X-MEN UNLIMITED #33
"Meltdown"
Mildly Recommended (6/10)
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Marvel Comics
"The Blob"
Writer: Steven Grant
Artist/Letters: Sean Phillips
"Special Attraction"
Writer: Will Pfeifer
Artist/Letters: Walter Taborda
Colors: JC
Letters: Sharpefont
"The Sport of Queens"
Writer: Will Pfeifer
Artist/Letters: Estaban Maroto
Colors: JC
Letters: Sharpefont
"The Grand Illusion"
Writer: Will Pfeifer
Artist/Letters: Quiche Alcatena
Colors: JC
Letters: Sharpefont
"Survival of the Fittest"
Writer: John Ostrander
Artist/Letters: Sean Phillips
"Lucky Day"
Writer: Buddy Scalera
Artist/Letters: Mike Collins
Colors: JC
Letters: Sharpefont
Editor: Lysa Hawkins
Price: $2.99 US/$4.50 CAN |
I like the idea of a solid super-hero anthology, and I was pleased to see the six stories here fall into a theme focusing on the bad guys. Furthermore, there's a strong array of artistic talent at play in this book. Unfortunately, most of the stories seem to rely heavily on the readers' familiarity with some minor characters, and some of the tales are a bit obvious and predictable.
Standing out the strongest collaboration in the book is Grant and Phillips's look at the Blob. Grant tells the reader everything s/he needs to know about the big fella, and the plot, though obvious, is a fun one and brings out the lead character's personality. Phillips's art on this piece, with its muted browns and yellows, is quite sharp.
Pfeifer writes half of the stories in this issue. They're fun little tales, but ultimately obvious in their direction pretty much from their opening scenes. The real problem, though, is that two of the stories -- "The Sport of Queens," featuring the White Queen and Selene, and "The Grand Illusion," featuring Mastermind -- really do require the reader to know a fair bit about the characters. Exposition is minimal, which is understable given the space constraints, but these stories are set in the X-Men's past. The absence of that context of continuity is felt.
Fortunately, Pfeifer was teamed with some great artists. I loved Taborda's fill-in issue of Thor a while back, and it was a pleasure to see his work again. Maroto's and Alcatena's detailed efforts were a sight for sore eyes as well. Though Pfeifer's scripts faltered, the art for those three stories was solid across the board.
The two stories wrapping up this issue are much shorter and didn't quite click for me as much. Ostrander's silent script makes a point about evolution and predators, but there's not really a conflict there. Fortunately, we get more of that textured Phillips art. Scalera and Collins's one-page story of perhaps the stupidest person one could imagine is quite obvious and rather ordinary.
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