If nothing else, Civil War certainly has scale on its side.  Sprawling over some seventy-plus comics, it's a big event by any standards.

For most of those comics, it's actually doing some good by boosting sales.  But there must surely still be an upper limit to the number of Civil War crossovers Marvel need.  Mark Millar marginalised the X-Men in Civil War by leaving them on their reservation and declaring them neutral.  He's made clear in interviews that this was quite intentional, and he didn't want them to be the focus of the story.

And now, here we have Civil War: X-Men, a four-issue miniseries in which the X-Men fight amongst themselves because the main plot doesn't have anything for them to do.  There's a nagging feeling here that somebody at Marvel commissioned a Civil War: X-Men miniseries because they knew it would sell, and worried about the details - and indeed the content - later.

David Hine is the lucky writer assigned to this job.  We last saw him on X-Men: The 198, and unsurprisingly he goes straight back to those characters.  The story sees Domino and Shatterstar turn up to break the 198 out of their refugee camp, and the X-Men arguing among themselves over what should be done about it.  Once again, Hine is clearly taking the line that the 198 camp is a de facto prison, and once again, it begs the question of why the X-Men are putting up with it at all.

The division, in theory, is about how to respond to the 198 breakout.  But the practicalities don't seem to have been thought through.  On the one hand, you've got Bishop and O*N*E, plus some risibly obscure no-hopers (Micromax?!), who want to hunt down the 198 and recapture them.  On the other hand, you've got Cyclops, Angel, Iceman and Beast, who want to hunt down the 198 and... uh... protect them?  Defend them?  How?  They surely can't be planning to let the 198 roam free, because half of them actually are criminals.  So presumably they just want them to come back to the camp, just as they did at the end of X-Men: The 198 - in which case, what's everyone arguing about?  What's the conflict?  I don't understand.  For that matter, other than Iron Man turning up in a cameo, what's it got to do with Civil War, as opposed to the ongoing O*N*E storyline?

I'm thoroughly unclear what the X-Men are really trying to achieve here, or how their agenda differs in any meaningful way from Bishop's.  At best, everyone's motivations are far too hazily conveyed.  It has the superficial appearance of a decent story, to be sure.  The art is strong, and the idea of Bishop siding with O*N*E has been built up effectively over recent months.  The idea of Bishop as a law-and-order hardliner makes reasonable sense given his background, and as a personality clash, it certainly ought to work.

But I just don't understand how this particular story brings out that clash.  And to be honest, I'm highly sceptical that the creators really know either.

Rating: C

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