By Jason Aaron, James Asmus, Mike Carey, Frank Tieri, Steven Segovia, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Michael Ryan, Chris Burnham, Takeshi Miyazawa, Ben Oliver & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3951-5
Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise and even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particular jumping-on tome, so let’s just plunge in as our hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…
At this particularly juncture, the evolutionary offshoot portentously dubbed Homo Superior is at its lowest ebb. This follows the catastrophic House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein former Avenger Wanda Maximoff AKA the Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals.
Most of these genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to establish an enclave on an island dubbed “Utopia†in San Francisco Bay, and this utterly engrossing tome re-presents Wolverine: Manifest Destiny #1-4, X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler plus the lead strip and selected short stories from the anthology X-Men Manifest Destiny #1-5 and covers the period October 2008 – April 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing various mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer.
This account of some who answered the call to “Go West, Young Mutant†opens with the 4-issue miniseries Wolverine: Manifest Destiny (by scripter Jason Aaron and artists Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz Luque & Noah Salonga) wherein the long-lived wanderer known as Logan is plagued by some freshly-returned memories as he wanders the streets of Chinatown, painfully aware that, at least in this part of San Francisco, he is not welcome…
The bestial, nigh-indestructible mutant was born at the end of the 19th century, but over the decades his mind and memories have been constantly tampered with by friends and foes alike. Recently. however, a steady procession of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, over-brainwashed life has gradually seeped out.
He recalls a breach of trust and broken promise made to the citizens of Chinatown fifty years previously and is determined to make amends and restitution, beginning with an unhappy confrontation in ‘Enter the Wolverine’…
The hero is reviled by the old men who remember him, and subsequently attacked by an army of triad gangsters and kung fu warriors determined to eradicate the shame he had heaped upon their forefathers…
Outmatched and beaten near to death by the massed Tong fighters, the barely resisting Wolverine is further-imperilled when his old girlfriend Lin turns up in ‘Black Dragon Death Squad to the Edge of Panic’ – a septuagenarian crime-boss still furious that he abandoned her half a century past and ready to avenge the insult by setting her mystic martial arts warriors on him…
Suffering the worst beating of his impossibly long and fractious life, Logan barely escapes into the sewers as the long-suffering San Francisco cops arrive only to be greeted with stony silence. As usual the close-knit community refuses to have anything to do with such unworthy interfering outsiders…
Chinatown has always been policed by the Black Dragon: a supreme criminal boss who takes tribute from civilian and Tong societies alike, and in return always ensures peace and a healthy business environment. Now, far below the incensed citizenry, the slowly recuperating Logan recalls how ‘Once Upon a Time in Chinatown’ he breezed into the thriving ghetto just as current chief Lo Shang Cho began overstepping traditional boundaries and acting like an old world tyrant.
Naturally he had to intervene, but after killing the bullying despot and routing his ruthless thugs, the cocky mutant shirked his responsibility, refusing to become the new Black Dragon and insulting the entire community by leaving.
His brief paramour Lin was compelled to take his place to maintain order, but over the decades she became as cruelly corrupt and debased as her predecessor …and now the “man†who ruined her life has returned, seemingly not one day older or wiser…
Whilst recovering, the deeply penitent Wolverine has been tutored by Master Po, the kung fu sensei who first tried to teach him to fight like a man and not an animal. It didn’t work then but this time the Black Dragon commands unbeatable magical warriors Rock of the Buddha, Fist of Fire, Storm Sword and Soulstriker and the mutant just cannot win with his usual unthinking berserker methods…
Covertly trying to rally support and drive out the “bad criminals†forever Logan, attempts to recruit some of the area’s martial arts Schools and Dojos to his cause in the blistering finale but as usual, events get away from him and fists and feet too soon start furiously flying in ‘The Way of the Black Dragon’, leading to a triumph of sorts and a whole new role for the transplanted, redeemed Canadian…
This spectacular and bombastic homage to Hong Kong action cinema and comics perfectly blends East and West wonderment in a beautiful, intoxicating manner and also includes a glorious guest-shot from vintage 1970s stalwarts Lin Sun, Abe Brown and Bob Diamond, the legendary Sons of the Tiger (and one of the US industry’s first martial arts series, from issues #1-19 issues of the mature-readers magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, April 1974-December 1975).
The one-shot X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler follows as ‘Quitting Time’ (by James Asmus, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes) focuses on the swashbuckler-turned-priest as he seeks for higher meaning in the eradication of mutants and his own place in the X-Men.
An answer is perhaps forthcoming in a request to visit a museum dedicated to him in the German village where he was almost killed by pitchfork-wielding bigots who believed he was a demon…
At that time Professor Charles Xavier saved him and invited him to join the mutant hero team, setting him on the path of the hero. However, all these years later as he meets his former persecutors, the troubled cleric still feels like an unclean outsider and realises he has been brought to his homeland under false pretences. Another “demon†is plaguing Winzeldorf and, with a child missing, the villagers are expecting one monster to catch the other.
Of course there is far more going on than meets the eye, and inevitable tragedy leads to a confrontation with a genuine devil when the satanic Mephisto appears, hungry for despoiled and tarnished souls…
‘Kill or Cure’ by Mike Carey, Michael Ryan & Victor Olazaba was the lead strip in the miniseries X-Men: Manifest Destiny and followed radical changes in the life of founding X-Man Robert Drake. As Iceman, the hero had been fighting for most of his adult life but when maniacal mutant shapeshifter Mystique poisoned him with a genetically keyed neural inhibitor, his powers began to run amok and he imagined his end was near.
Embarking on a trip to Utopia and the medical ministrations of best friend Hank “The Beast†McCoy, Drake was dogged and sabotaged every step of the way by Mystique who apparently wanted him dead but seemed reluctant or unable to finish him off, despite his weakened condition and wildly fluctuating powers…
Surviving her many assaults, Iceman realised an exponential leap in his abilities but their final confrontation on the Bay Bridge proved that his understanding of her incomprehensible motives and actions was far from complete…
The short story section opens with a comedic clash between matter-detonating mutant ‘Boom-Boom’ and cheesy Homo Superior shoplifter Kuwa in a broadly slapstick tale of slapstick broads by Asmus, Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn, after which Nightcrawler returns in a pretty but downbeat psycho-drama.
As the teleporting hero faces old foes in a Danger Room simulation, he is forced to confront his deep doubts and true feelings for a lost comrade in the bittersweet ‘Work it Out’ (Asmus & Takeshi Miyazawa) before ‘Nick’s’ by Frank Tieri, Ben Oliver & Frank D’Armata ends things on a moodily oppressive note after Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler pay a disturbingly heavy-handed visit to a former Evil Mutant with the intention of keeping the already-reformed character on the straight and narrow…
This stirring and excessively entertaining tome comes with a selection of cover reproductions from Dave Wilkins, Brandon Peterson, Humberto Ramos & Brian Reber and Michael Turner and pages of stunning designs, roughs and colour studies by Segovia featuring assorted kung fu warriors and the Sons of the Tiger.
© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.