Peter David and Pablo Raimondi's Madrox miniseries is probably the most interesting thing coming out of the X-books at the moment, so naturally nobody's buying it.  Issue #2 charted below Emma Frost. 

Admittedly, it wasn't exactly hyped to the hilt, and the big selling point is that it reunites Peter David with some of the characters from his run on X-Factor.  But X-Factor was, what, twelve years ago now?  For many readers, it's probably faded into memory, if they were even around to read it in the first place.  Which is a shame, because it was great - the highlight of the line at the time.  So now, they're not buying this one.  Oh well, their loss.

Madrox was originally an unlikely gimmick character, who debuted in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #4 and was promptly forgotten about.  There's something about the concept which is innately appealing, and Peter David's finally hit on why it works - this is a character who can do everything at once.  He never has to choose between anything.  When you put it that way, it starts to sound like a much more appealing power than being able to fly.  This is a character you actually want to read about; unlike his overexposed brethren, I want to know more about him.

The shift to giving his duplicates separate personalities - even if they're just individual sides of his own mind - makes them more dramatically useful as well.  They used to just be a horde of shop dummies who ran around and hit things; now they get to dramatise his inner conflicts in that remorselessly absurd way that you can only get away with in superhero comics.

Throw in a decent noir thriller storyline and beautiful art by Pablo Raimondi and we've got a real highlight of the line.  This is easily one of the best things the X-office is producing at the moment (although come to think of it, as a Marvel Knights book, it's not actually coming from the X-office, is it?).  For god's sake, go and buy the thing.  Show some support when they produce something genuinely worthwhile.

Rating: A+

back | continue