To judge from the credits, the weekly schedule on X-Men: Age of Apocalypse might be catching up on Chris Bachalo.  A mighty six inkers are credited with working on this issue - and come to think of it, none of them is Bachalo's regular partner Tim Townsend.  Nothing says "rush job" like six inkers.

In fact, though, the book features some of the best art we've seen from Bachalo in a while.  And that's largely because he's finally gone back to relatively straightforward layouts.  Page after page go by with clearly recognisable figures doing comprehensible things.  It's like old days.  Perhaps Bachalo has finally decided to have a rethink; perhaps this is the result of him not overthinking it because of the looming deadline.  Whatever, it's a huge improvement on the first couple of issues.

Unfortunately, the story is another matter.  God only knows where Yoshida is heading with all this, and I'm not wholly convinced that he knows himself.  We seem to have completely lost sight of Magneto's secret or the key question of why this universe still exists at all.  Instead Yoshida introduces a completely new plot about the Guthrie siblings, which is fair enough on its own terms.  But the general impression is that the book is jumping haphazardly from one plot to the next without any particularly coherent story holding it together.

Still, at least it's nice to see Chris Bachalo producing a decipherable comic again.  It's the first time in years that I've been reminded of what I used to like about his work.

Rating: C+

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