Blog

Welcome back to the latest edition of The All-New Uncanny X-Piles! Where it’s all about the Children of the Atom all the time. If you’ve been keeping up with their exploits lately then you know some huge revelations have hit the X-Men courtesy of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X. And now we enter the mutant’s first big event of the year with X of Swords! Here we take a look at Chapters 12-13 and see how the event holds up so far.

X-Men #14
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Art: Mahmud Asrar & Leinil Francis Yu
Colors: Sonny Gho
Letters: Clayton Cowels
Cover: Lenil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho

Some of these character specific issues have been a bit of a mixed bag considering how highly anticipated this fight has become. However, this issue not only delves into the history of Genesis and Annihilation with fine precision but it’s the type of character driven story that needed to happen to give this story even deeper stakes than the usual life and death outcome. Hickman expands on several of the events and characters we were introduced to in X of Swords: Creation and the most important of those is Genesis and her connection to her husband, Apocalypse. Her voice is the one that carries this issue as Hickman peels back more layers concerning Annihilation’s conquest and reveals the truth of those events. It’s with these new revelations that shed a different light on Apocalypse that may have some fans empathize with him. The task set before him by Genesis centuries ago explains his drive and dedication to fulfil his promise to her. Doesn’t make anything he did right but if fans can accept Magneto then Apocalypse can at least get a hug.

As far as the art is concerned you’ve already seen most of what’s here in other issues. The newer panels that appear here really do a fine job of capturing the tension and heaviness of the meeting between Apocalypse and Genesis. Sunny Gho’s colors see to that. The character design of Genesis stands out even more when you see her next to her husband. The synergy between their looks reveals their bond and might hint at what he’s been carrying inside ever since they parted ways.

Overall, a solid issue that is necessary but I just wish we would have been given more new art to look at. 2.5/5

Marauders #14
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Gerry Dugan & Benjamin Percy
Art: Stefano Caselli
Colors: Edgar Delgado
Letters: Cory Petit
Cover: Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson

Saturnyne wanting everyone to make nice at a banquet the day before they start trying to kill each other is quite the narcissistic twist you’d expect from her. It’s an event that Dugan and Percy write so well and give us a bit of levity before things inevitably get dark with swords and bloodshed. As the combatants meet and size each other up the pacing keeps things from feeling too slow even if you’re on the edge of your seat just waiting for the violence of the tournament to begin. Also, if you’ve been reading X-Men comics for a while then you’ll know that inviting Wolverine to an event like this is always good for a little excitement and he gets the ball rolling pretty quickly. However, the standout here is the meeting between Storm and Apocalypse’s children, Death and War. She is polite and petty in a great opening sequence but it’s the literal dance with Death where she makes it clear where she stands.

Caselli and Delgado handle the visual storytelling quite well and deliver panel after panel. From mostly everyone trying to size up Pogg Ur-Pogg to the Logan confronting Captain Avalon there’s some great moments to see. The expressiveness of the characters and energy of the room plays well with the narrative. I also think that no one is having more fun with this tournament than Magik, Gorgon, and Isca. There’s also several visual cues that happen here that you might want to remember for later in the event as well.

This is one of the lighter issues as far as tone and Dugan and Percy nail it and the cliffhanger is exactly WHY you leave Logan out of fancy dinners like this. 3/5

For more All-New Uncanny X-Piles click here!

Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net