REVIEW: X-Men Second Coming ø7

Things appear to be back on track with X-Men: Second Coming Chapter ø7 after the frustrations of last issue. After some time away, I can say that Chapter ø6 was decent despite its imperfections but this week’s installment is solid. Spoilers next.

Ibraim Roberson was the artist I was least familiar with coming into this crossover, but after this issue I think I can say that he’s the most consistent of the group. Dodson, Land, and Choi have been good for most of an issue during the series, but there always seems to be something that irks me at some point during their books. This hasn’t been the case with Roberson, and his second issue of New Mutants is much stronger than his first.

Adi Granov’s cover art this week is simply spectacular. This is one of two images that really stayed with me from the previews in the months leading up to the start of Second Coming, and I can’t say enough good things about it. David Finch’s variant cover for the issue is decent, but not nearly as compelling as Granov’s. It’s interesting to note that no member of the New Mutants team appears on common cover (Dani Moonstar is on the variant), but I suppose that’s bound to happen when all of the X-Men mainstays are involved in a story. It still would have been nice to get one of them in.

Zeb Wells more than makes up for the team’s absence on the cover by making them present in all the action within. Not an easy task with all the things happening around them. The New Mutants have taken some serious casualties saving Hope and they’re not shy about pointing it out. Wells manages to handle this in a way that doesn’t seem forced simply to get the characters some face time.

The action away from the team is handled well too as long-time characters Vanisher and Donald Pierce have significant roles in the issue. The Vanisher was the last teleporter the X-Men had available and it was sad to see him taken out by Bastion’s forces. His return as part of X-Force has been great fun, and it’s nice to see a character that’s been around since X-Men #2 get some attention. Pierce had been locked down in on Utopia since the end of the Young X-Men series and sacrifices himself to trap the X-Men on the island by destroying their hangar. He has a few pages showcasing his hatred toward mutantkind and is eventually hit with a heavy blast from Cyclops. Both apparent deaths were somewhat inconclusive, so we may be seeing these characters again soon.

This was a very satisfying piece of the larger Second Coming whole and sits somewhere between a 3 and 4 (leaning more toward a 4) on my meaningless rating scale. Next week is another issue of Mike Carey’s X-Men: Legacy so I’m fully expecting another high quality book.

More on X-Men: Second Coming
Chapter ø6 / Chapter ø8