Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: Hard Rain – Forging The Sword: Conclusion
Written by: Chris Claremont
Penciled by: Aaron Lopresti
Inked by: Greg Adams
Colored by: Transparency Digital
Lettered by: Tom Orzechowski
Publisher: Marvel Comics
I really miss Chris Claremont. I know, immediately you are asking yourself ‘Why? Isn’t he writing the very book that you are reviewing this week?’ and I respond to you with ‘Yes, but have you read it?’. Excalibur is a book that is trying a new thing, which is good, and it is doing it with one of the most legendary X-scribes of all time, which is also good. The problem arises when you start to realize that Chris Claremont has not accepted age with grace, and with the changing times has not done well in moving his style into today’s world of amazing comic writing.
Story!
This story is set up into two groups now. Two cocoons have fallen to the earth. One is topside, so Callisto, Freakshow, and Wicked are trying to retrieve it. Along the way they are attacked by the Magistrates and another team of mutants who aren’t ok with Xavier and Magneto being there in the first place. In the ocean, we have Xavier and Mags trying to find the second cocoon. There is inferences to who might be inside, but really, don’t you think one book with speculation about Jean Grey is enough this month?
Topside, the story isn’t horrendous. Good guys face against bad guys with some tweener guys thrown in the fight for good measure. High action, and using of powers and all of that. When the cocoon opens up though, we are given this visage of a tall bald black man who it appears we are supposed to know who he is. It doesn’t come across well at any rate. He looks like Synch, but Synch is dead… no other mention is made of him during the issue.
Below the water is where things break apart quicker than you can read them. Inside that cocoon is an Omega Sentinel who as we know, is bent on the destruction of mutantity. Xavier and Mags have a discussion about saving her life, and Xavier says he can fix her. Heaven knows how long she was in that stasis chamber, but I would like to think that during that period of time the nanites would have had the time to take her over. During Zero Tolerance, people were turning into these things in hours, sometimes minutes.
Fine, so they have the ability to save her. Luckily Mags can use his powers like an MRI?! He can project this image of her brain and FIX HER BINARY CODE?!?!? What in the hell is going on here. She wakes up, seemingly ok, but ISN’T SHE UNDERWATER AND CAN’T BREATH!?!?
Oh for heaven’s sakes. These are but a few of the fair leaps of faith that Claremont asks you to make to enjoy this story. He really should just go back to writing angst, this superhero crap isn’t working out for him anymore.
Art!
The art, on the otherhand, isn’t that bad. Lopresti has a grasp of all of these characters, and if it wasn’t for his page layouts, there is no way I would have understood what was going on in the Xavier/Mags plot. It’s not enough to make this book an accetable thing to spend 2.99 on.
Overall!
As you see there is alot to mull over about this book. If you are a completionist, you have sat through things that are much worse than this. There are quite a few books that have reached a higher peak of craptastic, but this one is reaching towards those goals. It makes me sad. This is Claremont for christsakes! The man who gave us the Phoenix Saga.
Is it possible for a man to have a 15 year one hit wonder?
