X-Men #5 – Review

by Brian Wood (Writer), David Lopez, Cam Smith (Artists), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Cyclops and Jean are on the run as several members of the X-Men try to get them back.

The Review: Big crossovers are both a boon and a curse for any book. While many readers that aren’t normally picking up the book shall try out something different in order to gain the full story, the story they may want to read does not always mesh with what went before in this particular title. It’s a double-edged sword that is best handled with care and that may cause more harm than good sometimes.

Unfortunately, this is what happens here as Brian Wood’s X-Men book serves as another chapter in the Battle of the Atom big crossover. What is normally a team showcasing the strong and diverse females from this particular corner of the Marvel universe ends up servicing the story instead of focusing on what make it different. It results in something that tries really hard to please the X-fans and those who wants the next big thing, yet stumbles in some small parts.

It’s not all bad, of course, as there are some parts that continue the strong characterization that Wood is able to give to some of the cast, like Rachel and Kitty Pride, who discuss being left behind to watch the school as the rest of the X-Men goes in search of Jean Grey and Scott Summers. The conversation they have feels like a normal discussion instead of an exposition-heavy dialect that only serves the story and not the characters, which is always good to see in such a book. However, those characters soon come clashing against the story as they merely arrive to grind the story to a halt, give a good ”the reason you suck” speech to the others X-Men and this resumes their roles for the story in this issue. They are well-written, yet their purpose for this issue seems a tad forced and clash against the pace of the crossover a bit.

X-Men #5 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Marte Gracia (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Jake Thomas (editor)

The Story: It’s time for the mutant – vampire, battle-royale, loser-leaves-town, cage-match.

What’s Good: X-Men kicking vampire ass.  Did you have any doubts about how this would turn out?  This comic mostly consists of one big battle that features action on Utopia, in the skies above and the seas below.  It is the equivalent of a summer action movie.  Sure, it doesn’t feature much character development, but these are the X-Men we’re talking about.  We pretty much know these characters by now, so sometimes it is nice to see a creator just let them fight with stuff.  Especially when they are fighting with something that is already dead, so we don’t have to worry about violating any “Superhero Rules” about killin’.

In fact, the best thing about this comic is that it is a zero angst zone, but it also gives the X-Men chances to shine: Cyclops gets to command and be all tactical, Angel gets to be all Archangely, Wolverine gets to chop stuff up, Iceman gets to be religious, Emma gets to be diamond and unbiteable, etc.

The art is mostly strong.  It does have shaky faces here and there, but Medina is also doing a LOT of crowded panels that have 10+ characters in them.  That’s a lot of work and his level of detail is to be commended.