Wolverine and the X-men Volume 1

Storytellers: Jason Aaron with Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau and Matteo Scalera
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Year of Publication: 2012
Page Count: 4 issues

What I learned about Writing/Storytelling:
1.  Aaron introduces Quintin Quire as a regular cast member in issue one without explanation and doesn’t discuss how he ended up a student of the X-men school until a flashback at the beginning of issue 3.  This seems to be a technique to avoid getting bogged down with backstory before the story really gets rolling.

2.  There seems to be an attempt at a fun, zany approach by throwing in everything and the kitchen sink, super danger rooms, giant underground monsters, Frankensteins, alien allies, experimental portals to other dimensions, etc.

3.  In issue 1 Aaron has people from the Department of Education inspect the school. This is a device that has the inspectors go around and meet everyone and introduce the various characters.

What I learned about art/storytelling:
There seems to be some issues with the art that can provide a teachable moment.
The art and letters are too close to the gap between pages here:
Hardcover binder problem

I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the fact my copy is hardback?  It would obviously not be an issue with a floppy, but what about softcover trade paperbacks?  Do hardbacks have a greater area absorbed by the spine?  This was only a problem for a few pages, but it was an issue.

I looked at some other books:
Sandman’s art is very close to the spine, but in my softback copy it doesn’t appear to be a problem. I wonder if they can add blank space for the hardback collections?

Sandman:
Sandman softcover colume

I have a Runaways hardback that seems well planned for loss of space for the spine:

Runaways has good production values

Here’s a side shot of that page:

clip_image004

Then I noticed this from the Railgun manga: The artist plans for the spine and draws it differently depending on whether it’s on the left page or the right page:

Railgun artist plans for the spine

Other Railgun spine page

He goes further out with the art on the sides not facing the spine.
Not sure what went wrong with the X-men art, perhaps it was just a production problem?

Recommendation: C

Notes/Reviews/Synopsis:
There’s a real sense of a writer flailing around here. The book doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be: a book about Wolverine and a bunch of crazy kid characters, a book staring Wolverine and the adult characters, or a book that hardly has Wolverine in it at all.
Some sequences seemed almost like adult swim esque parody, but it didn’t seem particularly intentional.

In a really weird sequence, a wealthy villain shows up to the X-men school to taunt Wolverine, and the conversation goes something like this:

Villain:  “I’m behind all of the bad things that happened to you for the last year, and I’m here to taunt you about it!”
Wolverine: You bastard!  Why I outta….
Villain: You can’t touch me, my criminal record is clean and you are a law abiding citizen!
Wolverine:  Grrrrrrrr, he’s got me licked!
(Apparently this version of Wolverine isn’t all about the  wreckless stabby stab.)

Then the villain sends a giant monster to attack the school and after the X-men beat it, Wolverine hires Matt Murdock to sue the guy for 300 million dollars for wrecking the school!  So then the bad guy is all pissed off due to litigation, so he hires Sabertooth to mess up the school in retaliation for the lawsuit!

It just seems… silly. It doesn’t seem like it’s by a creative team that’s in control of what they are doing.

Take this page, where Quintin Quire somehow delivers an entire soliloquy while a monster is charging him:

Monologue while a monster attacks

At first I thought the monster must be frozen, but you turn the page, and no, it wasn’t.  I thought that sort of thing only happened in old comics.

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