So that’s that, then. \u00a0The Terrigen cloud is done with, and the\u00a0attempt\u00a0with shoehorning the Inhumans into the mutants’ role seems to have run its course. \u00a0There are still\u00a0Inhumans titles to come in 2017, but they won’t\u00a0be squatting in the X-Men’s spot. \u00a0This is all for the best. \u00a0It was driven by considerations of corporate synergy more than anything else, and placed the\u00a0Inhumans and the X-Men alike in roles that did no favours to either, not least because it sent the X-Men back to the “no more mutants” set-up which had only just been resolved.<\/p>\n
Now, as for\u00a0how<\/em> we get to this eminently desirable outcome,\u00a0well, that’s the\u00a0IVX<\/em> crossover, and in particular the\u00a0IVX\u00a0<\/em>miniseries. \u00a0And we’ll get to that. \u00a0Oh, we’ll get to that.<\/p>\n But first,\u00a0I’ll finish up the\u00a0tie-in issues from the core titles. \u00a0Just like\u00a0All-New\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Uncanny<\/em>,\u00a0Extraordinary X-Men<\/em>\u00a0finds itself working in the margins of a story being told elsewhere, and\u00a0offers three essentially\u00a0unrelated spotlight issues. \u00a0Yes, sure, they’re related by using the\u00a0IVX<\/em> crossover as backdrop, but that’s\u00a0window dressing – it’s other stories that are really being advanced here. \u00a0It’s a choppy way of doing things and a messy compromise, but while none of these stories could be called a home run, they do have things\u00a0going for them.<\/p>\n Issue #17 is\u00a0the most successful of the bunch. \u00a0It’s an old trick: the regular cast\u00a0viewed from the perspective of a very minor character. \u00a0Here, it’s one of the mutants\u00a0rescued from the mists and camped out\u00a0as a refugee in the grounds of X-Haven. \u00a0These guys have\u00a0notionally<\/em> been there for the whole of Jeff Lemire’s run, but aside from Sapna,\u00a0they’ve largely been ignored. \u00a0They’re an abstract presence, something that’s sort of logically consequential upon the plot, rather than\u00a0having any real impact on anything.<\/p>\n With the Inhumans\/mutants thing coming to a head, though, it does make sense to shove these guys out there, both to\u00a0try and humanise the conflict, and because\u00a0they’re presumably all going home soon, so this is the last chance. \u00a0Lemire smartly builds the story around the\u00a0very fact that everyone has been ignoring\u00a0them, and while they’re free to wander around the building,\u00a0none of the regular characters are\u00a0really paying them any attention. \u00a0Alisha’s younger sister, who idolises Storm, is about to die of M-Pox, and Alisha decides\u00a0to finally go and yell at the main cast to pay some\u00a0attention to the people they’re supposed to be caring about. \u00a0This\u00a0all leads to Storm breaking off from the main story to visit the dying girl, which could\u00a0have been horribly mawkish, but is actually played pretty well. \u00a0Artist Eric Koda\u00a0carries off a nice balance between making the\u00a0characters human and portraying the X-Men as remotely heroic (from Alisha’s point of view).<\/p>\n There’s an awkward transition at the end where this is all somehow meant to motivate Storm to\u00a0decide that the X-Men have to fight for the mutants and must therefore do as the plot of the crossover dictates. \u00a0But the basic idea of trying to\u00a0humanise\u00a0a\u00a0clunky set-up, and by acknowledging that neither we nor the X-Men have really been all that invested in the\u00a0personal stakes of the extras in the garden, works well in its own right, and\u00a0manages to give the whole thing a bit of weight.<\/p>\n Issue #18\u00a0is a Forge story,\u00a0following up on\u00a0the running subplot\u00a0from Lemire’s run that Forge has been pretty much sitting in his lab the whole time, pining for Storm, meekly working away on\u00a0important stuff,\u00a0and\u00a0largely being ignored by everyone else. \u00a0It feels like it’s mainly\u00a0intended as an exercise in rehabbing Forge, who’s been rather strangely written over the last few years before settling into the role of Storm’s vaguely creepy ex who needs to get over her. \u00a0Lemire’s\u00a0main agenda here seems to be to purge Forge of that baggage, which is fair enough, but the story feels like a weirdly scattershot way of going about it.