Linsey Duncan
Jun 12, 2003, 11:24 pm
<a href="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/covers/xmronin5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/covers/xmronin5t.jpg" align=left alt="X-Men: Ronin #5"></a>Reviewer: Linsey Duncan, riftedwick@hotmail.com
Quick Rating: Above Average
Story Title: Shima (Zone of Death)
Not even the corpses are quite wrapped up.
Written by: J.Torres
Cover by: Tommy Ohtsuka
Art by: Makato Nakatsuka (with Hiromi Nakatsuka)
Colors by: Guru eFX
Letters by: Dave Sharpe
Assistant Editor: Stephanie Moore
Editor: C.B. Cebulski
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
I'll admit that my problems with X-Men Ronin #5 started with the cover. If I'm never much for simple character poses, background-less, the previous covers did have some tie-in with the material inside, at least as far as mood went. This cover puzzled me -- since the actual comic is not exactly chipper or metaphorically winking at you in any way, shape, or form. That and Jean is very anatomically detailed in the sort of lean over position that made me blink and I still don't understand what context or image joke this is supposed to fit in. It just doesn't jive with the theme of the comic (which always seemed far more sociopathic than sexy, sultry, and/or seductive to me). The only thing I could guess was that perhaps the image was a nod to X-Men Pheonix.
This whole confusion over the cover led to, yes, a certain aversion as to what was inside. I was expecting some fairly dark resolution, considering the way the plot was going, and the cover threw me off guard. I'll reiterate that the cover doesn't match the comic. But, although some of those expected dark spots show up, I didn't feel like there was much resolution at all.
There is quite a lot of action, new characters, and set-ups for later conflicts. Although it's nice to leave room for a sequel or continuation, I could have done with less of the montage "here's Psylocke, here's Wolfsbane, here's Nightcrawler, here's Beast" and more character development and reflection as the mini-series draws to a close. See, there is that off chance that this will be the last we see of the Ronin. The developments here could have been saved for the potential continuation. The idea that mutants will now be hunted en-masse is not one that needs to be rushed into and then spelled out. Mutant hunting after something like cop-killings is always inevitable, so why not hint at it and let the full storm break some other time?
Still, there is something to be said about the widespread mutant reaction. In one sequence, we have Wolfsbane chatting with a friend and the dialogue runs thus: "I can't believe it! The X-Men are . . . they're heroes! But the media's reporting that they're fugitives from the law . . . " "And cop-killers." There's a nice tone of disbelief -- the mutants are quite willing to blame the phenomenon on media distortion and predjudice. Of course, the X-Men (again and again) are cop-killers and deserve every moment of bad press they get, but the average mutant would rather not believe that. In a second exchange, we have a mutant actually challenging the X-Men's position: "This is all your fault!" but is immediately appeased by "Come children, I'll explain everything. Trust us." Either the X-Men are extremely canny and manipulative in a sub-conscious level that never comes out in their dialogue or they hold the same opinion as most other mutants that the media are out to get them. Or some mix of both.
There is not a moment of self-awareness in the comic. The closest we get is a statement by Toad (referring to the Sentinel destruction by Jean) that "Neither of us meant for that to happen." So, Toad didn't mean to direct Jean to release the Pheonix energy by destroying the Sentinels. That's fine. But perhaps a little late. Certainly no one minded the destruction when it happened and Toad's statement is (if I can read comic tones right) fairly matter-of-fact. The X-Men are hardly wracked with remorse and guilt over their actions -- nor do they seem to connect those actions with their current persecution. They find a convenient scapegoat -- Emma Frost.
Poor Emma. Her gruesome little fate is hopelessly disproportionate to anything she actually did. "You can still stop everything you've set in motion by turning yourself into the cops!" Wolverine tells her, but Emma's refusal is only, well, logical (even if "Over my dead body" is not a smart way to word it). There is nothing Emma can do to "save" the X-Men's reputation, even if she wanted to. Sure, her speech against humans and freaky-looking-mutants is one of those aspects that mark her as a villain, but what has she really done? The X-Men's words are so heroic, so comforting, but as far as I can see, they are, as a group, are responsible for the vast majority of the deaths in the miniseries. Emma played around with the minds of the populace, sure, made them scared of the X-Men, sure, but couldn't it be argued that she was completely justified? Even before Emma "influenced the media," you had Wolverine's sadistic and often fatal interrogations that, I suppose I could be wrong about this, are probably illegal or something in Japan. You could say that she was only showing the world what the X-Men were really like inside or some such.
