Last week, I did something I thought I'd never do: I bought a trade paperback of X-Treme X-Men. Though I'm a bit wary about Marvel's "reload" plan for the X-franchise in the wake of Morrison's departure, my worries about Claremont returning to the main titles have been abated as I realize that X-Treme X-Men has become considerably more entertaining. Claremont's tales are still a little steeped in continuity that he doesn't explain, even though his dialogue and captions are laden with other unnecessary exposition, but once you've been reading a little while, the stories and characters become addictive once more. It seems like the new ideas Morrison injected into the franchise, including secondary mutations and the X-Corp, have sort of jolted Claremont's creativity as well, and the result is a mutant book that has some of the familiar (and in some cases over-familiar) Claremontisms, but has a little more freshness as well.
I'm loving some of the ideas that Claremont has introduced to his book, whether it's an expanded role for a much more interesting Bishop, the surprisingly interesting relationship between the depowered Rogue and Gambit or Tessa as mutant team coordinator, strategist and CSI. It's clear that while I wasn't looking, Claremont added some neat little gimmicks to the team as well, like their sunglasses that serve as communications devices and personal computers, a very cool superhero type gadget. These ideas on their own aren't enough to make me love the book, but they're icing on the cake, and a big part of why the book seems to be looking forward instead of back of late.
The dialogue still sounds a little stilted and sometimes cliched, but Claremont seems to have reined in enough of his bad habits to make it less noticeable. I still chuckle at lines like "Remake the boy, and the man is mine!" and find it outright hilarious to see that the themes of bondage and mind control/domination continue to pop up regularly in Claremont's work, but it's back to being endearing rather than irritating. Like New X-Men, X-Treme doesn't feel like territory we haven't been in before, but also like New X-Men, it's something of an interesting modern twist on the concepts. The conflicts between teammates, secret agendas and mysterious mind-controlling villains are familiar, but the specifics are a little different. Granted, Elias Bogan so far isn't much to look at, but the hints that he (or she) might be someone else under that mask makes for a potentially interesting mystery, and while his henchmen are all-too-generic, they've at least got costumes and codenames, and are more interesting than the non-costumed goons and terrorists that have become the dull adversaries for much of the Marvel Universe these days.
I think part of what I really enjoy about this title is that I've come to enjoy characters who I previously either hated or had given up on. I still miss the Rogue that I read in my high school and college days, but this tattooed, depowered yet still fierce version is considerably more interesting than the "Gambit's boyfriend, Rogue" portrayal she suffered through for many years prior. Bishop has become what I always thought he could be, ditching some of his cliched anger and becoming a warrior in thought as well as deed, a smart strategist who was trained to be a soldier, not a superhero. And Tessa a.k.a. Sage has become one of my favorite characters in the book. Mind you, I had some trouble buying into some moments in this issue, specifically Rogue and Sage going into a full-on tussle instead of having a conversation like adults, but in general, I'm liking Claremont's take on the characters.
Then there's the artwork, which is responsible for no small part of my turnaround on the book. I've been a fan of Igor Kordey's since his work on Cable, and it breaks my heart that he received such a harsh response from the mainstream that he changed his style or had it submerged under different inkers. Greg Adams is still altering the style to some degree, but this is the strongest Kordey's work has looked outside of his Cable/Soldier X stuff. It has a gorgeous and very distinctive style, and Kordey doesn't skimp on the details, whether it's Rogue's intricate tattoos or the costumes and surroundings of the characters.
