Wolverine and the X-Men #35 – Review

by Jason Aaron (writer) and Nick Bradshaw (artist)

The Story: And so the Hellfire Saga finally comes to an end: not with a bang, but with a jovial, well-spoken mutant.

The Review: Much as the members of the Hellfire Club feared, the siege of Hellfire Academy is over, and now it’s the last chance for both sides to find a way to escape alive. It’s always fun to see where a villain’s loyalties lie and this issue is chock full of that simple sinister pleasure.

Indeed this is a rather reactive issue for our heroes, who merely need to hold onto their victory until the various ne’er-do-wells run out of last resorts.  It would be nice to see Wolverine or Storm really taking charge, but the story plays out in its own way.

This final issue of the arc brings many of the series’ twisting plot threads to satisfactory conclusions, however they’re more than a little bit frayed in some cases. Several stories are resolved but lack explanations for how they came to work themselves out. It’s no sin to set up new questions for a series going forward, but some of these come so out of nowhere that it’s hard to find them satisfying. I personally found I’m gonna take a moment to discuss some of these so, just in case my spoiler tags don’t catch your attention, I’d recommend that you skip the next paragraph if you want to experience the issue fresh.

SPOILERS – One of the most notable of these forsaken plots is the ballad of Toad and Husk. While Paige comes around in the end, it’s unclear how or why removing a number of her skin layers apparently resets her to back before she started dating Toad or how the long-suffering janitor knew that this would work. Similarly, though Kade ended last issue with promises that he’s already won, we don’t find out much about his masterstroke, save that he’s “changed the X-Men forever. They just don’t know it yet.” That’s cool, but it would be nice if we, the readers, knew it, as it makes a significant difference to the tone of the issue whether Kade is right or just cracking under the pressure. – END SPOILERS