This is the prelude to CrossGens BIG event: Negation War. Kanes once fairly formidable group of Sigil – Bearers have been split, so what can he do? And has Charon been able to focus on anything other than Evinlea?

I was interested to see where the whole Evinlea, Charon situation would take us after the end of the last issue. But we have to wait till nearly the end before we see either of them. The book starts in a pretty non-descript boring fashion, with the whole point of making an already known point. And from there the story, well, it goes nowhere. We get a reveal of something that at one time may have garnered interest, but with the help of the bad dialogue it didn’t really have much impact. Bedard does however end the story on a very intriguing note though.

The art is a real let down in this issue. Ever since the whole CrossGen problem saga started there has been a downward spiral in quality and this is a big example. Now Pelletier’s pencils were fine, but what really affected the whole feel of the issue was the inking and colouring. Meikis’ inks seemed too heavy a lot of the time and Molinar’s colours seemed to fluctuate all the time from passable to completely off. What really brings all this into perspective is the high in detail preview of Lady Death at the end of the book. This is how good Negation used to be and it’s a shame it’s no longer at this standard.

Report Card - D