500!

When you do something 500 times, chances are pretty good you've done it well. From Stan Lee to Chris Claremont to Ed Brubaker to Matt Fraction, Marvel has done quite well by their most Uncanny of superhero teams. The X-Men turned 500 last week, and with it came a new beginning, different yet all to familiar to longtime readers.

The heroes everyone wants are here: Cyclops, the mild-mannered boss-man; Wolverine, the hard-edged maverick; Angel, the winged avenger; Storm, the African weather goddess; Colossus, the metal man; Beast, the blue-furred genius; Nightcrawler, the elf; even psychic former super-villain Emma Frost is still here. All in all, not much seems to have changed with this super group; aside from changing coasts (trading in dreary Westchester for hip San Francisco) there isn't much different about this new group.

But things are quite different: for one, the local government is absolutely in love with them. The mayor happens to be quite smitten with Warren Kenneth Worthington III (Angel) and she's openly embraced the X-Men to make their homes on the west coast. They've spared no expense building a new headquarters that makes the Xavier School look like a basement studio, Angel's vast sum of loot paying the way easily. This is indeed a whole new beginning, no more "To me, my X-men" lines, just a real team, pulling together for one another, caring for one another as people and a diminishing race.

The Mayor has news for the team. Apparently, Japanese filmmaker Kingo Sunen (who first made his appearance way back in 1977 in the Eternals futuristic movie in San Francisco. Casting former mutant The Blob, Freddie Dukes, in the lead role (the unrecognizable Dukes is portrayed as a "weight loss guru") series) wants to film his new sci-fi film in San Francisco to use the Dreaming Celestial he's obsessed with as his backdrop for the movie. Which is fine. Until it's revealed that another artist, one Guy deMondue, has decided to create art due to the recent mutant influence and bases his art on decommissioned Sentinels.

That's right. Sentinels. Remember when I said some things were very much the same?

It leads the team to attend the art unveiling, where there are more X-Men fan boys than at your average national convention. Every one's dressed up as Marvel Girl, Professor X, Banshee, Angel and Psylocke, and the heroes fit right in. (Interestingly enough, no Wolverine costumes are shown, yet there's one woman dressed up as Mystique. Hmmm) This is until an old villain returns from the dead and wreaks havoc over everything.

It's a fantastic new beginning for this team, thanks much in part to the writing. I love both Brubaker (Captain America, Daredevil) and Fraction (Invincible Iron Man, The Order), and their excellent work at making this new start both simple and complex all at the same time. They're not going to make it easy for the X-Men to settle into their new homes, and you just know they had to take from personal experience for the fan boy convention sequence. The writing in itself would make the book fantastic. But with beautiful pencil art by Greg Land (Ultimate Power, Birds of Prey) and Terry Dodson (Wonder Woman, Songes: Coraline) and colors by Justin Ponser (X-Men: Phoenix Endsong) sealing the deal, it's hard not to immediately add this title to you new favorites pile.

Am I gushing enough? I'm so enamored with this title, my complaints almost have no real merit. There's one person who shows up at the end who I felt I should know, but don't because I hadn't paid too much attention to the X-Men universe until recently. It's a small thing, and his story will likely be fleshed out later in this run, but it's disconcerting that I should feel a sense of foreboding, but only if I knew who this character was supposed to be. Also, there's not enough X-Men in this story. Except for cameos by Cannonball and Pixie (Pixie??) no secondary X-Men are shown. No Warpath? No Hepzibah? No Iceman?? Shame, shame! Bring these characters back into the fold! I want more mutants, damn you!

Despite these minute transgressions, X-Men 500 is exactly what they've been hyping so much about these last few months. It's a new beginning, a new hope, and yet familiar enough to attract old and new fans alike. Buy it. You won't regret it.

Law and Order

If you could be a super-hero for one year, would you?

