Reviewed: X-Men The Hidden Years 3 by John Byrne and Tom Palmer

The Plot: Cyclops and The Beast learn the secret of a mysterious region of the Savage Land, Havoc and Lorna Dane move in to rescue the errant X-Men, and Marvel Girl goes too far in her investigation of the "ghost" of Magneto.

What is it with John Byrne? How has this happened?

By "this" of course, I mean the deep trench into which his once shining star has plunged. It once seemed Byrne could do no wrong. He made a name for himself drawing dynamic, exciting comics like Iron Fist and Uncanny X-Men, reinvented the Fantastic Four by looking back to the future, and made news (not comics-news, but news-news--the cover of Time, for Pete's sake!) when he was hired to reboot Superman in the Man of Steel miniseries.

So what the heck happened?

First of all, I don't think John Byrne is a great comics writer. He is an extremely competent plotter, a craftsman if you will, but there is little art in his actual writing. He lays out events and motivations that, when he's at the top of his game, make for some damn entertaining comics. John Byrne's Next Men, unfortunately a commercial flop, is a great example of this. It was cleverly constructed and fairly well drawn. Byrne's Captain America/Superman team-up and few other recent projects have shown flashes of the energy he used to put into his work on a monthly basis in such successes as Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four.

But for the most part, Byrne has been turning out below-par stuff for years. His Wonder Woman and Jack Kirby's Fourth World runs were painfully dull, his relaunch of the Hulk was a disaster, and Spider-Man Chapter One was, in my opinion, a crime against the artform.

Of course, me and every other late 70s-early 80s fanboy have been salivating for years at the thought that, maybe someday, Byrne would draw the X-Men again. But so much crap has been issued from his pen that when the announcement finally came a few months back it almost seemed anti-climactic. Frankly, I was sure it would suck.

Okay, so it doesn't suck. Like that's the first time I've been wrong.

But, it's not, well, urm...it's not exactly what I was hoping for, either. And the reasons why are, I hope, not insurmountable.

My main problem with the series, now that we have reached issue 3, is just that it's moving so damn slow. Maybe because the first issue was filled to the brim with exposition to bring new readers up to date (the series fills in the gaps from a long run in the 60s and early 70s where the title was running reprints) to where the characters are at this point in their history, but it just seems like, so far, not a whole lot has happened.

Not that I'm completely disappointed, by the way.

The art, frankly, is the main appeal of this book. And that should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Byrne's early work. Take a look, especially, at his Charlton stuff (Doomsday +1 comes to mind) and you'll see that Byrne has wanted to be Neal Adams for a long, long time; and now, he is.

Why do you think Tom Palmer is inking this book, anyway?

Palmer and Byrne mesh together on this title spectacularly well (much moreso than in the Silver Surfer one-shot they did years ago)--you'd think they'd been working together for years. Byrne unfortunately indulges his bad habit of large panels quite frequently, which may contribute to what I think is the slowing-down of the story, but Palmer embellishes them so well that it's hard to get too worked up about it.

I have no passion, really, for the unraveling of the mystery Byrne is dealing with; frankly, I find Cyclops and the Beast's journey here an excruciating bore. But it's well drawn, and hopefully will be over soon and Byrne can move on to whatever he has planned next.

My feeling is, if he speeds things up a bit and gets the hell out of the jungle, this could be a really kick-ass book. It's well drawn, and Byrne for the most part nails the characters. I'm just bored by the kick-off storyline, but I'm willing to gamble my problem with the book is more me than him.

I know he has it in him. Byrne, after all, contributed heavily to the plotting of some of the most significant Claremont/Byrne X-Men issues; his Next Men had some intriguing ideas that were well executed. I'm sure, if he can find his muse again, that this book could be top-notch.

I hope so, anyway, because it's good to have Byrne back drawing the X-Men, and even better to have Palmer inking him. I'm hoping my patience will soon pay off.