New X-Men #153 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
New X-Men #153
By Nathan Patton
February 20, 2004 - 13:06

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Grant Morrison
Penciller(s): Marc Silvestri
Cover Artist(s): Marc Silvestri

Mr. Morrison has some explaining to do. We are three issues into this arc, not to mention one month away from the final issue of his run, and there are a lot of things left unexplained. This is set 150 years into the future of the X-men and the world is, of course, dark and dreary for our mutants. If Grant is able to end his run in a satisfying way after he just seems to be asking more questions every issue, he will solidify himself as arguably the third most important creator to ever take on the characters.

All of the confusion aside, I will say that I enjoyed this issue a lot more than I have enjoyed this book for a while. I don't know if my weird decipherer was turned to the on position finally or what, but a lot more of this issue made sense to me. Characters, whose identities were slightly ambiguous before, came out and definitively revealed themselves--in my mind at least. And the pacing was a lot more dead on-so much in fact that my heart started beating a little faster in a very tense moment towards the end.

This is also Silvestri's best issue so far in this arc. He was a lot cleaner and more precise, which I had heard cited as a major problem others had with his art. Maybe the slightly more dynamic action scenes were really what built it up, but his dynamics are vastly improved from last issue. I have read some of Morrison's X-Men scripts, that he has made available, and they are sparse in most places. So I am sure that coming up with the beautifully dark landscape of the future was a task that Silvestri certainly stepped up to and completed with near perfection. I'm looking forward to what he might attempt after this.

Best Features: The gorgeous landscapes and interesting new characters.
Worst Flaws: The poetic but still a little confusing dialogue.
Cool New Character We Will Probably Never See Again: Mer-Max.

Rating: 9/10