Humble pie/Good Setup
Okay so I should start by saying I posted on this site only 4 days ago that I was thinking of dumping this book see link
My reasoning was I'd become bored of the book, specifically this Wolverine story. I like Wolverine, I'm not one of these 'hate everything wolverine related' people but I did feel this crossover across x-23 and the wolverine relaunch was dragging the books down. I just don't care about Wolverine's trip to hell, if I did I'd buy Wolverine. Instead I buy Daken & X-23 to get a different type of book not just a clone (excuse the pun).
So all that aside I was very impressed with this issue, the writing and the art were exceptional. Although being fair, the writing and the art have been very good since the start it's just they've had very little to work with. So now we're moving on into the whole point of this book, Daken wants to build an empire and this story was a means to starting off that empire. Daken needed to fake his death and I think Johnny Storm's reaction really sold this to us a hell of a lot more than Mystique's reaction, considering all the theories on the web about the nature of the Daken/Torch relationship this was very well written. It made sense in light of Johnny's character and the continuity involved.
I was a little surprised at Mystique's armour, it was nice to see someone use their imagination with her powers rather than the usual change the face/appearance. I thought the art was very good in showing her changes but my favourite part of the art was Wolverine. He is very, very well drawn here. This is what Woverine should look like, he's got a pretty out there outfit but the artist tames it here. It might seem like nothing but think about the amount of books Wolverine appears in these days. It's so easy for an artist to go over the top with Wolverine but Giuseppe Camuncoli does a very good job of holding back and keeping it in context of the story.
Final thing I've got say is 'seeds'. There are enough planted in this issue here, Way & Liu haven't gone overboard and they've planted ones that make sense in light of continuity, that fit within Daken's world and are intrguing enough to make me think about sticking round on this book.
So all in all, humble pie for me and a recommendation for people to get involved with this series.
