X-Men #37

X-Men #37 Review

Overview:

Pixie and Gabriel Shepard have a talk while Storm and Colossus have a more physical confrontation.

The Good:

The scope of Brian Wood’s run on this series is big, very big and when writing big stories over multiple arcs, the story can collapse on itself and become terrible. That is not the case here. Several plot points come together here, Pixie and Gabriel Shepard’s conversation is about the previous issue and some things before that and Storm and Colossus’s conversation has been coming since Wood started writing the book. The high point of the issue is Pixie, she doesn’t do much but seeing a character who is pure and not a jaded anti-hero who hates everyone and thinks the world is against them is so refreshing. Here it is obvious that even though she is a teenage girl, she doesn’t fill her life with drama or go out of her way for it, she is just a nice person who, despite how bad things get, always tries to find the bright side and it is very nice to see.

Brian Wood does an amazing job with the writing in the issue and it fits in so well with the rest of the story that it is just amazing. Pixie and Storm are perfect in this and every character is very lifelike.

David Lopez’s art is perfect for this series and compliments the story very well, the emotion on the characters faces is very well done. Again complimenting his pencils are Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors which make the story even better.

The Bad:

While the story can handle itself and its size, it is broken up into a bunch of two and three part arcs that are all connected but vary in their tone, some are action heavy and some are expository and some are fairly straight forward. While this isn’t terrible, it is a little jarring and sometimes seems like it would be a slightly different story if it was one or two five part arcs or something.

I know that this book ignored AvX but seeing Cyclops is a little weird since in just about every other book he is in prison from the event.

Another thing is that the book doesn’t have the best character balance, while some characters are featured heavily in every issue, Storm and Psylocke, some are featured lightly, Pixie and Colossus, leaving Domino hanging around. In this issue, she is in one panel and has zero lines while Sabra, a guest character get a page-full, what is the point of having Domino on the team if she doesn’t do anything. It is a shame to see her wasted but she appears to get some focus in the next issue so we’ll see.

Verdict:

Another great issue from a ridiculously good and underrated creative team that consistently has a great story to tell and will leave any fan of the series wanting more. The polarity of the two stories being told here really shows how the characters are different and their age is a bit of a factor. Over all any fan of the X-Men should be reading this book.

4.5 out of 5