Just the one X-book this week, and it's the penultimate issue of Mekanix.

I run hot and cold on this series.  On the one hand, it's contained some of the better writing that Claremont's written in recent years, including some scenes where he's demonstrated a welcome willingness to abandon the writing tics that have overrun his work in the nineties.  Claremont is a good writer who's been in a creative rut for years, and there have been signs in this book that he's starting to find a way out of that.  Plus, it's taken an entirely welcome, if less than subtle political position against the ridiculous homeland security paranoia.

On the other hand, it does tend towards an extraordinary lack of subtlety at times, and with one issue to go, we still seem to have two totally disconnected storylines - the anti-mutant campaign group on campus, and the renegade Sentinels attacking Chicago.  The cliffhanger ending this issue brings the two storylines together in the same place, but there's still no real indication of what links them together.  Well, besides the anti-mutant theme - but that's been the theme of virtually every X-Men story in the last twenty years, so I'd hope for something a little better than an ending where the anti-mutant students pronounce themselves appalled by the actions of the Sentinels and promise to be good little liberals from now on.  That would be a little too obvious.  I'm having trouble thinking how else these plots are going to tie together, though.

Anyhow, the issue opens with our heroes fighting off another Sentinel, in a perfectly good action scene designed to establish that they can only just deal with scouts and therefore have no chance against the main force.  It does give rise to some plot problems, though - having correctly realised that the invincible main invasion force will be coming, the cast seem unaccountably compelled to carry on with the other storyline as well.  You'd have thought, for example, that Kitty might regard this as a sufficiently compelling reason to phone in sick and skip a half hour therapy session that she doesn't even want to go to, but apparently not.  And after Kitty makes the entirely reasonable point that she's too busy to attend a student debating evening, it only flags up the awkwardness of the plot when she attends anyway.  In the rational scheme of things, the imminent assault on Chicago by an army of murderous robots is frankly more important than Kitty attending a student politics debate where, at the very worst, the proposed resolution to banish Purity from campus will fail and the status quo will be maintained.

Yes, I know we're meant to admire Kitty's willingness to attend and argue her case, but the story doesn't establish any compelling need for her to attend this particular argument, and gives her overwhelmingly good reasons not to go.  That's a problem.

The debate itself is also a little awkward.  Mutants work perfectly well as a metaphor for prejudice, but when characters stand around actually debating the issues, it tends to throw up the problems with the analogy.  For one thing, the bigots here can quite legitimately protest that mutants are different from racial minorities because they really are a danger to those around them.  Kitty has no reasoned answer, other than to dismiss any arguments against her as racism.  (Which it isn't, because mutants aren't a race.  But that's nitpicking, I suppose.)  We're apparently meant to be impressed by Kitty's debating - supporting characters stand around saying they've never heard anybody talk like her - but the content of what she's saying doesn't merit it.  Not unless you think that brushing aside all arguments against you by crying "racism" counts as an impressive debating skill, anyhow.

This is basically an issue about drawing the plots together in preparation for the climax, and it's competent enough on that level.  The opening action scene is good, and artists Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa are consistently solid.  But thematically, it's not too impressive - the arguments are shallow, and it doesn't have the depth to carry off the sort of weight it's aiming for.

Rating: B-

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