X-Men X-Cess: What the Mother Russia?!?

October 19, 2013 The Nerds of Color

Originally posted at Adam WarRock’s tumblr page.

I bought a bundle of X-Men Vol. 2 issues, 1-79, and I am going to read them all and blog about them here. And now:

X-Men X-Cess: What the Mother Russia?!?

I’m gonna be honest with you guys. These issues after “X-Cutioner’s Song,” they are not awesome. It would be one thing if they were just kinda… bad. But they are almost completely baffling and unintelligible to follow. I don’t think you youngsters these days have a true appreciation for how well edited the X-Universe is now, because back then, the number of concurrent storylines happening across X-Books that were in no way meant to really run together, let’s just say it did not make for an easy read.

So we’re following Colossus back to Russia to visit Ilyana, who’s still a child post… uhh, Inferno? I don’t remember exactly, but it was when the New Mutants found her as a 7 year old around 70 something. Yeah, see, you had to KNOW this to know why this was happening, which they don’t really explain at all, and as of X-Men Vol. 2, 17 issues in, they had not mentioned once. So say you, as a kid, picked up this book and wanted to read a new X-Men book. You would have zero idea what had happened to her, or who Darkstar or The Presence were (who also appear in this issue), all of whom are used to establish the villain, the Soul Skinner.

Oh, except Omega Red’s in here also. Oh did I mention that Rogue and Gambit have a storyline, post Rogue’s blindness, and they start laying the groundwork for the coming Kwannon/Pyslocke storyline (hoo boy guys, just wait til we get there).

But hey, at least Cyke has some time to get telepathically busy with Betsy.

But seriously, I guess if you wanted to read issues #17-19, you are more than welcome. But uh, yeah, I’ve reread these issues three times, and I STILL don’t exactly know what happened, and what I’m supposed to take away from this muddled mess of a run of issues.

Let me leave you with this panel. First of all, I hate this squiggly, jagged edge paneling that happens in these issues during action scenes. I get it. Action! But first of all, why separate this statement into four speech bubbles? And then, who would ever read it in that sequence? Honestly, COME ON!

I don’t even…

Up Next: Good God, Kwannon