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NYX #1
"Wannabe, Part One"
Recommended (8/10)
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Marvel Comics
Writer: Joe Quesada
Artist: Joshua Middleton
Art assist: Beaulieu
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: C.B. Cebulski
Price: $2.99 US/$4.75 CAN |
One of my favorite movies is Go, which is sort of a Pulp Fiction for the raver set. Despite my expectations, though, NYX is less like Go and more like the recent film Thirteen, about some of the darker stuff that teenagers have to deal with these days. Quesada writes a pretty good script, portraying his characters as flawed but real and presenting conflicts as the sort of stop and start flare-ups that they often are in real life, rather than the knockdown dragouts that we're used to seeing in fiction. The art, unsurprisingly, is excellent, as Middleton & Beaulieu give us a sort of watercolor, high contrast, stylized and yet realistic look at the life of young Kiden, which is about to go from awkward teen years to something much, much more unusual.
The realistic backdrop makes for an interesting setting into which to introduce mutant powers, although that's really not what most of this first issue is about. Instead, the first issue is all about setting up the foundation of the series, introducing the character and her past so that we have a basis for comparison when everything gets turned upside down. Quesada starts his story when Kiden was a much younger girl, and we see a pretty formative event that still resonates with her life in the modern day. It's a nice bit of setting the stage, as he introduces us to a character and sets up a long-lasting relationship as well as giving us a sense of what the family has been dealing with for years.
Instead of giving Kiden a shattered or highly unrealistic life, though, Quesada gives her a life that feels like it belongs to her. She fights with her mom, but there's an underlying bond of love and trust between them. That Kiden betrays that trust, and the trust of surrogate uncle Nino, gives us some insight into her character, although given the pretty minor nature of those betrayals, it's easy to write it off as "kids will be kids" and keep her likable. Certainly her loyalty to her friend, which doesn't stop when physical threats become involved, makes her easy to like as well. Kiden, like so many teenage girls these days, is someone who's grown up earlier than her parents would like, but despite her fighting, drug use and smoking, she seems like a basically decent kid.
This realistic treatment turns out to be just the right vehicle for Middleton, who has previously done work on fantasy books like Meridian or Sky Between Branches. While Middleton still has the unfortunate propensity for sexualizing these preteens by means of panty shots (two in this issue alone), it feels somewhat appropriate, as the girls are trying to be sexy at this young age. And his work is gorgeous, there can be no doubt of that. The expressive, stylized characters are reminiscent of the strongest manga work, and the washed out, pastel colors make the art just pop off the page. It's like viewing normal life through a more interesting filter, and it works, perhaps best of all in the sepia-toned flashback in the beginning or the strobe light effect of the rave.
As with so many first issues these days, it's too early to judge the series, because the premise is just barely established and it seems clear that the book is going to be changing direction pretty radically with the introduction of mutant powers. NYX reminds me, both visually and in terms of storytelling, of Tsunami titles New Mutants and Runaways, and it will be interesting to see if Quesada and Middleton can distinguish it from those other tales of teen super-heroes in the Marvel Universe. Judging from a pretty solid first issue, I'd be willing to bet that they can.
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