The X-Men take the battle to the Hex in X-Men #13, by writer Gerry Duggan, artist CF Villa, colorist Matt Milla, and letterer Clayton Cowles. Beyond a glaring mistake on the first page, this book is slightly better than Duggan’s usual drivel.

As the X-Men help beat the Hex off before they can get to Krakoa, Jean gets in touch with Ikaris, asking for help. Ikaris tells them about Uranos’s armory and gives them an in. Cyclops and Jean send the rest of the team in. Iceman and Synch freeze the Hex’s power supply, and the team returns to Krakoa just as the new Celestial lays down its judgment call.

Right from the beginning of this book, Duggan makes a mistake that associate editor Lauren Amaro or editor Jordan D. White missed. In the caption boxes, written with Duggan’s usual flavorless way of writing, the writer says the conflict between the Eternals and the mutants is because of mutant resurrection. That’s actually completely false, and it goes to show that Duggan does the barest amount of research possible, which in this case is literally knowing anything about the story his book is crossing into. It’s the kind of mistake that should never have happened, and even if Duggan messed up in the scripting phase, it still should have been caught by the editors. Duggan is a frequently terrible writer on this book and has made mistakes with X-Men lore before. That can almost be explained by retcons and so on; a mistake of this magnitude is basically ignorance on his part and that of the editors.

Beyond that, the rest of the issue is okay. The dialogue isn’t great, but that’s just how Duggan writes dialogue in this book. He makes a mistake with Iceman’s power level, and there’s the question of when in Magik’s timeline this is. Her final story in New Mutants started before the Hellfire Gala, and now her powers work completely differently. Duggan still writes her as teleporting through Limbo, which might be incorrect depending on the timeframe.

Villa and Milla do a pretty good job on the art. This is an action-packed issue, and they deliver from that perspective. The character acting is good, the detail is fine, and the action looks good. It gets sketchy at points, but when it happens, it’s not that bad. All in all, the art works for the story.

X-Men #13 opens up with a massive mistake that’s impossible to forgive. There’re several other problems throughout the book as well, but this book is almost too simple for Duggan’s shoddy writing to screw up. That makes it the best chapter of this book in ages, which is damning it with faint praise. Villa and Milla do a good job on the art. This issue isn’t great, but it isn’t as terrible as usual.

Grade: C-