Jim Lemoine
Feb 9, 2003, 10:19 pm
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/covers/agentx01.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/covers/agentx01t.jpg" align=left alt="Agent X #1"></a>Reviewer: Jim Lemoine, darkkelf@earthlink.net
Quick Rating: Excellent!
Creamed corn, happy trails, fun balls, country music, line-dancing, corn dogs, Spice Girls, and pudding. It’s been one heck of a year.
Written by: Gail Simone
Art by: UDON Studios
UDON Chief: Eric Ko
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe, Cory Petit
Assistant Editor: Lynne Yoshii
Edited by: Mike Marts, Mike Raicht, Andrew Lis
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Deadpool was always sort of the Marvel book that didn’t quite fit in.
When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty amazing that Deadpool ever got his own humor series. One of the few books begun in the nineties to last over twenty issues, Deadpool was initially graced by the writing of the fantastic Joe Kelly. Somehow, Kelly was able to integrate biting wit and homicidal satire with the in’s and out’s of X-continuity. Ever since Kelly left the book, though, the title seemed to somehow lose most of its magic. After all, it’s a tough assignment for a creative team: How ludicrous can you be? Do you make Wade look like a good guy or a bad guy? How connected to the rest of the Marvel Universe is he? Do you shoot for realism or comedy?
Then, at the beginning of 2002, enter new Deadpool creative team Gail Simone and UDON Studios.
“I was very fortunate to get DP as my first regular assignment,” says writer Simone. “On Deadpool, we were taking over a fan-favorite that had sort of fallen on hard times, and the readers COULD have raked us over the coals. But instead, they were great to us and spread the word all over, which made Agent X a much bigger proposition.”
With their first issue, Deadpool #65, it seemed that Simone and UDON were attempting a “back-to-basics” approach for the title character. They made Deadpool’s mercenary profession central to the book again, dropped the Weapon X references and Wolverine continuity, and focused the title squarely on comedy. The result was a clear success as far as storytelling goes, although the new style of art used by UDON took a while to catch on for some fans. UDON brought more of a manga feeling to the book, very different from what we’d been seeing artwise, that at first didn’t gel perfectly with Simone’s scripts. The appearances of UDON’s background characters and villains, especially, were distracting in those first few issues as they looked more like anime movie icons than real people.
Deadpool #67 seemed to me to be the issue where UDON and Simone really started to click together. This was, of course, the infamous “mini-Rhino” issue, one that I personally hail as the funniest comic book published in the history of Marvel. Fan reaction to this series was immediate and positive; there was even a small drive for a mini-Rhino limited series! Credit for the amazing success of this issue goes equally to all of the members of the creative team. Simone crafted a brilliantly funny script, and UDON made that script come alive by capturing emotions and raw comedy perfectly. Simone herself said that she’s sometimes unable to escape her own success with this issue. “At San Diego, I had a lot of readers coming up repeating their favorite lines--that was so rewarding. ‘Happy Trail or Fun Ball?’ is probably going to follow me to my grave, and that's fine with me.”
UDON’s artwork throughout the two series has been outstanding, with great attention to background detail, facial expression, and posture. Only two issues, Agent X #3 & 7, came across as surprisingly weak, with a lack of attention to detail and poorly drawn character models and faces. Those two issues are certainly exceptions, though: the only problems I’ve really had overall, looking back at their art, was their decreasing tendency to make characters look like video-game fighters, and their odd fixation on drawing Sandi and Outlaw with huge lips. Minor nitpicking aside, fantastic art. Of her growing and successful partnership with UDON, Simone added, “They’re unbelievable. Alvin (Lee, UDON artist) is always going to be THE Agent X guy for me. He knew how to make a scene funny without being silly, and he did terrific action. He understood my stuff completely. Erik Ko was brilliant to work with.”
“Healing Factor,” the story arc that ran through Deadpool #65-#69, was a fitting capstone to the Deadpool series. The successes of the arc as a whole were many. Wade Wilson gave us some of his best comedy, we gained some real insight into his character, and Simone finally brought the “Deadpool: Hero or Villain” debate to a believable and rewarding conclusion. We saw the groundwork laid for the characters and concepts of the upcoming Agent X series, and we were treated to some of the most effective Marvel guest appearances in recent memory (including Dazzler, Taskmaster, and, of course, the Rhino).
