By: Mike Carey (writer), Clay Mann (pencils), Jay Leisten (inks), Brian Reber (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)
The Story: The plot of Age of X thickens as Legacy/Reaper (our Rogue) tries to escape from the mutant’s stronghold and determine what is going on outside of the Force Barrier.
What’s Good: This is shaping up to be a fun little X-Men crossover story and I really enjoy the way it has been crafted. The events in this issue flow directly from New Mutants #22 and so far the first three issues of the series have a lot of cohesion. It is also great that Mike Carey has pulled some of the Act I elements of the story (the mysteries of what the heck is going on with our favorite mutants) into what would traditionally be Act II of the story. “Act II” is just a waste of time with properties like the X-Men who have appeared in ~1000 comic books over 5 decades. Too many comic stories are told in these 6-issue arcs where we have two issues of exposition that reveal 95% of the mystery, two crap issues in the middle of characters standing around and talking to each other than accomplishes very little and then two pretty cool issues that wrap up the story. Act II can do well, but the best Act IIs (Empire Strikes Back) are great because they maintain some Act I-flavored mystery (“Luke, I am your father!”).
This issue focuses heavily on Reaper/Legacy (who is this alternate reality’s version of Rogue). Through the actions in the first two chapters of this story, she has gotten too close to some uncomfortable truths held by the General (our Magneto) and he releases the alt-version of the New Mutants to hunt her down. There is some decent action, but the real highlight is seeing Legacy start to recruit a gang of potential allies.
But, the best thing is that we still don’t really know what is going on. What is the General hiding? Who is this mysterious X character who seems to be running the show? Which of these characters remember our “normal” X-universe and what do they know? Is Jimmy (our Wolverine) really completely without powers? With all of these mysteries up in the air, it means that we’re probably not going to have any boring Act II issues, so this should be a pretty hot crossover when all is said and done. I love it when comic stories are told in such a way that you have confidence that the ending will be good!
The art is pretty strong and Mann has nice layouts through and he draws his characters well. In fact, his layouts are really strong and my only wish is that he’d break away from rectangular panels sometimes because with his sense of how to compose a scene, I’m sure he could do some very cool things with oddly shaped panels to enhance the readers’ emotions in certain parts of the story.
What’s Not So Good: [SPOILER WARNING]
Why does it always have to be Wolverine and Cyclops? As this issue ends, it seems that the resistance to the General is going to be led by the two mutants who are already the most overexposed in the Marvel U. I was so disappointed to see this because Mike Carey has worked so well without giving us Wolverine and Cyclops-centric stories during his run on X-Men Legacy for the last 4-5 years. Just once, couldn’t some other character be the one to save the day? I’d be a million times more excited if it appeared that Legacy’s secret helpers were going to be Storm, Namor and Colossus (just as an example) because having seen Wolverine/Cyclops at the end of the issue, I feel like I have a decent idea of how this story will wrap up.
And, I really don’t care for the way this issue is colored in some places. The uniforms and landscapes are all beautifully done, but I’m just not a fan of the extreme highlighting of people’s faces by the colorist. Next time you get a chance, check out someone’s face when they’re standing next to you and you won’t see deep shadows around the hollows of the cheeks and a nose that is so highlighted that it is almost white. I’d just MUCH rather see the penciler and inker include this detail on characters’ faces because I hate the effect when colorists try to do it (or have to because the penciler/inker didn’t draw a complete nose).
Conclusion: This is shaping up to be a pretty strong crossover. Besides the overuse of some familiar characters, it has been fun and we still have a LOT of mystery to be revealed even though we’re 50% through the story.
Grade: B
-Dean Stell
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