|
You might be forgiven for assuming that
X-Men: Die By The Sword would be some sort of X-Men
miniseries. Well, it isn't. In fact, it's one of
Marvel's more bemusing promotional stunts.
Die By The Sword is actually a
crossover between Exiles and New Excalibur.
Those two titles are actually a very good fit for a
crossover. They're both written by Chris Claremont.
There's a degree of cast crossover. Nocturne used to
be in the Exiles before joining Excalibur. Dazzler is
in Excalibur, and her ex-husband Longshot is one of the
Exiles. Captain Britain is leading Excalibur, and his
sister Psylocke is in the Exiles. And so on.
Best of all, the Exiles have a
"preserving alternate realities" mission that fits neatly
with the established role of the Captain Britain Corps.
You'd be hard pressed to find two comics more suited to
cross over.
But Marvel haven't explained very
clearly that this is really a crossover. Instead,
they've labelled it as an X-Men book. That's a
questionable strategy at the best of times. At least
X-Men: Emperor Vulcan features three recent members,
and it's a direct sequel to a year-long storyline from
Uncanny X-Men. Die By The Sword isn't an
X-Men series in any way, shape or form. That's not a
smart way to protect the brand.
The solicitation text, to be fair, did
mention the Exiles and Excalibur. Still, the promotion
of this series has been fairly lacklustre. Marvel
certainly haven't pushed it as essential reading for anyone who's following
Exiles or New Excalibur, even though it
clearly is. Instead,
they've chosen to try and attract the X-Men readers, who
will buy the book only to find that it has nothing to do
with the X-Men at all.
And it gets better! Because, you
see, this
book also blows the ending of the Albion storyline that
finishes in New Excalibur #24 - which isn't out until
next week. Of course, nobody will be shocked to learn
that the good guys win, but this issue does give away fairly
major spoilers for things that weren't so self-evident.
The natural audience for this book is the
Chris Claremont fans, of course, and if you already like
what he's doing on either title, you'll like this. If
you don't, well, it's more of the same. The plot
involves the Exiles coming to Earth to reunite with
Excalibur (and, in some cases, reassure everyone that
they're alive). Meanwhile, James Jaspers is back from
the dead again, to do a bit more of his evil
reality-warping.
It's nothing out of the ordinary, but it
does what you'd expect from it. Artist Juan Santacruz
doesn't have the lightness of comic touch to do an effective
Jim Jaspers, and that's clearly going to be a problem.
But the art is generally solid enough.
The book is what it is, and has no real
pretensions of being anything else. It's an average
but inoffensive story. Marvel's promotional strategy
for it, however, is simply baffling.
Rating: B-
back |
continue |
