Finally for this week, X-Treme X-Men #43.  Now that Morrison's gone, Chris Claremont represents the X-books' past and future simultaneously.  Shame he always specialised in dystopian futures.

"Prisoner of Fire" has now passed the halfway mark, but there's little here to get excited about unless you're a particularly big Claremont fan.  Rogue and Shadowcat have a chat while the art struggles to tell them apart, and there's a fairly interesting idea about Sage lacking trust in the rest of the team - though the moment is spoiled when Kitty then hammers the point home with some really dodgy dialogue about absolute commitment.

After that, it's fight scene time.  In the way of these things, the mind control baddie has captured the other half of the team, so it's X-Man versus X-Man.  Except Gambit is somehow not under control after all.  One might question how exactly somebody with no powers is supposed to fool a telepath on these things, but I suppose it's better not to ask questions.

Basically, it's just a load of fighting with a rather boring villain.  The best that can be said for this is that it might at least get this mind control nonsense out of Claremont's system before Reload.

Igor Kordey's art benefits - in the loosest possible sense of the word - from four inkers, and some of it really does look quite bad.  As I mentioned, Kitty and Rogue end up looking far too similar to one another.  There are some supposedly joyful expressions that just look manic, and the whole thing is just lacking the charm I know Kordey's capable of.

Claremont by numbers, basically.  Of course, some people like that sort of thing, and they'll be perfectly happy (except for the ones who hate the art).  Everyone else can quietly ignore it and hope that the plot goes away after Reload.

Rating: C

back | continue