Hope They Survive The Experience: Reviewing ‘Dark X-Men’ #1

Sometimes in life, it’s really truly good to be bad. Like when government-backed fascists wipe out an entire nation. The Fall Of X has come hard, and with Krakoa and its people scattered, darker elements will have to rise to save the day.

Since the beginning of the Krakoa era, titles that feature characters that generally are categorized as villains have been quite common. To be fair they’re pretty common in comics these days period. Villains and anti-heroes have a heftier share of the publishing page count than they used to. I guess sometimes readers just feel good being bad too.

All that aside, Dark X-Men does its own thing beyond sharing the villainous DNA with its forebearers. Thanks to the Spider-Man & X-Men event Dark Web, Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Jean Grey, has her life back. From a villain in Hellions and Dark Web to the queen of Limbo with her own NYC embassy and hellish team of X-Men. That’s quite the fiery glow up right there.

Steve Foxe, Jonas Scarf, Frank Martin, and Clayton Cowles bring us this latest entry into the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time period for Marvel’s Merry Mutants. Foxe, Martin, and Cowles are also involved in a backup story where they are joined by Nelson Dániel on the art.

Yes, this is a bloody and injury/death-filled comic befitting its name. Beyond that though, it has a lot of character stuff and pays respect to a lot of eras of the X. Foxe has a solid grasp of the entire line and these characters, bringing back many we haven’t seen in years. None of them are continuity anchors though, as their inclusion makes sense in many cases.

Of course, Azazel and Emplate would be hiding out at the Limbo embassy rather than being on Krakoa. Orchis getting their own Wolverine with the cyborg Albert is just brilliant (also how dare they with Elsie Dee’s fate!). Gambit, Archangel, and Maggott still playing hero trying to save Carmen Cruz/Gimmick (from the Children Of The Atom series) fits them. Overall, there is a ton packed into here in a way that never feels like there is too much stuff.

Hell, there is even a cliffhanger calling back to both Secret Wars of 2015 and the subsequent X-Books that spun out of its aftermath. Unexpected yet expected at the same time. Well done, very well done.

With the death of Jean Grey following the Hellfire Gala, Maddie is using the resources around her to do what Jean would do and find X-Men. It’s not necessarily the type of people that Jean might turn to (outside of Archangel and Gambit probably), but it’s a solid move.

Personally, I believe that the X-Line always benefits from creators that have a heavier character-focused hand, because we do love that X-Soap Opera stuff. Well, I should say, that most of us like it, mileage might vary for others.

Darkness and the pain of this time are felt in every facet of the artwork too. Scarf and Martin manage to present visuals that are heavy, detailed, soaking in shadows, and very toned-down darker colors. It’s quite rough at some points, on purpose, to really play into the tone. Yet, to match the character work all the emotions are very clear and the colors shift to match them quite well.

Martin’s colors provide the consistency needed through the issue, as both art styles benefit from them. It makes sure that the overwhelming darkness permeating around these characters never lessens. Dániel’s artwork in the backup story keeps some of the elements of the first story but also has a bit more whimsical appeal. Some might say it’s got a bit of adorableness to it, especially that final shot of Havok at the end.

As a concept, I can appreciate what the backup is trying to do. Essentially it’s a piece that ends up showing the how and why all these “bad” mutants ended up at the Limbo embassy. It’s more a piece about Havok and how he’s trying to find his way with Maddie and her world. I like the Havok parts, while the how folks got there stuff falls a bit flat for me. Mainly because we don’t need to see it, since the first story took care of the how/why with a few lines.

That being said, the shift in overall tone in the story, including the aforementioned artwork change, kind of works. It finds the humor in the dark without losing the bleakness of the moment. So, in a way, it does have a purpose after the swift darker first story. I just wish it spent less time showing us what it already told us in a more succinct way.

Cowles always does such solid work with lettering. Here we get a lot of sentence case, which I personally love, and it’s sort of shrunk down in size with a rougher font choice. It makes so many of the words feel somewhat scratchy, in a great way. A solid choice that makes sure that the lettering doesn’t miss a beat from the rest of the visuals. While also allowing it to stand somewhat unique and add so much to the voices of these characters.

Also, it is notable that Cowles makes sure to keep a lot of that going in the backup, while also changing it up a bit. Again, this allows consistency across the issue without sacrificing uniqueness.

Dark X-Men #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.