So many X-Men books, so little time! We have ourselves a tall pile this week. Check out and see what ComicAttack.net’s resident X-perts thought of this week’s books. Don’t forget to add your thoughts in the comments below!
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Savage Wolverine #21
Writer: John Arcudi
Artist: Joe Quinones
Some of the best Wolverine stories are the ones that are inconsequentially Wolverine stories. This has little to do with Logan as a super hero or a mutant or anything. It’s simply a solid war story that just happens to include Wolverine.
We open on a dream sequence which has Logan meet a man drinking on a city street while listening to music. The man offers Logan a drink which burns into Logan’s memory as he awakes. He is in the North of France in 1918 in the middle of war. Logan and some other colorful characters are put on a mission to take out a bridge controlled by the Germans. Logan finds himself confronted by the man in his dreams in a really nice bookending sequence.
The art in this issue is particularly fantastic. Joe Quinones draws a really clean line. He depicts wartime Wolverine dynamically and there are some really visceral moments.
This title has been a great opportunity for creators to tell original stories without getting too tangled in Wolverine’s history. Arcudi is able to develop Wolverine in ways that even the current character can’t be developed. He’s not quite “the best at what he does” yet, and that makes it all the more fun.
Pick this up, especially if you like war stories and clean art. It’s a winner! –JJ
Rating: 8/10
Uncanny X-Men #23
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Kris Anka
If I had to describe this issue in one word it would be “confusing”. So many questions popped into my head as I was reading this issue. First and foremost is the cover. It’s a very minimalistic cover put together by Chris Bachalo. I’ll give this to Chris though; he can pick a font like nobody’s business. I don’t mean to make fun of it really because it is an effective design and actually stands out on the shelf, but this cover seems like a huge waste of time for an artist like Bachalo. Axel Alonso could have slapped this cover together in 10 minutes with a Macbook.
The issue kicks off like many of the Uncanny X-Men issues that Bendis has previously written. We get an enigmatic introduction to a new character that we know will eventually cross paths with our titular heroes, but it just won’t happen in this issue. The rest of the book consists of further character development as Cyclops reflects on the death of Professor X at his hands, Tempus tries to come clean about her experience in the Tabula Rasa, Dazzler battles her own mental instability, and Hijack rejoins the team.
“But when do we get to the part about The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier?” you might ask. Well I’m sorry to have to report that you won’t really find that in this issue. All we do get is that apparently She-Hulk is the one tasked with the reading of the document after it just now gets delivered to her law offices. It’s good to know that Xavier knew exactly where she’d be working after he died considering Jennifer Walters changes employment establishments more often than Mystique changes shapes. The unfortunate thing is that by the time the reader reaches the halfway point of this issue, it’s pretty easy to figure out that it will end with the Jean Grey School X-Men to needing to summon Cyclops.
And the most confusing part of all of this is why this is even considered an Original Sin tie-in. I’ll admit that I haven’t regularly been reading Uncanny X-Men, so maybe you guys can comment below and educate me on what I’ve missed as it relates to Marvel’s current big event.
As uninteresting and fractured as the story was here, there’s an even bigger offense to be found in regards of the artwork. Mainly, well, pretty much every page. Kris Anka is no Chris Bachalo folks. This volume of Uncanny X-Men has had a bad track record as far as fill-in artists go. I’ve enjoyed some of Anka’s work in the past, but it is astoundingly bad in this particular issue. It looks phoned-in. As if editorial called him up 2 days before deadline and asked him to do this. It’s rushed, almost void of backgrounds, and the inks do nothing to add weight to the pencils.
The bottom line is that as both an Original Sin tie-in and a regular issue for the series, Uncanny X-Men #23 is simply not good. You can catch the entirety of what develops here in next issue’s recap page and not have to feel like you missed out on anything special.. because you didn’t. –SMG
Rating: 2.5/10
X-Men #16
Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Matteo Buffagni & Gerardo Sandoval
Jubilee has been captured, the team is attempting a rescue, and the bad guy is several steps ahead of everyone! These seem to be the perfect elements for a good story arc but as of late things have been a bit “off” with this one. Mainly because the only thing at stake here is Jubilee’s adopted kid Shogo who is actually the son of the villain. Now, we don’t know exactly why The Future (Shogo’s dad) want’s him and as cruel as this may sound, I’m just not that invested in the kid as a character to care. This may be why Wood’s story isn’t resonating with me and only seems to pick up when other members of the X-Men get involved.
The interactions with Psylocke, Rockslide, Anole, and Hellion are the stand out sequences of the issue just as they have been in the previous ones. Something is just clicking with this group and Wood has definitely capitalized on it even if it’s in small doses.
The art is split between Matteo Buffagni and Gerardo Sandoval who have very different styles. This makes things a bit unbalanced and disrupts the tone of the story as it plays out. As one artist handled the attack on The Future’s lair and the other dealt mainly with Storm’s team and issue’s at the X Mansion. There’s a constant shift between the two events and it just didn’t help the story.
I still have hope that things pick up in the later issues but for now this one just isn’t for me. –IS
Rating: 4/10
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What did you think about this week’s X-books? Let us know below! You can check out more X-Piles right here!
infinitespeech@comicattack.net – @InfiniteSpeech
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You’re not the only one questioning why that X-Men title is now part of Original Sin because up until now the only X-Man that has been present was Wolverine (of course). The issue was pretty weak and had no reason to have the Original Sin banner on it.