It's Fantomex versus the World in Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex #1, by writer Jonathan Hickman, artist Rod Reis, and letterer Ariana Maher. This one takes a look at Fanotmex, a character that's been absent since Charles Soule's uneventful Astonishing X-Men run, and gives readers a bit of back story for the character.

In a lab, two scientists talk about the cloning they're doing and how each clone is different… until they find two that are exactly the same. One is discarded, and one is kept. From there, the book focuses on Fantomex as he keeps breaking into the World every ten years. With help from sources as disparate as Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos, the Inner Council of the Hellfire Club, a group of nobody superheroes who are killed upon entering the World, and Wolverine and Cyclops from when the three went there in the New X-Men story, "Assault On Weapon Plus." Each time, he goes and sees someone and asks if he wants to leave. It's revealed that this is the clone who was kept in the World, who would eventually become Weapon XV. Finally, in the present, Storm, M, and Cypher come to him and tell them they need to get into the World to get a cure for the nano infection Storm was given. The issue ends with the four of them entering the World.

This is a very good book. Fanotmex was always a great character, and the loss of him during Soule's Astonishing X-Men run was one of many travesties from it. Hickman writes the character very well. There's a nice running joke started by the Howling Commandos that his accent is Flemish, not French like Fantomex likes to pretend. Hickman doesn't expand too much on the World but does connect Fantomex and Weapon XV, which gives the soliloquy that Weapon XV says to Fantomex mean something that it didn't before since there's a prior relationship there.

The only real deficiency of the issue is that Hickman never explains how Fantomex is back. One of Dawn Of X's big questions in general is about Xavier. Is the Xavier readers have seen lately that one or a Krakoan clone or did Hickman just ignore the plot point? That said, as long as Fantomex is back, it's not that big a deal that fans don't know why yet. It's also nice to see just how respectful Hickman is Morrison's New X-Men, which isn't exactly common at Marvel.

Rod Reis's art is good, but it doesn't really fit too well with this issue as a whole. It's too soft-edged and cartoony in places. There's nothing wrong with it, but it kind of lessens the impact of some of the scenes, as the machines the World sends after him just don't really have the right menacing quality to them. There are some cool visuals in it, the best being the page where Fantomex confronts Weapon XV for the last time, but it feels like Reis was the wrong choice for this book for the most part.

Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex #1 is a very good book. It gives the reader a glimpse into Fantomex's past that they've never had before, but it's also very respectful of Morrison's original vision of the character. Hickman does a wonderful job of it in this issue. He plays Fantomex perfectly- someone willing to use anyone to get his way, but a man who is also strangely sentimental. He even ties into a plot thread from the first Dawn Of X Giant-Size X-Men. Reis's art is beautiful, but it doesn't necessarily fit into this issue for the most part. Luckily, that doesn't take very much away from what is a great story.


Grade: B+