Review: Wolverine and the X-Men #3

Written by Jason Aaron
Illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau, Matteo Scalera, and every inker in comics

With the Hellfire Club on the verge of overwhelming the X-Men, the team’s only hope is… Quentin Quire?! The big question is, does he care enough to do anything? Wrap up the first adventure of Wolverine’s branch of the X-tree with Marvel Architect and writer of X-MEN: SCHISM Jason Aaron, and superstar artist Chris Bachalo!

“I’m the guy who staged the infamous Riot at Xavier’s! I’m the one responsible for the Schism that just tore the X-Men apart!”

“No, I’m pretty sure that was me.”

And lo, was an interest lost–!

It’s not really fair to signal that exchange — between Quentin Quire and Oya — as the moment I totally lost faith in Jason Aaron’s Wolverine and the X-Men. I’m not sure what the exact moment was, but by the end of the book, I had nothing left in the tank. My problems are numerous and exist across multiple levels of the title’s structure — but one thing they got right was Quentin Quire’s t-shirt. “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Wolverine and the X-Men #3 wraps up the first story arc of the title, in which Wolverine opened up the Jean Grey Institute for Higher Learning and was then promptly attacked by the new Hellfire Club, who sieged the grounds with an army of Frankensteins and a new take on Krakoa the Island That Walks Like a Man. Meanwhile half the school is destroyed and the situation is hopeless and blah blah blah how will they get out of this one. So far, so okay. Where it all falls apart is in the third act.

This is a comic book, by and large, about Quentin Quire. That makes enough sense — he’s on the cover, isn’t he? The problem with this is that we’re getting a showcase spotlight issue before we’re even done with being introduced to the main cast. So we’re facing down an army of Frankensteins, a living landmass that can swallow you whole, some Wendigos and Saurons and stuff, you know… this would be a great opportunity to show the key members of the cast coming together and resolving the issues as a team, thus exemplifying why they’re together in the first place. Instead, after Iceman singlehandedly takes out the Frankensteins, Quentin Quire singlehandedly deals with the rest of it here, while the other X-Men kind of flail around not getting much accomplished. The Wendigos and Saurons and stuff aren’t even settled on-panel.

The reason that Quire taking over the issue bugs me is that it showcases a style that won’t hold up over time. Quire flounces around, making snarky metacomments that you’d expect to see on a messageboard somewhere, while the other characters are reduced to single-note cameos — or, in the case of Kid Gladiator, introductions that make them seem like the most worthless characters ever created. (“Back for more, eh, beasts? Splendid! Kid Gladiator will gladly continue with the punching!” Does anyone still find this stuff funny now that we’re entering the last year of existence? And if so, shouldn’t you spend this last year trying to atone for it?) The Hellfire Club are chased off, but the way in which the situation resolved feels more lik the punchline ending to a gag story, rather than a dramatic continuance of a new X-Rivalry. The whole thing has its tongue pressed so firmly into its cheek that it’s starting to break through to the other side.

The strength of Jason Aaron’s take on the X-Men — at least, previously — was his willingness to accept the more ridiculous parts of the concept at face value, while still moving forward (not trying to undo or restore them). This is now a liability, unfortunately, because Aaron’s gone from taking only what he needs from the past, to taking everything he possibly can, whether he needs it or not. Most of it, he doesn’t: Claremont’s fixation on single characters to the detriment of the greater story, Whedon’s supposedly witty but actually just tired dialogue, Lobdell’s knack for anticlimax, Fraction’s complete and total incoherence…

Chris Bachalo draws it, in another grand miscalculation. (Duncan Rouleau and Matteo Scalera bookend the issue with intro and epilogue scenes, and something like nine thousand inkers are credited, so time was obviously an issue too.) The pictures are very pretty — but in the spirit of Bachalo, sometimes require a mail-in decoder ring to figure out completely. Bachalo is a guy who should only really be used on a mainstream superhero book if there’s a clear central idea that can be followed from the front cover to the back. In a book as confused as this one, where the core concept is “stuff happens, because stuff is cool,” all of Bachalo’s wildest impulses come out, and we’re left with, well, something halfway to wacky.

Maybe Wolverine and the X-Men will turn it around, but from the covers and solicits to the upcoming issues, it’s not looking likely. Off the strength of the first storyline, I’ve already got to mark the book down as a failure — pretending it’s doing something new while it drowns in unfocused, scattershot nostalgia.

Final Verdict: 4 – Pass, unless you consider pretending to be something new as good as being new