X-Men miniseries seem to fall into two categories these days.  A handful, like X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong, turn out to be quite important to the plot.  The vast majority, like X-Men: Kitty Pryde - Shadow & Flame, seem to exist to make up a budget quota.  Although Joe Quesada has acknowledged that this isn't entirely satisfactory, it's less than clear whether anything is actually changing.

So here comes the latest in the X-Men: Name of Character - Title of Storyline series, because god knows we couldn't just call it Colossus.  This book, at least, has something to work with, because after bringing Colossus back in Astonishing X-Men, Joss Whedon pretty much marginalised him for the next storyline.  As a result, the fallout of his imprisonment hasn't really been explored properly.

David Hine, best known in these circles as the writer of District X, gives us a murder mystery of sorts, with a paranormal serial killer wandering around Russia bumping off remote Rasputin relatives.  Eventually Peter's cousin Larisa twigs to what's going on, and calls him in to help.  Meanwhile, Colossus is wondering whether his months of imprisonment have driven him mad.  A couple of comments from Emma Frost, in her capacity as resident telepath, suggest that the problem is something else altogether.

It's not a bad start, and Hine has a convincing take on the post-imprisonment character.  Rather than simply go back to the 1980s take on the character, this version is clearly more than a little traumatised by what he's been through, and not quite ready to be drawn back into the family just yet.  Artist Jorge Lucas, not always one of my favourites, turns in some of his better work here, with heavier shadows and starker contrasts that suit the story.

But I'm very much in two minds about the idea of making Colossus a relative of Rasputin.  Yes, sure, he's got the name already.  But it's not such an uncommon name, and it seems horribly contrived to connect Colossus to a historical figure like that.  It's a country of millions, for heaven's sake.  I'll reserve judgment until we see where they're going with this, but it seems a bit awkward, to say the least.

Otherwise, fairly promising.

Rating: B+

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