Against all odds, X-Men Unlimited seems to be shaping up to be a worthwhile book, as unconventional creators team up to provide an unconventional story in this issue. This is unlike any other X-book you'll probably read this year, blending the central concepts of mutants beating each other up with a story of lost childhood, lost friendship and lost love that resonates well with the soft and beautiful artwork of the artists. The story does get a little jumbled at times, and the dialogue a little over-the-top, and not all of the artists are to my taste, but the overall effect is a good one, and the level of assembled talent is pretty impressive.
Kaare Andrews is best known these days for his remarkably cool and eye-popping covers for Incredible Hulk, but in this issue he takes a stab at writing as well as artwork, and the results are, if a bit mixed, generally on the good side. Andrews uses an important element of the X-characters' history, the relationship between Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin, as a jumping-off point, and he does so in a way that rewards long-time readers without punishing new ones. There are almost too many things going on at the end, with dire threats to reality, multiple alternate versions of the same characters and a somewhat clumsy element that ties Illyana into the plot, but overall the story is a fun read.
One thing I do have to give to Andrews, no doubt due to his background as an artist, is that he tailors his script to the work of the individual artists. Middleton's beautiful linework and stunningly realized backgrounds serve him well in depicting Kitty Pryde wandering the grounds of Xavier mansion, Mike Kunkel's animated style is perfect for the heart-warming and yet mildly creepy story of the farmer and his son and Nixey and Stewart's vision of Mephisto's Hell is twisted and dark. The work by Andrews and McCaig was actually the weakest element of the book, as their layouts and the armies of characters tended to get overcrowded, overwhelming even the sense of being overwhelmed that they were obviously going for.
As is common for this kind of "cosmic child" story, the end of the story is one that will leave some readers scratching their heads. The gist of the story, that the child has chosen to sacrifice his form in order to save the multiverse, is clear, but why exactly Mephisto's manipulations were going to destroy the universe, and indeed why he'd want to do that in the first place, remains a mystery. The story is fun, but it seemed like Andrews was throwing too many ideas in to really give them all the space they needed.
I have to be honest, even though the story didn't completely grab me, I'm still tempted by this book on the basis of seeing these artists working on this book. Middleton and Kunkel in particular do great work, from pencils to finishes to color, and all of the work is unlike most of the work that readers will find in the average X-book.
MP3 "commentary tracks" and a contest related to this issue are available on Kaare Andrew's
