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November 09, 2004
Subway Reading: Mystique
Mystique #20 - There I was, Sunday afternoon, considering the prospect of making it to Wednesday with only two new comics left to read. That's 2 comics for 5 subway trips; I can read slowly but there's no way I can stretch them out that far. So I ducked into the comic book store in my Brooklyn neighborhood to pick up some filler. Usually I buy my comics at Midtown Comics in Manhattan; it's a clean, well-stocked store, with a lot of floor space and a professional, knowledgeable staff. Last but certainly not least, they give a 20% discount to regular customers. This Brooklyn store, on the other hand... I feel for them, I really do. My neighborhood has got to be a tough market for a comic store. It's lousy with yuppies who have fled Manhattan in order to birth and raise their spoiled little children. Not to mention a large lesbian population, possibly the largest in the city. (That's not some kind of homophobic hyperbole, it's the truth.) Neither demographic is very highly represented among comic book buyers. Anyhow, the store devotes maybe 40% of its floor space to comics, with the rest reserved for overpriced action figures, Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and the like. Shopping for comics there involves climbing over the old woman who sits on a chair in the middle of the tiny store, smoking cigarettes. Then you squeeze yourself into the narrow aisle between the back issue table and the wall and dig through the poorly-sorted, overstuffed racks of 2- and 3-month old comics. I would love to support my local retailer, but come on. Quite frankly this is one of the few independently-owned neighborhood stores that I wouldn't mind seeing gutted and turned into a Starbucks.
Back to the point of this so-called review. I walked out of the store with last month's Plastic Man (sometimes the poorly-maintained new shelf has its benefits) and the new issue of Mystique. I've seen some buzz here and there regarding Mystique, and I noticed that this was Part 1 of a new story arc, so I decided to check it out. It is, after all, my journalistic duty. Do you see what I endure for your sake, gentle readers?
As it turned out, this was an all-around mediocre affair. The story was sort of pat and unoriginal: Mystique is a double-agent, ostensibly working for Charles Xavier but actually plotting to kill him on behalf of The Quiet Man, a mysterious, hooded... I don't know what he is, some kind of evil mastermind. Now, you have to swallow the idea that the world's most powerful telepath has no idea about the intentions of the former mortal enemy who is currently in his employ. OK, fine. Once I got past that, I found that I kind of enjoyed the set-up: Mystique is in a bind because she has to either work for Xavier or The Quiet Man, because they both offer her a magic device that protects her from being found by the governments of the world from hunting her down and punishing her for her past crimes. This is the engine that pulls the story along; it sets up both an external conflict between characters and an internal conflict for the protagonist.
The art in this book did not grab me. The layouts, pacing, and storytelling were done well, with the exception of the jarringly gratuitous T&A shots. In a February 2001 interview on the excellent Sequential Tart web site, Bill Jemas (who was at the time President of Publishing at Marvel) described the rationale for this gratuity: "We have quite a few male readers who live in the basement of their parent's house in Queens. For them, an evening with Elektra is as good as it gets." So, OK, I forgive them.
While he draws a mean rack and caboose, Manuel Garcia has some trouble with other parts of the human anatomy, namely arms. Actually I think it's more of a foreshortening problem; arms are often grotesquely shortened rather than foreshortened. There is also a too much inconsistency with characters' appearances. If she didn't have blue skin and no irises, I would have a hard time understanding that we were looking at the same Mystique from panel to panel. I suppose one could get all No-Prizey and claim that it's because of here shape-shifting power, but how does that explain the 3 different Charles Xavier look-sort-of-alikes that appear in the course of his 2 page sequence? On the bright side, Raul Fernandez' inking is very pro and pleasing, and Digital Rainbow does a nice job with the coloring.
In summary, this comic delivers an intriguing plot, awkward but capable art, and a fair amount of boobs for the basement-ridden, Elektra-loving, Queens fanboys out there. I think I am going to continue with this arc to see where it goes. 3 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at November 9, 2004 12:00 PM