CREDIT: Marvel Comics
Rating: 4/5 – Death of a Key X-Men Character Finally Revealed.
by ComicSpectrum reviewer Adam Brunell
The last issue of Death of X came out, and I’m little bummed by the ending. The story, dialogue and art came out better for me the further I got into the series, but I’m still a little bothered by the matching of these events to what I’ve read from the rest of the Inhuman and X-Men titles previously released. The story goes; Cyclops and Emma Frost decide to do something about the Terrigen clouds that are killing Mutants around the world. They search out the Mutant named “Alchemy”, and the plan is for Alchemy to change the structure of the Terrigen mist to not be harmful to Mutants or Inhumans anymore.
No one is coming to stop this genocide, because though it is bad for Mutants, it’s sacred to Inhumans, which is still a controversial subject because some Humans with the Inhuman DNA can die during Terrigenesis. Marvel is pushing for Inhumans to be the new status quo, so the people of the Marvel Universe find Inhumans to be considered a good thing, but Mutants are still an abomination. Writers Charles Soule and Jeff Lemire brought some emotion to this last issue, because the end to this series is political and controversial. It’s all about ethics, and whose side would you agree with during this altercation. Though the series feels a little out of balance since it is set 8 months in the past from the current Inhumans and X-books, it’s not a bad story and with artist Aaron Kuder throwing some fantastic art into each panel, I thought it ended up being a good 4 issue series, though it still leaves some questions to be answered. According to Marvel through online discussion boards and early released images of the first issue for Inhumans vs. X-Men. I think some additional questions will be answered in issues to come outside of this series. It’s not a bad story, but I’m still thinking that this series should have come out many months earlier than it did. Soule and Lemire put some good skill into this 4 part series, but if I put the good dialogue and writing aside, the underlying story that being pushed is still not setting well with me. With the story to the side, Kuder takes the gold by delivering heavy emotional panels.
Spoilers ahead……
I found myself drifting more towards cheering for the Mutants, Cyclops’ way of handling the situation of the Terrigen cloud was brilliant, so brilliant there is no way he could have thought of it. It’s like the plan all along was to establish a peaceful resolution to the Terrigen cloud, and the plan works. In Cyclops’ final moments of this series, he explains that the mist won’t hurt anyone anymore, but that means that the cloud won’t be able to put anyone with Inhuman DNA into a transformation either. I had figured Cyclops would have completely destroyed the cloud, but he created a peaceful and well thought out resolution. It was sensible and rational, but I guess this still upsets the Inhumans, because they consider transformation from the Terrigen cloud to be a rite of passage. In their frustration, Black Bolt takes it upon himself to kill Cyclops for changing the cloud. Mutants are devastated by how Cyclops is killed off, especially after they thought a peaceful resolution had been created. Personally, I find Black Bolt killing Cyclops for the reasons he had a bit too much, and very cold blooded. The Inhuman nation is committing genocide and no one cares to fix it, so the people dying take a stand and find a peaceful resolution, which results in the ones committing genocide to kill because they don’t have the upper hand any more. Any Mutant claiming to be on the side of the Inhumans after this is nothing but a coward, at this point it’s not about peace, it’s about control.
At one point, Medusa belittles Storm for allowing Magneto to run around and do the things he does. Medusa implies that if Magneto were an Inhuman villain he would have been dealt with by now. She implies that Storm is not strong enough to handle matters like this, and instead of Storm sticking up for herself she hangs her head in shame. Yet Medusa and Black Bolt have time and again allowed Maximus to run free destroying, killing and corrupting. The Inhumans couldn’t control the situation anymore, so they struck out in anger. With the Inhumans attempts to “resolve” the issue of the clouds with Mutants, they take the best and easy option (defusing the cloud to protect Mutants) as an attack on their people. There is no price of death or fighting, just a change, but the Inhumans tend to be more about controlling everything like stubborn rulers than making peace. I look at older comic books with Dr. Doom as the ruler of Latveria. Regardless of Doom ruling a nation and taking care of his people, he’s still looked at as a villain because he does villainous things. The Inhumans at this point are villains posed as heroes with manipulation of the world population via the Terrigen mist as their main purpose.
I’m glad to see the story gap being finally filled, though I’m not 100% satisfied with how everything played out in this 4 issues series. Emma Frost plays a big part in assisting Cyclops in fixing the issue, and also making him look like a civilized and rational person at the end of this series. These events alone should start a war, and I think that was the plan all along. After seeing a couple of the leaked first pages of Inhumans vs. X-Men, it will fill in a gap of what happened after Death of X, but if that is the case it just makes things look a bit more unorganized. I’m glad these events have been explained up to a point.
Reviewed by: Adam Brunell
(adamb@comicspectrum.com)
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