Finally, so fanboy thinking went, the metaphorical baton is passed from Grant Morrison's incendiary New X-Men run to fellow Brit-packer Peter Milligan, and the proper companion title to Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is created. Well, on the basis of this opening shot, it seems that conventional wisdom is thrown right out the window. There must be a new Peter Milligan because this clunks along where it should soar - the dialogue is stilted, the characters are wooden and the story lacks flow and cohesion. Things aren't helped much by the art either: the colours are murky, Larroca's pencils disappointing and what little action takes place is cluttered and depressingly static. Add to that the cynical placement of a pumped Wolverine on the cover, despite never appearing or even being alluded to in the issue, to prop up a pretty lacklustre team (Gambit, Rogue, Havok, Iceman and Polaris). It's probably worth sticking with this title until the end of the story arc, if only to give Milligan a chance to prove himself, but on first impressions the new X-Men creative team is a major disappointment.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
1 - Matt Schafer
I rather liked the book myself. Maybe in part because I'm an aspiring comic book writer and its trendy so I want to like it, but I thought it had pretty good enery to it.
I'll grant you that Wolverine has no business being on the cover, but I like Larroca's work. I thought his pencils and the coloring gave the story a dreamlike/nightmarish quality that I enjoyed.
2 - Greg Smyth
The central idea was pretty hackneyed, I thought and the story jumped around quite a lot (and not in a useful way). I've enjoyed a lot of Milligan's work (including X-Force/X-Statix) but I thought this was poor.
The colouring (while I agree with you that the intent was to make it atmospheric) just didn't work for me and Larroca has been much better elsewhere.
Like I said - I really wanted this book to be excellent (I couldn't wait to read it when I heard about the creative team) - but it just read like the kind of confused mess I'd expect from the likes of Chuck Austen. Perhaps I'd set the bar too high, but given Morrison's run and Whedon's Astonishing work I think I judged it accurately against its peers.
Thanks for the comment! Greg