Been a while since I picked up X-Treme X-Men, maybe I should give this X-Pose a look, since it's a first issue, see how things have changed. (Flip, flip, flip). Hmm. Nope, still hate it.
More seriously, X-Treme X-Men has been saddled with any number of difficulties, including a status quo where it looks like a dinosaur (the X-Treme in the title is unintentionally ironic, given how flat the book is compared to the work of Morrison or Milligan), some of the worst characters in the X-titles and a completely ignored premise that left the book looking directionless and worse, pointless. X-Pose seemed like a chance to change that, to refocus the book and give the "X-Treme X-Men" a reason to be splintered off from Xavier's mansion.
No such luck, as X-Pose is a mess of a story that wanders about, with various characters making speeches that are long-winded, boring and tired. Mutant politics have been a long-running part of the X-Men, and Claremont wrote the book for a lot of them, but because of his long run on the books, most of what he has to say about them seems to have been done. The X-Men fight for a world that hates and fears them, mutants are dangerous and people should be scared, mutants are people to, we get it. A little more gray area, or a more modern look at the metaphor, would certainly help.
Leaving aside that the issue seems overly familiar, it also just doesn't accomplish much. A pair of journalists from Claremont's longstanding supporting cast ask a bunch of questions, get a bunch of predictable answers and are thwarted in their goals to present a balanced report by a predictably nefarious and stupid executive (and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it sure looks like Manoli and her partner are metaphors for Claremont at Marvel these days, with a jab at the hip new upper management and creators). It's all cliche, and it doesn't tell anything new about the character. Bishop has never windsurfed before, or Storm is trying to push herself too hard to recover from some accident, that's what passes for characterization here. No exploration of what it means for these long-time X-Men to have willingly isolated themselves from Xavier's group, or why they've done it. No exploration for how they fit in with what's going on with the rest of the X-Men. The reason this book exists is clear, it's a way to give Claremont fans a monthly X-book, and it seems to have been decided that there's no need for an in-continuity explanation for this real-world consideration.
X-Treme X-Men has also suffered from the choice to digitally color the artwork rather than use inkers, and you need only look at Salvador Larroca's gorgeous work on Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra to see what a bad choice that was. Or, in the case of X-Pose, you can take a look at Ranson's work on X-Factor. While Ranson's work doesn't suffer from the same blurry edges or lack of clarity that has plagued Larroca, and indeed I'm not entirely sure that this issue was digitally inked, the work on X-Pose is notably less detailed and impressive than the work he did on X-Factor. Maybe it's a less inspired story that's to blame.
There's plenty of potential in this concept, artificial as it is. How the media looks on mutants, why these X-Men have chosen not to rejoin the common fold of Xavier's teams and what they do differently, these are all rich potential areas of story. Unfortunately, they haven't been explored in the title, and it looks like that isn't going to change any time soon.
