Big event crossovers aren't what they used to be.  Time was, a crossover meant something like Infinity Crusade, a mind-bendingly convoluted affair crossing over into ninety-seven titles, all of which you were encouraged to buy.  It was a nightmare.  The kids loved it.

These days, Marvel are generally a little more reasonable about the whole thing.  True, we had "Messiah Complex" a few months ago, but that's very much an exception in recent years.  For the most part, Marvel have settled into a formula where the basic plot is all in the core miniseries, and the tie-in books tell stories in the margins.  So although there are tons of Secret Invasion tie-ins, for the most part they're just stories where Hero X fights Skrull Y during the ongoing invasion of earth.

Still, it boosts sales.  And what's to stop some of the minor titles crossing over with each other, to help the sales a little bit more?  That's what we've got with "The Darwin Awards", a three-part crossover between X-Factor and She-Hulk which doubles as both books' Secret Invasion tie-in.  Both books are written by Peter David, and at least She-Hulk has a convincing reason to be in the story: it's already got a Skrull in its supporting cast.  Oh, and it doesn't sell very well. 

The first part of this story at least tried to keep the ongoing X-Factor stories going, but with the concluding part, we find the book dutifully playing its role in the greater scheme of things.  In fairness, the story does have an important function for this title - it adds Darwin, from X-Men: Deadly Genesis, to the cast.  But it does that by tagging him awkwardly onto a story where a random Skrull happens to be passing through Detroit, allowing X-Factor and the She-Hulk to gang up on him.

X-Factor have only just relocated to Detroit, so ideally they'd be appearing in a story emphasising the new set-up.  This is not that story, and frankly, it feels like an intrusion into the book.  I can't really blame Peter David for that; there are understandable publishing reasons for a B-title like X-Factor to join this crossover.  But it's not the story I particularly want to read.

This is also the first arc drawn by returning artist Larry Stroman, who worked with David on a previous incarnation of X-Factor back in... oh god, seventeen years ago.  I'm so old.

Now, I really liked Stroman's work in 1991 (which sounds so much more recent than "seventeen years ago", doesn't it?), when it was angular, stylised, and generally rather interesting to look at.  But I've got to say, I'm not feeling it this time around, and to be honest, while I haven't seen much of Stroman's art recently, it's been a while since I've seen anything that really captured the freshness of his early nineties work.  There are some rather bland layouts here; there are some flat-looking panels.  There's some clumsy body language.  And there's... well, there's a deficiency of backgrounds.  I've never been to Detroit, but I could have sworn it was a city, not a desert wasteland with the occasional vague outline of a ruin.

Mind you, there are also a few great dramatic moments, and a couple of lovely panels with Madrox trying to swamp the She-Hulk in his duplicates.  There are glimpses of what I used to see in Stroman's work, which makes it all the more frustrating that the rest of it isn't up to the standards I know he's capable of.

This is an adequate story, and so far as the writing is concerned, it's probably as good as you're going to get for a story that has the burden of crossing over into two unrelated comics at once.  But that's an obstacle in itself, and the art isn't all it might be.  Not one of this book's better stories.

Rating: B-

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