Review: X-men #3

X-men #3

I really enjoyed this issue. It’s the final installment of the “PRIMER” arc - and what a fitting name it is as it seems to set the stage for other exciting adventures to come - and it brings to a somewhat abrupt conclusion (or is this really the end ?) the battle the x-men have had to face with Arkea (Sublime’s machine possessing sister).

RECAP

We’re right where we left off from the last issue, Bling discovers a ticking bomb that goes off. Only nothing really happens (as far as they can tell) as there is no explosion or anything. Kitty asks Pixie to take the bomb into orbit (which I found odd, I would have expected Hank to swing in and say let me check it out or something).

We find out Arkea has left some kind of virus in the schools system when the doors seal and oxygen starts getting sucked out of the room. Bling knocks the doors off and then takes out the danger room Arkea clones (Well.... Arkea in the body of Omega Sentinel aka Karima clones) that attacked them afterwards.

While Kitty is dealing with matters at the school the rest of the team (Storm, Rachel, Rogue,Psylocke and Jubilee) are on Arkea’s tail across the globe in Budapest. Arkea is able to possess humans with medical cybernetics and takes over a whole hospital full of them (which is evidently how she was able to travel through the baby, who Storm figures was a patient there).

On the home front the X-Kids are busy battling the danger room projections of Arkea and Kitty has to take out the entire computer system at the school to stop it. In Budapest, the team have to battle their way through possessed cybernetic patients till Psylocke gets to Arkea, with her psychic knife at the head of the Arkea possessed Karima she’s faced with the decision of taking out her fellow X-man in order to take out Arkea. Storm is all for taking out Arkea that way but Rachel is staunchly opposed.In the end it isn’t any of them who make the decision but Karima is able to take control of her body long enough to drive the psychic blade through her own head and sacrifice herself.

WHAT I LIKED?

There’s so much of it that i really liked, from the panels with Jubilee and the baby to the inclusion of some of the students that we haven't seen much on panel since Academy days. The action is amazing and the art so beautifully done that I’ll excuse the empty panels of Pixie going out into orbit for the mere fact that she was so cute and the panels still engaging (for some reason I still don’t excuse similar panels with Storm from Ultimate X-men).

I’m really happy we get to see the likes of Bling, Julian and Primal with hints of seeing more of Mercury. I’ve always been sad about the sidelining of the old students (which we’ve gotten to know and love from the X-men Academy days) for the newer ones. And it had become somewhat of a trend. We saw it when that annoying girl Hope and her lights came in and then again when wolverine started the Jean Grey academy. New students get brought and the older ones fade into the background. But my grouse with this is for another time. For now I’m just really pleased with seeing some of them back in action (I miss you surge :( *hints at Brian* ).

Jubilee’s scenes with the baby are to die for. It’s becoming pretty evident how attached she is to the child, I don't know how this is going to work out her being a Vampire and all (but i hear she’s sooo over that lol) and still being pretty young herself. Keeping a baby and being an X-man - which by definition means you’re danger prone - will prove to be a difficult task enough.

The art was AMAZING!

Brian Wood has a way of dropping hints of things to come in his usual slow unraveling plotlines that seem to be working well for this title. He leaves us with questions of what’s to come with this Bling-Mercury conflict, Jubilee and this new baby she’s so attached to, Storm and Rachel’s different ways of seeing things. Even the much smaller things you might not have noticed like Oya’s appearance and Sublime sitting too close to Rachel all bring up questions of what Brian is up to with this story and what is to come. Really this is a primer and good one at that.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ?

There wasn’t much to NOT like. And even going the issue over, i find some of the things I initially had a problem with seemed not much of a big, like at times the tone and dialogue can feel just a tad cheesy or melodramatic. But then when I read it again... it’s not there so much (Kinda like when I re-read my own writing and hate it then not hate it then hate it again -_-)... So really it is a good Issue.

I’m not a fan of when the dialogue does too much narration of things we can (or at time’s can’t) see, especially when I don't really think its necessary. This happened with Julian when he put up his shield against the danger room projections.

My recap was brief so if you haven’t read it yet. You Must! Definitely prefer Wood’s run on this than over in the Ultimate Universe.

I give this issue an 8.5