Finally for this week, X-Treme X-Men continues the "Intifada" storyline.

Last month was a fairly strong start in terms of setting out the key themes.  This issue gets a bit bogged down in the mechanics of stopping the club bombing from the cliffhanger, and doesn't move matters as far forward as I might have hoped.

The basic idea is clear enough, though.  Marie, the bomber, gets to explain her motivations to Rogue.  Typically, Claremont bends over backwards to sell us on Marie's point of view.  She's been a victim of an unprovoked attack from mutants, and then discovered that all the legal routes that should have dealt with it were blocked off thanks to the questionable lobbying tactics of Sunspot's branch of X-Corp.  She's the classic character driven to terrorism out of frustration because she doesn't see any other option available, and Claremont's done a reasonable job of making that believable.

The point of all this is presumably to show that Sunspot's excessive attempts to protect mutants are totally counter-productive and will only make human/mutant relations worse.  It seems fairly obvious where that would fit into the Intifada theme flagged up by the title, but it's probably premature to draw judgments about exactly where Claremont's heading with this.

Over in the other half of the plot, Storm and Gambit seem to be starting a romantic subplot, and the governments of the world are still being a touch brainless and paranoid.  You get the idea.

Perhaps it slacks off the pace a little too much after a strong first issue, but still not at all bad.

Rating: B

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