moments when the series is allowed to do its own thing but otherwise this volume shows how crossovers and franchises were starting to take over regular series in the early 1990s and it wasn't for the best. Nor was the increased dominance by the artists, often putting more emphasis on individual images than the overall storytelling and the results here show poor pacing and rushed critical moments. It's a disappointing end to the original incarnation of a series that had managed to rise beyond its roots as an awkwardly forced reunion book and often offer something much more spectacular.

Essential Punisher volume 2

Essential Punisher volume 2 contains the early issues from the Punisher's first ever ongoing series, carrying #1-20 & Annual #1 and also Daredevil #257 which carried a crossover with the series. Annual #1 was part of the "Evolutionary War" crossover that ran through eleven Marvel annuals (or twelve if one includes Alf) but the others aren't included here. (The only missing material that I can spot is the chapter of the history of the High Evolutionary that ran in all the annuals that year and which sought to clarify a rather convoluted continuity.) The Punisher issues are all written by Mike Baron, bar a back-up in the annual by Roger Salick, and drawn by Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, David Ross, Larry Stroman and Shea Anton Pensa, with Mark Texeira and Mike Vosburg handling the annual. The Daredevil issue is written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by John Romita Jr.

Looking back it seems amazing that it took so long for the Punisher to gain his own ongoing series. The most likely explanation is that Marvel were cautious about having a series with a violent protagonist who set out to kill his adversaries. (A similar concern presumably hit Wolverine.) But over time tastes change, as do censors, and this series was launched in an era that saw the rise of heroes who were either loners or had very few allies and who were willing to adopt violent methods to get the job done. In an era with the likes of a grim & gritty Batman, Timothy Dalton's take on James Bond, the A-Team and so many more, the Punisher was a natural fit. Of course not all these heroes were portrayed in quite the same way - there's a wide gap between the A-Team's almost cartoon violence where few people get hurt or killed, and the hard edged violence and blood of Licence to Kill.

Curiously it's a very different series that springs to mind as the most obvious starting comparison for these issues. At about the same time as the series was launched, so too was the second Silver Surfer series (the first eighteen issues of which can be found in Essential Silver Surfer volume 2). Both series rapidly became amongst Marvel's top sellers, as seen most obviously when both were part of a 33% price rise on the nine top-selling titles at the start of 1988 (taking effect from issue #8; the other seven titles were Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and the New Mutants) and both were among the only eleven superhero titles to have an annual that year (the others were the same list as before plus Fantastic Four and the West Coast Avengers). Both starred long established Marvel characters who had previously been used relatively sparsely, and both were in settings somewhat detached from the mainstream of the Marvel universe. But the contrast in approaches is clearest between the first issues. The Surfer had a double-sized first issue that contained a complete story (as well as setting up threads that would run throughout the first thirty issues), summarised all the key points of the character's history and sorted out the key issue in the status quo to allow unlimited adventures. By contrast the first issue of Punisher is a regular sized first part of an ongoing storyline that doesn't really introduce the character at all.

Perhaps realising the mistake early on, issue #2 opens with a text box with the Punisher rapidly summarising the key points in a very quick and to the point manner. Most subsequent issues include either a thought box or dialogue that recap the Punisher's origin with the same information. The obvious omission each time is just why the Punisher went down the route he did - not every relative of a victim of crime turns vigilante and even if they do, many don't go in for the arbitrary killing of criminals. Punisher stories can veer off to various extremes on this point - either they implicitly acknowledge the issue and just present the Punisher as an exaggerated killer of almost cartoonish shallowness, or else they delve deep in his mind, trying to reconcile the factors. This series, however, follows a more middling course (at least in this volume) by presenting the Punisher as a straightforward man with a general mission but without delving into just what it is that drives him so. I'm not persuaded that this is the best approach as it leaves the Punisher as a somewhat hollow character. This is enhanced by the state of the series around him.

The supporting cast is rather limited. We hear about Microchip before we're first introduced to the computer hacker and equipment developer. His son "Junior" also appears, but is soon killed off. There's an indication that Junior could perhaps have become a questioning voice to draw out details of the Punisher's actions such as how he prioritises, but it's also clear that such an approach can't work when the Punisher invariably operates solo. Junior accompanies the Punisher on a couple of missions but can't always obey orders to stay in the van. The first time he saves the Punisher's life but the second time he loses his own. His father sticks around for the whole series, providing the Punisher with much needed equipment and support at times but rarely taking to the field himself. Microchip is the star of a back-up feature in the annual in which he has to protect the widow of an old friend from her new husband who has become a assassin. We see how resourceful and ruthless 'Chip himself can be, but otherwise don't learn too much more. The only other characters who come close to recurring are the small band the Punisher assembles to take down the Kingpin - Reese McDowell, a student, and Vernon Brooks, a teacher, both from a rough inner city school that the Punisher briefly teaches at whilst tracking down a radical revolutionary hiding there, and Conchita Ortiz, the widow of a soldier turned prison guard who helps the Punisher in trying to advance a convict's execution. Over the course of the story the attrition rate is high with only Vernon living by the end. The possibility is dangled of Conchita becoming a recurring romantic interest, but she is then immediately killed, a reminder of how grim and lonely the Punisher's path can be.