Marvel's Civil War storyline has been accused of a lot of things. The continuity was confusing, characters appeared in seven different places at the same time, Sally Floyd was introduced, and to of course hear Steve tell it, every Marvel character is now complicit with the murder of Steve "Captain America" Rogers and any issue in which a certain character doesn't go over to Tony Stark's Helecarrier and punch him in the head is a travesty for the company. Not my words, mind you, but I say simply that Marvel seemed to drop the ball on what should have been a universe-changing event. Only two major changes have taken place: Almost all the heroes in the US are under the watchful eye of S.H.I.E.L.D. and only a few major players remain at large, BUT that will probably change before the end of next year; Also, Captain America was killed, BUT we'll see how long that lasts. Marvel's flip-flopped before, and there's really not any reason to think these major changes are actually that for the long run.

However, often overlooked are the many successes that came about after the dust settled. Avengers: The Initiative is starting off as a great series, the New Warriors story is extremely good, Mighty Avengers and New Avengers have both been solid titles, Ms. Marvel has been fantastic since the Civil War, and Immortal Iron Fist has been just wonderful. But no post-Civil War title has been more original and as interesting as The Order.

Of the 50-States Initiative that Tony Stark (Steve's nemesis) had started, California's program was the most unique. Instead of using established heroes, drug up from the bottomless annals of the Marvel Universe, they decide to draft volunteers. Civilian volunteers. People who want to be more than they are, do more than they can. And so these people are trained to be the best they can be, are given nanite injections that artificially create superpowers that last one year, and are tasked with protecting the state of California from anything that would threaten it.

And what a litany of threats California has. When the Order isn't defending the San Gabriel mountains from the flames of the Infernal Man, preventing a sleeper Russian nuclear team from accidentally blowing up the California seaboard, or protecting the shoppers on Rodeo Drive from a swarm of Zobos (think Zombie-Hobo hybrid), they're facing internal disputes (like the ones between speedster James "Calamity" Wa and psychokinetic Mulholland Black), political pressure (the California Historical Society wants them kicked out of the building they own because it's a historical landmark) and the ever-mysterious "M.A.N. from S.H.A.D.O.W." who would seem to like nothing more than to see the Order fail.

We enter issue 4 of this series written by Matt Fraction (Punisher War Journal, Immortal Iron Fist) and drawn by Barry Kitson (Legion of Super Heroes) with the the re-emergence of Zobo hordes once again attacking downtown Los Angeles. Even worse, there appear to be exactly twice as many of the loathsome bastards as when the Order faced them in the third issue. Then, to add insult to injury, the team is undermanned, with Calamity getting the day off (and off-grid) and Mulholland being placed on a special assignment to determine how and why a former Order operative was found dead less than 6 hours after being fired. It isn't long before S.H.I.E.L.D. sends backup, but big question still unanswered is who created these things, and why.

One of the best parts about the series so far is the attention to character development. Each issue starts with the "interview", the one these volunteers took before being accepted into the program. We learn a bit about their history, and get an insight into how they came to volunteer for the program. In this issue, we look at Magdalene "Veda" Marie, daughter of a German father and a Mexican mother, who at a young age decided she wanted to focus on tae kwon do and help orphans. Then she grew up, won tournaments, got noticed for modeling, transitioned to actress (one that could do her own stunts, no less), and used the money she gained to help orphans. Now she has the power to create golems from the earth and control them in battle. Quite a career so far.

While I question the need to artificially create superheroes for the state of California with the current super powered population exceeding that of several small cities (and why wouldn't any of them volunteer for California anyway?) it's only a slight nitpick. I unabashedly love The Order and how the series has progressed so far. Fraction is a fantastic writer, one that truly understands pacing, suspense, action, and the human condition. He plunges you right into this drama of normal people becoming something greater than themselves. Kitson's artwork is not always consistent, sometimes it seems like he spent more time on some panels than others, but is mostly very good, and his style compliments the story being told perfectly.

I can't stress this enough: The Order is a superlative series, and you should be reading this book if you love superhero comics, period. If you haven't yet, pick up the first four issues at your local comic shop, and ogle at what probably comes closest to perfection this side of the Marvel/DC threshold.