Back with the regular titles, X-Treme X-Men makes its own bid to tie in the with movie - however tenuously.  Yes, it's a sequel to God Loves, Man Kills, which, as everyone knows, was the story that sort of loosely inspired the movie even though they've really got nothing in common besides the name of the villain.

At least, one assumes that an attempt at a movie tie-in was the motivation here, because God Loves, Man Kills did just fine for twenty years without a sequel.  It pretty much says everything it needs to say and you have to wonder what more there is to be done in a sequel.  The inexplicable appearance of Lady Deathstrike as Stryker's sidekick only heightens my fears.  The character has nothing whatsoever to do with Stryker's agenda and the two have no previous connection in the comics.  But she's in the film, so she gets to be here as well.

Meanwhile, Stryker continues with the religious angle that was dominant in the original story but, of course, was totally absent from the film (because the guy in the film is a separate character altogether, with only the name being reused).  The result is a mishmash of plot elements and continuities grinding nastily against one another as they try to square the circle and reference two entirely separate sources at the same time.

None of this exactly inspires enthusiasm.  That said, given the awkwardness of the premise, Claremont does about as well as can reasonably be expected.  He sticks to a fairly straightforward action story and gives Lady Deathstrike a cute sequence to show off her powers while rescuing Stryker.  It's nothing ground breaking, and it doesn't show any signs of getting past the obvious concept problems, but it's more entertaining than it really has a right to be.

Igor Kordey takes over on art this month.  Or rather, he takes over on pencils, since for the first time in his career at Marvel, he has an inker.  It's Scott Hanna, and the result is to give Kordey's art a degree of polish that is presumably intended to make it more palatable to this title's readers.  Kordey's strength is in the layouts, though, and while some of the faces look a little off at times, the overall results are fine.  For what it's worth, it's also more in keeping with Brent Anderson's art on the original story than Larroca would have been.

A strange and uncomfortable mixture of elements which looks suspiciously like it exists to milk the film.  But for all that, it still manages to be quite readable.

Rating: B

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