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X-Men: Battle Of The Atom

by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron & Brian Wood

(Art by Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen, David Lopez, Chris Bachalo, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Esad Ribic, Wade Von Grawbadger, Cam Smith, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba, Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Andrew Currie, Terry Pallot, Tom Palmer, Kristopher Anka and Matt Milla)

The presence of the time-displaced original X-Men in the modern era is causing unforeseen problems with the timeline, drawing X-Men from further in the future to intervene, along with a future iteration of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  As the young X-Men become the focus of all out conflict, even the likes of Cyclops and Wolverine have to put aside their differences to prevent a catastrophe.

This book is an absolute mess.  Countless characters have murky motivations and/or swap sides across the course of the story, we're forced to try to keep straight three different timelines (four, if you include the future that Rachel Summers is from) and then we're given multiple iterations of various characters (there are four Icemen at one point).  Trying to maintain a handle on exactly what's supposed to be happening and who's on which side at any given moment is incredibly difficult and, honestly, not actually very rewarding if you achieve it.

What makes all of this worse is the fact that the whole focus of the titular battle is to get the original X-Men back to their own time or not, and then we discover that it can't happen anyway for some mysterious reason which isn't revealed here.  It makes the entire endeavour feel totally pointless.

There are some good moments in this book but overall it is so much less than the sum of its parts.

1 out of 5

X-Men & Ghost Rider: Brood Trouble In The Big Easy

by Scott Lobdell & Howard Mackie

(Art by Jim Lee, Ron Wagner and Mike Witherby)

A crossover story in which the X-Men and Ghost Rider (obviously) get drawn into the blood feud between New Orleans' thieves and assassins.  However, there is a much more dangerous foe in play; the ravenous alien race known as the Brood.

Honestly, there's not much to love about this book.  It's very short, not very deep and, to make matters worse, I found myself reading the very poorly edited version published by Boxtree in the UK.  It's like it was stitched together by someone who'd never read a graphic novel and didn't realise comics could be seamlessly edited together if you put in just a tiny bit of work.  If you read other editions of this book you won't have this problem, however.

What you will have are the problems that are inherent to the story.  Namely, none of the characters really gets any time to shine due to the bizarre decision to have the entire population of the X-Mansion head for New Orleans on what is, mostly, a personal matter for Gambit.  This would've been far better if maybe it had only been Gambit, Wolverine and Ghost Rider in play.  And maybe Jubilee because I like her relationship with Logan.  As it is, no-one is done justice by cramming everyone in.  The Brood are a crap, cheap rip-off of the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise too, so having them be the baddies just makes it all worse.

Honestly, this book's one redeeming feature is only present part of the time; Jim Lee's iconic artwork.  I used to own a t-shirt with his famous X-Men montage image on it.  I miss that shirt.  I won't miss this book.

2 out of 5

X-O Manowar: Retribution

by Bob Layton,  Jim Shooter  & Steve Englehart

(Art by Barry Windsor-Smith, Sal Velluto, Mike Manley, Bob Layton, Tom Ryder, Ted Halsted, Ralph Reese, Kathryn Bolinger and John Holdredge)

The very first book of the original X-O Manowar series.  The Visigoth warrior Aric was captured by aliens and placed in stasis two millennia ago but he manages to break free aboard their spaceship and seizes control of a suit of powerful technological armour; the X-O Manowar.  A man out of time, Aric returns to Earth and attempts to adapt to the modern world whilst taking the fight to the aliens secretly living there.

X-O Manowar has a special place in my heart due to having played the game and read the comics of the crossover with Marvel's Iron Man back in the mid-90s.  Therefore it was nice to go back and read the origins of the character who went on to become Valiant Comics' most recognisable.

What I particularly liked here, and the core idea for the character as explained in the introduction, is the concept of a barbarian warrior from Earth's ancient past gaining control of an advanced alien race's most powerful weapon.  It's a great juxtaposition of brutal primitive and high technology and makes for X-O Manowar's most individual element (I almost wrote 'most unique' there but then shuddered at how much that phrase irritates me when others use it).  There is a downside, however, in that Aric's speech patterns rapidly become irritating once he actually becomes communicative.  He definitely makes a better silent hero!

3 out of 5