PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 2000-2001
WRITERS: WARREN ELLIS, BRIAN WOOD
ARTISTS: STEVE PUGH, RON LIM
Having got the Heroes Reborn monkey off my back I've decided to go for another Marvel event that I loved back in the day, though I don't hate this one so it could be interesting. In the summer of 2000 Marvel decided to do a line-wide revamp for the X-Men titles under the Revolution event, which simply moved everything forwards six months to free the titles of clutter. Sadly, the main prongs of the strategy were the return of Chris Claremont to Uncanny X-Men and X-Men; a year later he was sent off to the purgatory of X-Treme X-Men while Grant Morrison saved the main title. Anyway. Part of the plan was to try and do something with what had become a bloated family of titles and part of it involved giving three of the most stagnant to Warren Ellis.
Sub-branded Counter-X, these titles were X-Force, Generation X and X-Man, which had all seen some glory days but been poor for years. Generation X had been one of the hottest titles in Marvel's arsenal when it launched as a hip and happening MTV generation version of the New Mutants in 1995 but a succession of poor writers had led to falling sales and it rarely got invited to crossovers anymore or even mentioned by anyone in the main book despite having Sean Cassidey, Emma Frost and Jubilee in the cast.
Ellis meanwhile cut his teeth at Marvel a few years earlier with well-received runs on the likes of Excalibur, Hellstorm and the 2099 universe before absconding to Wildstorm and Vertigo, taking over Stormwatch and then creating in startlingly short order Transmetropolitan, The Authority and Planetary. His role on Counter-X was more of a consultant/editor/overseer; each title followed a similar format with a four-part story catching up with the subject at the point of the Revolution event co-written by Ellis and the actual planned monthly writer, then a second four-parter storylined by Ellis detailing what happened in the six month gap and then regular adventures - though in the event the three titles failed to improve their sales and only managed one 'regular' arc and then a wrap-up before being culled in Marvel's 2001 X-Men revamp.
For Generation X the 'regular' writer working alongside Ellis was Brian Wood, who then was largely known for Channel Zero and had otherwise worked outside of comics. Each Counter-X book would be given a radical format overhaul to try and inject some life, and there's more than a little meta involved in the one given to Generation X. The story opens with the Massachusetts academy in ruins, Synch dead of unspecified causes, the human students along with Artie, Leech and Penance gone and the team unsure of their direction. There's a group realisation that after five years they're not really training to be the next X-Men anymore, a tacit admittance of how little attention the parent books were paying, and the remaining students - Jubilee, M, Chamber, Husk and Skin - decide to be a more proactive force, under the tutelage of Banshee and bankrolled by Emma Frost.
The first storyline concerns their attempts to shut down the House of Corrections, a highly secret prison system where wayward children are illegally imprisoned and tortured by one Warden Coffin, a huge bald maniac with a force of similarly hairless and bruising wardens and his special children. It's all very post-Columbine Dubya-era stuff but generally hangs together well as a character-driven adventure. Wood and Ellis get a good handle on most of the characters with the best writing Jubilee especially had received for years (actually remembering she'd been part of the X-Men for years before she was sacrificed to successfully launch Generation X) while Steve Pugh even remembers she's Asian. Emma Frost, while a supporting character, sparkles while everyone gets something to do. The only weakness is that after three and a half solid issues the arc comes to an indecently rapid ending, with Coffin himself quickly defeated.
The second arc is the roll-back "Shockwaves" micro-event filling in what brought on the change; "Come on Die Young" shows the death of Synch and the destruction of the academy. The main cause is Emma's sister Adrienne, already known as a villain from previous appearances and the weak point of the arc. It's so obvious that she's lying to everyone and causing the increased unrest in the school that it just makes Emma and Sean especially look very silly for even entertaining any other options. The rest of the team are well-represented and Synch gets a decent send-off but really far too much hinges on convenience.
The first - and indeed only - four issue arc exclusively by Wood is "Four Days", about the team having a day off in Manhattan, their adventures being split up into four parallel stories - first we see Chamber's day, then Monet & Jubilee's, then Sean & Angelo's, then Paige's. It's not a bad gimmick but the individual stories are variable. Chamber's revolves around him meeting a deaf girl who can hear his speech and is a punk misfit like him; sadly this brings out Jono's emo side a tad too much. Jubes and M going shopping together and getting involved in a hostage situation isn't a bad bit of team bonding however, the same going for Angelo and Sean (rocked by the discovery of Moira MacTaggert's death) in a deal for security software gone wrong. Piage gets an odd little ghost story but again shows well. Aside from a few wobbly bits in the Chamber issue none of it's bad it just seriously lacks substance for a four-issue arc.
