Magneto (2014) #21 Final Issue Review
And so it ends here, with Magneto #21. There’s not a lot to say folks, so I’ll be quick in condensing my thoughts on the conclusion of this series and its perspective on Magneto! Read on!
Okay, the comic opens with a flashback to Magneto’s first fight with the X-Men. In this fight, he pronounces mutants as the new overlords of humanity while handing them their asses, and when we go to the present we find him acknowledging the irony of the situation. The world thinks he’s here to turn a new leaf, a lie the desperate tell themselves as the world is coming to an end.
Another flashback shows when he sinks a Russian submarine because they are preparing to launch a missile in retaliation for him threatening all the governments of the world. He intends to use them as an example. As they die and he watches, he knows there is no redemption and that hasn’t changed now. He sees and himself as a monster, now and forever.
Polaris can only watch on as he does this, having lost her powers. Briar comes up to her and offers her a hand, explaining that he took them because he didn’t want to sacrifice her. Polaris simply states he’s only lying to himself and her believing that. For him, the ends justify the means.
In another flashback her words are proven true as Magneto is talking with Charles and the X-Men, refusing to come to court for laws he doesn’t recognize. Charles warns that the way he does things won’t get the results he wants because it does more harm than good, but then some suits come up to him and tell him they acknowledge Genosha as his land. Not the good way to send a message.
It seems like he’s pushing back the other world back in the present, but Briar can see that’s not the case. His body can’t withstand the power and turns to ashes with nothing left behind, realizing that everything he’d done to this point has taken away everything from him for nothing. The comic ends with the world being destroyed.
Okay, review time.
There’s not much to write home about in the issue. It was the final one and, as we see, Magneto failed in the end. For both the issue and the series itself… well, there was no getting around how it was going to end. This massive crossover crap was always going to ruin it. The art was about the same and we mostly just looked into the final thoughts of a man who thrived on violence and murder to accomplish a goal, only for it to all be meaningless in the end. It’s a shaggy dog story, with the best anyone will be able to say was that he tried.
That’s it.
I give the issue a 3 out of 5, and the series as a whole a 3.5 out of 5. I liked the introspective into it, but the art wasn’t spectacular. The ending was screwed by the crossover, and ultimately everything that was sacrificed for was for nothing.
All New X-Factor #16 Review (AXIS Tie-In)
Okay, we’re following up on the events of AXIS on the Serval Team in All-New X-Factor #16 and here’s my review!
The comic opens with the Sentinels attacking Serval fruitlessly in order to retrieve the nuclear football. Harrison entertains the thought of letting them into the barrier to prevent them from being affected by the Hate Plague but they’re on orders so it wouldn’t help. Lorna does point out that they will try to get in some way though, which is proven when they go and kidnap his wife.
Meanwhile Pietro is feeling bored watching with his daughter when Lorna comes up and asks him about what Wanda said about him spying on them. But asking I mean she slaps him hard enough to knock the speedster down and he points out they have bigger issues but explains why he quit the Avengers. She took more offense to that second-stringer line than the whole spying thing, but any further discussion is cut off when the Sentinel with Harrison wife gives him a minute to drop the shield before he crushes her, to which she tells the robot she’s screwed because he won’t do it.
He doesn’t as he can’t let them get the nuclear football so the team acts to bring the robots and/or the dome down. Doug gets it down before Pietro saves her but he gets hit and then Warlock gets taken out. Danger takes offense to this and turns their Sentinels onto one another until Longshot and Sunfire arrive as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
Uh… we see some developments in regards to the team, like Danger going off when they hurt Warlock and Lorna confronting Pietro, but there’s something missing I feel. Maybe because they’re dragging it out longer than World War Hate.
Meh, a 4 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #15 (AXIS Tie-In) Review
Okay, AXIS is in full swing and right now we’re getting a tie-in in the form of All-New X-Factor #15. Who will fall to the hate-plague running rampant around world on our corporate team? Read on and find out!
The story opens with the president getting ready to start a nuclear war with Russia and abandons his family at the White house, where they would likely return fire. See what happens when you don’t vote in Marvel Universe? Anyway the soldier carrying the nuclear football trips and when they’re in the air they discover the briefcase holding it only contains magazines. So while that poor bastard is getting the Guantanamo treatment we skip back to the scene and see that Quicksilver stole it and left the poor bastard to suffer.
