New X-Men Volume 5: Assault On Weapon Plus TPB: Assault on Weapon Plus v. 5 (Graphic Novel Pb) [Paperback]

Collecting both the "Murder at the Mansion" and "Assault on Weapon Plus" storyarcs, this TPB is more of a calm before the storm of Grant Morrison's now legendary run on New X-Men. Picking up where "Riot at Xavier's" left off, Jean Grey catches Cyclops and Emma Frost and learns of their psychic affair, sending Cyclops running off, and eventually leaving Emma in a pile of shattered diamond. From there on, Bishop and Sage make guest appearances as they investigate the murder, which leads to the beginning of Morrison's stunner twist in the next TPB, Planet X. Phil Jimenez, who provides the art for this arc and the Planet X TPB as well, creates some mouth watering renderings of Jean and Emma, and his art is nothing short of beautiful. The second arc kicks off as a drunken and depressed Cyclops is reluctantly teamed up with Wolverine and the mysterious Fantomex as they travel to the space bound the World so Wolverine can learn the secrets of the Weapon X program that made him what he is today. While this arc is a solid and innovative storytelling from Morrison, the chopy art by Chris Bachelo just looks plain sloppy. The action scenes are incoherent, and the character models are funky looking, but if you can get past that, you might enjoy the story. All in all, Assault on Weapon Plus isn't as revolutionary as the rest of Morrison's run, but it's still a solid X-Men yarn that sets forth the pivotal events in Planet X and Morrison's stunning finale, Here Comes Tomorrow.

I really didn't enjoy this TPB that much, and it definitely enforced why I'm not that fond of Morrison's writing on any X title from Marvel. He brings the angst to the characters, and he writes them intelligently enough, but he also makes me dislike all of them. Even normally upright characters like Jean Grey and Cyclops were so twisted I forgot they were heroes in this. Yuck.

My main complaint is that I was hoping for a cleaner back history of Wolverine's Weapon H/Weapons Plus origin, and I really didn't get that from this at all. Instead, Wolverine's mission with Cyclops is tacked on as an untidy footnote to three (or four, I lost count) issues focusing on the love triangle of Emma Frost, Jean Grey, and Scott Summers. I thought the title of the TPB was misleading because of that.

The opening issue continues Jean's discovery of Scott's psychic infidelity with Emma. Jean barges into his thoughts and finds Emma dressed up in her old Phoenix costume, which was kind of tacky and bizarre, anyway, when you consider that Emma's old organization, the Hellfire Club, was responsible for Jean turning into Dark Phoenix and subsequently destroying herself. My first thought was, why would that be a turn-on? Very twisted scene. So, Jean strikes out at Emma, invading her mind and plowing through her most private memories as she searches for the first moment when they started their affair. Emma stays in character, not feeling as though she had done anything wrong by offering Scott salvation from his unhappy marriage, and calling Jean "a playground bully" hiding behind her righteous posturing. Pot calling the kettle...

That issue itself offered sympathy for Emma from unexpected sources, namely Hank and Logan, both of whom I automatically expected to side with Jean. In the meantime, all any of them did was blame Jean for the dissolution of her marriage by "not taking care of it sooner." That alone made me not like this story.

This arc was kind of odd going in because it was sandwiched between arcs of the other X titles without reflecting anything that was happening in the others. Bishp and Sage were both fresh from X-Treme X-Men, namely "Schism," after solving the Jeffery Garrett murders in Alaska. The second issue to this story arc features a murder mystery, since Emma is shot and shattered while in her diamond form. I've heard readers comparing it to Clue, but I don't give it that much credit, I thought the plotting was weak. I noticed that Sage and Bishop never once implicated Storm, who not only hates Emma, but who openly threatened her with hurling a spear at her carried by tornado-strength winds to see if she would shatter. Hello? Missed the boat there, Grant. I'm guessing Storm's name never came up simply because this wasn't her book. Oh well.

The motive for Emma's murder was kind of silly; two minor characters have a secret to hide in the farmhouse on the Xavier property, and Emma's prize pupils, the Stepford Cuckoos, know what's going on but won't spill their guts.

