Back in the Day....

X-MEN: ZERO TOLERANCE

Written by Scott Lobdell, Larry Hama, James Robinson & John Francis Moore,
Pencilled by Scott Bacchalo, Carlos Pachecho, Dop Mahn, Leinel Francis Yu & Randy Green.

X-men: Zero Tolerance TPB cover   

Now its probably a little bit tricky to get hold of this book because its out of print, and out of print generally means that you can find it but whoever is selling has jacked the price up to a phenomenal level. I've seen copies of this book going for $125+ which in all seriousness is just criminal. The fact of the matter is when you peruse amazon, eBay etc looking for an older book and see people selling it for this much it puts you off reading the book and that's a tragedy because new fans or old fans alike are missing out on a great story because someone is taking advantage of a shortage. These people get their little bowl of Karma served up to them however because if you go back months or even years later the book is still up there at a ridiculous price because no one in there right mind is going to pay that much! Anyway I'm getting sidetracked!

    

So I finished reading this little gem, well when I say little that's not entirely accurate, its like most X-men crossovers a nice big book, which will sustain you for a while. I've said it in the past but I'll say it again, that's what I love about the X-men Graphic Novels, there always a good solid read. Zero Tolerance clocks in at a good 430 pages. I love the binding and the paper stock they used. Its solid, the stock is thicker than usual. I think the older trades Marvel put out were always much hardier. This book was intended to last! My son Finn had woken up and was getting his wriggle on, So what better time to switch the light on, put him in the crook of my arm and finished reading this epic. Finn seemed fairly interested in it at first but then his attention was diverted by the very interesting heating vent on the ceiling...I'll get him eventually!

There was a lot of nostalgia attached to this tale as Zero Tolerance was about the time I started seriously collecting X-men, about 1997 I think. This story came on the tale end of the enormous company wide crossover Onslaught. A lot of people have said in the past that onslaught was the peak of X-men in the 90's and it went downhill from there. I tend to disagree, Zero Tolerance to me was even better than Onslaught. The thing I disliked about Onslaught was that there were so many tie-ins from other titles that really weren't tie-ins at all. Marvel has gotten much worse at this in recent years, the most classic example was the Siege event where Mighty Avengers was a tie-in but the only link to the actual event was one of the characters turning on the TV seeing it was happening and then going off and doing there own thing which had nothing to do with the actual event. 

Internal Art

The art throughout Zero Tolerance was spot on; Chris Bacchalo on the Generation X issues, Carlos Pachecho on X-men, Leinel Francis Yu on Wolverine, Adam Pollina on X-force and Dop Mahn on Cable. All very unique and all very talented. A great use of color throughout, I appreciated Leinel Francis Yu and Carlos Pachecho a little more as they have great colorists working with them, which adds a lot of depth to the colors. The writing is great and all the writers were collaborating quite well, an almost seamless story. The main antagonists of the X-men issues is Iceman, whom we don't usually get to see in the spotlight. He finds himself in a situation where he has to be the voice of reason and lead by example. A difficult thing for someone up until now has basically been the class clown. As a result we see a lot of character development for Bobby Drake.

The main threat that the X-men face is Bastion, a mysterious stranger who appeared a while back and has been slowly rallying government support for his paramilitary organisation Operation Zero Tolerance. The idea behind the organisation is to deal with the mutant threat once and for all. What makes Zero Tolerance so much of a threat is their introduction of the Prime Sentinels. The Sentinels have been a long standing threat when it comes to X-men, the prime sentinels are a new and much deadlier incarnation as the Prime Sentinels are basically sleeper agents. Gone are the days when sentinels were giant robots that clanked about and had all the finesse of a German tourist. These new sentinels can strike at anytime and can be anyone. They certainly inspire a lot of paranoia among the X-men.

We're also introduced to four new characters. Cecilia Reyes, a surgeon who had kept her mutation under wraps until the Zero tolerance agents had uncovered her. Cecilia is by far the most annoying character the X-men have ever had in their ranks. Sabra, a super agent for the Mossad, basically an Israeli Wonder Woman. Sabra is kind of a two dimensional character, I get the feeling that they just needed a powerhouse which was why they threw her in the mix. She does get a lot of development down the line. Marrow, a very interesting an complex character who gets a lot of development and who'd already had a lot of history with the X-men but as a villain. Here we see her lending a hand and becoming a sort of grumpy wolverine type who really has a heart of gold. Finally Maggott whom we are introduced to right at the end.... hes a bit odd and has the strangest power going. Two giant slugs come out of his stomach and can eat anything. So yeah......

My only complaint would be the order they've put the stories. I'm a real stickler for continuity and the Cable issues seemed really out of place. Mainly because Cable was interacting with Bastion (the main villain of the piece) and then the next issue Bastion would be elsewhere and the following issue of Cable he'd be back continuing his conversation. I think maybe the events of Cable preceded the rest of the book. The final issue was especially Nostalgic because that was the first issue I picked up when I started collecting, I had to actually go to a number of stores to get all the back issues that preceded it.

I only hope that Marvel will collect the events that cam after this "the Hunt for Xavier" that was a good solid story as well with many a favourite character returning, and new and interesting threats arising. All in all I'd highly reccomend reading Zero tolerance (if you can find a copy!) eBay is a great place to look or Amazon has it available. A very good addition to anyones collection.