But, of course, she must die because she won't turn herself into the police. Jean's stammered question of "Did you have to . . . " (kill her) could only be answered honestly with "No," but Wolverine wouldn't be Wolverine if he didn't answer in the opposite. It was a completely unnecessary, vigilante death, like every single death before it and if the X-Men can tell the difference . . . well, I haven't seen any indication they can. Jean's shock seems a little out of place. Surely she's seen Wolverine at work before and surely she's done her share of killing.
Unmourned death has become such a constant that Xavier's complete indifference to his daughter's demise is a nasty touch, but not particularly surprising. I did appreciate the Black Queen, if only because she has enough humanity to allow the sense of geniune sadness for someone else that most of the characters seem to lack.
What strikes me as particularly frightening is the rally, where Cyclops and Wolverine declare the status of all mutants present as freedom fighters, rebels, ronin. Of course, the mutants eat it up. They're the oppressed group, right?
They seem to think so. Then again, in my understanding of medieval samurai, samurai had such power, such priveledge that they could kill peasants for any reason (even a whim) and receive no penalty for it. Well, naturally, how could they resist? The peasants were helpless in every form of the word and they couldn't do anything against the samurai, no matter how much they wanted to. At once point in the rally, Cyclops asserts "The X-Men have always been about helping the weak, the powerless, the oppressed. Now it's time we help ourselves and people like ourselves. People like you." You could read it like this. The weak and the powerless have never been the mutants (as far as the context of the comic goes). The weak are the humans. Look at how easily the X-Men can dispatch the Sentinels, which are probably the most powerful thing the humans have to oppose them with. We hear about how mutants have been killed in the round-ups, yes, and it would be far more sensible for only the X-Men to be targeted. But, in all fairness, the mutants have the weapons -- the best the humans can do is throw stones as far as the overall impact it'll have. A few samur -- ah, mutants will fall by combined effort -- but one or two strokes of a sword can do what a hundred stones can in about a thousandth of the time.
That and the humans have every right to strike back. For all that the X-Men disparage Emma Frost and her ilk, they and their new cronies have a very similar ideal. The humans are great to protect until they get in the way. Unless they show some backbone of their own. Then all "protect the weak" niceties are quite conveniently forgotten, unless the "weak" and any other category useful to the X-Men to patron happen to be mutants.
In any case, that's how I read the comic.
There are other fairly major issues -- such as the fact the mastermind behind the Sentinels is apparently associated with dear Hell-Fire-Club patriarch Xavier. The conspiracy revealed here did ring a little hollow, for that old reason that the X-Men are simply far nastier than any of the villains yet produced. What I'd like to cover at some length (and end with) is the Storm/Forge, ah, resolution.
It's quite obvious. Forge is dead. If the dialogue didn't say it, it would be hard to mistake the grisly stylized black-blood streaked mask for anything else. Now, I did look back at issue #4 to confirm what I thought Storm knew about Forge's prescence in the Sentinel destruction, and, yes, Storm did exchange words with Forge-in-his-Sentinel as such: "Ororo!" "Forge?" "Get out of here!" and so on.
This would suggest to me that Storm had some idea that Forge was there, which is why the last issue bothered me as it did when she simply didn't seem to care later on. Since reading issue #5 and noting what first looked to me like a further "just not getting it," I did try out several possibilities in my head that would allow her to have that conversation and still somehow not understand that Forge was, well, dead.
She could have decided that the Sentinel was automated from some far-off building and Forge was just directing it. She could have decided that Forge wouldn't really do that, so someone was impersonating him. She could have suffered a concussion after hitting the ground when that other Sentinel attacked her and completely forgot the entire thing. And so on. But it still seems most plausible that she knew very well what happened.
However, if you assume that, the last two pages of the last issue are extremely confusing. I have about fifteen long and complicated interpretations of those two pages. I will not inflict them on you. The story facts are that Ororo is leaving the mutants' underground compound to invite Forge to join them. Toad suggests she bring some fellow or the other with her to ensure safety and she says she can take care of herself, thank you. Toad says to hurry back and shuts the door after her. There is a bemused (I think) panel where Jean and Wolverine look rather concerned.
