Age of Apocalypse #2 Review

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Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: Coming Up For Air

Written by: Akira Yoshida
Penciled by: Chris Bachalo
Inked by: Tim Townsand
Colored by: Studio F
Lettered by: Chris Eliopolous
Editor: Mike Marts
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Week two of the Age of Apocalypse… and here I am again – caught in a world that was assumed dead. Why? Well when a batch of nuclear warheads go off on your face, all at once, by a world controlling tyrant with a penchant for the dramatic, wouldn’t you think everything would be gone.

Apparently not.

We are back on the world that was left after Apocalypse was destroyed. A world where mutants and humans are building a tenuous relationship based on the force of one man. Magneto, and his team of the X-Men. With no Charles Xavier around, Mags took up the mantle of being the hero in our story. Is he though?

STORY!

We start with the X-Men in the Morlock tunnels, a place where the mutants that had been modified and subjected to a life of torture and slavery by Apocalypse have come to find refuge and hope. Lead by the bone throwing Marrow, the X-Men have chosen this to be their first official mission – bring the Morlocks from out of hiding.

Things don’t always go as planned. The Morlocks on duty, Marrow, Leech, Feral, and Dani Moonstar lead the pack against the X-Men. It’s good to know that because of Apocalypse some of these characters were not only NOT forgotten – but made into total badasses. Needless to say, the X-Men lose – Magneto is made to see his greatest fears, and the AOA-Female Xorn takes a gutshot. (I would love an explanation on how the AOA Xorn came to be.. god knows it’s probably less convoluted than the Morrison/Austin set-up)

On the other side of things – the girl known as X-23 convinces Wolverine to head back and join with the X-Men again. Along the way they kill Northstar and Aurora. Why? They’re EVIL!!!!

What’s interesting is my official prediction of what’s going to happen. In the second portion of the Magneto side of the story, if you pay attention – it seems like Mags is slowly reverting to his standard ways. Without a threat, he might not remain the true hope of humanity… and where is Sinister?

Akira has set-up so many ministories already that I hope by the end of it, everything can get cleaned in a tidy little package – it seems like it might be kind of difficult, though. This was, though, much better than the first issue in terms of pacing.

Art!

What can I say about Chris Bachalo that I haven’t already drooled over? Little. He continues to give us his vision of this world, and it is what I generally consider to be the cannon AOA look. Angular, edgy, and adorably cute. (Okay, so the adorable part is just because every girl that Bachelo draws looks like a 16 year old girl)

Overall!

The Wolvie story should start to tie into the main story, but what exactly is going on? We’re in the second issue and we have lots of mini-sub-stories, but nothing so severe to be able to call itself the main ‘thrust’. As far as I’m concerned, this book would do great as a quarterly ‘tales’ book. Sadly, we’ll get it in this one small dose.. and that’s that.

(Of course that’s until it does good in sales and they realize that there is a market for it… IF it does good in sales.)