1. I have no idea who Chuck Kim is or why his name seems moderately familiar, but Chris freaking Bachalo is on art! BACHALO! And this is supposed to be a throw away one shot! I’m sorry, but I’m a child of the 90’s X-Men, Bachalo will always be win for me. His style isn’t for everyone, but I love it, especially on X-Men.
2. Storm and Gambit on a mission to steal a corpse from an island full of vampires. You know what, even the premise of the issue works for me. I mean, sure, the X-Men could full frontal assault on the Vamps, but you have two great thieves on your roster who also happen to be tight and over powered. Not to mention one of them, Storm, really needs more cover time attention. Gambit had been doing pretty well with X-Men: Legacy, where he’d been playing a secondary role to Rogue prior to Magneto filling the role recently.
3. Bachalo draws awesome monster looking characters, seriously, his vampires look like monsters ready for the kill. I love it.
4. Nice usage of Dazzler in this issue, because for as much as she appears she never really seems to do anything. It was a nice touch to give her a few moments of glory in this issue, including an awesome looking one page ass kicking session near the end. What’s her name? Ali Blaire. Who is she? Dazzler! What can she do? Blast pure light directly at these Vamp bastards.
5. Janus returns for the first time since Death of Dracula, and he fills the role I had been anticipating for him. Vampire helping the X-Men. I mean, then again, what else can you do when your little brother kills your dad and assumes command while not really liking you too much? Hide? Because you can’t exactly sign up to help….you’d just get staked.
6. Storm’s relationship with Dracula being played up makes perfect sense, since he did turn her back in the 80’s and it could have been so much worse….I mean, I read Mutant X. I know who Bloodstorm is. Anyway, Storm having a psychic link and a history with the Lord of Vampires is a nice touch of continuity that really does help the story. Not only is she one of the best thieves they’ve got, she has an actual ‘intimate’ relationship with Drac.
7. The action in this book is what I like to call Bachalo clean. That means that while you can clearly make out and interpret everything on the page, it doesn’t lose the stylized grittiness that you expect when you put Chris Bachalo on a book. A lot of artists could take note and learn something, because he truly is a master at what he does.
8. Storm has to make a ridiculously hard decision that, if mentioned in other titles, could really go a long way to help rebuild the character after the perpetual limbo that marrying Black Panther put her into. Seriously, she went from being in X-Men every month to coming out of the woodwork for events or Warren Ellis stories that don’t finish. This issue tackled some very human issues with her and put her in a position of having to make the tough calls generally saved for the leader. In other words, the Storm I know and love finally returned.
9. Can I just say again how awesome Chris Bachalo is at drawing fight scenes?
10. 7.5/10 This issue blew away the fact that I only expected one thing: for it to suck. It was an incredibly fun issue that featured good characterization, further of plot, and even some nice character development. By no means is it a must read issue, and the inevitable outcome of their mission is pretty obvious, but if you like the character of Storm, or you are a fan of Chris Bachalo, then this book is worth a look. I enjoyed it greatly.
