Age of X-Man: Omega #1 // Review
Writers Zach Thompson and Lonnie Nadler attempt to crush everything back into a singularity in the final issue of the Age of X-Man multi-mini series crossover event. A perfect world has fallen and everything needs to collapse back into itself after a half a year of weekly excursions into dystopian utopia cast in the image of mutant heaven that’s actually tuned out to be (unsurprisingly) its own kind of hell. Age of X-Man: Omega tries its best to wrap up an entire half year’s worth of development into a single satisfying conclusion, but fails pretty solidly. The whole event has been a fascinating experiment with a lot of potentials. But even enchantingly expressive art by Simone Buonfantino can’t save a conclusion that is haunted by the possibilities of what might have been.
The final issue in the Age of X-Man event opens with lamentations by the title character. “My energy flowed.” He says. “Simultaneously creating and becoming part of mountains, rivers, mutants, and minds of every creature.” He’s talking about the creation of a world that he so desperately wanted to be perfect. In the end, he’s become every bit as much of a victim of it as he was architect. Things move along in a somber procession from the beginning of the issue to the end of the event. Things changed to create the world in which the event took place. Things change again by issue’s end. Things always change.
It’s a bit of a weary scramble to the end of the event for Thompson and Nadler. X-Man is sad. Characters have been awakened to the artifice of the world they’ve always known. Only to realize that it’s NOT the only world they’ve ever known. It’s a fun mind-twisting premise that could have been A LOT of fun. If more fused adequately into a world where people have fantastic powers that are totally commonplace. But there hadn’t been enough vision overall to make the thing work. The issue does a reasonably good job of delivering the right mood, though. It’s just too bad that there wasn’t a more intricate layering of plot elements. In a HUGE ensemble of characters that would give the mood a more satisfying place in which to reside.
Buonfantino’s rendering of the conclusion is hugely satisfying. Cataclysmic beginning and endings share the same place with simple human concern on a street level and the broader concerns of those with great power who don’t know what to be responsible for. The Intense sense of individual humanity is cleverly cast against the enormous events at work on a more powerful level. It’s always difficult to strike the right balance with this. George Perez could sometimes manage a balance of this sort in a story this big, but there haven’t been many others. Buonfantino’s treatment of an epic conclusion REALLY amplifies the drama of the individual. There’s a profound sense of the human toll of events this large. It’s too bad that Bunofantino’s art couldn’t be tied to something more satisfying.
On the whole, a project the size of The Age of X-Man is an excellent idea. Projects SHOULD be this ambitious. For all its faults, The Age of X-Man DID dazzle with its possibility. This conclusion casts glances at what might have been. The opening monologue has the title character lamenting how something so ambitious as a whole new world quickly grew too big for him to be able to handle. Thompson and Nadler might have been talking about the Age of X-Man event with that opening monologue as well. Reach for a huge achievement, and you might fall victim to it.
