Finally for this week, X-Treme X-Men #45 - the penultimate issue of the series, and the conclusion of "Prisoner of Fire."  This has been a thoroughly lacklustre storyline, and I'd rather hoped that it might be a momentary lapse into old ways.  Unfortunately, upcoming solicitations lead me to suspect that Claremont is just going to keep hammering away at that mind-control theme until everyone is thoroughly sick of it.

This seems to be an epilogue after Bogan was largely disposed of last issue.  Another skirmish, another mind control scene, the building gets destroyed, the villain escapes again.  Oh, and there's a really clunky scene about Callisto's sexuality.  Plus a really awful scene where Kitty tells us how we were supposed to work out that Rachel, not Psylocke, was Bogan's enslaved telepath.  Uh, the fact that Psylocke's been dead for three years would seem a fairly compelling count against her, but for some reason nobody mentions this even when discussing her as a possibility.

Meanwhile, Bogan still has no personality beyond "evil and manipulative" - even after six solid issues devoted to him.  His powers don't even make any real sense.  He can possess people but, uh, needs a telepath to possess them... and he gets a telepath by possessing her.  If he can reach all these people anyway, what does he need the frigging telepath for?  Additional control?  What does the telepath actually do?  I could speculate, but I honestly don't know - and given that the X-Men apparently do, I can only attribute that to a failure of exposition.

Given that the average Claremont character delivers half a page of expository dialogue every time they get up to go to the toilet, it's fairly astonishing that he's managed to do half a year's worth of material about this character without at any point properly explaining him.

This is drivel.  And it's drivel on autopilot, which is worse still.  Plus, much as I like Kordey's art generally, it's not exactly pleasing to the eye either.  But that's not the main problem.  The main problem is that the issue comes across as lazy and complacent - the same old same old, and proud.

Rating: D+

back | continue