“In retrospect, I'm pretty proud of the ending we gave Deadpool,” said Simone. “Not only was this my first Deadpool arc, it was my first regular mainstream assignment, and I was given the task before my first issue even came out. So, even though the editors (Mike Marts and Mike Raicht) were great, I put a lot of pressure on myself to give Deadpool an ending that fit the character and was respectful to both the previous writers and the hardcore readers.”
The ending of the arc, especially, was fantastic. Deadpool #69 was exactly what a series’ final issue should be: a thorough farewell to the character paying homage to his many facets. It didn’t come across as feeling rushed, and it didn’t read as contrived in the slightest. The art, especially, was amazing; UDON turned in some of their best work I’ve ever seen. I think we all have an iconic character image that we keep in our minds, and whenever I think of Deadpool, I think of that final pin-up of him being discovered by the Black Swan from #69. I could go on and on about that one page: it perfectly captured the dementia and power of Wade Wilson. The method Simone used to (possibly) remove Wilson from the Marvel Universe always struck me as quite true to the character: Wade went completely insane, and then got blown to pieces. Good stuff.
“The fact that the issue was so well-received by long-time Deadpool fans, that they got what we tried to do, meant a lot to me,” adds Simone. “I think it holds up as a classy and proper way for Wade to go, if he had to go. So, I'm very proud of that.”
And then came Agent X. Yes, we were bitter, we were fanboys, we wanted our Deadpool back. But we were willing to give it a shot, especially since Simone and UDON were mum as to whether Agent X and Deadpool were one and the same. It soon became apparent that the creative team was enjoying themselves even more after the relaunch. With the departure of the Deadpool name, so too were gone all of the convoluted connections to Wolverine, the old X-Force, and general Marvel continuity. Instead, Simone and UDON had a new sandbox to play in, one that they could fill with their own new and reimagined characters and concepts. Where Deadpool was a funny book about the superheroes of the Marvel Universe, Agent X became a very funny book poking fun at the M.U. in general, sort of as an outsider looking in. The concept wouldn’t have worked at all with Wade Wilson, but it fit Alex Hayden perfectly.
Where Simone and UDON really showed their quality was with their introduction and development of new characters. We’ve seen some great new creations come out in 2002: Ratbag, Sandi, the Black Swan, Higashi, Outlaw, Mary Zero, and the Taskmaster. (Yes, I know that Taskmaster isn’t really a new character, but since he’s been rebuilt by this team, he might as well be.) Supporting characters, usually a hindrance and weakness for most books (other than they Spidey line), were equally as strong as the main character in Deadpool and Agent X. UDON did a fantastic job with designs for each of these individuals, showing that none of them were throwaway characters. Simone contributed by giving them an amazing amount of depth, especially in the cases of Taskmaster and Outlaw. I’ve had many of my female friends (who often cite Agent X as their favorite Marvel comic book) tell me that nobody at Marvel writes women better, more believably, than Gail Simone. Personally, I love to see a woman in a comic book that actually has some depth and intelligence, instead of being some stereotypical vamp hard-nosed self-confident always-attractive beautiful fighter.
I keep coming back to Taskmaster, though… I’ve loved him for years as a cool character because of his special powers. However, Simone and UDON have made him even better by having him retreat from the world of superheroics. They’ve shown us what he’s really like behind the gaudy costume. If Marvel came out with a Taskmaster regular series, I’d buy it in a second after reading him in Agent X.
However, I’d be lying if I said the year didn’t have its weak points. I personally gave a relatively poor review to Agent X #3, saying that the art and story both seemed to be surprisingly sub-par. Characters sometimes seemed to look far too generic, backgrounds were relatively sparse and some major artistic mistakes were made in this issue. From the story-side, I commented that the issue just didn’t quite ‘pop’ for me like other issues had; it simply wasn’t as funny, intriguing, or entertaining. “Issue three of Agent X went through extensive rewrites that I don't think really helped the issue,” said Simone. “We had a new editor, new artist, new everybody, and it just didn't gel as it should have. It's okay, but it should have been considerably better.”
