Broken Frontier

The X-Men continue to be hounded by a mysterious face from their past that seems to know everyone without them knowing him.

At the end of the first issue, this new mysterious villain had shown up and basically mopped the floor with Wolverine, Cyclops, and Phoenix. Wolverine was left for dead as Scott and Rachel were taken captive. This issue starts to lead the way to the explanations. The reader realizes along with the characters that this is an old face haunting them, a very old face. The villain recognized both Scott and Rachel (although really he recognized her mother) while not having any idea who Logan was. So while Rachel and Scott attempt to free themselves from their captor and uncover his identity, Emma, Kitty, and Hank take time to free Logan from the government and then head back to the mansion to see what, if anything can be done there. In the meantime, more X-Men are having flashbacks of the past and Banshee comes to the states to share a newly uncovered secret.

I’m not really sure if my problem with this book comes from just the artwork or both the artwork and the writing. The only reason I point something like that out is because where I normally find Ed Brubaker to be an exceptional writer, this book feels very empty. It moves along, bouncing between characters, but never seems to be fulfilling. There’s a real lack of tension in this book. The dialogue seems generic rather than unique, simply done to move along the plot rather than add anything to it. Character dynamics are completely lost. In fact, the only place where anyone seems to be in character is when Havok loses his temper. Other than that, all of the characters seem to be cardboard cutouts of themselves. I find it hard to put too much blame on Brubaker though, based on his stellar track record and the enjoyment I got out of the Darwin backup story, and based on the emptiness of the artwork.

It would be easy to say that the lackluster artwork in this issue is based on the technique of having Trevor Hairsine put together layouts and letting inkers Scott Hanna and Mike Perkins do the finishes, but I actually think the artwork has improved in this issue from the last. In most spots, it isn’t overcrowded with Hairsine’s overused linework, but that was only half the problem. All of the images look too static; there is no punch or emotion to them at all. I thought that this was a coloring problem with issue #1, but even with Staples’ improved colors in this issue, the problem still doesn’t go away. The action scenes especially are not dynamic at all, everything feels empty. Even worse is Hairsine’s layouts and storytelling. While each panel is clear and the story is easy to follow, there is no natural progression. It almost seems as if he picked the wrong angle and progression from panel to panel. And when contrasted with Mark Silvestri’s impressive covers, one can only wonder why they didn’t hand him some money and get him to illustrate the whole book.

X-Men: Deadly Genesis has been labeled as a landmark book in X-Men history, which is odd since it was given that label before the first issue was released. Right now the only thing this book really has going for it is that hype.