Broken Frontier

Nick Spencer creates the most genuine X-Men story in years.

All mutants are being hunted for the crimes Magneto committed against the world, and while this takes place in the separate Ultimate universe, it feels like the most genuine X-Men story in years. Instead of living in a state-of-the-art school and getting experience in advanced training rooms with powerful, seasoned heroes watching over, Kitty, Bobby, and Johnny are living in sewers and battling against superior foes, desperately trying to save their dwindling numbers. Nick Spencer has given this rag-tag team of mutants a real cause to fight for, and it rocks.

Somehow the American government has become the Nazis and the mutants are the Jews, to borrow a comparison from World War II. Spencer gets deep into Kitty’s mind and explores the fear she feels and her desperation to survive. He also dissects Xavier’s dogma and shows why it was never a good idea for mutants to call themselves “The Tomorrow People.” Kitty has replaced those views with her own idealism about how people become fearful in the face of change. It’s “Out with the old, in with the new,” and it’s rife with tense, page-turning storytelling.

Paco Medina has an excellent style that embraces some cartoonish elements, but that is not a bad thing. Some of the characters look like action figures, especially the Sentinel-ized Stryker, but overall his pencils have a natural sense of motion and fluidity during the action, which is great since half of this issue is a fight scene against a team of Nimrods. Together, he and Spencer have created a bold X-Men tale that fleshes out the most dynamic aspect of the misunderstood mutants.