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And rounding off the week's X-Men
miniseries, X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong.
Thus far, Greg Pak has been doing a
commendable job of getting a decent storyline out of a shaky
remit. From all appearances, the purpose of this whole
exercise was simply to relocate Jean Grey to an icy lake so
that she could make her eventual comeback in cross-media
synergy with X-Men 3. This is a pretty lame
reason to publish a miniseries, but Pak has done a commendable
job of writing a proper story around the remit.
At the end of the day, though, there's
still the unavoidable task of writing a slightly contrived
story to get the characters into the desired position.
And that's more or less where we find ourselves today, as
Phoenix spends the issue trying to hook up with Cyclops again,
while Quentin Quire hangs around in the background. The
plot ends up depending on the highly questionable premise that
Phoenix needs Cyclops's optic beams as a source of energy.
Er, why, exactly?
Even so, Pak manages to work some
interesting material into the story. Phoenix starts off
trying to impersonate Jean, and invoke the boring old Scott
and Jean relationship. But it turns out that Scott
really isn't interested in that relationship any more - after
all, it was over even before she died. At this point
we're finally getting into some new territory for the
character, which is precisely why Scott and Emma are an
infinitely more interesting couple to read about than Scott
and Jean ever were.
Greg Land's artwork is beautiful, and again
Justin Ponsor's colouring deserves a mention. The only
real criticism to be made here is that Land has a liking for
impossibly perfect women, and the colouring style gives them a
distinctly airbrushed look. Jean and Emma often verge on
being just too perfect, and slightly inhuman as a result.
Overall, though, Phoenix - Endsong
is a surprisingly successful exercise in getting under the
skin of the core characters, while serving the needs of
continuity into the bargain. Much better than it has any
right to be.
Rating: A-
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