X-MEN: REGENESIS Review

Writer: Kieron Gillen

Art: Billy Tan

Cover: Chris Bachalo

SYNOPSIS:

The X-Men have been tore in two post Schism and now there will be two separate factions: One led by Wolverine that will move two Westchester, One by Cyclops that will stay on UTOPIA. But who will go and who will stay?

REVIEW:

If I were to describe this issue in a nut shell I would say it is perfunctory. It's a segue issue and nothing else, as it is simply a means of letting the reader know the new status quo for the coming series: Uncanny X-Men (the relaunch) and Wolverine and the X-Men (a really questionable idea). So the point of the issue is to establish who's going where and why, and sadly a lot of this is bereft on any real dramatic conflict or real strong feelings on the issue of Cyclops Militant X-Men realism Vs Wolverines idealistic stance; where kids get to be kids, as they're somehow no longer living in a world where being mutants is likely to get them killed.

I read each panel waiting for something dramatic to light it up, but sadly the members of the various X-Teams reasons for jumping ship or staying often failed to gage the reality of the split, instead it often came down to a convenience move or a change of scenery. Which made it clear that the conflict between their appointed mutant leaders was very much a confined one. For everyone else, it was business as usual with the option of a new place to crash.

Add to this some incredibly bad exposition: Gillen writes a primal battle scene between the cave men versions of Wolverine and Cyclops as an undercurrent to the mainstory, representing the victories scored by each man as they acquire a new recruit. This was absolutely terrible, and seems to be there for the dual reasons of injecting action into an issue where it frankly has no place, and getting the female X-Men lined up in tiny fur g-strings and little else.

It's so terrible as to detract what little enjoyment I could siphon from this incredibly mediocre cash in issue, that was in the grand scheme of things entirely unnecessary (you could have told the same story in the opening panels of throughout the #1 issues of the X relaunches). Billy Tan's artwork adds nothing to the story either, as hit or miss, he spends this issue mostly missing. His scratchy thin and lifeless artwork can really come alive given the right environment, but long panels worth of dullconversation does nothing for his style and left his work flat and uninteresting where a more dynamic artist might at least have made this issue more interesting to look at.#

I can't condemn Regenesis entirely though, as there were some knowing scenes, such as Beast giving Cyclops an honest appraisal of his methods and Magneto's interplay with Rogue that brought a wry smile to my face. They let the steady reader in on the joke and brought a degree of levity to the doldrums, but overall this title was just filler material, and unnecessary filler at that. Add some bad cave man antics crowbarred in as a parallel analogy and you have a boring comic that at times is quite bad.

Again, I am dubious of the direction the X-Books are going, and can't shake the feeling that some characters are suffering some terrible out of character direction in order to facilitate sales and bring in new fans. Time will be the teller as usual, but if Regenesis, off the back of the better written if not similarly dubious Schism event is what we have to look forward to in the X Camp, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be pitching my metaphorical tent.

In short: Lazy, uninteresting and perfunctory with some truly awful split screen parallels.

1.5/5

By: Mark McCann

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