Written by Jason Aaron
Illustrated by Adam KubertIt all comes down to this! After years of fighting side-by-side the X-Men are torn irrevocably in half. On one side, X-Men team leader, Cyclops. On the other, X-Men mainstay, Wolverine. Between them lies the fate of mutantkind, and surrounding them, the foes who want to end them forever! Be there for the conclusion of the story that will set the stage for the X-Men universe for years to come, from Marvel Architect writer Jason Aaron and art legend Adam Kubert!
Jason Aaron’s Schism reached it’s apex last issue as Cyclops and Wolverine finally began to bash the hell out of each other.
Let’s talk about what happens next after the cut. Obviously some spoilers are discussed after the cut, but nothing you can’t read from the Associated Press or assume happens.
It’s not something I would expect from the creator, but Jason Aaron’s Schism was quite the slow burn. Most of Aaron’s work cuts to the point rather quickly and furiously, leaving no prisoners behind as Aaron plays with our favorite characters lives and emotional well being. Here in Schism, however, Aaron made it a point to slow things down in order to make the eventual schism that much more powerful, and it was a tad bit odd, even slightly frustrating, to read — although the pay-off from issue #4 was quite grand indeed.
Now, at it’s finale, the series generally feels more like set-up for things to come rather than it’s own individual epic. The issue technically begins with its cover and picks up exactly where last issue ended, giving us the chaotic battle between X-Men and sentinel as choreographed by the always awesome Adam Kubert. However, when all is said and done there are a lot of unresolved issues that simply go to give us the Regenesis relaunch. Yes, the band breaks up; Wolverine packs his bags and hits the road with Idie while Scott stays on Utopia to lead his army. Meanwhile, the new Hellfire Kids Club smile and laugh and Quentin Quire has a panel too. While I can understand and even appreciate the nature of building towards a greater whole, for something touted as the X-Men’s “Civil War”, that civil war ended rather quickly and was decidedly much more civil than it was a war (outside of, you know, those two guys).
The perhaps most surprising aspect of the book is how quickly the fight between the two characters ends up resolving. Its both the strongest aspect and perhaps the curiously weakest, in a sort of “can’t have your cake and eat it to” situation. On the one hand, it actually makes perfect sense that their fight — which reached it’s breaking point over some machismo nonsense about a dead lover — would be quickly resolved in the face of a greater threat. I totally buy that and accept it, because the resolution doesn’t feel forced and is rather dynamically powerful (gotta love Cyclops pulling off his visor). Jason Aaron has been working with themes of alpha male syndrome in the main Wolverine book for quite some time now that to see him get a real shot at working at Cyclops’ now jaded personality, especially with the final talk between Logan and Scott, is quite endearing.
On the other hand, I was really looking forward to Cyclops and Wolverine beating the tar out of each other for an extended period of time, especially with Kubert drawing. So I have cake, but I seem to lack the ability to really eat it. Either that, or I have a cake and I’m forced to eat someone else’s cake, which is still good cake — it’s just not my cake. (That just might be my problem, though.)
When compared with other recent books from Aaron like PunisherMAX, Wolverine or Scalped, Schism definitely seems to lack some of the raw grit he regular infuses into his work. However, just like those three titles, Schism inevitably works because of Aaron’s character work, and is a sharply written book with intelligent commentary on the way the X-Men books have headed since Westchester was abandoned. In a bit of metatextual exposition towards the end, Cyclops and Wolverine “discuss” the pros and cons of splitting up over the backdrop of Wolverine actually leaving; Cyclops (i.e. Aaron) brings up the point that Wolverine is in for a “rude awakening” if he thinks that he can just lead a group of people without making any kind of great personal sacrifice. Wolverine (i.e. also Aaron), on the other hand, mentions that the direct shift of the X-Status quo is seismic in quality to the point it has become a definite issue that has to be changed. In a sort of nod to the nature of comic regression of bringing back how things “used to be”, Aaron has devised a way for both to happen at once while still offering up the possibility for new direction. In other words: Jason Aaron is a magical trickster, and he pulled the curtain over all of us.
Continued belowEssentially, what Aaron lacked in drawing me into the action of the title outside of a few choice moments, he more than makes up for with his final conversation between Logan and Scott. The big and bombastic event-y bits seemed to be cut down a tad, but Aaron hit the heart where it counted.
Adam Kubert, who previously collaborated with Aaron in the surprisingly great Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine, was perhaps the artist whose installment I was looking forward to the most out of the entire bunch. Kubert has a fantastic vision of stylized action, and one of his strengths is in his ability to pose characters at just the right moments of impact and movement. There is a certain rigid quality to a few sequences, but the first half of the issue is rather stunning overall; while Davis brought a definitive visual quality to the fight in issue #4 (claws through lasers!), Kubert redefines it to a more gruesome aspect as Wolverine and Cyclops tear each other down. Its interesting to note that the duo only really beat each other over two pages within a nine page battle, but the fact that Kubert jam packs 21 panels of action is impressive. That and the sheer fact that those sequences are filled with so much storytelling detail that you can spend fifteen minutes staring at these panels alone, whereas most comics can be finished in the same amount of time.
The second half of the issue is where the art becomes a tad less consistent. Since the second half of the issue essentially solely relies on the aftermath of emotions in the wake of taunts about Jean Grey, it stands to reason that most of this should be conveyed through facial expressions. However, most of the faces are static, especially Logan’s. Kubert seems to have settled on Logan’s relatively regular state of grimace, and that stays oddly consistent throughout the entire finale. Its even adopted by Cyclops to the point that the only major distinction is glasses or no glasses (ok, and hair). There is also a bit of an oddity with Logan’s eyes that really threw me off, and the second to last page with Idie (now with new and improved inverted retinas?) and Logan looking off into the distance was essentially the clincher for my thoughts. I’m still an adamant Adam Kubert fan (did you see his three-page Planet Doom spread from Astonishing Spidey/Wolverine??), but the issue was essentially an even 50/50 split from him.
Schism is not inherently a bad book in any way, shape or form. Aaron clearly has plans that he and Kieron Gillen will be working on for 2012 with this whole Regenesis business. However, when you compare Schism with any number of X-Events of the past five years, you’ll find that those books – while still being rather open ended – all had much more pertinent resolutions with their stories. I also lament the lack of more punching along the lines of Alan Davis’ few pages at the end of issue #4 (that were dynamite). I look forward to seeing what Aaron does with Quire, with the remnants of the Hellfire Club, and I’m looking forward to the new divided world of the X-Men; I just also happen to think that perhaps some of my own expectations were a tad bit too high.
But hey, it was still pretty kick-ass, so I’m willing to get over myself.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy
Also, now that Schism is officially over, can anyone explain me what the point of Prelude to Schism was? Because I can’t figure that one out. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that Paul Jenkins had no idea what Schism was about when writing his prelude. The whole thing seems a tad bit fishy.
