X-Men #22 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Will Conrad & Steve Kurth (pencils), Conrad & Jay Leisten (inkers), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: A team of X-Men plus War Machine try to stop a Balkan leader from siccing a bunch of Sentinels on her neighbors.

Five Things: 

1. This is a well-scripted issue. – This is an issue where you really have to differentiate between the concept/script and the art because one is good and the other is not.  The idea of one of these wacko Balkan leaders modifying Sentinels so that they’ll attack neighbors is pretty interesting.  It’s also nice to see that the X-Men don’t moralize over it too much: They’re heroes so there is no drippy discussion of, “It would be wrong, but if we let the Sentinels kill those normal humans, maybe everyone will realize how dangerous the Sentinels are.”  Nope, Gischler is a better writer than to patronize us that way.  He also has a really good handle on all of the characters and works a lot of humor into this issue.  It’s a shame that Gischler is working with some inconsistent artists because I think he could do some really big things.

2. Hard to support this art. – I generally like Will Conrad.  I don’t think he’s “awesome”, but he does a page now and then that I wouldn’t mind owning.  He’s a very capable (if unflashy) artist and he draws an incredible Domino!  But, I got a few pages into this issue and said, “WTF?  Has Conrad lost it?”  I mean, there’s a fight between the heroes and a Sentinel that makes zero sense.  Look at the bottom panel of Page 1, what is Colossus doing?  Is the Sentinel sitting on the ground or has Colossus somehow grabbed it by the ankle and jumped into the air with it?  Does Colossus have enough mass to jump the Sentinel into the air?  Why isn’t the ground shown in the background to clarify the perspective?  If Colossus has merely tripped the Sentinel to the ground, why is Storm flying under its shoulder?  And if he tripped the Sentinel, what is the Sentinel doing on the next page (the epitome of an unnecessary splash page, btw) where it is falling down again?  So the storytelling of the art is all kinds of fucked up.  And we’ve got problems galore with depth in the splash page.  Or page 4 where Storm and War Machine are blasting the Sentinel in the face/neck and Colossus is punching him– in the ankle?  What’s with the ankles?  Then I turned the page and knew what happened.  I recognized these faces as the work of Steve Kurth, so I flipped back to the credits and saw Kurth’s name.  I hate to blast the guy too much (although I just did) because I’m sure he’s a nice guy and working hard AND he might have been working on a really tight deadline to fill in on this issue, but I really don’t care for his art.  Don’t like how we’re looking down on everyone’s face in these tight shots.  Don’t like the odd mixture of heavy blacks with overly highlighted color art.  Don’t like that Jubilee has breasts larger than her head (and is back in her thong uniform).  Heck, Storm also has breasts larger than her head.  I can’t believe that a cheesecake fan like me is complaining about breasts, but I don’t like it.  And the color art isn’t doing any favors either.  The depth is really screwed up in almost every panel and I’d expect a colorist as experienced as Sotomayor to be able to fix some of those problems coming from the inker.  Anyway, art is not great.

3. Fun to see the X-Men interacting with other heroes – It is fun to see the X-Men playing with War Machine.  I don’t know if that’s ever happened before, but sometimes it get’s a little dull to just see the mutants dealing with their own little cast of characters.  This is also a great use of War Machine.  Since he can’t sustain his own series, he might as well serve as a kinda linkage between various parts of the Marvel Universe.

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Wolverine #19 – This was just a really funny book. Not so much in a way that detracts from the gruff and grim character of Wolverine, but more in a smart-ass, black-humor kind of way.  I love it.  And it was also great to see a couple of characters like Fat Cobra and Gorilla Man turn up.  Sure, they can’t sustain their own series, but they’re still great supporting characters.  Runner-up: Daredevil #6

Most Anticipated: Avenging Spider-Man #2 – There are a number of enticing offerings on an otherwise light comics week, but I’m probably most looking forward to another dose of Avenging Spider-Man.  Zeb Well’s script in the first issue was fun and funny and Joe Mad hasn’t missed a beat with the art.

Other Picks: I Zombie #20, Sweet Tooth #28, Amazing Spider-Man #675, Hack/Slash #10, X-Club #1, X-Men #22