REVIEWED BY: James ‘Loves David Hine’ Hatton
TITLE: Son of M
WRITER: David Hine
ARTIST: Roy Allan Martinez
COLORIST: Pete Pantazis
LETTERER: Dave Lanphear
PRODUCTION: Kate Levin
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
PUBLISHER: Dan Buckley
Quicksilver. Speedster. Arrogant prick. Loathed due to House of M.
That’s the rundown on who we are dealing with in this miniseries. The former Avenger, and the only character that runs around Marvel who has Flash like powers (generally). We found out in the end of House of M that it was he who caused all of this madness, just so his sister would be happy. Just so the world would be a better place for all of the mutants.
Boy did THAT blow up in his face.
STORY!
Pietro has gone to Attilan with his wife Crystal after nearly killing himself. What he discovers there is that his daughter misses him terribly and that the Inhumans find him to be… less than the greatest person in the world. He does what any self respecting man would do having lost his powers and near suicide. He throws himself into the Terrigen Mists, the process that gives Inhumans, their Inhuman like ability. After seemingly not working, he goes back to his room to meet … Quicksilver.
So now stuck with a doppleganger that is aging before his eyes with everytime he meets them, he goes on an adventure to try and get himself and his daughter away from the Inhumans, get his powers back, and seemingly try and make right of the entire situation. The problem is that as you watch this go on, you can see the age and wear and tear continue to grow on his dopple’s face. With the excuse that the moving through time causes it, and this strange simulcrum always being a few days ahead of Pietro.
What does it portend? No idea, other than I’m going to have to read the next issue. It’s well written, and although a touch confusing, as I’m sure it will read really well in trade, it’s an enticing story. It’s written just confusing enough to keep you off balance, and Hine has the character of Pietro down pat. The smug arrogance that is always there, now tainted with this desperation from what he’s done in the last year.
ART!
There is something about the art in SoM that I can’t seem to shake. It is a mix between love and loathe. The thin line defines the characters in such away that makes them seem more real than I could have imagined the Inhumans to look, as well as keeping that fantastic edge. The placidness on the face of Pietro’s daughter is beautiful, as is Pietro earlier in the book.
All of that slowly getting more and more tainted as he (seemingly) gets closer to becoming the doppleganger in his future. There is still something though that gets me down about the art, but it’s one of those intangible things that unless I sat and studied it for hours I might not be able to understand. I think it might be there is a certain rigidity to the world and characters that doesn’t feel natural. Martinez’s action seems to feel too cartoony as a punch is done with a stiff arm across a flying jowl.
Where this is a stereotypical set-up in comics, imagine that stiff back pose in every panel. Then you start to see what it is that has gotten me a bit on edge about the story.
OVERALL!
Son of M, overall, is a great story. It’s doing justice to a character that has seen a bad year, by giving him a worse week following it. Quicksilver is a desperate man in a desperate world. He has nothing, and is now stuck in a place where he can’t even seemingly find the love of his wife or daughter.
It really sucks to be him. It also makes me want the ending of this story to come so I can see what he’s got going for him at the end. Does he finally give up? Does he get his powers back? Or does Pietro just end up one of the unwashed masses of humanity, no longer part of the superior race his father touted for decades.
If you need to know – you need to be reading, otherwise like I mentioned earlier, SoM is going to read amazingly in trade.
