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ULTIMATE X-MEN #18
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Marvel Comics
"World Tour, Part 3"
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Chris Bachalo
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Ralph Macchio
"Jay Leno & Spider-Man: One Night Only! (Don't Forget to Tip Your Waitress), Part Three"
Writer: Ron Zimmerman
Pencils: Greg Capullo
Inks: Danny Miki
Colors: Avalon Studios
Letters: Comicraft
Editor: Axel Alonso
Price: $2.25 US/$3.75 CAN |
World Tour: Millar offers up the best issue of the series to date this month. I don't know what it is, but everything just seemed to click in this issue. Bachalo's fill-in art is as strong as what we get on a regular basis from Adam Kubert. The split plotting continues to impress, as does the dialogue and character interaction. Perhaps the reason I so enjoyed this issue, though, stems from the fact that I've gotten to know these characters over the course of a year and a half, and look forward to discovering even more.
The X-Men track Proteus -- Professor X's renegade reality-warping son -- to Germany, but lose the scent there. As an apparent relationship begins to form between the professor and British psi-agent Betsy Braddock, Cyclops and Marvel Girl try to convince Colossus to return to the X-Men... or at least to do something about the Russian K-14 sub crew that's trapped at the bottom of the ocean.
Bachalo's style shares a number fo commonalities with the work of regular penciller Adam Kubert. He has an angular, exaggerated approach, and his style is rather dark. It makes for a consistent visual tone for the series... a smart move. He captures the poewr and majesty of Colossus nicely, but there's also a simplicity and innocence to Piotr Rasputin. Stewart's deep colors capture the maturity and power of the script and characters quite well too.
This issue's quiet confrontation between Xavier and Proteus is a wonderfully rich scene. Millar has instilled in it a strong sense of humor, but at the same time, there's an atmosphere of intense menace as play too. It's the degree of calm that both characters exhibit that's entertainingly unnerving.
And then there are the scenes featuring Colossus. Millar delves into the super-hero genre's basics -- even cliches, I suppose -- for this subplot, but it's executed so well that one can't help but delight in it. In addition to the power and purity of the character's big splash, there's a genuine tone in his reflections on his time with the X-Men and his sense of cultural and social isolation.
Leno: Mercifully, Zimmerman's backup story comes to a close this week. Capullo's overexaggerated, McFarlane-esque art did nothing for me (especially with backgrounds as lacking as they were), but the script was just as irksome. Leno mocks super-heroes only to become one -- at least in deed, not appearance -- in this forced plotline.
That being said, I do see the value in these backup features. After all, featuring Leno pretty much ensures a mention of Marvel Comics on The Tonight Show, I would imagine. Not that I'd notice... I've always been a Letterman fan.
Note: Since the backup story appears in several of this week's Marvel Comics releases, it does not factor into the rating for this review.
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