New X-Men: Assault on Weapon Plus Review by Fleur, 15/02 New X-Men: Assault on Weapon Plus Cyclops: Logan was tortured and brutalised by the Weapon X Program; it took him a long time and a lot of hard work to reclaim his dignity after what they did to him. Fantomex: So? Cyclops: So, he's not a pawn or a weapon... he's not their Weapon Ten, he's not Professor Xavier's weapon for peace, and he's not your weapon, Fantomex. He's a man. He deserves respect. Why can't you just tell him what you know about his past and give the guy a break? Fantomex: Because he's no good to me dead, Monsieur Summers. And I think it's safe to say that the knowledge in the Weapon Plus files has the potential to kill him. (Assault on Weapon Plus) In 2001, Grant Morrison was brought on as the writer of the main X-Men title at Marvel, and 'New X-Men' was born. Stretching from issue 114 to 154 of adjectiveless X-Men, Morrison took a dwindling title (nothing major had impacted since Apocalypse: the Twelve) - and really did revolutionise the franchise. Morrison breathed fresh air back into our favourite mutants, and brought back a lot of fringe readers (including the current writer of Astonishing X-Men, Joss Whedon). Morrison was asked to make X-Men interesting again. He was specifically asked to create a more interesting character out of eternally unpopular X-Man (or 'angst-cushion', to quote Fabian Nicieza's Deadpool) Cyclops. It is now generally accepted that Morrison did an outstanding job. He rewrote Phoenix mythos, and shone light on the Weapon X program. He took a risk in shaking up one of Marvel's first couples - and he put Emma Frost in a Dark Phoenix costume. "Assault on Weapon Plus", the fifth trade paperback in Morrison's X-time (collecting New X-Men 139-145) is probably the strongest book of the entire run. We start where the previous trade left off. A rather ticked off Jean Grey-Summers walking in on her husband with Emma Frost, having something of a psychic affair. "Don't tell me. You can explain." (Though you have to wonder what he really needs to explain. Emma Frost, roleplaying as his wife. How wrong could that really be?) The first half of this trade deals with the resulting psychic fight between Jean and Emma, and the Murder at the Mansion arc. After Jean rampages through her memories and she collapses in Wolverine's arms, Emma Frost is shot, by a diamond bullet that hits her flaw and shatters her into tens of thousands of pieces. Bishop and Sage come to investigate the murder, while, rather than all the King's horses and all the King's men, it's Hank McCoy who puts diamond Emma back together again. While this is going on, prime suspect Cyclops has packed up his emotional baggage and fled to the Hellfire Club to drown his sorrows, Wolverine hot on his heels. This is where the second plot of the book (Brimstone & Whiskey, Assault on Weapon Plus) kicks in, and an already high-quality trade really hits its stride. Cyclops and Wolverine have a drinking competition, with a brilliant scene involving Wolverine and Sabertooth at the urinals thrown in for good measure. Wolverine gets Cyclops blind drunk, throws him over his shoulder, and the two set off with Fantomex to stage an attack on the Weapon X program, and to find out about Wolverine's past. Fantomex, Cyclops and Wolverine find their way to 'The World', an artificial environment meant for breeding supersoldiers. They discover Weapon Fifteen, and the secrets about what's been happening. They find out information about the superhero team front to cover up the fact these supersoldiers are going to be hunting and executing mutants. And then they find out about Wolverine's past, leading to a brutally brilliant final moment in the book. Assault on Weapon Plus shines a light on the brilliant characterisation Morrison has given us through the entire New X-Men run. Here, the stand out characters have to be his Beast, his Cyclops and most notably his Wolverine. Beast spends most of the first half of the book putting Emma Frost back together again, like an "incredibly intricate biological jigsaw". We've seen Beast go through a lot during the run - and this is a beautiful character piece, as he obsessively attempts the impossible task of putting a shattered diamond back together. When Sage points out that it'll be difficult to narrow down suspects for Emma's murder because nobody liked her, Morrison shows his real understanding of the heart of Beast's character as he has him reply that he did, no matter what anyone else thought of her. Morrison, along with Bendis, Vaughan and Whedon, is generally considered to be one of the few writers who can do Cyclops justice. A difficult character to understand, Cyclops suffers from often being written by writers who dislike him. Morrison, however, writes one of the best Cyclops characterisations there is, and he manages to do this without slipping into the trap of being too sympathetic to him. Cyclops's speech about Apocalypse, in flashback, to a rather seductive Emma Frost, is one of the most deliberately boring - and therefore quite hilarious - segments in the entire run. However, Assault on Weapon Plus is where his Cyclops truly shines. From his confessions to Wolverine in the Hellfire Club to his very dry wit during the actual mission, Cyclops is truly "emotionally crippled", though Morrison still manages to highlight the character's strengths. (As well as all this, Morrison gives him one of the funniest speeches - to an unfortunate Hellfire Club dancer - that I've ever seen, wherein Cyclops reveals that his true mutant power is actually an ability to kill a romantic mood.) Assault on Weapon Plus is, of course, primarily about Wolverine and his search for the truth about his past - and it's no surprise that Morrison's Wolverine is quite flawless. The best moment of the entire trade, for Wolverine, has to be when he takes out a man in The World who has a rail gun - after asking "so what's a rail gun and why should I care?" - he lies at Cyclops's feet for half a minute before announcing "Rail gun, hmm? My heart must have stopped for about thirty seconds that time" as he gets up. But the best part - and it must be said, the best Wolverine that Morrison wrote in his entire run - is in the last few pages, after he's read his Weapon Plus file. While Cyclops is realising that humans really do hate them, and this really is war - while Fantomex is being tortured, his nervous system destroyed - Wolverine is asked by Weapon Fifteen to explain the meaning of life. And, well, he's found it. 'Nuff said - it's something you need to see for yourself. Morrison's characterisation strengths don't end there - he proves to be quite the master at depth as he gets to the heart of of the Cyclops-Wolverine relationship without slipping into the antagonistic stereotype employed by so many writers. He shows their real friendship here - their dedication to each other, and their role as each other's support figure and truth teller, which is a dynamic most recently picked up again by Astonishing's Whedon. If there's a single reason why every single X-Men fan should own this trade, it's character development. We learn about Fantomex here, we learn about Jean Grey and the Phoenix. We see Wolverine learn about his past, and Cyclops start to deal with his marriage problems. We see kick-ass fights and quiet moments between characters. Assault on Weapon Plus made a real difference in the run, and had true significance to the characters involved. It can't come more highly recommended.