It’s time for a crossover. Really, really straining the mandate of this blog. And I’m not even excited about it. Matt Fraction was the writer of Uncanny X-Men at this time. And for whatever reason, he wound up writing this 6-part crossover between that and Dark Avengers by himself, Bendis just exits his own book for awhile. With a few exceptions, I stopped following the X-Men back in the 90s. I was not thrilled about the prospect of this crossover, despite being a big fan of Fraction. But the reason was, as we’ve seen before, any story with the X-Men in it is an X-Men story, and anyone else is a supporting character. I didn’t read X-Men. I knew this to be true. My options were to risk it and buy the crossover, or just drop Dark Avengers for 2 months. So, I went to a comic convention and asked Fraction directly what I should do. He said he genuinely thought this would be worth it for me, so I bought the books. He was wrong. But here we are, anyway! At least Greg Land, another reason I avoided Fraction’s X-Men, isn’t part of this. This opening salvo is instead illustrated by Marc Silvestri, last seen ‘round here doing Civil War: The Initiative. Silvestri, like Jim Lee, seemed to get pretty comfy being more of an administrator than an artist once the dust settled on the whole Image thing. They both draw once in awhile, but not as much as you might expect some of the most popular comics artists of the last 40 years to do. Image Comics made its founders business men, and only Erik Larsen seemed to still want to, you know, draw comics. As with The Initiative, Silvestri has brought a ton of dudes from his Top Cow company with him, even more this time. This book has 4 other guys doing “pencil assists” and a staggering 9 inkers. Makes you wonder how much Silvestri really did. Frank D’Armata colors. We get going with Simon Trask, presumably the child of Sentinel creator Bolivar, leading a march of his Humanity Now! group into San Francisco, evoking the Civil Rights movement, to march against mutants’ right to breed. San Fran is currently a haven for mutants, so he wants to make as big a splash as possible here.
The thing about Top Cow studios is everyone, everyone adopted Silvestri’s scratchy, rather unfinished looking pencil style, glassy-eyed faces and long, slim bodies. The breakout artists, like Mike Turner and Dave Finch, may have molded their own thing out of it, but they did it, too. All of which is to say, who knows how much of this or any page Sivestri actually did? He had a unique and very appealing art style on Uncanny X-Men. By the time he left Wolverine to found Image, he’d changed to doing something much more like Jim Lee, but still his own. By the mid-90s, it was all about these wispy, scratchy lines and not really defining anything. Nothing has weight. I don’t frankly care for it, but he’s still Marc Silvestri, his name presumably moves units. The blonde is presumably Dazzler, it’s weird she’s not named.
Maybe don’t bring a guy called “Hellion” to a peaceful protest, I don’t know. Hank’s supposed to be a genius. Well, a full scale riot breaks out, in which Pixie is badly injured, and everyone blames the mutants on the news, of course.
It’s so weird, Silvestri 2009 drawing the X-Men again. There’s nothing left of his 80s style. Scott and Emma Frost go to City Hall, where the mayor demands he get his people in line, and Scott points out he’s not the boss of all mutants. Then…
Sue is absolutely absurd in that 3rd panel. Absurd! Wouldn’t all the New Avengers go? They have beef with the Dark team and they’re pro-mutant. I guess not! also, oddly, I guess this is where Loki becomes a guy again, after it was revealed that the female Loki was actually him possessing Sif’s body the whole time. Despite this very gross development, it will eventually lead to the idea of Loki being nonbinary. Which would be fine in a vacuum, it’s just knowing that he never “chose to present as female” so much as “took over the body of another person against her will and was super creepy about it,” you know? It’s not remotely the same thing. Well, another riot happens at night, with firebombs and fighting, and the X-Men trying to contain it, even fighting other mutants, like Toad and some of their own students. Trying to help gets Cyclops hit in the head with a brick.
Who indeed?
Well, ok. Cut to the riots, where Moonstone shows up and starts blasting mutants who yell too loud. Elsewhere, Venom attacks Colossus. Still elsewhere, Bullseye scares off some kind of mutant countermarch (It’s not super clear) while complaining that he’s not allowed to kill anyone.
Minimum 2 pencilers and 2 inkers on this page. This comic is a Frankenstein’s monster.
Nice to “hear” Ares written better. Sorry, Bendis. Victoria Hand is a lot more openly insubordinate than I remember, I remember her being a diehard for the cause. Huh. Well, Norman’s off meeting with Emma, unsurprisingly, and telling her there’s a new plan.
Every story with the X-Men in it is, inevitably, an X-Men story. This is surely no exception. This “crossover” casts the Dark Avengers as villains, and kind of background characters, even, in a story all about mutant rights and mutant liberation. I was hoodwinked.