X-men: Emperor Vulcan # 1 Review
Author: Christopher Yost
Penciler: Paco Diaz
Inker: Vincente Cifuentes
Colors: Brian Reber
X-men in Space are back! But the book is really called Emperor Vulcan. However, more than half the book is about the remaining X-men, who are now Starjammers. So shouldn't the book be called Some of the X-Men and One Shi'ar Warrior Who Are Now Called Starjammers....guest starring Emperor Vulcan? Hell, the title itself should move books off the shelves.
It's been a couple of months since we've caught up with Havok and gang. Now taking lead of the Starjammer ship and it's remaining crew after his crazy-ass brother killed their dad (Corsair) Havok is set on revenge. Marvel Girl and Korvus broke up because it got weird and Emperor Vulcan is also planning his attack on the rebellious Shi'ar when all the sudden out of nowhere the race of Scy'ar Tal come out of nowhere and blow up his imperial ship. Fuck, a whole race whose name literally means Death to the Shi'ar, I quake with fear.....not really. There is a big flaw here, much like Brubaker's run on Uncanny and his name happens to be on the title of the book. Vulcan is just not that engaging of a villain. He has no purpose to be emperor of the Shi'ar, hell his goal was to fucking destroy the race and now he leads them? He is a very one dimensional character who doesn't have a personality. I don't see how Gladiator can be so damn submissive to any emperor. In the 15+ years that Havok has been leading a team, he is still living under Cyclops shadow. He still doubts his decisions and hasn't had any character development in over a decade. But, I guess that's really the problem with most of the X-characters.
Paco Diaz did a really good job with the space-ships and backgrounds. Each of his characters is recognizable and the spaceship battles are done in the way that would make Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith proud. My only complaint was his facial expressions, he seems very limited to the way characters react, but I'm sure that is something that will come with practice. I don't know what this miniseries plans to do, but I hope we get more resolution than we did with Fall of Shi'ar Empire. C+
I didn't pick this up, but I flipped through it for the Paco Diaz art. Glad you liked it. He's been solid on Nightwing and Wonder Woman fill-ins and I'm glad that one company finally decided to give him an actual series to do. His books are never late, so I hope he moves on to bigger things.
hi. nice blog . thanks.