Now this is more like it.

As the cover promises, X-Statix #10 does indeed bring back Edie Sawyer.  Okay, so it's a flashback story; nonetheless, it's still her.  Edie started off as a very unsympathetic character when Peter Milligan and Mike Allred took over X-Force, only for our attitudes to her to do a U-turn up until her eventual death.  This story takes us back to explain how she ended up in X-Force in the first place, and of course it works all the better in the light of how we know she eventually turned out.

Fill-in art comes from Philip Bond, who recently collaborated with Milligan on the excellent Vertigo Pop: London.  Like Allred, Bond is basically a cartoonist.  However, Bond's style doesn't have the same retro overtones as Allred.  As a result, there's less emphasis on X-Statix' public image as faux superheroes, and more on Edie as a character.  Which makes sense, since most of this issue takes place before she got within a mile of X-Force - it's a good choice of story to do with a fill-in artist.

It helps, of course, that Bond is extremely good.  Since this is meant to be a rendition of Edie's diaries from her own perspective, he doesn't have to worry about her putting up a public image to shield herself from the world and gets to play up the emotions and inner life of the character.  It's good stuff.  I love Bond's work, and he always works well with Milligan.

Oh yes, the story.  It's a sweet little piece filling in the remaining parts of Edie's origin story.  While it gets increasingly cynical as we go, it never distracts from the fact that we like Edie now.  The framework is Guy and Venus discovering Edie's diaries, which helps give the story a point in the ongoing plot - Edie remains a looming presence in their relationship, and Venus, who never met Edie, gets to learn something about her.

Excellent.

Rating: A

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