By this point the axe was hovering and there's just time to end the team in #75. It's another rather contrived story with the remaining students all coming to the same realisation that there's no real point in hanging around together and to go their separate ways. It's unconvincing and the relief from the fictional characters is strangely palpable, especially that of Banshee, drinking heavily since the death of Moira despite apparently dealing with it on his road trip with Skin. Emma meanwhile arbitrarily turns into a total bitch in belated reaction to her killing of Adrienne months beforehand as she's rather clumsily turned a bit nasty again in order to be in the right place for Grant Morrison's New X-Men; her behaviour gets noticed by her students who decide to simply not say goodbye in response instead of finding out whether she's murdered a policeman after information about Adrienne or what. It's not really a great sign-off for the team, featuring no real action and a couple of plot red herrings which don't come to anything, which makes it a strangely fitting send-off for Generation X.
Overall the two main strengths of Generation X are the characterisation, especially of the students and despite a slight wobble on the part of the staff in the last issue, and the potential. The first arc points to what could have been a fun team-based action title given a bit more space and fair buzzes in places; the flashback arc loses a lot of this momentum and to be honest showed by the title was in such trouble in the first place while "Four Days" is disappointingly pedestrian and showed that perhaps little was lost when the axe fell. It's not a bad read, there's just a feeling it could have been a lot better.
PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITER: JAMES ROBINSON
ARTISTS: MIKE WIERINGO, MICHAEL RYAN, LARRY STROMAN, RON LIM
With the 12-issue contract with Image (or more Wildstorm by this stage) done with and a glorious return to in-house at Marvel ready to go the Heroes Reborn universe seemed to have ran its' course. However, a 13th issue of each title still came out, a crossover with Wildstorm's superhero books. Why I'm not sure - maybe as a thanks to the company for stepping in, maybe as a contractual thing, maybe as a last-minute fill-in. There's a certain oddness to the way it's presented in that each issue has nothing on the cover really announcing the presence of the Wildstorm heroes, depending on readers recognising the likes of Maul and Burnout, so it doesn't seem to be to give the Image studio a big money-spinning golden handshake.
The rub is that via the Negative Zone an alliance of Doctor Doom, the Skrulls and the Daemonites have been able to bind the Wildstorm universe and the Heroes Reborn universe together through a dimensional lock and the resulting alliance is winning the battle for Earth. It's really just an excuse for some smashing mix-up team line-ups - the Fantastic Four consist of Reed, Sue, Maul and Burn-Out; the Avengers of Captain America (actually Hadrian from WildCATs), the Scarlet Witch, Thor, Hellstrike, the Swordsman, Freefall and Brass; Stormwatch are Battalion, Hawksmoor, Fuji, Fairchild, Winter, Jenny Sparks, the Vision and Triton of the Inhumans; Wetworks consist of Dane, Jester, Mother-One, Pilgrim and Hawkeye; WildCATs are made up of Lord Emp, Zealot, Goliath, Gorgon, Grifter, Warblade and Void. Iron Man, the Thing, the Human Torch, Namor, Deathblow and the Hulk among those already MIA, Captain America is off being Nomad and Nick Fury's just died, replaced by Jeremy Stone as head of SHIELD - whose main weapon is Dane Whitman's Black Knights. No, Dane didn't get Onslaughted but there he is.
Now, if that's all got your eyes rolling this isn't for you. But I love this kind of mash-up and the writer is the superlative James Robinson, who turns in an 88-page action thriller full of everything you want from a crossover. There are deaths galore, big action set pieces, minimal plot intrusion, smart lines and a general "deal with it" attitude. There's also lots of detail thrown in that makes this amalgamated universe feel more natural than it should and each issue manages a great "oh shit" moment. Most of the Wildstorm characters get short shrift surprisingly though it's not really a story where characterisation is the aim of the game anyway, more just increasingly violent deaths as the combined heroes realise Doom's game and try to separate the universes as much as possible.
It's arguable that part of the success is that the basis in Heroes Reborn is only really recognisable due to a few design choices (like the Iron Man armour) and a few cast choices (fair play to Robinson for remembering the Swordsman when most of the Avengers writers didn't). It all makes for some good balls-to-the-wall comic book fun, something lacking over the preceding year. Sadly, with the copyright situation of the Wildstorm characters now being owned by DC and World War 3 being so minor league a reprint looks unlikely and it does deserve better than that.
PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI, WALT SIMONSON, JEPH LOEB
ARTISTS: RON LIM, BRETT BOOTH, MICHAEL RYAN, ANTHONY WYNN, ED BENES, TERRY SHOEMAKER, MIKE MILLER, JOE BENNETT
Much of the second half of the Heroes Reborn titles (especially Fantastic Four) were given over to the build-up to the arrival of Galactus and the twelfth issue of the four titles, all 48 pagers, covered this in "Heroes Reunited". As the name suggested this saw the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the various supporting characters from Iron Man and Captain America all muck in against the big purple planet eater. The odd thing is, though, that it's an anti-crossover in a way - each title effectively has its' own crack.
In the first three instances the heroes lose, the sole survivor being a time-jumping Victor von Doom who works out what's needed by trial and error. It's an interesting approach for sure, and in Fantastic Four #12 at least has some shock value as people start dying. After that it gets a bit predictable and the Avengers & Iron Man instalments especially feel like treading water now the format's been blown but the creative teams all take some pleasure in killing off everyone else's characters early doors (the Fantastic Four getting ICBM'd about a quarter of the way through the Avengers #12 is the peak).
The non-central cast only really get a workout in their own books - the Inhumans are only really seen in Fantastic Four (and then briefly, certainly not enough to justify the time wasted introducing them), the full Avengers roster (including a repaired Vision) only gets much to do in their own book, Iron Man #12 is the only one to pretend that the Hulkbusters are in on this and Captain America #12 is the only one to bring Falcon and Bucky into things.
The final issue featured Doom's time travel equipment damaged, making the fourth attempt all or nothing. Convenient, that. After a promising start the finale is weak, the Silver Surfer being persuaded to fight against Galactus entirely by Bucky being stupid and then defeating him fairly easily before some wrap-up stuff for Cap's solo storylines, making for an underwhelming conclusion.
While it's a marked improvement on Industrial Revolution it's another weak crossover, this time due to a botched format experiment that isn't without promise but only works once rather than the three times it's actually used. It ensures that the last real event of the Heroes Reborn universe is as much of a failure as everything else.
PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI
ARTISTS: BRETT BOOTH, RON LIM
Post-'Industrial Revolution' it was clear the Heroes Reborn universe would be rejoining the main Marvel universe to some extent sooner rather than later; solid reasons why are hard to find from credible sources during a time of considerable upheaval for the House of Ideas. It might have been that new management felt such big properties should be in-house, that sales were disappointing, that the critical backlash had an effect,, that it was a short-term plan to generate publicity or none of those things or all of them.
The decision was made to have the last two issues of each Heroes Reborn title be a crossover, with the dangling possibility floated that the universe would be actually destroyed by Galactus. Thus there was effectively five issues of each to get from the state of affairs seen in the 'Industrial Revolution' crossover in the sixth issue of each to the 'Heroes Reunited' storyline in the twelfth.
This halfway point saw many of the creative teams reorganised; Fantastic Four would continue with storylines plotted by Wildstorm founder Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi but Lee stopped contributing interior art. Brett Booth, best known for his work on the early issues of Stormwatch alongside Lee, comes in and does a decent replica job for a few issues before handing over to cosmic crossover specialist Ron Lim.
Plotwise it's the same breathless stream of introductions as the first chunk of issues but here it seems masochistic, like Wildstorm want to do their version of the Negative Zone (and Burstaar), the Inhumans (overkill as only Crystal was actually brought into the universe) and the Heralds of Galactus. None of this gets much development; the Negative Zone serves the narrative purpose of allowing a few fun flashbacks to earlier adventures (including mention of Franklin Richards) and showing the growing realisation of the characters that something is badly amiss with the universe.
After that it's a rush off to Attilan to meet the Inhumans and another predictable "fight through misunderstanding then all become friends" story. Interspersed with all of this are introductions to three of the Heralds - Firelord, Plasma and Terrax, who turns up to fight the group and deliver official notice of Galactus' imminent arrival. All of which is overcomplication as the already-established Silver Surfer and maybe Terrax could have covered most of what they add to the plot advancement; they just take up pages. It might have made sense if Jim Lee was still drawing and wanted to put his stamp on the characters but as it is it's just bizarre; the Inhumans will also make minimal impact on the later crossover despite foreshadowing Galactus and you're left wondering why we need a remake of how they met the F4 at this juncture.
The Four themselves are reduced to a bunch of stock phrases with the odd bit of soap opera thrown in (Sue's inexplicably pregnant! Johnny and Crystal fall in love immediately) and by now there's basically no point in them being separate from their regular incarnations - Sue's business position or Johnny's casino antics aren't mentioned, for example. They're just the first family of superheroes like they were six months before.
