X-Men Curse of the Mutants: Storm & Gambit #1 – Review

By: Chuck Kim (writer), Chris Bachalo (pencils), Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Wayne Faucher, Al Vey, Victor Olazaba, Mark Irwin & Bachalo (inks), Antonio Fabela & Bachalo (colors) & Joe Caramanga (letters)

The Story: Storm and Gambit try to break into Vampire Island to steal the body of Dracula.

What’s Good: If you’ve followed the X-Men for any length of time, you’ve been burned by these one-shot/miniseries that tie into whatever event or status quo is going on in the main X-books.  Sometimes these one-shots are just complete crap, but I tend to buy them because I hope I’ll get what this issue had.

Considering this issue stars two of my least favorite X-Men (Storm and Gambit), it is (surprisingly) a lot of fun as they make their way through Vampire Island to steal Dracula’s body.  Both are a little out of sorts because they end up relying on their thief-skills rather than their mutant powers and that was a nice change-up because we’ve all seen plenty of Storm zapping things from on high or Gambit slinging glowing purple objects around.

It also had some good guest starring roles for Emma, Dazzler & Northstar.  I love the way some writers just seem to really enjoy writing Emma and her snarky attitude.

Of course, backing this all up is art by Chris Bachalo (who is one of my favorite artists).  There are a few issues with it that I’ll discuss below, but also a few panels/pages that just sing and demand that you linger before turning the page.