New Mutants #14 – Review

by Zeb Wells (writer), Ibrahim Roberson, Lan Medina, and Nathan Fox (artists)

The Story: Professor X recruits his crackpot son, Legion, to aid the X-Men against the unrelenting Nimrod attack on San Francisco.  Can we say ‘desperate measures’?  Cyclops rallies the troops on Utopia while Hope mans up big time and the mutants start suffering injuries and some red shirt casualties (again).  Meanwhile, in the future, X-Force continues their suicide mission and ends up face to face with, not one, but two huge Master Mold sentinels.  You want hopeless, we’ve got hopeless.

What’s Good: I’ve commented before about how difficult it is to review every chapter of this crossover when they’re all so (for the most part) damn good.  So, let’s just cut the crap and do this checklist style, shall we?

Breakneck pacing and dire straits?  Check.

Hardcore action scenes where one or more X-Men get their ass kicked?  Check.

Spot-on characterization for all your X-Favorites? Check.

Cyclops gives a rallying speech that you’ve heard a million times already but still find yourself getting amped up by?  Check.

One or two twists or turns in the plot?  Check.

A kick-ass cliffhanger that makes you say to yourself, “Hell yeah,”?  Checkity-check.

See, that saved us some time, didn’t it?  Oh, and I enjoyed the artistic decision to use such an offbeat artist as Nathan Fox to portray the Legion-mindscape scenes.  It was a welcome visual trick to the storytelling.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

DS’ Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Captain America #606 – Brubaker has always delivered stellar writing and Butch Guice is a great artist and the two of them served up some exciting work in Captain America #606. Bucky. Is. Awesome.

Most Anticipated: Brightest Day #4 – Brightest Day has been at times great and at times a game of patience. Some of the arcs, delivered in their micro-bits, have been very compelling, but issue #3 seemed to have turned a corner. Despite the short arcs, Johns gave us a sense of things starting to come together. We are getting to Act II – the best one and the pace is picking up. And Ivan Reis is one of the artists! Brightest Day #4 tops my pull list.

Other Top Picks: Batman Beyond #1, Atlas #2, New Mutants #14, X-Factor Forever #4

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Secret Six #22 -This was an incredibly grim, ugly, and somewhat depressing read yet somehow Simone manages to avoid the trap of unintentional comedy or unbelievability that many of these sorts of books fall into.  Instead of pure depressive excess and caricature, we got something that was actually touching and human amidst all the muck, trauma, and spandex and that alone is a major accomplishment.  Also, how this continues to escape having any sort of “mature readers” warning on the cover continues to amaze me.

Most Anticipated: New Avengers #1 -For whatever reason, I find myself looking forward to this more than anything else.  What will the final roster be?  How will Bendis justify this title’s existence?  Why the heck is the Thing on this team? My curiosity is piqued and the preview looks like Stuart Immonen is bringing his A-game to the art.!

Other Picks: Birds of Prey #2, Brightest Day #4, DMZ #54, Fables #96, Unknown Soldier #21

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Daytripper #7 – The entire Daytripper series has been a clinic in storytelling and issue #7 was one of the best so far.

Most Anticipated: New Mutants #14 – The Second Coming event really got kicked back into higher gear last week in Uncanny #525 and there are only three chapters left after this issue, so this should be all action.

Other Top Picks: Forgetless #5, The Walking Dead #73, Amazing Spider-Man #633 & #634, New Avengers #1