The Serval team is working overtime to try and stop Washington from burning. Unfortunately an implant that Warlock gave Gambit burns out and he has to go replace it while Georgia, Luna, and Cypher deal with a riot when the police try to kill Luna, upon which Quicksilver saves her and knocks them out. Oh, and Georgia wants the uniform.
Back with Gambit, he tries to kill Lorna, who states she doesn’t mind if he goes after her brother and sister, but she draws the line when it comes to her. He… really kinda does her up. If it weren’t for Warlock she would have died, but he gets the implant back in to stop the hatred and Gambit apologizes.
Back at the base they are spared from the hate wave by the barrier, but since the nuclear football has a GPS they get found out. The president sends Sentinels to deal with them as the comic ends. Figures.
Okay, review time.
I’m not really sure how much value this has because it drew away from the last issue with Wanda outing Quicksilver as a mole. But Marvel just can’t seem to help but do tie-ins, so it’s a moot point anyway . 3 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #14 Review + Rant
Well, after the family bonding moment last issue why stop now? In my review of All New X-Factor #14 we look into what happens when Wanda pops up to complete the Children of Magneto arc. No, it’s not a real arc but still…. Also, as soon as the review is over I’m going on a minor rant, fair warning.
Anyway, the comic begins with Danger asking Polaris if she wants to have sex. Polaris is promptly confused, but Danger simply wants to experience what it feels like. It’s then that Wanda pops up, with whom Danger has a better chance to score with. Now my feelings on her and what she’s done are plain as the day is blue in the middle of a cloudless summer sky, so I won’t go on a four page rant about it. I don’t really need to given that Polaris points it out and Wanda is only exasperated because she’s still holding it against her, which proves my point as much as Uncanny Avengers did.
Wanda has come to try and reconnect with her, although given the timing that seems a little contrived, but Danger suggest that they go to an old medieval fair and they’re off. There’s also a subplot about some jealous prick, but he’s a nobody and no one cares for shoehorned drama. There’s not really much to go on, Wanda wants to do some sibling bonding since Quicksilver doesn’t socialize well while Danger looks like Doctor Doom in a cloak and then the jealous guy tries to murder his ex-girlfriend in a witch burning that the three promptly stop and do something that’s in all rights illegal if Polaris actually let him die.
After that they go to a bar and Wanda tries to get Polaris to join the sellouts now that Quicksilver quit. Again, contrived timing for her to show up and she even reveals that Havok had Quicksilver join as a spy in a casual manner, which is something you would expect them to keep a secret so it doesn’t get back to the people you’re spying on. I swear Havok sent her and is sitting in a chair with his fingers steepled like Mr. Burns and saying “Excellent” since he knows that’s going to fuck up the team cohesion.
There’s also a minor incident where two of the dumbest robbers in history try to hit a bar that hasn’t even been open long enough to get a decent amount of money and has three super-powered heroines who should have tied them to a pole or something but let them go instead since they have the gun clips, I mean it isn’t like they can buy more or anything.
Okay, review time
There are some things that don’t make sense, like why Danger needs a cloak when she has holographic technology or why they let the bad guys go, but those are minor compared to the fact that Wanda has once again fucked up in a way that has created more shoehorned drama that I don’t like in a comic I do. I mean she couldn’t be satisfied with just getting some character development that may have lightened the immense dislike I had of her, which they sucked at attempting for the record, but she had to fuck over Quicksilver after he just had his and started getting into my good books.
Before I start ranting further, the comic gets a 2 out of 5 for being mediocre with the only plot relevant thing on the last page.
Now, I honestly don’t know whether to blame the writers who make her an unrepentant bitch or the character entirely.
It’s bad enough they made her a goddamn reason for the long-ass Twin Apocalypse and Planet-X part of Uncanny Avengers, which I still peruse and then toss in the garbage like Linkara because fire is too good for it, but they are intent on trying to make her unlikable with the whole Children’s Crusade retcon, which didn’t work either because she’s on a steady supply of bitch pills and Doctor Doom could do better.
