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Gamma Quest part 3: Friend or Foe? |
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(as seen in the pages of Advanced Iron #60)
X-MEN / AVENGERS
"Gamma Quest Trilogy book 3: Friend or Foe?" -
2000
Author: Greg Cox
Cover art: Julie Bell
Illustrations: George Pérez
Publisher: BP Books, Berkley Boulevard Books, New York.
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Before I begin, I can already hear some of you ask me: «Why did you start with the third book, man? What about the other two?»
The answer is very simple. When I saw Iron Man on this beautiful Julie
Bell cover, I picked it up and bought it. There you have it.
I thought that, like the Doom's Day trilogy,
this would only be loosely tied to previous books. I was wrong. It is a
direct continuation of what has been occurring in the two other ones. I
didn't know that, but now you do. So the fact that I only read the last
instalment may influence my judgement of this novel, keep that in mind
for later.
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When
this story begins, the Leader has kidnapped Wolverine, the Scarlet
Witch and Rogue and is holding them captive in his hideout on the moon.
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Meanwhile, on Muir Island, Iron Man is fighting some mighty powerful
robot-sentinels along with the Hulk, Iceman, Storm, Nightcrawler and
Wolverine (obviously a fake). The problem with these robots is that
they are powered by a gamma reactor that is programmed to explode if
the robot is defeated. It's going to take the combined efforts of Iron
Man, the Hulk and Nightcrawler to keep the whole island from going
ka-boom!
Everybody then meets up with the Beast, Captain America,
Cyclops and the Vision and they all head for the moon to kick the
Leader's butt and rescue their team mates. After a fairly boring space
skirmish between IM and a Skrull spaceship, the heroes land on the moon
and do battle with the Leader. To defend himself, the big green-headed
one controls the brainwashed trio of Rogue, Wolverine and Wanda and
also has a secret ally… the Super-Skrull.
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This book has its moments. I found particularly interesting that the
author wrote from Iron Man's perspective on numerous occasions, making
him an important player in the unfolding events. |
The fight between Iron Man and a brainwashed Rogue was interesting,
aside from that silly stunt where Iron Man projects his gauntlets to
grab Rogue's ankles, and then reels them (and her) back in with
attached steel cables… I don't mind an author adding to IM's known
arsenal, but this is just silly. Throughout the battle, Rogue tries to
get under IM's armor to come in contact with his skin and Stark thinks:
«This skirmish has to stay the super-brawl equivalent of safe sex.» That made me laugh. Hey, it's not so surprising. Stark is supposed to be a playboy after all, and Rogue is quite attractive!
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part is supposed to be about cool things, right? Okay, hum… let's see…
ah! There's the beautiful Julie Bell cover. There are also the George
Pérez illustrations that are spectacular, as always. Sadly, I doubt
that Mister Pérez took the time to read the book (can't say I blame
him) because several of his otherwise beautiful drawings do not
accurately depict what is going on in the chapter. Others are more
accurate, but they sell punch lines before you actually read about them
and that ruins what little surprise there is in this book at all. Okay,
since I seem to be set on moaning, so I'll just officially switch to
the bad stuff, shall I?
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I
didn't enjoy this book as much as the IM/Spidey novel. The fact that it
is not a self-contained story is no doubt partly responsible for that.
But it's not the only problem. |
Several times, while I was reading this, I couldn't help but roll my
eyes up and think: «Oh! Franchement!» (Québec equivalent of Fer Pete's
sake!). Take for example the silly robot-sentinels that the heroes
spend the entire three first chapters fighting… they're just silly. The
Leader has covered them with artificial skin to make them look like the
Hulk, the Abomination and other Gamma-irradiated creatures. Why? For
what purpose did he go through all that trouble? It's just silly,
there's simply no reason for it. It might have been more visually
pleasing in a comic, but this is a novel, so who cares? The
gauntlet-cables thing was another such gimme a break moment.
Another thing I found annoying is the author's habit of
over-describing scenes. Sometimes it's a lot of fun and it helps you
feel like you're actually there… but other times, especially when it
occurs in the middle of a fight or a high-suspense sequence of events,
it simply breaks the rhythm of the action and it kills the excitement.
Either I'm unusually shrewd, or the story is overall extremely
predictable. I was rarely surprised, I saw the supposedly "shock
revelations" come from miles away. In fact, sometimes I was so bored
that I actually skipped several pages… Part of me thinks that I'm not
the best person to comment on this story because I only read the last
instalment, but the other part of me thinks that, if the other two
books were anything like this, I never would have bothered to read all
three of them anyway.
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When Captain America yells out: "Avengers Assemble!", the Beast looks at Storm and says: "Ah, how I've missed that classic clarion call! Somehow, 'X-Men Exacerbate!' doesn't have quite the same ring to it!"
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