By: Allan Heinberg (writer), Jim Cheung (pencils), Mark Morales, John Livesay, Dexter Vines & Cheung (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Lauren Sankovitch (associate editor) & Tom Brevoort (editor)
The Story: Now that the Scarlet Witch is back and can restore mutant powers, will she get the chance before someone tries to bring her to justice for M-Day.
What’s Good: Prior to the big events of issue #6, I’d honestly thought that this miniseries would be high quality since Heinberg is a wonderful writer and Jim Cheung can make grown men weep with his pencil work, but I really didn’t think it would “matter”. How could Marvel have a bi-monthly 9-issue miniseries “matter”? I just didn’t think they could plan ahead that well. Well…issue #6 changed that and for that reason, readers picked up this issue with a big sense of anticipation. That feeling is so rare in these days of internet spoilers that this comic scores some points before even being read.
And problems aside, this issue still left me with the feeling that important stuff is happening here. Scarlet Witch is back and she can restore mutant powers. And this story isn’t out-of-continuity either because X-Factor this week showed Rictor (who was repowered in issue #6) using his powers and there’s even an editor’s note in X-Factor referring to this series. So there. Now, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Will Scarlet Witch give all mutants their powers back? What about the mutants who are happier to be “normal”? Or will it just serve to restore a few mutants that some writer wants to play with?
There are moments of absolute artistic brilliance in this issue. Unfortunately, the art is a little inconsistent, but it never gets into “bad” territory. And the good pages are just glorious, but they do make you wish that all the pages could be so pretty. I’d guess that this series is on more of a timeline that we originally thought since it seems to be syncing up with “present day” mutant events and that might be making some of it look rushed.
What’s Not As Good: Heinberg has some clunky dialog moments in this issue. The central issue is that the X-Men know that the Scarlet Witch is back and they aren’t too happy with her due to the events of M-Day. So, the bulk of the issue has this basic dialog repeated multiple times:
CYCLOPS: “The Scarlet Witch must answer for her crimes and we mutants will be the ones to pass judgement on her because she is a mutant and mutants take care of their own problems!!”
CAPTAIN AMERICA: “She will answer for judgments, but not at your hands!!!”
SCARLET WITCH: “I just want to give all the mutants their powers back. Stop fighting!!”
MAGNETO: “Shut up daughter and hide while I fight with my friends!!”
And then you have X-Men and Avengers fighting. Lots of out-of-character moments. I mean, Steve Rodgers and Cyclops have been buddies lately with Steve getting Cyclops that Presidential Medal and them having the excursion to the Negative Zone. I just have a hard time seeing them blasting each other this quickly. Rough week for Cyclops too: fighting with Wolverine and Captain America.
It wasn’t enough to make the issue bad, but it did damped some of the enjoyment.
Conclusion: It’s a shame that this series couldn’t quite continue the upward trajectory of last issue, but it still seems like big things are happening in this series. Make sure to tune in and see what becomes of the Scarlet Witch.
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
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