The Punisher's methods invariably don't leave many foes who can recur. We get a variety of archetypes - Latin American drug barons, Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, right-wing political extremists, cultist preachers, insider traders, serial killers, people traffickers, left-wing revolutionaries, drug dealers and mobsters. Many of these could be taken from the news though I don't know just which of these types were actually dominating the headlines in the late 1980s. The Kingpin appears in a multi-part storyline but curiously both he and the Punisher act as though they have never met - in fact they did so back in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #82. Still he's the only foe to walk away alive after Microchip and Vernon realise that it's the only way to prevent a vicious gang war.

The volume contains material from two different crossovers. One is a two parter with Daredevil and, as I previously discussed, Ol' Hornhead is one of the best heroes to contrast with the Punisher due to their very different views of the system of law & order. On this occasion we get a standard clash of values but presented in a novel approach - rather than a direct two part story each issue first focuses upon the title character's investigation of a disgruntled ex-employee of a pharmaceutical company who is taking revenge by poisoning bottles of its products until they encounter the other on a rooftop and fight over what to do with the criminal. Whilst the Punisher issue shows a conventional fight between the two, the Daredevil issue shows the same fight from the perspective of the killer who listens to them and concludes the two are more alike than they realise. We also get to see the Punisher acting as a detective, trying to quickly track down the killer and resorting to the unusual method of turning to the Jehovah's Witnesses to see if they have seen anything whilst door-knocking.

The other crossover is the second part of the "Evolutionary War" storyline. Although there had been stories told over a couple of annuals before this was the fist time such a large story was told there, taking up no less than eleven of the mainstream annuals (and also a humorous piece in Alf). At US $1.75 an issue (at a time when the regular Marvels cost $0.75 though most of the books were from the $1.00 line) it cost nearly $20.00 to own the entire crossover on first release - an early sign of the mess whereby readers increasingly found they either had to fork out large additional amounts for comics they wouldn't normally buy or else not get the full story. (A better approach in my opinion would be closer to that adopted by Secret Wars II and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths whereby the main story is concentrated on a central limited series that individual ongoing titles feed off, but in such a way that a reader doesn't have to buy loads of other ongoing titles to know what's going on - and for that matter the limited series can later be collected by itself in a tradepaperback.) Fortunately most of the individual annuals are structured in such a way as to be reasonably self-contained with the High Evolutionary's plans as the sole common theme, and one can read them in isolation, as the Punisher annual is presented here on its own (and the same approach has been taken in the relevant volumes of Essential X-Factor, Essential Silver Surfer and Essential X-Men), though if one wants the entire story, including the back-up detailing the history of the High Evolutionary, it's available in an Omnibus hardcover edition (be warned though that this edition omits other back-up strips from each annual not related to the crossover). What makes the crossover stick out even more like a sore thumb is the poor motivation for the High Evolutionary's Eliminators (the High Evolutionary himself doesn't appear). This small squad of armoured humans are trying to wipe out all drugs across the world as a prelude to plans to forcibly advance humanity to the next stage of evolution, and also to eliminate potential threats like the Punisher. It's very hard to accept the High Evolutionary has anything like the resources for a global instantaneous war on drugs and as for the idea the Punisher could threaten his plans, it just doesn't seem likely.

The series doesn't limit itself to New York and instead takes us to many different parts of the United States and even abroad, with visits to variously Bolivia, Guiana (that spelling is used over twenty years after it became Guyana...), Colombia, Mexico and even the Australian outback. The multiple settings and situations help to keep the series fresh, showing the Punisher having to adapt to different situations and circumstances with some interesting results. That helps to make up for the shortfalls in character development and exploration.

Overall this series is quite mixed. The individual issues are generally well written and drawn, and it's easy to see why Whilce Portacio developed into one of the big name artists of the early 1990s. But fundamentally the main problem I have with the series is that there's very little sense of development and, with the exception of a few details, the stories could be rearranged in almost any order. Whilst the individual tales offer plenty of diversity and interest, with only really the annual sticking out as badly conceived, overall the whole thing just doesn't go anywhere. The Punisher has a mission against crime, but it's not always clear if he's just after organised crime or all criminals. There's no real overall strategy to his approach and instead he targets a succession of different crimes, sometimes responding to tip-offs, sometimes going after a particular wrong-doer them himself. Was this another series created by popular demand without thinking through its raison d'être? It's odd as all the issues in this volume have the same writer and editor (Carl Potts), so it's not as if it was a book handled by an endless succession of creators doing just a few issues at a time.

I'm not sure the basic problem lies with the Punisher's character - he's hardly the first example in comics of a bereaved relative with no actual super powers turning vigilante, and he's starting from a position of greater training than the likes of a young Bruce Wayne. Perhaps it's the way his approach of not adopting a secret identity and not being able to maintain a permanent base means that he rarely stays around any one place long enough to develop any roots, but again the wandering hero is common enough in fiction that it can be pulled off more successfully than here. Probably the deepest problem is the lack of any in-depth exploration of the Punisher's motivation and drive. Apart from his brief argument/fight with Daredevil there isn't any direct exploration as to just why he lacks faith in the system of law and order and instead has set himself up as a one man judge, jury and executioner. When the Punisher guest stars in other characters' titles it's often possible to contrast his outlook and methods with the title character's, but in his own title where the only supporting cast members are his technical support there just aren't any voices who can draw out the dilemma. Ultimately the Punisher is a difficult character to write a good developed ongoing series for, and unfortunately this volume doesn't hit the target.