The Titans Ravaged

     At long last, Booster Gold’s history fixing is catching up to him.  No, there’s no actual story reprecussions.  There’s just a lack of a sense of believability.  Before heading off to kill Dick Grayson, Black Beetle speaks with his mysterious partner about his plan.  Booster and Skeets then head back to the early days of the Teen Titans to save Robin and the rest of the team, since their deaths at the hands of the original Ravager have changed history.  As Booster points out, it’s weird that the Beetle could alter history, but Rip Hunter explains that it has to do with a possible future that was already in place.  They pretend to be Star Labs security guards, and they save Cyborg when Ravager attacks.  They follow him back to the then Titans headquarters and clue in the team on Ravager trying to attack them.  Ravager shows up shortly later, followed by Deathstroke and Black Beetle, who manage to make quick work of Booster and the Teen Titans.  In the Blue Beetle co-feature, Beetle manages to defeat Unimate and blow up his school, though classes aren’t cancelled.  His pal Paco tries to find out about the daughter of the guy who made Unimate, but he gets kidnapped.  He and Brenda talk about her relationship with Paco, and the daughter of the man who made Unimate reveals that she is at least partially robotic.

     Now, as I said before, Dan Jurgen’s little Booster-centric DC history revisions have reached a critical point.  The idea that, now, technically, Booster Gold played a major role in the early days of the new Teen Titans, is ridiculous, and I know that their actual history won’t change to reflect this.  That kind of makes the ongoing tales of Booster Gold inconsequential, aside from their impact on him as a character.  And yet, he’s not even shown in any other series, so you might even say that this is just a non-canon title.  Now, I still enjoy the title immensely.  But this awkward space that it occupies damages its content very much.  Dan Jurgens still has a great grasp on the character, though this issue is a bit weaker, what with the twisting of the early days of the Teen Titans.  I’d much rather see Booster and Black Beetle duke it out.  I actually enjoyed the character developments of the Blue Beetle co-feature more, and I never even read the original Blue Beetle series.  Basically, this is the weakest issue of the title thus far, though I’m not that worried.  I just hope that Jurgens can bring the story back to Booster and not get too tied up in the time travel stuff.  I know that’s half of the title’s schtick, but it can be done better.  I also greatly enjoyed Matt Sturges and Mike Norton’s work on Blue Beetle.  It really makes me want to go and pick up the old trade paperbacks.  Anyway, let’s hope Booster can get out of this latest mess and fight out the truth about his newest and deadliest foe.

Plot: 7.9      Art: 8.8      Dialogue: 8.2      Overall: 8.0

In the Midst of Mayhem

     At long last, Rogue rejoins the X-Men in the pages of the X-Men: Legacy tie-in to Utopia.  She, Gambit, and Danger arrive in San Francisco, and Cyclops briefs them on the situation.  However, Cyclops reminds her that she’s not exactly the most trusted of X-Men, considering the fact that she disappeared completely after Messiah Complex and is traveling with two former enemies of the team.  However, he needs every extra hand, so he sends the trio out to do crowd control.  They rescue Trance, Dragoness, and Toad before handing them off to Onyxx and alien mutant Ariel.  Rogue finds out that Indra has been fighting the good fight on his own before Moonstone Ms. Marvel comes to confront her.  Moonstone is far stronger, however, so Rogue has to make a hasty retreat.  Gambit bumps into Avalanche (who is a lot buffer than I remember him) and Erg before Ares shows up, and Rogue absorbs some of Ares’ power.  She can’t let go, though, and Danger and Gambit have to pull them apart, figuratively speaking.  Now super strong, Rogue procuers a tank as transport, and the trio heads off to go rescue Trance, who never made it back to Greymalkin Industries.

     Mike Carey may love Rogue, but it’s clear from the last arc and this one that he’s not so good at writing her.  In fact, of the issues of this series that I’ve read so far, the best ones were the Professor Xavier-centric ones.  And the inclusion of Danger, the only bad character Joss Whedon came up with from Astonishing X-Men, hurts it even more.  There are also numerous plot problems with this issue.  For one, Ariel is an alien mutant.  I know she’s on Earth, but that really should be addressed.  Second, why would Rogue be able to absorb Ares’ powers?  It’s a little silly to think that a mutant could absorb the powers of a god.  As an extension of that, why wasn’t Ares’ power loss reflected in Dark Avengers?  Lastly, why did Avalanche get so much bigger and more vocal about mutant rights?  Did what happened here suddenly make him more silent in time for his debut in Utopia proper?  Add to that the bad battle dialogue and unreliable art of Dustin Weaver (see the fight with Moonstone Ms. Marvel for both of those), and this is a wholly uninteresting issue.  I’m ending my subscription to this series after next issue, since I need to save money, and this is on the lower end of the quality of titles that I read.  If I really want to see future Rogue and younger X-Men developments, I might just pick up the trade paperbacks.  But if this and the last arc were any indication (as well as, coincidentally, all the stupid plot points of Carey’s run on the series back when it was just X-Men), Carey and Rogue don’t mix.

Plot: 5.3      Art: 6.7      Dialogue: 4.9      Overall: 5.3

Infighting

     With the latest issue of Dark Avengers out, we’re now halfway into the Utopia crossover between Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men.  In this issue, Beast has been subjected to Dark Beast’s Omega Machine, which is supposed to “humanely” sap mutants’ powers.  However, it’s making him lose all his fur and claws.  Norman Osborn doesn’t like the idea that the machine needs refinement, and he tells Dark Beast to fix it or else.  Then, he and Sentry watch the Dark X-Men take on Hellion’s little band of rebellious mutants.  The Dark X-Men manage to handle the situation quickly and efficiently, though Daken Wolverine almost kills Avalanche.  Emma Frost does stop him, though, and they take Hellion and the rest into custody.  Cyclops visits Osborn on Alcatraz Island to offer a final chance at peace, or rather, to surrender, and Osborn tells him to get lost.  Bullseye Hawkeye chafes at being overshadowed by the Dark X-Men, and the Dark X-Men deliver their new captives.  Emma and Daken get into a fight, and Osborn pulls them apart.  Emma then insists on being shown everything that’s going on there, and Osborn and Dark Beast give her the grand tour.  Then, Bullseye and Daken get into a fight, prompting the two “Dark” teams to start beating each other up.  Dark Beast uses holographic image inducers to keep Emma from spotting Professor X and Beast, though she and Professor X do chat a bit.  Meanwhile, Simon Trask begins his plans to destroy the mutant race.

     This crossover is still the best story the X-Men have had since Messiah Complex.  No doubt about it.  But in this issue, the buzz from the beginning is over, and cracks are beginning to show.  For one, instead of Mike Deodato Jr., we get Luke Ross, who, although he’s a good artist, does not compare to Deodato.  So artistically, this is the weakest issue thus far.  Then, there’s the fact that Matt Fraction just does not know how to write Emma Frost, and she’s at the forefront of the issue.  It’s painful to see Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon’s work on the character just disappear.  Namor gets very little face time, which is sad, considering that he’s a member of the Cabal, and I still greatly dislike Daken as a character.  No writer has yet to actually sell me on a “cultured” son of Wolverine.  And even though it’s logical that all the egos in both the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men would clash, Fraction’s set up of their fight just seems contrived.  I still enjoy Fraction’s take on Bullseye and Hellion, and his work with Osborn in Invincible Iron Man shows that he can write the character like the best of them.  I’m still loving this arc.  This is just that middle chapter that you always get that isn’t as good as the rest.

Plot: 8.7      Art: 8.2      Dialogue: 8.3      Overall: 8.3