Whether there’s a mandate at Marvel saying make her unredeemable or the authors stuck at redemption stories I don’t know, but you’d think at some point they’d just say fuck it all and send her to get some mental help or slap a power dampener on her so she doesn’t go on another genocide kick because of Daddy issues that made it possible for men like Red Skull and the Purifiers to take advantage of the damage left behind on top of the millions who died when their powers went haywire.
Honestly, this is the reason I cheered when Rogue gutted her and then swore when they made her apologize after Wanda finished banging Wonder Man. I think I speak for all of us that a happy ending involves her being depowered and living a humble life out of sight and mind. At this point death is too good for her character so going into comic book limbo would be more fitting.
All-New X-Factor #7 Review
This lackluster issue didn’t really do much for me, but I’ve already reviewed the last six issues so I may as well continue.
The story begins with the daughter of an anti-mutant bigot whining because she’s not allowed to leave home. I can understand that. Then daddy comes in to see her web-show and decides it’s time for them to go and his guard shoots the web-camera because he doesn’t know how to turn it off. He’s clearly not the brightest tool in the shed.
Meanwhile, at Serval, Snow is trying to have his side-chick, Linda, calm down after being confronted by his wife about their nightly trysts. He tells her that his wife is bluffing (I doubt it) and then meets with Lorna to ask about why they didn’t off the Magus. At the same time Danger is reading a book written by the bigot from before, Scott Drake, and Pietro is offended. They argue about politics of it when the book is a spy-thriller when it just so happens that Doug found that web-show of his daughter. Since Pietro has daddy issues and she clearly has some too, he decides to do something about it.
When they bring up the topic Lorna correctly points out that kidnapping is what they’re planning and that might not look so good for a super-hero team that’s corporate. It’s made apparent that they don’t really care and they manage to convince her to join in the kidnapping plan as Pietro gets called in to report to Havok.
He runs in and tells him about the Magus, and Havok asks why he didn’t take him down as well. Like Lorna, he states running a corporation isn’t evil…at first anyway. If the Magus is here illegally I’m sure they can contact SWORD. That or those superheroes who appeared in Scarlet Spider since the Midwest is severely lacking.
Then he ditches him to go flying with the others, while Gambit admits that while he’s focusing on the small scale of someone who needs help rather than the grand scale of things, if she wasn’t the daughter of a bigot he wouldn’t care. At least he’s honest.
They land and go knocking on his door and get warned to leave in five seconds or they’d get gunned down. That goes about as well as expected since the moment they open up the doors the corpses are revealed to be hard-light constructs while Pietro knocks them out. They meet up with Georgia, who it turns out is a fangirl.
They try to tell her they’re here to save her, she thinks she’s fine and wants to stay. Doug tries to tell her she should come with them and doesn’t let go when she tells him to. Apparently she’s a mutant or something and has the same power set as Wither because he ends up getting mummified and she acts all cool about it as the comic ends…
Okay, review time…
Let’s be real here, they were kidnapping her. Don’t get me wrong, rescuing abused children from their homes is always a good thing in comics…well, most times. But X-factor is supposed to be a superhero team, a corporate one nonetheless, but heroes. This was blatant kidnapping of the same vein of the Avengers in AvsX with Hope.
As much as I hate anti-mutant bigots, and may the Purifiers burn in hellfire, he hasn’t broken any laws. You kind of have to agree they stormed private property, assaulted his men, and then tried kidnapping his daughter. I expect this from villains. The fact that the girl was a mutant only came up after they broke in to take her.
It’s clear he’s keeping her locked away because as a bigot he can’t have his daughter being a mutant coming out. Doesn’t help that he probably pissed of f the X-Men by being a bigot, since they usually deal with mutants who need help. His options were limited and swallowing humble pie is never easy, but consider that I’ve seen worse fathers I have to say he’s not exactly doing anything wrong.
Now, until the next issue makes some things clear, I have to say X-Factor were in the wrong. Either way, the issue gets a 3 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #5 Review
Out of one murder attempt by a future member and into another as All-New X-Factor #5 picks up shortly after the end of the previous issue. This is my review of it.
This time around the story opens with Gambit waking up to find a woman in his room while he’s naked beneath the sheets. While this probably wouldn’t be uncommon for him, he didn’t invite Danger to bed last night so he’s confused as hell when he finds her there. She claims that his kiss reset some of her functions, but she needs more interaction to become whole. Better than nothing as an excuse to why kissing her worked I supposed.