Her last issue as series writer, Agent X #7, sadly also suffered from shoddier art and what seemed like a very rushed and forced ending. “Bits of the end of my last issue were re-written, badly, without my knowledge, and that's grating.” Simone commented.
But aside from those two weaker issues, Deadpool #65 through Agent X #7, the entire run by Simone and UDON, comprise a fantastically intriguing story that just happens to also be laugh-out-loud-funny. The creative team managed to perfectly blend the kind-hearted yet homicidal mania of Alex/Wade with the innate insanity of existence in the Marvel Universe. Although fanboys like me still miss Deadpool and were very sad to see him go (especially his oh-so-marketable logo!), Alex Hayden has proven to be a worthy replacement without anywhere near as much baggage to confuse things.
“I'm very pleased for the most part,” says Simone of her run in 2002. “I think HEALING FACTOR in Deadpool, and DEAD MAN'S SWITCH in Agent X are both fun stories, and the fact that the books sold out so regularly, and that there's such an outcry for trade paperbacks speaks volumes (no pun intended). So, I have to say, I was very fortunate to get Deadpool as my first regular assignment. I hope (upcoming writers) Buddy's and Evan's issues are very successful, and then I hope the book continues with a kickass team.”
I try to get several of my friends to read my favorite books, and one of them is Agent X. I used to introduce people to the book by saying that it was “a very, very funny book” and telling them they had to try it. Over the last few months of 2002, though, I stopped saying that. Simply calling Agent X a comedy doesn’t do justice to the true range of emotions and situations that Simone and UDON present in the series. Agent X (and Deadpool before it) contains quite a bit of drama, action, and mystery, but nowhere is it stronger than when it delves into deep characterization. Simone is a real master of realistic scripting, especially with her female characters.
Simone and UDON had a rough-task before them: take a formerly-fan-favorite character, make him cool again, then kill him off so Marvel could relaunch a new book. Through it all, though, this team went above and beyond the call of duty to give us a series that was not only funny, but also intelligent.
“Our biggest challenge was probably attempting to appeal to new readers, while at the same time, not leaving the long-term Deadpool loyalists by the side of the road. They deserve better than that. I think we did okay.”
I think so, too.
ART:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axhalf.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axnone.jpg
STORY:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axhalf.jpg
OVERALL:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axnone.jpg
Quick Rating: Excellent!
Creamed corn, happy trails, fun balls, country music, line-dancing, corn dogs, Spice Girls, and pudding. It’s been one heck of a year.
Written by: Gail Simone
Art by: UDON Studios
UDON Chief: Eric Ko
Lettered by: Dave Sharpe, Cory Petit
Assistant Editor: Lynne Yoshii
Edited by: Mike Marts, Mike Raicht, Andrew Lis
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Deadpool was always sort of the Marvel book that didn’t quite fit in.
When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty amazing that Deadpool ever got his own humor series. One of the few books begun in the nineties to last over twenty issues, Deadpool was initially graced by the writing of the fantastic Joe Kelly. Somehow, Kelly was able to integrate biting wit and homicidal satire with the in’s and out’s of X-continuity. Ever since Kelly left the book, though, the title seemed to somehow lose most of its magic. After all, it’s a tough assignment for a creative team: How ludicrous can you be? Do you make Wade look like a good guy or a bad guy? How connected to the rest of the Marvel Universe is he? Do you shoot for realism or comedy?
Then, at the beginning of 2002, enter new Deadpool creative team Gail Simone and UDON Studios.
“I was very fortunate to get DP as my first regular assignment,” says writer Simone. “On Deadpool, we were taking over a fan-favorite that had sort of fallen on hard times, and the readers COULD have raked us over the coals. But instead, they were great to us and spread the word all over, which made Agent X a much bigger proposition.”
With their first issue, Deadpool #65, it seemed that Simone and UDON were attempting a “back-to-basics” approach for the title character. They made Deadpool’s mercenary profession central to the book again, dropped the Weapon X references and Wolverine continuity, and focused the title squarely on comedy. The result was a clear success as far as storytelling goes, although the new style of art used by UDON took a while to catch on for some fans. UDON brought more of a manga feeling to the book, very different from what we’d been seeing artwise, that at first didn’t gel perfectly with Simone’s scripts. The appearances of UDON’s background characters and villains, especially, were distracting in those first few issues as they looked more like anime movie icons than real people.
