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 (TPB/Digital edition)
Most people 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 particular juncture, the evolutionary offshoot portentously dubbed Homo Superior was 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 those genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to establish an enclave on an island dubbed “Utopia” in San Francisco Bay…
Spanning cover-dates October 2008 – April 2009, 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 anthological X-Men Manifest Destiny #1-5: one of a number of collections cataloguing various mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to that relocation offer.
This account of some who answered the call to “Go West, Young Mutant” opens with the Wolverine: Manifest Destiny miniseries (by scripter Jason Aaron and artists Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz Luque & Noah Salonga) wherein long-lived wanderer Logan is plagued by freshly-returned memories as he wanders the streets of Chinatown, suddenly, painfully aware that, at least in this part of San Francisco, he is not welcome…
The nigh-indestructible mutant was born at the end of the 19th century, but over 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 seeped back. He recalls a breach of trust and broken promise made to the citizens of Chinatown 50 years previously and is determined to make amends and restitution, beginning with an unhappy confrontation in ‘Enter the Wolverine’…
Nevertheless, the hero is reviled by the old men who remember him, and attacked by an army of triad gangsters and kung fu warriors determined to eradicate the humiliation he heaped upon their forefathers…
Outmatched and beaten near to death by massed Tong fighters, the barely resisting Wolverine is further imperilled when old girlfriend Lin turns up in ‘Black Dragon Death Squad to the Edge of Panic’: a septuagenarian crime-boss still furious that he deserted her half a century past and keen to avenge the insult by setting her mystic martial arts warriors on him…
Suffering the worst beating of his long and fractious life, Logan barely escapes into the sewers as the long-suffering San Francisco cops arrive to be greeted with stony silence. As usual, the close-knit community refuses to have anything to do with unworthy interfering outsiders…
Chinatown has always been policed by The Black Dragon: a supreme crime boss who takes tribute from civilian and Tong societies alike, and in return ensures peace and a healthy business environment. Now, far below the incensed citizenry, 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 the newcomer had to intervene, but after killing the bullying despot and routing his ruthless thugs, the cocky victor had shirked his responsibility, refusing to be the new Black Dragon before 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 simply cannot win with his usual mindless berserker methods…
Covertly seeking 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. Fists and feet too soon start furiously flying in ‘The Way of the Black Dragon’ leading to a triumph of sorts and a new role for the transplanted, redeemed wanderer…¦
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 (one of US comics’ earliest martial arts series, from #1-19 of mature-readers magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, April 1974-December 1975).
One-shot X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler follows, with ‘Quitting Time’ – by James Asmus, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes – focussing on the swashbuckler-turned-priest hunting for the higher meaning in the eradication of mutants and his own place in the X-Men.
Answers are possibly 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 Charles Xavier saved him: inviting him to join the mutant 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 expect one monster to catch the other. Of course, far more is going on than meets the eye, and tragedy triggers confrontation with a true devil as satanic Mephisto appears, hungry for despoiled and tarnished souls…
‘Kill or Cure’ by Mike Carey, Michael Ryan & Victor Olazaba was lead strip in miniseries X-Men: Manifest Destiny and follows radical changes in the life of founding X-Man Robert Drake. As Iceman, he had been fighting for most of his adult life, but when shapeshifter Mystique poisons him with a genetically keyed neural inhibitor, his powers run amok and he imagines his end is near.
Embarking on a trip to Utopia and medical ministrations of best friend Hank “The Beast” McCoy, Drake is dogged and sabotaged every step of the way by Mystique, who apparently wants him dead but seems reluctant or unable to finish him off, despite his weakened condition and wildly fluctuating powers…
Surviving many assaults, Iceman experiences an exponential leap in his abilities but a final clash on the Bay Bridge proves his understanding of her incomprehensible motives and actions is far from complete…
A 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 pops up again 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). ‘Nick’s’ by Frank Tieri, Ben Oliver & Frank D’Armata ends matters 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.
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