The humans are gathering in Maine because word has spread that they may be able to escape America thanks to the plans of the Human High Council. Unfortunately for them, Apocalypse's forces are always watching.
Copycat (a lesser known mutant usually making appearances in X-force around this time) pretends to be one of them in order to gain some information on the coming rescue, and reports back to her team. But the humans still have a small glimmer of hope thanks to the X-men, who plan to hijack a sentinel and import him with a virus that will see them as friendlies and therefore allow them to aid in the rescue. This portion of the team is made up of Quicksilver, Storm, Iceman, and Banshee, who we've seen to varying degrees already, as well as Dazzler and Exodus making their first appearances here.
We have further proof that this version of Iceman is far more advanced than his normal counterpart in that he seems to have a way of converting other people into moisture, thereby allowing him to freeze them and transport them from place to place. I can't imagine why they never tried to bring that into the main universe. However we don't get to see an example of how this works now because Magneto reveals to Exodus that he in fact has the ability to teleport people and he should use that now. Despite having never done it before, he brings them all exactly where he needs to be.
This is the second time that Magneto has hid someone's powers from them, the first being Lila Cheney over in Gambit and the X-ternals. Here he says he never told Exodus because he was afraid his powers would corrupt him. I guess this is all supposed to be a reference to how Exodus acts in the main timeline (he's a bad guy and pretty devout follower of Magneto), but as it is it's quite silly.
Storm heads out to the ocean and brings up a hurricane to try to mask the oncoming sentinels from Apocalypse's forces. It's difficult, and we're told Storm does something she normally doesn't do - pray. Then she says "thank the goddess" not long after. I guess the situation is getting her in touch with her religious side?
Storm's interference works and the Sentinels show up. The X-men enact their plan to hack into the sentinels, and while they at first think it works, a sentinel then completely obliterates Iceman. But hey, no worries, remember
This issue is pretty firmly average. We've got a decent amount of set up, but not much else. We have conflicting writing with that Storm moment. The misdirect is well handled, and Iceman being destroyed did shock me initially, but having it all solved so quickly kind of spoils the suspense.
You may also notice that there are no scans for this review. That's because there's nothing really interesting worth showing. They will return as needed.
I haven't even started reading yet, because I can't stop laughing at Quicksilver's face and hair on this cover! :D
ReplyDeleteAfter I spent an hour looking at the cover, I had to take a break before reading the actual book. This is not a good issue, but it's not one of those offensively bad things where they've done a whole bunch of stupid stuff I can nitpick, nor is it amusingly bad. It's boring. The plot just kinda slips around in random directions, with Nicieza diving into his rambling captions, and even stopped making any sense to me by the middle. I seriously completely lost track of what was happening, and because I was completely disengaged with the characters, I had nothing to make me care that I was lost, and just kept wandering around until I came across the exit. This is why I don't like Fabian Nicieza's writing. It's scattered, unengaging, dull. It just does nothing for me. The one moment that suddenly sparked my attention was Bobby getting killed, but then it reveals in the next panel that he'll be fine, so there's the sound of my attention balloon deflating.
ReplyDeleteAndy Kubert is... not Adam Kubert. To a degree, his detailing and shading is much more mainstream and pleasing on the eye than his brother's, but his panel layouts are sloppy, to the point where I had to backtrack a couple times because his arrangement threw me in the wrong direction, his action doesn't pop off the page like his brother's, and all of his dudes have the same pinched scowly face as all of Rob Liefeld's dudes. And just look at Quicksilver's hair! Never once in the issue does it look less ridiculous than it does on this cover!
I strongly dislike this issue. If you couldn't tell. :)