Rounding off the X-books, X-Treme X-Men continues "God Loves, Man Kills II."

I've had my reservations about this concept which, let's face it, is a fairly shamelessly contrived attempt to tie in to the film.  But it is making for an unexpectedly entertaining arc.  There's nothing desperately new here - much of it is an extrapolation of the basic ideas of the original storyline, and at this point it really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to learn that Stryker isn't going to change his mind just because Kitty tries to discuss scripture with him.

But Claremont and Kordey do a great job with the Mount Haven set-up.  Even though we established a couple of issues back that Paul, the minister, was a villain, Claremont gives him some great material here which actually did have me wondering whether he wasn't such a bad guy after all.  He's kept entirely free of rambling speeches and allowed to be as confused about the plot as everyone else; this makes him immensely more credible and therefore makes him (and the rest of Mount Haven) much better villains.  The inexplicable Mount Haven laboratory, full of uncleared corpses seemingly left by the previous occupants, is also a great reveal by Kordey.  We've seen the basic "nice town with dodgy undercurrents" set-up before, but Claremont and Kordey really do come very close to pulling it off here.

There are a few problems, mainly points where the plot feels a little forced or where Claremont's pet themes crop up a bit too blatantly.  He does do the mind control routine a little too often, and Lady Deathstrike still seems to have been shoehorned into this storyline for no good reason other than that she was in the movie - although Kordey does get to do a nice three-page fight scene with them.

Those are glitches, though.  This is really turning out surprisingly well.

Rating: A-

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