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And now, crap.
X-Force: Shatterstar staggers into
its third issue. And as you might expect from something
plotted by Rob Liefeld, the story is all over the place.
It's almost as bad as the recent X-Force series, which
was similarly incapable of taking an idea and following it
through to its logical conclusion. Or for that matter,
even an illogical one.
This issue dumps Shatterstar in what's
presumably meant to be an alternate timeline. Spiral has
apparently conquered the place using the magic sword which she
picked up in the previous issue. Shatterstar hooks up
with the local version of X-Force to try and stop her.
That's basically the plot.
Unfortunately, this has to be the single
most inept exercise in world-building I've seen in years.
The planet seems to be populated entirely by Spiral, her
henchmen in their floating city, and a handful of rebels led
by Cable. There's absolutely no sense whatsoever of what
sort of world Spiral's created here. Frankly, I would be
absolutely stunned to learn that anyone involved in this comic
had even bothered addressing their minds to the question.
If they have, it certainly doesn't show on the page.
Spiral is also calling herself Apocalypse,
for no reason other than to allow her make vague allusions to
the Age of Apocalypse, which is somehow meant to be cool.
Scripting this issue, which is admittedly
an unenviable task, Brandon Thomas seems lost and utterly out
of his depth. Much of the dialogue in this issue clunks
like a scrapyard in an earthquake. A bit of melodrama is
one thing, but what possible excuse can there be for lines
like "If we speak of the same six-armed mistress of death, my
people have come to know her by another name"? Or, worst
of all, "You'd think that if Apocalypse was gonna waste our
time with an obvious fake like this, she'd go for something a
little less obvious." Ed Wood would be proud.
After a merely mediocre start, X-Force:
Shatterstar has gamely descended to the ranks of the
utterly horrid. Avoid at all costs.
Rating: D
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