Your monthly Jeff Parker

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Four scans apiece from Agents of Atlas #10, shortly to enter a reboot phase aimed at boosting its popularity, and Exiles #6, which ends its tragically short existence (but they give him a ton of pages to do it in).

No secret that while I enjoy Agents, I haven't been as big a fan of it as most of the people around here are.  However, apart from the rather unsatisfactory art on the first issue, the "Terror of the Jade Claw" arc is off to a good start (though Suwan is still a really vague character; she was wallpaper as a love interest and now she's wallpaper as an antagonist).  Since we're shortly to be transitioning to the Incredible Hercules backup format, a couple of parts in this issue pertain to plot points from that mythos:



For whatever reason, this issue is a title-card bonanza.



Back when this plot was first introduced in Incredible Herc, I was wondering what was up with all the gods not present at Hera's boardroom coup.  With this, it's safe to assume they're all with Hera already.  Makes sense, since Aphrodite isn't one of Zeus' bastard kids (though that wouldn't explain Dionysus).



I like that they're giving Temugin a bit more depth and purpose here beyond being the cranky newcomer to the group who gets beaten up for comic effect.



There's...not yet been any evidence of that Venus, but I'm sure he'd be fine with seeing her all the same.

Meanwhile, over in Exiles, the titular group finds its way back to the Genosha of the first arc, where they're supposed to permanently break up the mutant alliance.  They do this by knocking out Genosha-Wanda and having Exiles-Wanda impersonate her to tell Jean Grey that Scott's stepping out on her...



Back in the real world, a civil war breaks out between Jean and Emma's allies (who they mind-control to fight each other, presumably).  Emma shows up back at Genosha-Wanda's, where the Exiles are hiding.



When I first saw that I thought "wait, she killed Wanda?"  Then I realized it was Genosha-Wanda, not Exiles-Wanda.

...

Anyway, there's a whole bunch of other stuff happening that could best be summarized as Jeff Parker laying out the Grand Unified Theory of Exiles.  After the somewhat hurried resolution to his long-term plot (I don't think this could have been done at all if he'd only had 22 pages to work with), the team heads off on another mission, after most of them get a chance to see that their worlds are better off with them thought dead.




Aw, poor Exiles-Wanda.

If Parker gets the chance in the future, I'd love for him to revisit these guys in one of his other titles; the Exiles have only bumped into the 616 MU once, so far as I can recall.

Comments

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I think that might've been the time that was mainly about Havok.

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

No, that was before that (when Magik was still with them) the first time (with Havok) was under Austen's run, then thee was the House of M tie-in, and then a few issues more under Bedard's pen. Then the Counter Earth arc as part of the "World Tour".