Deadpool #67 seemed to me to be the issue where UDON and Simone really started to click together. This was, of course, the infamous “mini-Rhino” issue, one that I personally hail as the funniest comic book published in the history of Marvel. Fan reaction to this series was immediate and positive; there was even a small drive for a mini-Rhino limited series! Credit for the amazing success of this issue goes equally to all of the members of the creative team. Simone crafted a brilliantly funny script, and UDON made that script come alive by capturing emotions and raw comedy perfectly. Simone herself said that she’s sometimes unable to escape her own success with this issue. “At San Diego, I had a lot of readers coming up repeating their favorite lines--that was so rewarding. ‘Happy Trail or Fun Ball?’ is probably going to follow me to my grave, and that's fine with me.”
UDON’s artwork throughout the two series has been outstanding, with great attention to background detail, facial expression, and posture. Only two issues, Agent X #3 & 7, came across as surprisingly weak, with a lack of attention to detail and poorly drawn character models and faces. Those two issues are certainly exceptions, though: the only problems I’ve really had overall, looking back at their art, was their decreasing tendency to make characters look like video-game fighters, and their odd fixation on drawing Sandi and Outlaw with huge lips. Minor nitpicking aside, fantastic art. Of her growing and successful partnership with UDON, Simone added, “They’re unbelievable. Alvin (Lee, UDON artist) is always going to be THE Agent X guy for me. He knew how to make a scene funny without being silly, and he did terrific action. He understood my stuff completely. Erik Ko was brilliant to work with.”
“Healing Factor,” the story arc that ran through Deadpool #65-#69, was a fitting capstone to the Deadpool series. The successes of the arc as a whole were many. Wade Wilson gave us some of his best comedy, we gained some real insight into his character, and Simone finally brought the “Deadpool: Hero or Villain” debate to a believable and rewarding conclusion. We saw the groundwork laid for the characters and concepts of the upcoming Agent X series, and we were treated to some of the most effective Marvel guest appearances in recent memory (including Dazzler, Taskmaster, and, of course, the Rhino).
“In retrospect, I'm pretty proud of the ending we gave Deadpool,” said Simone. “Not only was this my first Deadpool arc, it was my first regular mainstream assignment, and I was given the task before my first issue even came out. So, even though the editors (Mike Marts and Mike Raicht) were great, I put a lot of pressure on myself to give Deadpool an ending that fit the character and was respectful to both the previous writers and the hardcore readers.”
The ending of the arc, especially, was fantastic. Deadpool #69 was exactly what a series’ final issue should be: a thorough farewell to the character paying homage to his many facets. It didn’t come across as feeling rushed, and it didn’t read as contrived in the slightest. The art, especially, was amazing; UDON turned in some of their best work I’ve ever seen. I think we all have an iconic character image that we keep in our minds, and whenever I think of Deadpool, I think of that final pin-up of him being discovered by the Black Swan from #69. I could go on and on about that one page: it perfectly captured the dementia and power of Wade Wilson. The method Simone used to (possibly) remove Wilson from the Marvel Universe always struck me as quite true to the character: Wade went completely insane, and then got blown to pieces. Good stuff.
“The fact that the issue was so well-received by long-time Deadpool fans, that they got what we tried to do, meant a lot to me,” adds Simone. “I think it holds up as a classy and proper way for Wade to go, if he had to go. So, I'm very proud of that.”
And then came Agent X. Yes, we were bitter, we were fanboys, we wanted our Deadpool back. But we were willing to give it a shot, especially since Simone and UDON were mum as to whether Agent X and Deadpool were one and the same. It soon became apparent that the creative team was enjoying themselves even more after the relaunch. With the departure of the Deadpool name, so too were gone all of the convoluted connections to Wolverine, the old X-Force, and general Marvel continuity. Instead, Simone and UDON had a new sandbox to play in, one that they could fill with their own new and reimagined characters and concepts. Where Deadpool was a funny book about the superheroes of the Marvel Universe, Agent X became a very funny book poking fun at the M.U. in general, sort of as an outsider looking in. The concept wouldn’t have worked at all with Wade Wilson, but it fit Alex Hayden perfectly.
