You know, I remember when New X-Men made sense... I think it was about two months ago, or roughly when Bachalo joined up with the book. I can't lay the blame entirely at Bachalo's feet, though. While his artwork has lost much of the clarity that I used to enjoy about it, the larger problems with this story are that Morrison has decided to focus on the worst idea from his entire New X-Men run for this entire story, and it's considerably more out there, and a lot less fun, than most of his New X-Men run has been so far. It doesn't help matters that the story focuses on Fantomex, who seems to me the worst kind of Mary Sue fanfic character, pushing pretty much all of the X-Men, including the guest-starring Cyclops and Wolverine, off to the side where they won't interfere with the bland and uninteresting Fantomex or the equally dull Weapon XV who is meant to serve as the big threat of this piece.
The really disappointing thing about this story is that there's a good idea right at the center of it. I hate the whole "Weapon Ten" thing, which just seems silly and pedantic to me, but the notion of a super-secret organization raising soldiers in a completely artificial environment seems right up Morrison's alley, and right in line with what he's done with New X-Men. If only the whole thing wasn't tied into Wolverine, or Morrison wasn't pushing so hard for Fantomex to be seen as an equal to Wolverine thanks to their origins. Or, given that Fantomex seems to the guy who's reading the scripts, Wolverine's superior.
This issue reads like Morrison's notes for the storyline, rather than a coherent story, and it reminds me of when his JLA went off the rails. He has been remarkably good during his New X-Men run about blending his wild ideas with solid characterization and plot structure, but in this issue, and this story overall, that seems to have gone out the window. Sure, there are a couple of potentially interesting character moments here, notably between Cyclops and Wolverine, but most of what we're getting here is high-concept nonsense spewed out of various characters and big action being played out by an artist whose strengths are more in the realm of the weird and surreal these days.
Bachalo has actually surprised me on this arc by being a lot more clear than some of his other work in recent years, such as Steampunk or The Witching Hour. There's still the occasional jumble, when the background and foreground seem to mix, reminiscent more than anything of Keith Giffen's ill-considered Trencher style from the mid-90s, but for the most part his stylized characters stand out and the action is reasonably clear. Part of the credit must go to hard-working inker Tim Townsend and also colorist Chris Chuckry, both of whom take a potentially crowded layout and use emphasis and differing line weights to make particular parts of the page pop.
Given how much I've enjoyed New X-Men throughout, "Assault on Weapon Plus" is probably what I'd call the first real misfire for the series. Morrison takes the book into a completely different tone, more akin to his work on Doom Patrol and The Filth, which is a little too out there for my tastes, and he focuses in on a character who honestly doesn't seem to belong in the book, let alone as the starring member. I honestly think this arc would have worked better as a four-part Fantomex mini-series, and not just because then I could have safely ignored it and been engaged by a different monthly tale in the pages of New X-Men.
