Age of X-Man: Marvelous X-Men #4 // Review
The illusion is beginning to fall. The world that was supposed to be so safe and happy for everyone proves to be a big problem. The solution of a world in dream turns out the be a bigger problem as things begin to fall apart. The fourth issue of Age of X-Man: Marvelous X-Men feels like a slightly uninspired realization of what is beginning to reveal itself to be a very predictable end to the multi-mini-series event. Writers Zac Thompson and Lonnie Nadler sail the central group of mutant saviors through the beginning of the end of a dystopia in an issue drawn by Marco Failla.
It’s Xavier Day: a celebration of the dream and vision of a man who wanted mutant equality in a much darker age. The Marvelous X-Men celebrate in London. There are those who have shown up to honor them who think of them as fairy tale gods who can grant wishes, an awkward moment of hero worship shifts as Apocalypse and his revolutionaries show-up to deliver news of history that they’ve all been blinded from seeing. Colossus has a significant break with the established order which puts him on a path directly opposed to the established order.
The sudden outbreak of true passion really should be more of a revelation than Thompson and Nadler are delivering to the page here. It’s too bad. The massive crowd shot of a large group of people woken and the chaos that ensues is entertaining, but it lacks the intensity that a moment like that really could have had as the Marvelous X-Men title hasn’t spent enough time focussing on their suppressed emotions. It feels weak and convoluted. Thompson and Nadler have tried to cover too much ground in too small a span of pages. The intensity of the story suffers.
Failla’s art doesn’t help matters. The overall feeling of action in the series DOES move well from panel to panel and page to page, but the drama of emotion is lost. Colossus’ explosion of passion for Kitty Pryde had great potential to be a very compellingly romantic moment, but Failla isn’t given the right space to allow it to develop the emotional explosiveness it could have had. Lips meet for the first time in a dream, and it feels a bit flat and weak. So many other moments might have lived a bit more had Failla found the right angle for the right impact.
With everything beginning to end the way that it is, the Marvelous X-Men had a chance to be the central anchor for the Age of X-Man event. It has proven to be a bit too much story to cram into a single title, which is a disappointment. Writers in the past have managed to juggle disparate characters in the ever-evolving roster of X-Men characters. In the space of a world created to live for only half a year, Thompson and Nadler appear to have a bit too much to try to tackle.