Then we cut to four panels of what exactly Storm is doing. She sits on the bench she and Forge sat on at one point in a previous issue, checks her watch, pulls back her hood, and lets her hair fly into the wind (well, fly in the "still attatched to her scalp" sense). That's the end of the comic.
I didn't get it. I still don't. There isn't any way Storm could have arranged a meeting with Forge to meet her there, for obvious reasons. Perhaps in letting her white hair down it acts as a sort of "come and find me" banner? But that's assuming she doesn't know he's dead, which, as I explained above, is hard to swallow. If she does know he's dead, what on earth is she doing? Is she in denial so complete that not a twitch of reality or grief can pass over her face? Is she crazy? Is she holding her own personal form of "a wake" by sitting where they sat and letting her hair flow? Or, rather, is her final hair-flying pose that taken by those communing with the spirits of their recently dead boyfriends?
Not to put too blunt a point on it, but I honestly didn't understand the significance of what she was doing. When this comprises the only resolution even hinted at (besides Emma's death) in a miniseries which is supposed to be over as of this issue, I would have personally liked to know what was going on. As it is, I feel I have to make up another story just to explain the entire subplot and I doubt that's the impulse this sequence was intended to give me.
All in all, the miniseries screams "unfinished." If X-Men Ronin #5 was not the final issue, I could think of all sorts of directions that the story could go in. Oh yes, much fun could be had with a group of mutants run by sociopaths and the clan idea. Since this is a final issue and most of the storylines have been left hanging wide open and no important character bothers to make any kind of insightful observation on what the X-Men really are, I admit I finished unsatisfied. Not to mention doomed to remain unsatisfied, since it is that final issue.
I still wish that we could have skipped the montages. The characters are nicely designed, but the action sequences are not as smooth as some of those in previous issues have been and feel less necessary. I will say that most of the expressions were quite nice and added more meaning to the dialogue (although, in my opinion, this is some of the smoothest dialogue of the series).
ART:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
STORY:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
OVERALL:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
Buy this issue online now from X-World Comics and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=539&cat=X%2DMEN+RONIN)
Quick Rating: Above Average
Story Title: Shima (Zone of Death)
Not even the corpses are quite wrapped up.
Written by: J.Torres
Cover by: Tommy Ohtsuka
Art by: Makato Nakatsuka (with Hiromi Nakatsuka)
Colors by: Guru eFX
Letters by: Dave Sharpe
Assistant Editor: Stephanie Moore
Editor: C.B. Cebulski
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
I'll admit that my problems with X-Men Ronin #5 started with the cover. If I'm never much for simple character poses, background-less, the previous covers did have some tie-in with the material inside, at least as far as mood went. This cover puzzled me -- since the actual comic is not exactly chipper or metaphorically winking at you in any way, shape, or form. That and Jean is very anatomically detailed in the sort of lean over position that made me blink and I still don't understand what context or image joke this is supposed to fit in. It just doesn't jive with the theme of the comic (which always seemed far more sociopathic than sexy, sultry, and/or seductive to me). The only thing I could guess was that perhaps the image was a nod to X-Men Pheonix.
This whole confusion over the cover led to, yes, a certain aversion as to what was inside. I was expecting some fairly dark resolution, considering the way the plot was going, and the cover threw me off guard. I'll reiterate that the cover doesn't match the comic. But, although some of those expected dark spots show up, I didn't feel like there was much resolution at all.
There is quite a lot of action, new characters, and set-ups for later conflicts. Although it's nice to leave room for a sequel or continuation, I could have done with less of the montage "here's Psylocke, here's Wolfsbane, here's Nightcrawler, here's Beast" and more character development and reflection as the mini-series draws to a close. See, there is that off chance that this will be the last we see of the Ronin. The developments here could have been saved for the potential continuation. The idea that mutants will now be hunted en-masse is not one that needs to be rushed into and then spelled out. Mutant hunting after something like cop-killings is always inevitable, so why not hint at it and let the full storm break some other time?
