Okay, so we're back to anthology mode and a higher page count and price tag, and it's been months since the last issue... what's the format of X-Men Unlimited meant to be this week?  Are they ever going to make up their minds?

For the moment we seem to be back to the old anthology format, and in keeping with that regression, we're back to having three stories you don't need to own.  Two are inoffensive throwaways, and one is crap.

Jason Pearson's "The Final Alternative" is one of those stories where the hero and the villain stand around and chat about philosophy inconclusively.  Storm sets out to track down some humans who drove a mutant to suicide, and gets into a nice chat with Magneto about prejudice.  Pearson's story has some minor continuity interest - it fits in very shortly before Storm shaves her head and shifts personality, which is also right at the end of Magneto's pure villain run before he starts shifting to a more sympathetic portrayal, and the characters do act in a way which fits with that rather narrow gap in X-Men history.

There's also a nice point raised that Storm is the only X-Man (from that period, at least) whose mutant powers made them adored by their local community rather than hated.  It never quite goes anywhere, though.  Pearson's cartoonish art is quite effective, but the themes are nothing new, and the result is a competent but forgettable piece.

"Wounded Animals" takes place after Storm's recovery from injuries in the current X-Treme X-Men arc.  Storm flies to Japan, gets into a fight with Sunfire, and is generally sullen and unco-operative.  The end.

Conceivably this will make a little more sense depending on where X-Treme X-Men is going.  However, there's no getting around the fact that it's just a seven page fight scene topped and tailed with Storm acting out of character, combined with dialogue desperately trying to explain away why Sunfire is in this story when he's also supposed to be in the X-Corp.  It's quite well drawn by Keron Grant, whose art is much improved now that he's dropped his insistence on distorting everyone's proportions.  But it still seems totally pointless.

Bad.  Particularly disappointing considering that this is by J Torres, who is capable of much, much better.

"Rebirth" is a hidden scene story by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith - the Uncanny X-Men creative team of the time - showing what led to Storm deciding to shave her head and change her costume in Uncanny X-Men #173.  (By the way, the caption saying that the story takes place between issues #173-174 is wrong.)

The idea isn't particularly original - life-threatening experience wins Storm over to Yukio's view of life - and of course, if this material was all that essential, it would have been included the first time round.  It also has a rather nasty relapse into over-dialoguing from Claremont, as a perfectly nice page of Storm losing consciousness underwater is slathered in bright yellow captions that completely destroy the layout of the page and mess up the pacing.  Nonetheless, taken as a whole it's a perfectly acceptable "missing story" piece.

Two middling to acceptable pieces and one clunker means a recommendation not to bother.

Rating: C

back | continue