Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Sacred Vows Part 1
Written by: Chuck Austen
Penciled by: Philip Tan
Inked by: NA
Colored by: Avalon Studios
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Mike Marts
Publisher: Marvel Comics
OK, instead of using the more logical Angel/Stacy/Husk love triangle for the big wedding storyline Chuck Austen continues to force his psycho-stalker Nurse Annie upon the reader and force her into a relationship with Havok while at the same time making Polaris an evil bitch from hell that everyone’s supposed to hate because she’s not a character created by Austen.
Since taking over the book, Chuck Austen has been pushing the soap-opera angle of the book hard and yet fails miserably in doing it. He had the perfect angle for a true soap opera storyline set up and he wasted it. He had Angel (the wealthy bachelor who is mourning for his lost love), Stacy (the evil slut/bitch who NO ONE likes and who is obsessed with Angel and hates her rival), Husk (the pure and innocent country girl who is in love with the rich and sophisticated city boy and has to deal with the evil slut doing everything in her power to keep the girl from getting the guy).
So in typical Marvel fashion this ready-made soap opera storyline is aborted and Stacy sent away while Chuck pursues the Alex/Lorna/Annie storyline. This storyline doesn’t work because for all intents and purposes Nurse Annie should NOT be the good guy in this story. Instead of playing Annie as a saint who is desperately trying to free Alex from that bitch Lorna’s grasp, Chuck should be playing Annie as an evil stalker ala Sammy from Days of Our Lives or Sydney from Melrose Place who is obsessed with Havok and is secretly obsessed with ruining his relationship with Lorna. The character already has the stalker-vibe going for her, so why not go all the way with it?
But that is not to say that the character of Annie is without her good moments, as Annie’s condemning Iceman as wanting to pass as human was an interesting segment. And even though it was written with no real purpose except to make the fanbase hate her, the scene where Lorna goes on about her sex life, how the Summers Brothers are horrible lovers, and her suddenly revealed out of the thin blue sky Gambit fetish was good in terms of characters being characters and talking like normal people would talk about sex and their fantasies.
[Though I do want to bring up one thing; if Chuck TRULY wanted to make people hate Polaris and root for Annie, he should have had Jean bring out the real Gambit for Polaris to get freaky with at her bachelor party. Everyone hates Gambit, so having Lorna have sex with Gambit would probably do the trick and making people hate her.]
Finally I have to give a big round of applause to Philip Tan. His art for the issue was breathtaking. This issue had some of the best art I’ve seen in quite some time.
