Reviews: Age of X Alpha
Reviewing Age of X – Alpha by Mike Carey and various artists.
I’m a big fan of all out epic battles and comics and being one that grew up with comic books in the 90s I knew that Age of X was trying to get back on the groove it had over a decade ago. So picking up Age of X -Alpha reminded me that X-overs are good and Alpha issues are usually what you’ll need in order to move on to the next part.
Sadly this is not the case for Age of X – Alpha.
The truth is Alpha is a far cry from the Alpha issues (particularly Age of Apocalypse Alpha) where we get to know who the major players are and who the supporting cast would be. In Age of X Alpha we may already have an inkling on the who’s who but we still certainly need the delineation on whos the big star and who’s second fiddle.
While the art of the book seems good with the original art coming from Mirco Pierfederici looks great and really dynamic the other artists doesn’t seem like a good fit on the book.
From the first story featuring the history of the haunted and tormented Scott Summers known here as “Basilisk” we know that while the character is driven and really pissed off over what the humans have forced him to become it was still the lack of the real genesis of the whole universe that got to me. This would have been complete if I knew what had forced humans to become so angry with the mutants.
The two other plots involving the first sibling spat between Paige and Sam Guthrie was a bit of the drag although the artwork looks a-ok. The Wolverine subplot while engaging was still a bit vague to me. As a big fan of Wolverine, we already know that he’s taken “one for the team” but we were left scratching our heads on what happened afterwards. A plot that seems to be left purposely dangling by Carey.
The Age of X Magneto or otherwise known as “General” is a cold and calculated fellow still capable of being charismatic in what little speech cloud he had but at the same time scary. Launching dozens of buildings in the air is no mere feat and I’ve read somewhere that this might have been one scenario in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run had the X-Men not come in for the rescue.
Overall the book was a great read but again lacked REAL substance in terms of telling us what we know. IMO it was more of WHAT WE WANT TO READ RATHER THAN WHAT WE NEED TO READ.
So will we get our palattes satisfied with this opening shot? The answer is yes but don’t bet all your marbles. But does want to make you wait for the first part to ship.
