X-23 #18 – Review

By: Marjorie Liu (writer), Sana Takeda (artist)

The Story: Believe it or not, this is what you would call an easy evening minding the Fantastakids.

The Review: This is a hard book to review, because I feel like I’m not the target audience. Everything about this issue, from the soft textures, to the pastel colors, the teen angst, and frankly, the babysitting-gone-wrong theme just screams adolescent girl. So for me, this book felt a little alienating, and I had a hard time distinguishing which parts were objectively bad and which were just trappings of the genre.

So, trying to be as objective as possible, there is actually a good deal to like. The digital painting from Sana Takeda is quite impressive, especially when you consider that she’s taking on responsibilities that would normally be shared by up to three artists. As a result, the art really has a unified feel and expresses exactly the right mood for the book. The colors are cool but the shapes are warm, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of tenderness even while X-23 is battling a giant mech across a junk-filled landscape.

Moving on to the writing, this issue does not serve well as a jumping on point. I opened up to a dragon caterwauling though NYC with Franklin and Val of the Future Foundation in its clutches and Laura desperately clinging to its tail. At that point, I put this issue down and went back to read issue #17 to help get some context. It seems Laura had been hired by the Richards to babysit, and the kids got into some inter-dimensional mischief. This helped me get my bearings for a few pages, but moments later, the kids inexplicably disappeared into a glowing light and Laura was stuck in the aforementioned robot rubbish rumble. And from there, things really started to get weird. I love a sense of mystery and wackiness in my comics, but this issue pushed my limits.

What’s worse is there’s no character really suitable to react to the bizarreness of it all. This is FF territory, where the narrative needs bold, wacky characters to keep up with insanity around them, or an everywoman whom the reader can relate to as she gapes in awe at everything happening. But with the kids rapidly pulled from the story, the reader is left with only X-23, and while Laura’s cool-headed, unflappable disposition makes her a great soldier, it doesn’t make her a particularly interesting or helpful explorer of the unknown.