X-Treme X-Men resumes normal service after the, uh, unfortunate Storm storyline.  And this is going to be the last arc in X-Treme X-Men; it runs for six issues, then there's a wrap-up, and then the book gets cancelled.

Not that that necessarily means anything, since Claremont and Kordey are going to resurface on, of all things, a revival of Excalibur - although from aught yet seen, it may well have nothing whatsoever to do with the original series.  I rather suspect that the Reload, so far as this title is concerned, will involve a reshuffling of rosters and a renaming of this book.  Since X-Treme X-Men is one of the worst names imaginable - "X-Treme", for crying out loud? - I can only applaud the good common sense in replacing it with absolutely anything else.

Anyhow, following December's detour to serialise a graphic novel, Claremont returns to his ongoing plots.  We're back in Valle Soleada, California, as the X-Men try to work out who was behind the plan to drive out humans.  Or rather, Sage and new supporting character Vange Whedon work on that, while everyone else heads off to the beach.  Poor Sage - doesn't she realise this is a Claremont book, and you fight evil by hanging around playing baseball until the baddies attack the mansion?

To all intents and purposes, this is a straight continuation of "Intifada" - a storyline which makes rather more sense if you consider it as the first half of a twelve-issue arc, and pretend that the Storm issues never existed.  Elias Bogan appears to be the main villain for this arc, and of course he takes us back to well-trodden Claremont territory.  Mind control is one of Claremont's favourite devices for villainy, and thus far there's not much to distinguish Bogan from similar Claremont characters such as the Shadow King.

The recap page describes Bogan as a "mutant predator"; the reality is that his storyline has been kept so enigmatic that he's not really developed much personality at all.  Admittedly, I'm intrigued as to why a character repeatedly described as a man is being drawn as an obviously female silhouette.  But we haven't yet seen much to establish Bogan as more than another mind-control sadist.

Still, there's generally strong artwork from Igor Kordey, and at least this makes a little more sense of "Intifada"'s half-formed ending.  But there's a lot more work to be done before I can get particularly worked up about Bogan, who seems like an off-the-peg Claremont villain to me.

Rating: C+

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