Friday, February 27, 2015

Cyclops v1: Starstruck TPB

There has got to be a limit to the “teenage X-Men” concept, right? I thought I’d tire of it in the All-New X-Men title, but strangely enough, I haven’t. But I am tiring of it here. It is not that I don’t like the ongoing adventures of teenage Scott Summers and his dad (Corsair). It is that I’d much rather see the “real” Cyclops having these moments to bond. This seems like such an odd exercise…

That said, this isn’t a bad comic. Corsair is such a fun character, it is hard to make him uninteresting. Even better, Greg Rucka tackles Corsair’s two largest problems head-on. First of all, how the heck are we supposed to root for this guy who never went back and checked in on the sons he left behind? Didn’t this guy have any sort of connection or conscience after his alien abduction? And second, isn’t Corsair supposed to be dead? It has been a long time, but I swear that Ed Brubaker killed him during his run on X-Men. But here he is, alive and well and leading the Starjammers once again. Both problems are addressed. The death issue isn’t an insurmountable one, and in Rucka’s hands, resurrection can lead to some interesting new character flaws.

This is almost strictly a sci-fi comic. Other than a few Marvel U trappings (brief appearances by the Starjammers, the use of a Badoon spaceship) this could be any father and son series set in outer space. It’s pretty interesting that my main complaint about this book (that it features a confusing past-era version of Scott Summers) is almost totally incidental to the actual plot. Of course, the relationship does color the interaction of the characters; this is Corsair’s second chance at fatherhood. A chance to do it right. But as for the actual plot, the characters’ history is not important at all.

Actually, my favorite thing about this series is the discovery of Russell Dauterman. His art is cartoony but still very kinetic and dramatic. The action is full-on comic book mayhem. I like his work better in the new Thor series, but man, he’s quite the discovery! He’s clearly good at drawing aliens and alien tech, which made him a natural fit for the odd world of Asgardia and Thor.


For me, this is an AVERAGE comic. I’ll keep reading it on the Marvel App, but it isn’t exactly one of my favorites. 

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