Age of Apocalypse is a weekly series, so at least it'll be over quickly.

Don't ask me what's going on on the cover of issue #2; it's another of Chris Bachalo's impenetrable efforts where so much emphasis is placed on oddities of the costume design that any sense of movement or dynamism is lost.  By the way, it appears to be intended to form part of a poster with issue #1's cover.  Unfortunately, nobody seems to have told the colourists, because some of the objects change colour when they appear on issue #1.  Whoops.

Anyhow.  This issue the X-Men head down to the Morlocks, for no particularly good reason other than that the story requires a fight, and somehow or other Magneto needs to get zapped with Dani Moonstar's powers so that we can see his greatest fear has something to do with the Phoenix.  (The Phoenix, of course, is tied to the M'kraan Crystal, which in turn was central to the Age of Apocalypse storyline - so okay, I can see how all this might fit in.)

To be honest, I could have sworn Dani Moonstar was meant to be dead.  Wasn't she killed off in X-Calibre?  It's been years since I've read this stuff, and I'm certainly not being inspired to go back and dig it all up. 

Meanwhile, in the other half of the plot, Wolverine has a nice chat with the AoA version of X-23.  The story doesn't advance much.  In fairness, though, it is a weekly miniseries, so there's slightly less pressure to keep up the pace.

Northstar turns up and apparently gets killed.  Again.  Sucks to be Northstar, doesn't it?

It's not horrid, but it's not that good either.  Bachalo's art is actually relatively clear for much of this issue, which means that at least you work out what's going on without too much effort.  But there's still a bizarre emphasis on abstraction and clutter, and relatively little in the way of effective storytelling.  As for the story, it's uninspired and it completely fails to evoke any nostalgia for the original story by presenting a world both pointlessly different from the AoA, and pointlessly similar to the mainstream Marvel Universe.

A strange little book.  I suppose it deserves credit for veering away from the template of earlier stories, but god only knows what it thinks it's doing instead.

Rating: C+

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