X-Men #182: Just When I Thought I Was Out...

Hey, everyone. Hope all your Valentine’s Day celebrations are at the very least not suicide-inducing. Personally, my plans for tonight are as follows: I will be having a lovely candlelit dinner. After that I think I’ll watch a romantic comedy, followed by a night of pure passion. Unfortunately, I will also be spending Valentine’s alone.

Ba-dump bump. Tsshh.

X-MEN #182

It’s been quite some time (other than last month) since I’ve read an issue of X-Men. This is mainly due to the fact that with a few exceptions, X-books have been known to suck for quite some time. And at the time that I dropped this book, X-men (as opposed to Astonishing X-men, New X-men, Uncanny X-men, District X, etc.) was the worst of them. Actually, no. Uncanny X-men was the worst of them. X-men was, however, rather bad.

Anyways, I dropped the book over a year ago, and had no regrets. Sure, the book’s sucky writer Chuck Austen had just finished his even suckier run, and was being replaced by Peter Milligan, writer of my overall favourite series X-Statix. This was not enough to convince me that the series had any potential, and the lacklustre first few issues of Milligan’s run didn’t help none, neither.

Good riddance, I said.

But then, last month, I was checking out the shelves at Border City when the cover to X-Men #181 caught my attention. Now, here’s a quick tip if you want me to purchase your comic: put a picture of a member of X-Statix on the cover.

So I’m just in Border City, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I’m like “Hey Mike! What’s Doop doing on the cover of X-men?” and since Mike didn’t know he replied, “I dunno.” And then I was like “Well I’m going to buy it and find out.”

And then I bought it.

Anyways, that was last month. This is this month. I was disappointed to discover that Doop was nowhere to be found in this issue, but what I did find was a pretty engaging story, with some equally engaging artwork.

The basic premise for this new storyline, entitled “The Blood of Apocalypse,” is quite simple. Apocalypse is preparing a lot of the usual (most likely involving some people getting killed), and this issue is pretty much dedicated to him preparing his plans. However, there’s a lot of appeal to figuring out how his plans will play out. Perhaps the main source of appeal is in the mystery of who will become his four horsemen of the apocalypse. It appears he already has a Pestilence and a War, and has his sights on one other candidate for the third horseman. Which brings me to my next point, and the single most enjoyable aspect of this issue…

… Milligan makes Sunfire into a badass. What’s more, he makes Sunfire a badass despite (or perhaps thanks to) the fact that he has no legs. He doesn’t radically change the character, or give him new powers. He simply gives him a chance to “shine.” In the past issues I’ve seen with him, Sunfire’s always come off as a bit of a prick, and generally has gotten himself beaten up pretty badly as well. In this issue’s backup story, there’s still the beaten up jerk we know and love, yet I find myself in awe of what he has to go through, as well as the decision he makes at the end of the story, given his current situation. Seriously.

This issue is not, however, without its faults. The Rogue/Gambit developments by this time have gotten boring (I don’t think they were ever interesting) and even borderline painful, but not in a good way. I’d say that Milligan isn’t a good soap opera writer, but considering the intricate relationships found in X-Statix (man that was a good book), as well as the constantly crappy X-men soap opera plotline under ANY past writer (exceptions being Morrison and I suppose Whedon), I’d say that this is less Milligan's fault, and that maybe X-men should steer clear of this style altogether.

Still, I quite enjoyed this series, and have half a mind to go back and collect the stories I missed out on in the past year. Unfortunately, I hear that Milligan is leaving the book soon. Well, I’ll stick around until he leaves. Then we’ll see.

7.5 out of 10