X-MEN #27. (Annotations here.) Part 2 of “Danger Room” is an issue devoted to introducing the members of Maxine Danger’s think tank – the X-Men themselves don’t get that much to do, since a lot of the issue is flashbacks setting up their back story and recruitment. They’re unusual villains to get so much time, since none of them actually has any particular interest in the X-Men or even in mutants in general – they’re just psychos who have been enlisted by Maxine Danger, who herself doesn’t actually have an obvious interest in the X-Men beyond charging for her services. I’m in two minds about this arc, right now – they all get a nice enough introduction, and Diaz’s art gives them a neat contrast with Maxine’s lunatic office manager. Colton and Jackson are rather similar characters, too, though I do like the other two being (likely) delusional killers who are convinced that they’re Skrulls trapped in human form. But as an X-Men story it does feel at the moment like we’re just chucking random stuff at the team for them to fight. Still, Jed MacKay gets the benefit of doubt that this is heading somewhere more than that, since it wouldn’t be his style.

CYCLOPS #2. By Alex Paknadel, Rogê Antônio, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Joe Caramagna. Well, this is fun. Sure, having Cyclops lose his visor and have to work around his uncontrollable powers is a well established routine, but it’s one we haven’t done in a good long while, and Paknadel and Antônio do it rather well. The plot may hinge on a massive coincidence of Cyclops stumbling upon the new Reavers’ scheme, but now that we’re here, we’ve got an escaped mutant who was never that keen on Krakoa and isn’t immediately in awe of Scott, which gives him someone to win over. Mostly, though, we’ve got the new Reavers squabbling among themselves as Donald Pierce tries to keep them all in line, and they’re turning out to be quite entertaining. We’re not dealing with professional soldiers any more, just wide-eyed cultists who’ve signed up for dubious cyborg conversion. They’ve got the equipment but they have no real idea what they’re doing, and Pierce seems to be making do with a bunch of underlings who have been powered up to the point where they can at least shove some non-combatants about. Paknadel gives him a sort of weary disdain that somehow feels a bit more developed to me than he has in a while. It’s a good take on the character.

X-MEN OF APOCALYPSE #3. By Jeph Loeb, Simone Di Meo, Richard Starkings & Comicraft. I really cannot rouse myself to care about this. There’s nothing to the story beyond an excuse to lurch from fight scene to fight scene, unless you count AoA Gambit getting excited to meet a past version of mainstream Rogue. Except… that depends on Gambit still being in love with Rogue. And while he did have a back story that involved her choosing Magneto over him, and a storyline about him still being in love her, didn’t that get resolved in Gambit & The X-Ternals? Doesn’t he surrender his love for Rogue in exchange for a shard of the M’Kraan Crystal, or something like that? Oh well. As with previous issues, it’s pretty on an individual panel level, though it struggles with flow and doesn’t do a great job with atmosphere – Di Meo is awfully keen on motion-blurring his backgrounds, which doesn’t help. But mostly, it’s Just Stuff Happening.