by Randy Lander

X-MEN: MILLENNIAL VISIONS #2 Mildly Recommended (5/10) Marvel Comics Writers/Artists: various Editor: Mike Marts Price: $3.50 US/$5.25 CAN How much you like this book will depend directly on your appreciation for pinups, because despite the text pieces accompanying it, this is largely a pinup book. There are some gorgeous pieces of work here from some notable artists, including Adam Pollina, Colleen Doran, Alex Maleev and the guys at Udon Studios, but the "stories" behind most of the pinups are uninspired to say the least. There are a couple that intrigued me, but most of them fall into the overdone realm of dark future, and all too many of them combine that cliche with the cliche of the war between Xavier and Magneto. Last time out, Millennial Visions contained a large number of potential stories, and it gave us the Exiles, which survives more based on the quality of the creative team than the concept behind it. I expect the results from this one to be about the same, and though I admit to a strange fascination with these "Visions" concepts, I don't really enjoy the finished products all that much. Ever since "Days of Future Past" the idea of a dark future has been a staple of the super-hero genre. Every super-hero team (and most of the super-villain ones, it seems) has a dark future that needs to be avoided or embraced, depending on their ethics and point of view. Nowhere has this been more evident than in X-Men, who have suffered through "Age of Apocalypse" and about a hundred different varieties of "Future Past" and who thus seem to be pretty well done with the dark future concept. Thus it doesn't seem a good idea to bring on even more of them in this issue, but there you go. X-Men Reborn, X-Men War to Come, Generation X The Last Family, New Mutants First Soldiers, Bishop Father of Man and Brotherhood's Keeper all play off of Apocalypse or Magneto and the idea of a dark future, and while not all of them are without merit, they all do seem a bit tired. Failing the first cliche test (old villains) but not the second (dark future) is Angel's War in the Savage Land (a premise which makes little to no sense), Exiles (which goes completely against the grain of the series tone), N.X.Y.F. and the 8 pages used for more overexposure of Universe X. Having said all that, I should admit that some of these dark futures, despite their familiarity, are intriguing. N.Y.X.F. has a stunning visual by Pablo Raimondi, and I love the idea of the New Mutants and Cable re-envisioned as a police unit, although it doesn't fit with the use of the characters we're seeing right now. X-Men: Reborn has text by Geoff Johns, and has enough potential that if it were Johns writing it (given his proven track record) I'd probably pick it up. And Brotherhood's Keeper appeals to the Wiseguy and UC: Undercover fan in me, the idea of seeing more into a super-villain team certainly intriguing and Rosemann's word picture of the politics equally so. What stands out more are the visions that go off in a bit more of an odd or interesting direction. Alex Maleev's vision of Rogue, P.I. is weird and Moebius-influenced, and Rosemann serves up an interesting if mildly goofy premise for this change of status quo. Colleen Doran's take on an old favorite, Storm as Goddess of Thunder, makes me think that she could become a fascinating supporting character in Thor. Adam Pollina's take on Blob and Mystique is just twisted, although Nixon's text doesn't really do it justice in terms of strangeness and wild imagination. Jo Chen and Ken Siu-Chong serve up an interesting manga-influenced idea of alternate world Psylocke that would make a fun mini-series. And my favorite of the bunch was probably X-Men Revolution, the idea of the X-Men of an alternate world as a band rather than an army, and it's something I would love to see done by Udon Studios. I must admit, there are some things that I really like about this package, and some ideas that have merit. Certainly, if one is interested in the nuts and bolts of pitches rather than simply reading stories, this could be interesting. But the mixed quality of the offerings makes it feel less like a behind-the-scenes package and more like a bunch of pinups, and though I'm as big of a fan of scripts and pitches as anyone, I would rather just see these tried out as stories instead of preview glimpses of things that mostly won't come to pass. Email Randy Lander comments about this review, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.