Broken Frontier

The third Summers brother is back, now squaring off with the younger of his two older sibs—Havok and the new Starjammers!

After the wholly underwhelming year-long epic The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, the new Shi’ar staus quo is revisited, with Havok leading a new team of Starjammers (consisting of Polaris, Rachel Grey, Korvus, Ch’od, and Raza Longknife) as well an entire Shi’ar rebellion against the tyrannical rule of the newly discovered youngest Summers brother: Vulcan.  Time is evenly split between the machinations of Vulcan and his consort Deathbird, and the struggles of Havok and the resistance.  Battles are fought, plots are conceived, and then a complete wild card is introduced at the end.

Emperor Vulcan is pure space opera, and so far it's proving vastly more entertaining than the aforementioned Brubaker-penned yarn that spawned it.  Where Rise and Fall tried to pack too much event inside of too little actual storytelling, Emperor keeps things contained and focused, setting up the premise and then offering up a single battle, which leads to a singlular and unexpected event.  Writer Christopher Yost (co-writer of X-23 and New X-Men ) works hard to juggle all the many players, and indeed he succeeds brilliantly in giving them all a solid place and presence within the story at large.

Two criticisms, though: 1) Yost’s attempts to spotlight Havok’s “insecurity” and “self-doubt” is terribly forced, as are the other characters’ reactions to this.  In an early scene, Ch’od comments on how—if the rebellion’s current triumphs are due to Havok’s supposed self-doubt—then they should all suffer such a thing (the rebellion’s kicking ass and taking names).  Two panels later, Havok refuses to take credit for his victories, claiming he’s not the brilliant leader his brother or his father were.  Ch’od immediately recants his statement and seems to see the danger in what basically amounts to Havok having humility, however sincere.  So…if Havok is continually getting results…why does it matter what he thinks of himself?  Wasn’t that Ch’od’s point in the first place?  Numerous scenes follow wherein Havok’s steadfast modesty is colored as an ominous portent, which is just plain silly, not to mention overbearing.

Criticism number 2): the ex-X-Men characters get a lot of face time, but the actual remnant Starjammers (Ch’od and most notably Raza) are hardly bothered with, and those are the only two that are classic, original Starjammers!  Hopefully they’ll get some more page space in future issues, but it's unlikely, as the plot (and point) of this series is about Havok and Vulcan and the unexpected enemy that crops up at the end of this issue (and that’s not a spoiler—the enemy is a new one, not an old one returned).

Paco Diaz and Vicente Cifuentes pool together their talents and offer up a serviceable bunch of pages.  The action is exciting, the intrigue well mapped, though it does, largely, look like the job was rushed.  Diaz has definitely been cleaner than this before, though the rougher quality to his pages does lend a certain ambiance that works, if nonetheless strikes one as hurried.

Emperor Vulcan looks to be a good follow-up to Rise and Fall, perhaps even better than, though that wouldn’t be a difficult thing to achieve.  It’s good to see this newly spotlighted corner of the Marvel U. get some continued attention, though the question remains whether the story will a) have any worthwhile impact, and b) actually stay consistent in character and deliver a plot that proves buyable.  It’s a strong foundation, but one that already shows signs of possible collapse.