X-Men: Red vol. 1 — The Hate Machine
I don’t think that the world was crying out for a third color-coded core “X-Men” title, but here we are. Fortunately the title has a real advantage in that it’s coming to us from writer Tom Taylor after he delivered a very good six-volume run on “All-New Wolverine.” Does Taylor’s first shot at the brass ring for “X-Men” comics deliver? Kind of. It has a good handle on its core cast and a timely story, but one that is also fairly surprise-free and whose agenda of change feels doomed to failure.
Things do get off on the right foot (mostly) as the first issue is the “Annual” that serves to bridge the gap between the return of Jean Grey in “Phoenix Resurrection” and “X-Men: Red.” It’s largely a meet-and-greet issue as the character is caught up on “X-Men” history since she died. Taylor does a good job mining the emotionality of the many people who are glad to see her again, Jean’s encounter with a resurgence of mutant bigotry, and a confrontation with Black Bolt to settle things with him over his role in Cyclops’ “death.” (Which is actually a nice observation of continuity since everyone still believes that he killed Cyclops, and not Emma Frost’s psychic projection of the character.)
Overall, the “Annual” is a pleasantly enjoyable bit of character and continuity work showing us how we got from Point A to Point B in the narrative of this series. It’s not exactly necessary, but I’m glad that it exists for this purpose alone. I’d probably be more excited about it if the art from Pascal Alixe wasn’t such a mixed bag. The artist strikes an uneasy middle ground with a look that’s halfway between grounded and emotive and comes off looking awkward more than anything else. While I can appreciate the level of detail Alixe tries to bring to the story, it just makes everything look a little weird with his style.
The main story of “The Hate Machine” fares considerably better, art-wise, with Mahmud Asrar on the job. Some of his characters may look a little fiddly and I miss the thick-lined animation style he employed during his “Avengers” run, but it’s solid work all around. The action scenes have a suitable energy to them, while the artist does a good enough job of selling the emotion in the conversational and dramatic parts.
With regards to the story itself, “The Hate Machine” does a good job of getting off on the wrong foot for me. Though the opening scene of Jean’s team rescuing a mutant girl from an angry mob is heart-warming in a nice familiar way, the former custodian of the Phoenix’s plan to change the world is anything but. We’re taken through the various steps Jean has to create a way forward, culminating with her speech to the U.N. to try and get mutants a voice in the organization. Changing the world is a nice thought and all, but it’s also something that’s functionally impossible to do in a corporate-owned superhero comic whose world is designed to mirror the one outside its readers’ window. All this talk and planning from Jean feels functionally worthless from a storytelling standpoint as a result.
The only hope for this storyline is that if Taylor recognizes this and is planning to integrate it into his story. Fortunately for the reader it seems like this is a possibility given what happens to Jean after her big U.N. speech. It turns out that Jean’s ambitions run counter to those belonging to one of the X-Men’s most powerful psychic foes. A villain whose presence would normally irritate me given how she was handled after Grant Morrison’s run, but I can generally tolerate now thanks to Sam Humphries’ “Uncanny X-Force” run of all things. Points off for not giving any explanation of the villain’s motivations or backstory here, which suggests Taylor wanted to use her but not deal with any of her baggage.
Where was I going with this? Well, the bulk of “The Hate Machine” pits Jean’s ambitions against the villain’s. If Taylor is going to give us a story about how badly the odds are stacked against someone who wants to change the world for the better because of how the system is designed, then this could work. The dictates of corporate-owned superhero comics regarding how their worlds are supposed to look are almost as rigid of those of governments and corporations in real life. Right now the quality of the overall story is going to hinge on how well the writer can integrate that meta angle into his story.
In the meantime, “X-Men: Red” at least promises some decent superhero action. Taylor does a good job of tapping into the whole “hated and feared” aspect of the “X-Men” premise in a way that feels timely and relevant. It’s fun seeing the mutant cast punch some evil bigots, take on a Sentinel, and demonstrate creative uses for their powers along the way. The core cast, which is made up of Jean, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Namor, Trinary, and Nezhno by the end of the volume is also interestingly eclectic and bring appealingly different personalities to the series. Best of all are Laura “Still ‘Wolverine’ For Now” Kinney and Gabby “Honey Badger,” because after “All-New Wolverine” I’ll always be ready to get behind any chance Taylor gets to write these characters.
In a lot of ways “The Hate Machine” is another extension of the old and familiar approach Marvel has taken with the “X-Men” over the last few years. It’s a team mostly made up of familiar characters and one that deals with lots of familiar themes. Yet its focus on addressing a new strain of hatred towards mutants feels timely in ways that feel both awful and important. On that level, it already feels more interesting than it’s color-coded counterpart “X-Men: Gold.” The catch there is that “Gold” could be counted on to deliver multiple shorter stories or just volume-length ones. With “Red,” a better title for this first volume would be “The Hate Machine, Part 1.” The story ends on as much a note of triumph it can manage for now, but it’s clear that things are not over. Even though I have my issues with this volume, I’ll concede that it at least does enough right to get me to come back for the next one.