X-MEN #40. (Annotations here.) Another DNX tie-in, another solo spotlight issue. This time it’s Psylocke, notionally trying to deal with the defeated 3K X-Men (she doesn’t find them), but actually reflecting on her journey from being a weapon to making her own decisions. This feels like the least successful of the DNX spotlight issues, perhaps because Psylocke’s history is quite well trodden territory, and came up a lot in her solo series as well. Drawing parallels with Myriad doesn’t really work either, since Myriad’s locked-in history is very different. It may work best when you consider it alongside the previous issue, focussing on her partner Greycrow; he thinks he’s dealing with the morally dodgy work so that she has the space to be a better person, while she’s still rather more keen on killing the bad guys than he seems to be allowing for. And Werneck does a rather nice shapeshifting monster for Myriad. It’s fine – it’s the best of the Marvel Universe X-books this week quite comfortably – but we’ve had better.

FANTASTIC FOUR #18. By Ryan North, Vincenzo Carratù, Edgar Delgado & Joe Caramagna. It’s a DNX tie-in, so let’s get it out of the way. The FF’s two-part contribution to the crossover is basically to do “Fantastic Voyage” in Magneto’s body. It certainly qualifies as a DNX crossover because the mission incidentally fixes his powers, but really it’s a story about the FF losing their memories and having to figure out who they are as they complete the mission. The fact that it happens to be Magneto is pretty much incidental. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing – these are two issues of Fantastic Four, and they’re quite rightly more interested in doing a Fantastic Four story. Ryan North excels at doing this sort of high concept idea, and the art is appealing, even if Magneto’s body seems remarkably light on fluids. Still, from the X-books’ standpoint, there’s something really quite odd about Magneto’s cure, in a storyline that’s been running for forty issues, happening by a side wind in a story about something else in a different book entirely.

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UNCANNY X-MEN #37. (Annotations here.) This is a transitional issue, serving both as an epilogue to the exorcism arc and as a lead-in to the Scavengers arc that’s up next. With hindsight, there really are some curious choices being made in this series – what was the deal with the New Mutants acting as if Rogue and Gambit were abandoning them, only for them to come back within a few days? And why was Sarah Gaunt used as the expendable prisoner for Monet to beat up, only for us to go back to writing her as a major threat a few issues later? Literally anyone could have been put in that role. Still, none of that really touches on the retrenching of Rogue and Gambit’s relationship, which serves as a nice ending to that arc, with some nicely delicate art on the flashbacks. The Scavenged are somewhat interesting characters, though a lot depends on what motivation they’re given for siding with Sarah when we go further with them. And if having Sarah lose so quickly to Monet was an error of some sort, at least this issue does something to rebuild her mystique, though I’ll be honest, it’s still taken quite a serious hit.

X-MEN UNITED #8. (Annotations here.) Remember when I used to say nice things about Exceptional X-Men? Well, it’s turned into this now, and this is a disaster. In a series which is only running ten issues, this is basically a Blade story – the only regular character in it is Prodigy, and he does barely anything. The plot points down to Blade storming a vampire stronghold and rescuing his daughter, with a barely-developed subplot about Justina Laguardia having something to do with it in the background. Wither’s arc is reduced to an offhanded mention of how he shouldn’t let himself become a murderer by killing, uh, vampires. You know, the same vampires who are offhandedly slaughtered by everyone else in the issue.

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DNX #3. (Annotations here.) Three issues into this five issue series, it feels oddly structured. I get the format of putting the core plot in this book and the side quests in X-Men itself – I don’t particularly like it, because the climax of an X-Men story ought to be happening in X-Men, but it’s a venerable way of doing things and Marvel’s standard operating practice. But that plot essentially involves the X-Men defeating 3K in the first half of the book and Magneto getting cured off panel. So does that mean the X-virus is going to be taken care of in the next two issues? That feels like a bit of an anticlimax. I mean, it can’t go out of control in the way that it did in “Age of Revelation” because this is a shared universe. I guess you could permanently transform Juniper and leave it at that. But… it feels like we’re speed running things here.

X-MEN #39. (Annotations here.) The X-Men tie-in is stronger, fortunately. This is Greycrow’s solo story, and basically completes the face turn that leads to him joining the X-Men. And that’s a storyline that’s been well built over time, starting with Hellions in the Krakoan era and moving into the Psylocke and X-Men books. Rehabbing this particular character ought to be a major task, and having him repeatedly insist that he doesn’t think it’s possible either has been a nice hook to get him there. Yes, Z*E*R*O are decidedly one-dimensional – as the extremist wing of an already extremist O*N*E, they’re a slightly shaky idea to start with – but I can kind of accept the concept of the low-ranking members who don’t realise how dodgy their organisation actually is and think it ought to be dodgier. Besides, they’ve appeared in two issues now, both times in the dramatically vital role of cannon fodder. And the Glob Herman twist is very well executed – taking the time to give him thirteen issues in a coma gives it all the more impact when we get to this point.

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