1728 ( )

Cape may ( )

X-Men: Age of X
Author: Mike Carey, Simon Spurrier, Jim McCann, Chuck Kim
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Published In: New York, NY
Date: 2011
Pgs: 256

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
In a bleak alternate reality world where the X-Men never existed, mutantkind is being hunted to extinction. The end is near. The last mutants are making their last stand. If you were the last of your kind, how far would you go to survive?

Genre:
Apocalypse
Comics and graphic novels
Fiction
Multiverse
Science fiction
Superheroes

Why this book:
I was flipping through the Wolverine Index that I reviewed a few weeks ago at the library when this caught my eye.

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Favorite Character:
Rogue...I mean Legacy...I mean Reaper. Yeah, her.

Least Favorite Character:
Arcade is a bit of a strawman here, but he’s a twisted bastard about like he always is wherever he is portrayed.

Character I Most Identified With:

The Feel:
I had a waiting for the other shoe to drop feel all the way through this. And, my comic book curmudgeon was prepared for something inane to happen and deus ex machina up the story. And it didn’t. I was well pleased with this effort even though it is very much in the vein of Age of Apocalypse, Heroes Reborn, and those Avengers’ Morgan LeFay Earth stories.

Favorite Scene:
The modern era of the X-Men always seems to come down to Cyclops and Wolverine. I like it.

Pacing:
Most of the individual issues are very well paced. The art flows well panel to panel, issue to issue.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The Guthries in the Mountains catching up with the State of Kentucky Department of Corrections vans that raided their homes and took their families into custody, just because their gene pool were producing mutants. In that world, Cannonball and Husk would have smoked every damned one of those Gestapo boys when they found their mom’s body in that dump truck. No question.

Banner just isn’t that guy.

Hmm Moments:
A Creed is leading the assault on Fortress X. Not sure if it’s Graydon or Victor. Wonder what happens when the humans find out that the man leading their assault forces is a mutant.

The Winchester faux safe house full of mutants burned to the ground with them inside. Damn...just damn. This book is a dark, dark world.

So? Who broke time or warped reality this time? Xorn. Magneto. Onslaught. Proteus. Legion. Mastermind. Beyonder. Kang. Project X. Did Professor Xavier sneeze and accidentally scramble everyone’s brains?

The character who looks like a walking full bodied version of the Kree Supreme Intelligence. Can’t find a note online that tells me who he is, but he looks interesting. Even though, he’s only here to shout out Legion’s name.

In the Universe chapters, are those the “real” characters or are they pastiches brought about by the process that launched this universe?

Why isn’t there a screenplay?
The cure elements already got a lot of play in X-Men 3.

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Last Page Sound:
Pretty good alternate universe, faux reality, mindgame story. Wonderful. Wonder if Marvel assigned it a reality number so that it is one of their parallel worlds.

Author Assessment:
Good stuff.

Editorial Assessment:
Good feeling of cohesiveness throughout the story as it crosses between multiple monthly pamphlets.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
real genre classic

Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library
Irving, TX

Would recommend to:
genre fans ( )

The usual mix of depressing bits, bits that make no sense, and flashes of style. If you have to pick an X-Men book off the shelf, you'll do slightly better on average with an alternate timeline, but this is nothing special. ( )

This started out with promise and, if I could, I would rate the first half a 4 star and the end a 2.5 star. The X-Men find themselves in an alternate reality, defending Fortress X, which is constantly under siege as the last mutant stronghold in a world where mutants are routinely exterminated and sterilized. In this world, Professor Xavier and his school never existed. The characters and their traditional story arcs have been altered, as have their appearances and their memories: Cyclops is instead known as Basilisk, whose eyelids have been removed so he can be used as an executioner in a mutant prison; Rogue is known as Legacy, the "reaper" who collects the powers and memories of those mutants who fall on the battlefield; Wolverine has been weakened by metabolizing a mutant cure and only one "snikt" of his adamantium claws could kill him. When Legacy (who has no memory of herself as Rogue) begins to notice incongruencies in the reality with which they have been presented, she begins looking for answers, unraveling a conspiracy that threatens everything they thought they knew about who they're fighting and what they're fighting for.

As I said, the beginning instantly drew me in, in part because the reader--just like the characters--has no idea what's happening and begins to piece things together along with Rogue. However, the end seems to rush toward a conclusion that's a little too "Look at how clever this is!" I would have preferred that the characters hang around a little longer, develop in fresh directions since the storyline has severed them from their pasts. Because of that, I'd have to give it 3 1/2 stars. ( )