There’s so much fertile ground with krakoa and now Mars, but it just turns into excuses for people to fight each other. Sometimes in interesting ways, usually not, though. And some big threat comes before the changes have even remotely been interrogated by the writers. Everything cool about the change ups have been shot past, except for the brief run of New Mutants, which was absolutely exceptional.

One of the more surprising intersections with Krakoa era X-Men. When it was established in House of X Powers of X, Sabretooth was thrown in an eternal prison of the mind for killing humans on a black bag mission for the council. Proving their Justice was part and parcel to human justice. Only in this mind prison, Sabretooth hatches a scheme with other incarcerated people in a bid for freedom. In so doing, it does, lightly, touch on the nature of justice, but quickly segues into a heist type thing and sets up a future arc. I’d have wished it was more thematically deep, but even the concept is far more interesting than what most did with this shake up.

While the aesthetic doesn’t break new ground, and the story has some contrivances, this was very enjoyable. It has great art and character design and a fun plot, moves quickly. The ending was rushed and I’m not disposed to cyberpunk with aliens, so I’m sure plenty of people would like it more than me.

3.5 rounded up

A retro cyberpunk comic, both in plot and aesthetic, set in a futuristic Venezuela where most people are incarcerated, it’s a police state, and there’s open warfare between the police—the last lucrative job available to the average person—and street gangs. It’s a pretty standard setup.

When two boys are ushered home by their father as the city is going into lockdown, a surprise raid happens and the family is ripped apart, with the boys being set on opposite paths that collide as the story unfolds.

All expression of identity is regurgitating rhetoric that’s found around the favelas and it’s mostly all frenetic action, but it’s not brainless fun only, which I appreciated. Though, I will say I love the art and the action sequences look fantastic. Every panel is high contrast and gritty, with the paper being an interesting choice. It’s not matte and feels, again, very old-school. It does sometimes wash out the colour, but most of the time it does augment the artwork and palette. And the feel allows for it to distinguish itself further.

I really liked the ending and had this been a bit more substantive I think it’d have reached to a 5 star heights, but it is necessarily simplistic and so boils down to a really fun ride that reiterates trodden ground in the sub-genre.

An interesting development, but puffed out like all events seem to be. So there’s a new planet and new substance created by mutants used for trade and establish coin, and they made mars a planet. Makes sense. I read this primarily because X Men Red is on some peoples top lists of the year and I’d already read Hickman’s previous run, so why not start at the beginning.

Clearly, Mosley is a fan of classic Marvel, because this was very retro in very fun ways. It also makes sense that it’s polarizing, because older plots were more about exciting twists that often felt only foreshadowed but not explained, which is what the plot beats for this does. I think the art style would dip people off to this off the get-go, though. There are a lot of twists that are fun to roll with, for all the characters and how they know each other and how they relate to one another. It even gets into cosmic territory, which I love. And I think the foreshadowing Mosley does in later twists really showcase how much of a fan he is of those old comics, because he certainly drew from some esoteric material. It also inverts power dynamics in classic quests like this, which I thought was a breath of fresh air. Great stuff.

Even more enjoyable thank the first volume. This time the threat is much more directly Thanos and trying to find a way to get him out of the Eternal network—only he became Eternal Prime with so many people not on the scene to select someone. Very sneaky. I continue to love the art, though you can tell when he’s rushed, it’s still miles better than the cartoony looking stuff that is the industry default.

All of this has literally already happened, except now there’s even more weird things. There’s two daredevils and he’s got a brother who… poses as Matt Murdock or something? Enough to be confused for him. And then there’s another civil war act thing, but only in NYC. It’s all a contrived rehash, and I haven’t read comics in a few years. Obviously not a self contained event you can just pick up if you haven’t been reading Daredevil. But, why would I when it’s all the same stuff? They’re off to go fight the hand in the end. How cyclical is that run? I don’t know how people could stand it.

I loved the direction this one took over the second one, which I didn’t care for. We follow characters in the human fleet, off the back of a tragedy that forces the fleet to get outside help. Learning about every aspect of life (and death), through young and old characters, and simply see how the shake up of the event alters their lives.

It’s a quiet story. Chambers is interested in the minutia of lives being lived in science fiction, not the bombastic space opera conflicts the market is used to. Her interest bleeds through into the fiction and is an effective motivator. The first book was more novel, I think, as generation ships are not new—but her exploration of the average lives being protagonists is clearly a niche of very few. And that makes her story telling feel fresh and compelling. It’s also clear her writing is improved from the first book, and I think this book is well executed because it takes what worked from the first two books, so clearly she’s continuing to evolve. I was almost done with the series with the second book, but I already owned this and thought I’d continue on. Glad I did! Would read the next one too, after this positive experience.

What a great middle grade comic. It’s focus on character interactions and earnestness with regards to making things right when you do something wrong, and the response from people when you do so, is just very heartwarming. It’s classic, simple storytelling with fantastic art and cool artwork and surprising conflicts. And lots of kicking butt when that needs to happen too. Reads like watching a classic cartoon, including the ending.