X-Men #33 Review - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
X-Men #33 Review
By Andy Frisk
August 11, 2012 - 00:51

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Brian Wood
Penciller(s): David Lopez
Inker(s): Alvaro Lopez
Colourist(s): Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer(s): VC's Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist(s): Jorge Molina
$3.99 US

In "Blank Generation Conclusion" Storm's X-Men team finally confronts David Michael Gray, the scientist behind the recent manipulation and creation of ancient mutant protos from ancient mutant DNA. His story ends "badly," as Colossus confirms, but a few questions remain: is this the last we've seen of Mr. Gray and will Storm/Ororo tell Cyclops/Scott what she has discovered?

Changing the very definition of what it means to be a mutant in the Marvel Universe, albeit in a subtle and more intellectual and scientific way, Brian Wood has quietly introduced the most interesting new big idea to the Marvel Universe, and he did in all in a scant few issues of X-Men. As readers of my X-Book, and other comics, reviews here at ComicBookBin know, I really love Brian Wood's work and I was really worried that his taking over X-Men would ruin my experience of it. Victor Gischler did such a great job launching the title a few years ago that I didn't want to see him go (and I do still miss his take on the X-Men), but Wood, with his different approach, has managed to craft one of the best X-story arcs I've read in a long time. That's saying a great deal about X-Men #30 through #33, as there has been a plethora of good X-story arcs recently.

Wood's artistic collaborators, David and Alvaro Lopez, continue to bring Wood's intelligent character driven work to life by employing some fantastic facial and body language to X-Men's cast of characters. Their landscapes and images, like the one of Psylocke standing on the beach, half submerged in the ocean, at sundown are also quite beautiful and telling.

There's plenty of good X-reads out there now (albeit they are pretty diluted right now with AvX crossover stuff), but X-Men just might be the new best of the bunch.

Rating: 9.5/10