<\/p>\n Forge actually has a major role in the plot of\u00a0IVX<\/em>, namely to invent the macguffin that will solve the problem. \u00a0The issue starts off with a sequence of him vaguely hoping that Storm will come to talk to him properly before the big mission,\u00a0and\u00a0not being quite able to conceal his disappointment when she just wants to talk about\u00a0practicalities. \u00a0This isn’t a bad scene;\u00a0you can see why\u00a0Storm would be irritated at having to deal with this\u00a0right now, but it’s not like Forge\u00a0really\u00a0thinks it’s a good time to talk. \u00a0He’s just not very good at concealing his feelings.<\/p>\n After that, we get a sequence with him and Old Man Logan\u00a0which explains what happened to him in the Wastelands timeline – complete with guest art from that book’s Andrea Sorrentino, which is a nice\u00a0visual touch. \u00a0But there’s not all that much to it. \u00a0Apparently Forge became the\u00a0protector of a Cheyenne\u00a0reservation and decked it out with defences that he designed. \u00a0So\u00a0in a bleak future timeline, he got to be a proper hero. \u00a0Okay. \u00a0I’m not sure where that’s really meant to take us – Forge has been heroic plenty of times\u00a0– but okay.<\/p>\n And then, to round out the issue, we have Storm\u00a0dropping by to talk to Forge properly before the\u00a0crossover plot starts. \u00a0This doesn’t work at all. \u00a0You can see the idea – at first she doesn’t want to talk but then she decides he deserves better and she wants to\u00a0smooth things over before\u00a0the big fight – but\u00a0the scene is clumsy, to the point where it\u00a0almost reads as if it’s going to be\u00a0an impostor exploiting Forge’s desperation. \u00a0When it becomes clear that, no, it’s\u00a0the real Storm… it’s just kind of odd. \u00a0Victor Iba\u00f1ez’s art feels like it oversells her emotion, which might be the problem; it feels like too much of a departure from her usual self-controlled\u00a0professionalism. \u00a0A more restrained version of the same scene might have worked.<\/p>\n Issue #19 is a Magik\/Sapna story which has bugger all to do with\u00a0IVX<\/em>. \u00a0It happens to take place in the margins of the big climactic fight scene, but frankly,\u00a0any old fight would have done for the purpose. \u00a0Magik is yanked away from the action by\u00a0Sapna, who was thought\u00a0to have been killed off a few issues ago, but who turns out to be\u00a0hanging around as a ghost in a dark dimension within the Soulsword. \u00a0Sapna is lonely, Sapna doesn’t want Magik to leave, and ultimately\u00a0Magik helps Sapna escape as a ghost\u00a0that only she will be able to hear. \u00a0So that’s Magik’s new status quo – she’s got a \u00a0ghost child tagging along with her.<\/p>\n Eric Koda provides\u00a0some really nice artwork on the scenes inside the\u00a0Soulsword, with everything in\u00a0negative colour. \u00a0It’s the best thing about the issue. \u00a0The general idea of saddling Magik with a ghost companion is not\u00a0bad either, at least in theory. \u00a0She’s become very flat and cynical,\u00a0and giving her a new relationship which casts her in a different role can help\u00a0to move her out of that. \u00a0But it doesn’t feel like Lemire really gets Magik’s voice; this doesn’t\u00a0particularly feel like any previous\u00a0version of the character. \u00a0And Sapna is\u00a0a bit of a cipher –\u00a0Lemire can write rounded children, he’s done it plenty of times, but\u00a0for some reason Sapna doesn’t convince. \u00a0She feels like a generic character relying on her powers to make her distinctive. \u00a0So\u00a0both characters feel a bit off, and\u00a0I don’t find myself caring much about their story.<\/p>\n And\u00a0then, of course, the issue has to\u00a0try and somehow spin\u00a0a random fight from a different book into serving as an ending. \u00a0Which it doesn’t.<\/p>\n Still, on the whole these three issues rate as patchy to\u00a0okay. \u00a0There’s some reasonable stuff in here, but some definite misfires as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So that’s that, then. \u00a0The Terrigen cloud is done with, and the\u00a0attempt\u00a0with shoehorning the Inhumans into the mutants’ role seems to have run its course. \u00a0There are still\u00a0Inhumans titles to come in 2017, but they won’t\u00a0be squatting in the X-Men’s spot. \u00a0This is all for the best. \u00a0It was driven by considerations of corporate synergy 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