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Jun 14

X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #21, #27 and #34

Posted on Tuesday, June 14, 2022 by Paul in x-axis

X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #21, #27 and #34
“Downtime”
Writer & artist: Jason Loo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Lauren Amaro

X-Men Unlimited likes to intersperse short stories in between its longer arcs. This is something a little different – a three part story which the series comes back to in between arcs.

I kind of like the idea of that – a background story that Unlimited checks in on from time to time. But it doesn’t really seem to fit with this particular arc. Guido and Madrox – or rather, a Madrox dupe – are jet-skiing offshore from the X-Corp base when a bunch of little monsters attack. X-Corp retreat and the duo are left behind. They make their way to nearby Monster island, which turns out to have fallen under the rule of Xemnu. I’d say Xemnu was a ridiculously obscure villain, but he was used prominently in Immortal Hulk a couple of years ago, so he’s not quite in that category right now.

Anyway, Xemnu is running the place by mind control; they beat him and go home. And that’s pretty much it. The character angle is meant to be that Guido is mildly aggrieved at being stuck with a dupe instead of the real Jamie, but nothing really comes of that. It’s… mildly diverting, I guess? Gently pleasant? The art’s charming, which is the big strength of the story – but there’s really not much to it. It’s just a bit of whimsical filler.

Which is fine as far as it goes – it’s X-Men Unlimited, after all, it’s a freebie book. Still, the scheduling of the story is baffling to me. As I say, I quite like the idea of having a storyline going on in the background and being checked in on periodically. But that’s not what’s happening here. That gimmick needs a story that plays out over a longer period, with characters who are sidelined from the main action. This takes, what, 24 hours? And Guido appears prominently in the Declan Shalvey arc in between chapters one and two. And at that point, I don’t really get the point of spreading something so slight over such a long period.

 

Bring on the comments

  1. Si says:

    That’s Marvel for you. The only time Guido does anything but lurk in the background in the last five years, and he’s in two comics at once.

    The real-time gap worked well when they were stranded at sea. Even if in the story they were only there a few hours, you really felt the isolation. The other gaps were not so useful. I wonder if this comic was commissioned deliberately to fill some gaps in the publishing schedule. The X-Men line being the only ongoing Infinite format comic and all.

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