The Weapons Plus arc started with what was actually a satisfying confrontation between Logan and Scott at the Hellfire Club. The artwork was weird, though. I like Bachalo's work on Uncanny and New X-Men Academy, but he makes it darker, and the inks are heavy-handed. Bachalo draws the ugliest Cyclops I've ever seen, and his Wolverine looks like a gopher. In this scene, Cyclops tells Wolverine that he refuses to come back to the X-Men, but Logan instead recruits him for a big mission with Fantomex, an upgraded Weapons Plus graduate who clarifies that Logan was really Weapon Ten, not Weapon X as previously assumed. This was the most poorly written issue of this collection, and it jumped around too much for me to tell where the action was taking place. Somehow Logan and Scott ended up on an asteroid, presumably with help from E.V.A, Fantomex's ship. Somehow they managed to escape, leaving Logan behind to blow up the asteroid and destroy Weapon Fifteen. Morrison and Bachalo didn't even bother to pitch a knock-down, dragout battle between Logan and Fifteen that could have been the highlight of the story. It was a waste.

The jump from Jimenez's clean penciling to Bachalo's more cartoony style is very stark and does not work. I longed for Frank Quitely's pages instead, feeling he would have done a better job of conveying the images. As a lead-in to the much more important "Planet X" arc (still not one of my favorites, but better than this drivel), this book was very weak.

Overall, I'm sorry I spent the money on this story, and I will avoid Morrison's back issues going forward.

The first story is "Murder at the Mansion" [art by Jimenez], and it's fun for mystery fans. It picks up where NEW X-MEN: RIOT AT XAVIER'S left off. Jean gives Emma Frost a Very Hard Time indeed (although not as hard as she could have, given the situation). In the process, we learn about Emma's origin.

Bishop and Sage come to investigate the murder. The faculty and students are all suspect. Bishop makes reference to what happened to him (and Sage) when they were at the Institute the previous winter [see X-TREME X-MEN: SCHISM]. As in NEW X-MEN: NEW WORLDS, Mr. Morrison shows more respect to his guest stars than Mr. Claremont did in SCHISM. Prof. X's method of assuring Bishop that he is not an impostor or possessed made me smile. I laughed aloud at Basilisk's declaration for the game of "Clue" he and the Beak were playing when Bishop enters Mr. Xorn's classroom. The prisoner Bishop visits in a jail does not support SCHISM's suggestion that the main X-Men believe that mutants are above the law.

We get a confession! Is it real? What's in the shack out back? What secret is the Beak so frantic to hide? Can you spot the killer?

The "Assault on Weapon Plus" section [art by Bachalo], gets a rousing start that makes me chortle with delight whenever I reread it. Scott is at the Hellfire Club. I found his reply to a gorgeous dancer quite funny. Even funnier is Scott's conversation with Sabretooth. Suave Sebastian Shaw's appearance is not dull. His opinion of Scott's drink is more elegantly worded than Sabretooth's, but no more flattering. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Bachalo's art in general, but he was perfect for the Hellfire Club scenes. The guys' expressions are great. I loved Wolverine's invitation to Scott, his men's room conversation with Sabretooth, and his advice concerning Scott's problem. Wolverine's expression at the end of this section cracks me up.

Unfortunately, "Assault on Weapon Plus" went downhill after part one. If you like explosions and slugfests, you'll probably have more fun with Cyclops', Wolverine's, and Fantomex's adventures in parts two through four than I did. I did enjoy Cyclops' nice speech about Wolverine, as well as his order to Fantomex and Fantomex's response in part three. From part four I also liked Cyclops' reason why he and Wolverine should remove their x-jackets, the man who may or may not be Fantomex's boss telling him why they're disappointed in him, and Wolverine's first response when he's asked the purpose of life.

"Murder at the Mansion" and part one of "Assault on Weapon Plus" get a big "thumbs up" from me. Parts two and three have good spots. More importantly, you'll want this book (and E IS FOR EXTINCTION, IMPERIAL, NEW WORLDS, and RIOT AT XAVIER's -- or NEW X-MEN HARDCOVERS one and two) when the PLANET X volume comes out. I, for one, am extremely impressed with Mr. Morrison's long-range planning, careful planting of clues, and going back to what appeared to be mere throw-away lines in the earlier volumes.