Still, there is something to be said about the widespread mutant reaction. In one sequence, we have Wolfsbane chatting with a friend and the dialogue runs thus: "I can't believe it! The X-Men are . . . they're heroes! But the media's reporting that they're fugitives from the law . . . " "And cop-killers." There's a nice tone of disbelief -- the mutants are quite willing to blame the phenomenon on media distortion and predjudice. Of course, the X-Men (again and again) are cop-killers and deserve every moment of bad press they get, but the average mutant would rather not believe that. In a second exchange, we have a mutant actually challenging the X-Men's position: "This is all your fault!" but is immediately appeased by "Come children, I'll explain everything. Trust us." Either the X-Men are extremely canny and manipulative in a sub-conscious level that never comes out in their dialogue or they hold the same opinion as most other mutants that the media are out to get them. Or some mix of both.
There is not a moment of self-awareness in the comic. The closest we get is a statement by Toad (referring to the Sentinel destruction by Jean) that "Neither of us meant for that to happen." So, Toad didn't mean to direct Jean to release the Pheonix energy by destroying the Sentinels. That's fine. But perhaps a little late. Certainly no one minded the destruction when it happened and Toad's statement is (if I can read comic tones right) fairly matter-of-fact. The X-Men are hardly wracked with remorse and guilt over their actions -- nor do they seem to connect those actions with their current persecution. They find a convenient scapegoat -- Emma Frost.
Poor Emma. Her gruesome little fate is hopelessly disproportionate to anything she actually did. "You can still stop everything you've set in motion by turning yourself into the cops!" Wolverine tells her, but Emma's refusal is only, well, logical (even if "Over my dead body" is not a smart way to word it). There is nothing Emma can do to "save" the X-Men's reputation, even if she wanted to. Sure, her speech against humans and freaky-looking-mutants is one of those aspects that mark her as a villain, but what has she really done? The X-Men's words are so heroic, so comforting, but as far as I can see, they are, as a group, are responsible for the vast majority of the deaths in the miniseries. Emma played around with the minds of the populace, sure, made them scared of the X-Men, sure, but couldn't it be argued that she was completely justified? Even before Emma "influenced the media," you had Wolverine's sadistic and often fatal interrogations that, I suppose I could be wrong about this, are probably illegal or something in Japan. You could say that she was only showing the world what the X-Men were really like inside or some such.
But, of course, she must die because she won't turn herself into the police. Jean's stammered question of "Did you have to . . . " (kill her) could only be answered honestly with "No," but Wolverine wouldn't be Wolverine if he didn't answer in the opposite. It was a completely unnecessary, vigilante death, like every single death before it and if the X-Men can tell the difference . . . well, I haven't seen any indication they can. Jean's shock seems a little out of place. Surely she's seen Wolverine at work before and surely she's done her share of killing.
Unmourned death has become such a constant that Xavier's complete indifference to his daughter's demise is a nasty touch, but not particularly surprising. I did appreciate the Black Queen, if only because she has enough humanity to allow the sense of geniune sadness for someone else that most of the characters seem to lack.
What strikes me as particularly frightening is the rally, where Cyclops and Wolverine declare the status of all mutants present as freedom fighters, rebels, ronin. Of course, the mutants eat it up. They're the oppressed group, right?
They seem to think so. Then again, in my understanding of medieval samurai, samurai had such power, such priveledge that they could kill peasants for any reason (even a whim) and receive no penalty for it. Well, naturally, how could they resist? The peasants were helpless in every form of the word and they couldn't do anything against the samurai, no matter how much they wanted to. At once point in the rally, Cyclops asserts "The X-Men have always been about helping the weak, the powerless, the oppressed. Now it's time we help ourselves and people like ourselves. People like you." You could read it like this. The weak and the powerless have never been the mutants (as far as the context of the comic goes). The weak are the humans. Look at how easily the X-Men can dispatch the Sentinels, which are probably the most powerful thing the humans have to oppose them with. We hear about how mutants have been killed in the round-ups, yes, and it would be far more sensible for only the X-Men to be targeted. But, in all fairness, the mutants have the weapons -- the best the humans can do is throw stones as far as the overall impact it'll have. A few samur -- ah, mutants will fall by combined effort -- but one or two strokes of a sword can do what a hundred stones can in about a thousandth of the time.
