The X-Men are all over the place right now, as their big MCU takeover gets closer and closer. Marvel Comics has been doing their best to position the team to take advantage of the influx of fans, with the two main X-books going in very different directions (don’t even try to pretend that X-Men United is a main book). Uncanny X-Men is off on its own, doing its own thing while X-Men is all about Cyclops’s war to build a future for mutantkind. DNX has seen the X-Men and Fantastic Four team up against the villainous 3K, led by evil original Beast, who have their own plans for the future of the planet. This story so far has been pretty great for fans of both the X-Men and Fantastic Four and X-Men (Vol. 7) #40 ties into it story by putting focus on one of the most popular X-Men of them all.
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The X-Men books have had a rough time of things since the end of the Krakoa Era, but things have started to get better after the disaster that was “Age of Revelation”. DNX has been pretty great so far, paying off numerous plot lines set up by X-Men (Vol. 7) writer Jed MacKay. This issue teams MacKay with superstar artist Lucas Werneck for a story focusing on Psylocke. While the issue is supposed to feel like an important part of her evolution, it honestly feels like more of the same, both with the character and for X-Men stories in general.
Pros
Cons
Werneck’s art is fantastic throughout the book, giving readers some fantastic imagery
Werneck’s fight scenes are a bit static, which makes them weaker than the rest of the book
MacKay does a great job of selling this as an important moment in Kwannon’s history…
..However, this is basically a story that we’ve read a million times, yet another issue about a killer X-Man learning mercy
MacKay Loves Playing the Hits and That’s Been My Entire Problem With His Run
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
So, I’ve been reading X-Men comics since 1991. Not only have I read just about every issue of the flagship books from the last 35 years, but I’ve also read a lot of the stories that came before that time. The point is I’ve read a lot of X-Men and I feel like Jed MacKay has too. Jed and I could probably have a really in-depth conversation about the X-Men, but I’ve found that I just don’t like MacKay writing the X-Men. He does a great job with the characters, but there’s something about his stories that just doesn’t work for me. I think it’s because I can see him aping the work of the writers that came before. While this is common when you read comics, you really shouldn’t notice it; it’s all built out of nostalgia, but the best comics are able to not feel that way.
MacKay’s X-Men always feels like it’s built out of nostalgia and it’s obvious, which is the best way I can describe my problem with this issue. The story itself isn’t terrible or anything like that; everyone’s in-character, it’s well-paced, the action scene is exciting, and Psylocke realizing why Cyclops made her a leader is cool. However, I’ve read this story. I’ve read it a thousand times and the whole time I was reading this comic, I was comparing it to all of those others times (except it usually stars Wolverine). MacKay homages the past of the X-Men in various ways but he does it in such a fanboy-ish way that it turns me off. I think the best way I can describe it is it’s like a wrestling match that’s overly choreographed; you can see what they’re doing before they do it because you know how these spots go together.
It’s the exact opposite of, say, Gail Simone’s Claremont-isms in Uncanny; she does it in such a way that you don’t realize it until afterwards and it’s kind of impressive that it took you so long to see what she was doing. MacKay just doesn’t do that for me. So, while I can admit that this is a well-done comic that a lot of fans of the book will really enjoy, all I see is a story that I’ve read a lot of times before and it just takes me right out of it. Maybe I’ve read too many comics, but the fact that I only get this feeling from MacKay tells me something.
Werneck’s Art Has All of Its Usual Pros and Cons
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Lucas Werneck is an interesting artist in the comic industry. He’s one of those artists whose work can – and almost always does – look gorgeous but there’s also a pretty common critique of it. Werneck’s figure work, character acting, and detail are all outstanding, so any scenes with characters talking looks fantastic. However, it often feels like his action scenes lack the fluid quality that the best artists have. Being a comic artist is difficult and fluid action scenes are one of those things that a lot of them have a problem with, so it’s not like Werneck is alone in that, and the rest of his work so great that it doesn’t really take away from his books too much.
X-Men #40 is basically your standard comic drawn by him. The detail is fantastic, the figure work is outstanding, and the character acting gets across the emotional stakes of every scene. I love the fashion model feel that he gives all of his panels and the way he uses perspective in the various scenes. His design for the monster form of Myriad is awesome, but once the action scene starts, the detail goes down in a big way and the action is just static. There are some cool images from the fight, but it’s not up to the level of the rest of the issue. However, that level is top-notch, so it’s okay.
X-Men #40 is a comic that fans of this book will love. It puts spotlight on Psylocke, who has been one of the breakout stars of the book, and Werneck makes the book look fantastic. However, MacKay has just never sold me as an X-writer and this issue does everything that bothers me about his time on the book. Sometimes, you can tell a creator loves what they’re writing and knows a lot about them, but they just aren’t the right fit. That’s how I feel MacKay’s X-Men stories and this issue has everything that turns me off about his work. If you like this book, you’ll probably like this issue but for me, it never really worked.
X-Men #40 is on sale now.
What do you think about this issue? Do you think I’m too hard on MacKay and Werneck? Sound off in the comment section below.
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