Welcome back folks! This month, I'm gonna take some time to discuss a very serious issue to me. Bananas and grapes. And their socio-political impact on the X-Men. Er, no wait. That's the mind-altering chemicals I picked up from the latest issue of the Authority talking, or I'm still recovering from my recent move.
Speaking of me moving, it was quite a pain finding a new comic store. I finally found one early last week, so I'm a bit behind on the comics world. I did manage to pick up a copy of the first issue of Bishop: The Last X-Man, though, and have decided to pick through it for this month.
The series is being brought to us by Joseph Harris, who is writing the soon to be canceled series Slingers, and Georges Jeanty, whose work I have never seen before.
The story starts off with a flashback (flashforward?) to Bishop's past, our future, which gives us a bit of insight into his motivations for doing what he does. Character moments like this are something Joe Harris likes to use in his works, and he uses them to good effect. We next are treated to Bishop leaving the X-Men, or what remains of them in the wake of the Shattering storyline, and going in search of his sister Shard, who has been all but forgotten since X-Factor was canceled.
Not to be one to let the issue drag, Joe promptly has Bishop attacked by some mysterious nameless characters working for someone named the Chronomancer, and quickly whisk him off to a far flung future we have never seen before.
Yes, I can hear the groans now. "Oh man! Its bad enough we've got another X-Title, but another alternate future?!" I had much the same reaction when I heard about the book, but picked up the first issue on a friend's recommendation. I gotta say, this works. It makes sense for Bishop, more so than sending Havok into an alternate world, since Bishop is already a man out of his time, and getting him away from the clutter of continuity that is the x-books can only be a good thing. In the long run, it could very well make the continuity more cluttered, as we try and find out where this timeline fits in with the rest, but I don't think that should be an issue yet. Sit back, and enjoy the ride.
As for the art, again I was pleasantly surprised. It's rare these days when a new artist comes along and is actually good, and Georges certainly is that. He's not the greatest artist out there, but he works well for this title, and has great potential. Clean lines, well defined figures, and something resembling decent proportion, which is lacking in many figures these days.
In closing, the book is definitely worth checking out. It isn't the greatest new thing on the market, nor do I doubt it will be the next big thing in time, but its a decent read, and isn't painful to look at. The book has a few problems to work out, and a few more hurdles to jump through to keep me around, but it's well on its way to keeping me around for the long haul.
It's nice to see a comic with decent writing from the x-offices these days. Maybe things are gonna make a turn for the better soon for the rest of the x-titles.
Now, back to making this place livable, and finding my Elise comics...
