Age of Apocalypse reaches the penultimate chapter, although because of schedule slippage, we won't actually get the final part for a fortnight.  And in all fairness, one week late on the final issue isn't so bad for a six-issue weekly book.

The schedule has obviously been a little rushed.  This is the third consecutive issue to credit a legion of inkers.  But the rush seems to agree with Bachalo, who is producing easily the most readable work we've seen from him in years.  It's not often that an artist's work is actually improved by rushing to meet deadlines and collaborating with seven inkers on a single issue.  But for Bachalo, it seems to be helping.

The story is a little more questionable.  After four issues of pissing about, Yoshida seems to have finally remembered that there's meant to be a plot.  Magneto has revealed that the world was actually saved by Jean Grey, who's a prisoner of Mr Sinister.  So after a bit of squabbling, everyone decides that they have to go rescue her.  This leads to a fight with a rather random selection of villains, some of whom we've never even seen before in this book.  Sauron?  Cloak?!

While it's nice to see some progress finally being made on the actual story, it comes far too late in the day.  By this point the book has long since squandered any goodwill it might have had from nostalgic attachment to the original story, and it's presented its lead characters so unsympathetically that I honestly couldn't care less what happens next issue. 

A weak piece of writing, but at least we're finally being reminded of what used to make Chris Bachalo's art worth reading.

Rating: C

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