Where Simone and UDON really showed their quality was with their introduction and development of new characters. We’ve seen some great new creations come out in 2002: Ratbag, Sandi, the Black Swan, Higashi, Outlaw, Mary Zero, and the Taskmaster. (Yes, I know that Taskmaster isn’t really a new character, but since he’s been rebuilt by this team, he might as well be.) Supporting characters, usually a hindrance and weakness for most books (other than they Spidey line), were equally as strong as the main character in Deadpool and Agent X. UDON did a fantastic job with designs for each of these individuals, showing that none of them were throwaway characters. Simone contributed by giving them an amazing amount of depth, especially in the cases of Taskmaster and Outlaw. I’ve had many of my female friends (who often cite Agent X as their favorite Marvel comic book) tell me that nobody at Marvel writes women better, more believably, than Gail Simone. Personally, I love to see a woman in a comic book that actually has some depth and intelligence, instead of being some stereotypical vamp hard-nosed self-confident always-attractive beautiful fighter.
I keep coming back to Taskmaster, though… I’ve loved him for years as a cool character because of his special powers. However, Simone and UDON have made him even better by having him retreat from the world of superheroics. They’ve shown us what he’s really like behind the gaudy costume. If Marvel came out with a Taskmaster regular series, I’d buy it in a second after reading him in Agent X.
However, I’d be lying if I said the year didn’t have its weak points. I personally gave a relatively poor review to Agent X #3, saying that the art and story both seemed to be surprisingly sub-par. Characters sometimes seemed to look far too generic, backgrounds were relatively sparse and some major artistic mistakes were made in this issue. From the story-side, I commented that the issue just didn’t quite ‘pop’ for me like other issues had; it simply wasn’t as funny, intriguing, or entertaining. “Issue three of Agent X went through extensive rewrites that I don't think really helped the issue,” said Simone. “We had a new editor, new artist, new everybody, and it just didn't gel as it should have. It's okay, but it should have been considerably better.”
Her last issue as series writer, Agent X #7, sadly also suffered from shoddier art and what seemed like a very rushed and forced ending. “Bits of the end of my last issue were re-written, badly, without my knowledge, and that's grating.” Simone commented.
But aside from those two weaker issues, Deadpool #65 through Agent X #7, the entire run by Simone and UDON, comprise a fantastically intriguing story that just happens to also be laugh-out-loud-funny. The creative team managed to perfectly blend the kind-hearted yet homicidal mania of Alex/Wade with the innate insanity of existence in the Marvel Universe. Although fanboys like me still miss Deadpool and were very sad to see him go (especially his oh-so-marketable logo!), Alex Hayden has proven to be a worthy replacement without anywhere near as much baggage to confuse things.
“I'm very pleased for the most part,” says Simone of her run in 2002. “I think HEALING FACTOR in Deadpool, and DEAD MAN'S SWITCH in Agent X are both fun stories, and the fact that the books sold out so regularly, and that there's such an outcry for trade paperbacks speaks volumes (no pun intended). So, I have to say, I was very fortunate to get Deadpool as my first regular assignment. I hope (upcoming writers) Buddy's and Evan's issues are very successful, and then I hope the book continues with a kickass team.”
I try to get several of my friends to read my favorite books, and one of them is Agent X. I used to introduce people to the book by saying that it was “a very, very funny book” and telling them they had to try it. Over the last few months of 2002, though, I stopped saying that. Simply calling Agent X a comedy doesn’t do justice to the true range of emotions and situations that Simone and UDON present in the series. Agent X (and Deadpool before it) contains quite a bit of drama, action, and mystery, but nowhere is it stronger than when it delves into deep characterization. Simone is a real master of realistic scripting, especially with her female characters.
Simone and UDON had a rough-task before them: take a formerly-fan-favorite character, make him cool again, then kill him off so Marvel could relaunch a new book. Through it all, though, this team went above and beyond the call of duty to give us a series that was not only funny, but also intelligent.
“Our biggest challenge was probably attempting to appeal to new readers, while at the same time, not leaving the long-term Deadpool loyalists by the side of the road. They deserve better than that. I think we did okay.”
I think so, too.
ART:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axhalf.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axnone.jpg
STORY:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axhalf.jpg
OVERALL:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/axnone.jpg