The school is on lockdown…but if the bad guys can’t get out, neither can the X-Men!
John Sublime is back, but is one of the X-Men’s scariest villains not who we should be afraid of?
Who or what is Arkea?
The Good
Art- Olivier Coipel’s art continues to stun on every single page. The action in particular is illustrated very well.
Cover- Jubilee and her new adopted baby in the foreground while the rest of the team Storm, Rogue, Shadowcat, Psylocke and Rachel Grey are entangled with the machines in the background, it all looks pretty good rendered by Olivier Coipel.
Villain- Arkea is a villain in a classical mold. She has very simple motivations, kill her brother “Sublime” and destroy organic life. She has generic villain speech patterns
Ending- This issue has a very dramatic ending as the countdown timer is about to hit zero. What exactly is it? Could it be the obvious bomb or something else far more sinister?
Black Heroes- Storm still hasn’t done anything substantial and Bling gets a guest appearance at the end of the book.
Team- I find this one of the more interesting X-men teams currently being offered, the personalities play off each other really well and Jubilee gets some much needed character growth through the introduction of this baby. Her vampirism has not been addressed but hopefully its gets some highlight after this opening arc is over. She should be the resident wildcard of the team since she was learning to deal with her”thirst” since that’s what she was doing in the last X-men book she was in.
Action- Lots of top notch action in this one all rendered really well.
The Bad
Illustration- It may just be me but Arkea is inhabiting the body of Amita Shapandar an Indian woman but she looked very much like Psylocke or any other Asian.
To kill or not to- Ok someone correct me if I’m wrong but why is everyone behaving like Karima is some long time member of the team? She briefly served with Xavier in Genosha before that she was a mindless mutant hunting omega sentinel. After this she served with Rogue on a team comprised of mostly villains, including mystique and Lady Mastermind. She was then possessed by Malice for the Accolytes……unless allot of off panel bonding took place she’s just some chick who was mostly a villain anyway, killing her to save the world or even the school should be a non issue. I didn’t get the tension that the possibility of her death would have caused. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who will literally just shrug, her death means nothing to 97% of those reading the book me included!
The Ugly
Overall I found this issue very enjoyable! It had solid action, nice art, a really motivated if one dimensional villain and great characterization. 4/5
