REVIEWER: JAMES HATTON
STORY TITLE: World’s End
WRITTEN (if that’s what you call it) BY: Chris Claremont
PENCILS: Alan Davis
INKER: Mark Farmer
COLORS: Matt Milla
LETTERS: Rus Wooton
PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics
Hear ye! Hear ye! All X-Fans across the world, join with me to sit and watch as the former golden child of the X-Universe. The flagship of all things ‘X’. The Santa Maria headed for the mainland on this pilgramage to wonderful stories sinks into the ocean to be eaten by a huge Kraken known as Kris Klaremont.
When you add ‘K’s to things you shouldn’t, it makes you kooler. This is what all the khildren tell me. Nope… Klaremont still sucks with a K.
STORY!
This is the last issue of WORLD’S END – named that only because if things went poorly, the world would have ended. To sum up, the X-Men are in the Savage Land, Rachel’s been turned into a thingy, and the X-Men are fighting thingies that have are evolved version of older X-Men thingies. (These being the Saurians mutating into the Hauk’ka – sorry for the thingie joke).
Anyway, let me take a deep breath to finish this plot for you. Inhale… ok:
Psylocke, who has been returned to us from the dead with no apparent reason or rhyme, is hanging out with the obscure villain Brainchild and his band of Mutates. The Hauk’Ka abduct Rachel and turn her into a thingy (sorry), and now they’ve got Storm who is slowly turning the world into a huge iceball. If the X-Men don’t stop them, the world becomes previously mentioned iceball.
This issue is the X-Men stopping Rachel and Storm, making nice nice with the Hauk’ka, and stopping Brain Child. Let me address some problems:
1) Why would the X-Men make nice-nice with a race that changed Rachel into a dinosaur, and then tried to exterminate the human race?
2) Why does X-23 look completely and utterly horrible?
3) WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?
Me, like many out there in comicdom, have been watching Claremont’s X-Men with wide-eyed confusion, waiting for the man to slowly explode. This isn’t the time yet, but the inconsistencies are staggering. Lost are the days that any kind of X-Continuity holds, as there is a world-defying ice storm going on all over the world and no other title seems to notice. (That’s a general gripe, not a Claremont gripe) The X-23 that he writes is COMPLETELY different than the X-23 that is currently being created in her own title. We’re told that breathing the cold air they are fighting in is almost enough to freeze your lungs, yet Ka-Zar can fight it out as barechested as He-Man.
I probably am being a bit too hard on this story, but when you read something for months and it’s awesome, you overlook some of the more minor flaws. When everytime you see that you are reviewing a title by one specific guy, you groan – then every flaw shows itself quickly.
ART!
Hey look! Alan Davis apparently doesn’t care that much either! That’s not entirely fair, as I like Alan Davis’ work. The problem could very easily be his inker (Mark Farmer), but this book is wholly inconsistent in the art department. There are pages where the book has the sheen of something new and bright, and other pages where certain characters are indistinguishable from each other. (Namely X-23 and Psylock)
See, if this book had read like the other book I reviewed this week, Ex Machina, then the inconsistencies in the art wouldn’t have phased me as much.
OVERALL!
Ok, ok, ok – I know what’s coming:
“Mr. Hatton, I love all of your reviews. The things you say are poignant and ring true with how I think and feel. You sir, are a god, but why do you read comics that you obviously dislike?”
Well that’s simple. I’m a masochist. Specifically, an X-Masochist. There is no other title in this world that I ‘COLLECT’. The rest of the comic world out there, I read. The X-Men… I COLLECT. So, since I’m collecting them, enjoying the hobby of polybagging them, sorting them into the long box, and trying to find that rare copy of ‘KITTY PRYDE: AGENT OF SHIELD #3’ – I do indeed read them.
Although Klaremont makes me wish I didn’t sometimes.
Damn, the ‘k’ thing still doesn’t work.
