Dark Avengers #8 – Review

By Matt Fraction (Writer), Luke Ross (Pencils & Inks), Rick Magyar & Mark Pennington (Inks), and Dean White (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: Anyone else getting annoyed by “X” crossovers? First the Messiah War came and screwed up all the momentum that X-Force had. Then Utopia started and completely derailed the Dark Avengers…

The Story: As the new X-Men establish themselves with the public, Cyclops pulls the trigger on his plan…

What’s Good: Matt Fraction finally gets to the point of his Utopia crossover in Dark Avengers #8. That’s really the best thing about the issue. While our no-spoiler policy prevents me from going into detail, I can at least say that it’s nice to see that Utopia actually leads to something.

What’s Not So Good: The penultimate chapter of Utopia is, quite possibly, the worst. Seriously. Outside of (maybe) the big reveal that feels like change for the sake of change more than anything else (though I will admit that it does hold some potential), I can’t imagine anyone finding anything about Dark Avengers #8 to be all that memorable.

Writer Matt Fraction does what he can to juggle his gigantic cast, but ultimately fails to find a satisfying balance between driving the story forward and delivering the character moments he is known for. In truth, it honestly seems as though Fraction is playing catch up with his own story. I find that really surprising because, in my opinion, Utopia has already had its fair share of padding (would anyone miss the bio-sentinals?!). By cramming so much into the last half of the book, there just really isn’t any room for anything that doesn’t bring the events of Utopia to a head. There’s a decent line here and there, but some of the character work just flat out misses the mark. A few examples: Hawkeye sounds like Wolverine in one panel, Weapon Omega is NOTHING like the character re-established in Dark X-Men: The Beginning, Dark Beast sounds like Beast then all of a sudden blurts out “The hell?” as though Fractions random hip line generator accidentally turned on, and Daken says “You’re done, son.”

The quality of the artwork in Dark Avengers #8 varies depending on who inked Luke Ross’ pencil work. I know that sounds strange, but the art almost needs to be reviewed on a panel by panel basis. At times, the art hovers between good and great (the opening scene and some “zoomed-in” character shots come to mind). Then again, far more often the art looks either average or downright poor (crowded, busy, or colorful panels come to mind because they really lack detail). In addition, the action is confusing, poses look stiff (or wrong/awkward), and females all tend to look the same (good luck keeping Dagger, the Cuckoo, Frost, Magick, and other blonds straight). Also, what’s the deal with Dr. Kavita Rao looking like Ms. Sinister (Introduced in X-Men: Legacy)?! Or being white for that matter?!

I honestly have no idea how anybody thought that Utopia was a good idea. While I actually don’t have a problem with what the story finally accomplishes, I can’t for the life of me figure out why it took a momentum killing crossover to do it. There had to have been a better way, especially since the Dark Avengers are just sort of… there.

Conclusion: The fifth chapter of Utopia is, quite frankly, a mess. It’s only worth picking up if you absolutely have to know what’s next for the mutant race. And if you are picking it up for the Dark Avengers? Don’t even bother.

Grade: D

-Kyle Posluszny