Longtime fans of the X-Men will no doubt get a nostalgic buzz from the X-Infernus mini-series.It reads for all the world like a Chris Claremont story from the middle of his original run on the X-Men - of course, some will think I'm insulting writer C. B. Cebulski, while others will think I'm giving him (her?) the ultimate compliment.
The truth of the matter is somewhere in between. After years of terrific stories on the X-books, Claremont kind of ran out of steam at some point, and his stories became more convoluted, he introduced more plotlines that were never resolved, his focus was almost exclusively on the strong female characters, and the mutant population expanded tremendously.
The X-Books were loaded with angst, lots of anger and some pretty decent storylines - but it was just a shadow of itself, and often quite confusing.
That's what we're getting with this series. It takes us on a trip into Limbo, which looks an awful lot like Hell. There we find the little sister of Colossus, Illyana Rasputin, who has been transformed into The Darkchyld - a demon, basically - and she's fighting to recover two artifacts that are the key to her salvation.
So there's lots of fighting and several apparent deaths (which end up not being actual deaths - another Claremont staple). The X-Men vow to rescue her, but that's shaping up to be a tall order.
I'm on the fence about the artwork by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Jesse Delperdang and Craig Yeung. The structure is pretty solid, and the action is rollicking, but some of the layouts are difficult to follow - I'm really not sure what's happening on the last page, for example.
Hopefully this series will restore Illyana to the X-titles, rather than leaving her in Limbo for another couple of decades. She deserves better, and so do we.
Grade: B-
No comments:
Post a Comment