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On the offchance that anyone is
reading for the first time after the Breakdowns interview, you
join us in a particularly uninspiring week for the X-books.
Six comics this week, of which two are godawful miniseries,
one is by Chuck Austen, one is by Frank Tieri and one is...
well, proving to be a bit underwhelming. It's enough to
make you subscribe to the Comics Journal.
But on the bright side, there's
always Agent X. Or at least, there will be until
next month when it's axed. Still, at least we're getting
Gail Simone and Udon's final three-part story to tie up all
the loose ends.
This is the issue with the big
explanation (presumably leaving next issue free for a
climactic fight with the Black Swan). I'd guessed a
while back that Agent X was supposed to be some sort of
combination of the personalities of Deadpool and the Black
Swan. There were plenty of hints in that direction from
the word go, and the Swan's mental powers made it fairly
obvious how that result could be achieved. And that
guess turns out to be correct, the twist being that in fact
Agent X is neither Deadpool nor the Black Swan. He's a
completely separate character from the final Deadpool
arc who happens to have ended up with the personality traits
of them both.
That's the bit which comes as a
surprise here, but it works well - it finally gives Agent X an
entirely separate existence from Deadpool. I would guess
that we're heading for a complete reset button on the whole
Agent X storyline, leaving Deadpool back in his status quo for
the upcoming Nicieza/Udon series. (And when I say "reset
button", I mean that I think they're going to kill Agent X
off.)
Given that the issue necessarily
has to be heavy on exposition, it's a fun read, with plenty of
the usual adolescent-but-clever gags. Simone also brings
Outlaw back into the mix in order to tie up the other
outstanding plot thread. Evan Dorkin rather messed up
Outlaw and Agent X's romantic subplot in his two issues, but
that odd piece of plotting is used quite effectively here as a
hook for a slightly different subplot.
It's a shame to see the book go,
but at least it's going out with a proper resolution and on a
high.
Rating: A-
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