It seems that Gambit isn’t the only one who woke with a pretty woman in his room. Harrison Snow, like all married but corrupt CEOs, is having an affair with Linda from his company. Their post-coitus talk is of a new player on the computer market that Harrison wants to buy out and he’s having a meeting with him later on. As he leaves out, he tells her to be out by the time his wife gets back from her business trip and then goes about his day with a swagger in his step.
Quicksilver and Polaris are already up, sharing breakfast and exchanging obscure trivia when Gambit tells them Danger is in his room. Polaris brings up the possibility that she wants him sexually, and Quicksilver sees nothing wrong with it. Then again, their sister married Vision and then magic’d up some kids so…
Anyway, Harrison pops by to tell them he wants them at the meeting and Quicksilver runs out to tell Havok, who somehow comes out acting like even more of a sell-out asshole than normal. He’s like one of those damn stalkers who have a PI following your every step. Quicksilver makes it back to Serval before they think he’s done in the bathroom, smooth as silk, only for Danger to sense his vitals and know he’s been running, but he gets out of it by lying. Same goes for Linda when Danger notes that she has Harrsion’s DNA on her in a way that only comes from being intimate with one another.
The meeting takes two turns, the first being the guy who Harrison planned to buy out turned to be The Magus, an enemy leader of an alien race. Danger discovers this by putting her hand through his chest, and Polaris gives its metallic butt a one-way trip out of the building. The second is when Warlock shows up defending his father, before the two of them split.
I’m sure they didn’t wake up planning to get into a brawl, but now that they were in it they were going to get some answers. And so, as the comic ends, Polaris suggests they pay a little visit to Doug Ramsey aka Cypher of the X-Men, aka the guy who can talk to anything and read any language.
A bit more crude humor-wise, but character development is always welcomed. I’ll give it a 4 out of 5.
All-New X-Factor #4 Review
Its comic book day today and thus it’s also time for my reviews, with the first of the day being All-New X-Factor #4.
The comic picks up where we last left off, with Danger being freed and subsequently deciding to go the usual evil robot route of killing everyone present after she’s dealt with her captor. Gambit tries to reason with her, but she claims she doesn’t know who he is and blasts him with a rocket punch before looking to find Nil gone. He’s fleeing the scene, passing by Jean-Luc as the building explodes and leaves the guy to the mercy of the angry robot.
Gambit intervenes to save Jean-Luc, while Quicksilver saves him. Danger then catches up to Nil, with it being revealed he took her memory from her and offers to give them back. She decides to go without them as long as she gets to kill him, but Quicksilver once again intervenes to save the guy and Danger decides to take off the kid gloves by generating Hard-Light holograms to trick Quicksilver into running off of a cliff.
Lorna stops their fall by levitating them and gives Danger one opportunity to surrender, which she refuses. The mistress of magnetism then tears her apart, causing an argument with Gambit since she and he have a difference of opinion on the robot that was trying to kill them. That ends when Danger turns out to have inhabited their plane, which is something that Gambit should have remembered she could do earlier, and opens fire on them.
While Lorna stops the plane, Gambit faces off against a construct of her and tries to reason with her again on the belief that there is still a part of her that remembers their bond. That’s tested when Danger blows apart the escape ship Nil was boarding, subdues Lorna by distracting her with an image of her father rocking his new solo series outfit, and Gambit arrives to stop her from killing the 150 year old technomancer by following Disney’s mandate and kissing her.
It worked, of course. Danger calmed down and they gave her memories back to her. Then the comic ended with Gambit asking her to join X-Factor since she had nowhere to go, much to Lorna’s displeasure.
Okay, review time.
I can’t lie. I didn’t really like how the comic issue was resolved. In the first place, the “Kissing cures amnesia’” thing is really played out. They could have done a better job with it. Then again, this was basically an excuse plot so that they could add her to the roster and at least it ended quickly.
Secondly, Danger kept putting off killing them to get to Nil when it would have been in her best interest to simply kill them and go about her way. That’s poorly done, unless they justify it by her programming hindering her from doing so or at least show that she had fragments of memories whenever it came up. If the villains aren’t going to actually kill off the characters, or make a solid attempt, then they shouldn’t say so.
In the end, I can only give this an average score of 3 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 