That and the humans have every right to strike back. For all that the X-Men disparage Emma Frost and her ilk, they and their new cronies have a very similar ideal. The humans are great to protect until they get in the way. Unless they show some backbone of their own. Then all "protect the weak" niceties are quite conveniently forgotten, unless the "weak" and any other category useful to the X-Men to patron happen to be mutants.
In any case, that's how I read the comic.
There are other fairly major issues -- such as the fact the mastermind behind the Sentinels is apparently associated with dear Hell-Fire-Club patriarch Xavier. The conspiracy revealed here did ring a little hollow, for that old reason that the X-Men are simply far nastier than any of the villains yet produced. What I'd like to cover at some length (and end with) is the Storm/Forge, ah, resolution.
It's quite obvious. Forge is dead. If the dialogue didn't say it, it would be hard to mistake the grisly stylized black-blood streaked mask for anything else. Now, I did look back at issue #4 to confirm what I thought Storm knew about Forge's prescence in the Sentinel destruction, and, yes, Storm did exchange words with Forge-in-his-Sentinel as such: "Ororo!" "Forge?" "Get out of here!" and so on.
This would suggest to me that Storm had some idea that Forge was there, which is why the last issue bothered me as it did when she simply didn't seem to care later on. Since reading issue #5 and noting what first looked to me like a further "just not getting it," I did try out several possibilities in my head that would allow her to have that conversation and still somehow not understand that Forge was, well, dead.
She could have decided that the Sentinel was automated from some far-off building and Forge was just directing it. She could have decided that Forge wouldn't really do that, so someone was impersonating him. She could have suffered a concussion after hitting the ground when that other Sentinel attacked her and completely forgot the entire thing. And so on. But it still seems most plausible that she knew very well what happened.
However, if you assume that, the last two pages of the last issue are extremely confusing. I have about fifteen long and complicated interpretations of those two pages. I will not inflict them on you. The story facts are that Ororo is leaving the mutants' underground compound to invite Forge to join them. Toad suggests she bring some fellow or the other with her to ensure safety and she says she can take care of herself, thank you. Toad says to hurry back and shuts the door after her. There is a bemused (I think) panel where Jean and Wolverine look rather concerned.
Then we cut to four panels of what exactly Storm is doing. She sits on the bench she and Forge sat on at one point in a previous issue, checks her watch, pulls back her hood, and lets her hair fly into the wind (well, fly in the "still attatched to her scalp" sense). That's the end of the comic.
I didn't get it. I still don't. There isn't any way Storm could have arranged a meeting with Forge to meet her there, for obvious reasons. Perhaps in letting her white hair down it acts as a sort of "come and find me" banner? But that's assuming she doesn't know he's dead, which, as I explained above, is hard to swallow. If she does know he's dead, what on earth is she doing? Is she in denial so complete that not a twitch of reality or grief can pass over her face? Is she crazy? Is she holding her own personal form of "a wake" by sitting where they sat and letting her hair flow? Or, rather, is her final hair-flying pose that taken by those communing with the spirits of their recently dead boyfriends?
Not to put too blunt a point on it, but I honestly didn't understand the significance of what she was doing. When this comprises the only resolution even hinted at (besides Emma's death) in a miniseries which is supposed to be over as of this issue, I would have personally liked to know what was going on. As it is, I feel I have to make up another story just to explain the entire subplot and I doubt that's the impulse this sequence was intended to give me.
All in all, the miniseries screams "unfinished." If X-Men Ronin #5 was not the final issue, I could think of all sorts of directions that the story could go in. Oh yes, much fun could be had with a group of mutants run by sociopaths and the clan idea. Since this is a final issue and most of the storylines have been left hanging wide open and no important character bothers to make any kind of insightful observation on what the X-Men really are, I admit I finished unsatisfied. Not to mention doomed to remain unsatisfied, since it is that final issue.
I still wish that we could have skipped the montages. The characters are nicely designed, but the action sequences are not as smooth as some of those in previous issues have been and feel less necessary. I will say that most of the expressions were quite nice and added more meaning to the dialogue (although, in my opinion, this is some of the smoothest dialogue of the series).
ART:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
STORY:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
OVERALL:
http://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronfull.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpghttp://x-mencomics.com/xfan/images/reviews/ronnone.jpg
Buy this issue online now from X-World Comics and save! (http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=539&cat=X%2DMEN+RONIN)