Review: X-Men - Schism #2

Before we get into the comic review today I’d like to discuss something I noticed this past week: promotional art for Uncanny X-Men #1 and Wolverine and the X-Men #1.  It’s one of those deals where Marvel releases a group shot of silhouettes and every once and a while a character is revealed.  As the first reveal for Wolverine’s team was Logan himself and the Uncanny team’s first reveal was of Emma Frost there are some people worried that this might imply Cyclops won’t survive Schism.   Now I haven’t seen any other promos as of this writing so I’m not sure that it’s the right time to make assumptions.  There have been some people on the internet making knee jerk reactions to this, angry at Marvel for killing of such an iconic character…despite the fact they haven’t done anything yet (Though I should mention there are a lot of people calling for Wolverine to murder Cyclops, to which I offer the rebuttal of “Piss Off”).  I’m trying not to be worried yet and instead wait and see how it goes, but it is true that Marvel Comics seems to love killing off characters for no really good reason lately.  Just ask Bucky who just got killed off despite only returning to comics six years ago.  I will say this: should the evolution of Cyclops’ character into the morally questionable douchebag who we’ve seen in recent years simply end with his being killed off I’m going to have to call “Bad Storytelling/Bullshit” on Marvel and might not bother buying Uncanny #1 in November as I planned.  We’ll see how the story unfolds.

Ominous sign or rabid fanboy fuel?

Anywho X-Men: Schism #2 again features Jason Aaron as writer but features a whole new art team in Frank Cho (Artist) and Jason Keith (Colorist). Strangely this comic came out a week (I think) after the last issue but for the rest of the series the issues should come out monthly. The cover I have to this issue prominently features Rogue but sadly in the issue itself she only appears on one panel which seems like false advertising to me. First strike for this comic and we haven’t even started.

Full review after the jump.

[Warning: Spoilers, most likely. Be warned.]

"Who's the real 7 billion ton robot monster here?"

Following the events of the last issue several countries have begun arming themselves with Sentinels as a response to Kid Omega’s terrorist attack.  Though it seem that things are at its darkest it becomes apparent that the majority of the robots do not seem to be working correctly, which seems to be part of the crazed child billionaire Kade Kilgore’s scheme.  As Cyclops coordinates rescues/counterattacks, aiding the Avengers in putting down the rogue robots, Wolverine becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the way Summers’ is conducting himself as leader.

There’s not much to talk about in this issue because, well, nothing really happens.  The Sentinels are mostly junk so they ended up not posing much of a threat, we really don’t get much closer to discovering Kade Kilgore’s plan, and the X-Men have yet to really do much of anything at all.  This seems more like a set up for future issues than anything else.  Thankfully the price is a more reasonable $3.99 but as there’s not a whole lot going on I’m unsure just how worth the price it is.

The artwork is not as good as the previous issue.  Frank Cho’s not bad or anything but his style doesn’t speak to me.   I really don’t like the way his draws face and body types on certain characters, like Cyclops for example, made them look bizarre.  Also I noticed Rogue seemed to have giant boobs that took me off guard.  I wasn’t going to mention it except that when I was looking up Cho online I saw that’s he’s known for his “well endowed” ladies.  Still it’s not like he’s the worst offender of that sort of cheesecake so I won’t call him on it.

Most terrifying red carpet event in history.

I continue to be amazed at how Kade Kilgore is being depicted in this series.  On top of everything we saw in the last issue we now see that not only does he seem to employ other twelve year olds in his personal inner circle (Thus setting up for the most adorable X-Men/Super-Villain Battle in history for next issue) but he also seems to be making side deals with goddamned aliens!  How the hell does he know aliens?  That he’s sneaking around Earth with his alien visitors that doesn’t just make the X-Men look sort of dumb for being pawns of a little kid but it also means that every group supposedly responsible for looking out for such threats look ineffectual. Is S.W.O.R.D., the group charged with policing aliens on Earth in the Marvel Universe, not around anymore or something?  Where are Steve Rogers and his Avengers during all of this?  Speaking of the bad guys I’d also like to point out that the members of the Hellfire Club reveal that they have purged mutants out of their organization and their original scheme (Before Kilgore came along) was to exterminate their entire race.  This is a bit lame since it paints the Hellfire Club as yet another all-human mutant hating group (See Also: The Purifiers, Friends of Humanity).  You can’t be too annoyed by that since that group literally gets revamped every few years so it doesn’t really matter.

We do apparently see the first seeds planted of the forthcoming split on the team as Wolverine and Cyclops due have an argument finally.  My biggest problem with this issue was Scott Summers’ dubious decision making and the fact I found myself agreeing with Logan…which made me kind of ill.  Seriously, Scott decides to lie to Steve Rogers abut whether they had yet found Quentin Quire (Kid Omega), who literally surrendered himself to the mercy of Utopia, and then dealt with the villain not by blasting him in the face with optic blasts but by basically sending him to bed without his supper!   What?  I did kind of like how he sends a team of his most powerful mutant “peace delegation” (Really a show of force) but I feel like sending a team that includes Magneto, who has tried to wipe out of all humanity more than once, to a public gathering that’s supposed to help the image of mutant kind to be a rather incompetent move on his part.

Kid Omega: Hey guys.  I'm back from single handily destroying race relations world wide and making life 100x worse for us all.
Cyclops: Oh hey, Quentin.  Did you want some ice cream?

Oh and also the last page of this comic is one of the most ridiculous splash pages (In context of the story, no less) I’ve ever seen in an X-Men book.  This is right up there with anything involving “X-Babies”.

It’s actually really hard to complain about much since with three issues left this is not really the time to be too critical with what’s going on plot wise because we don’t know what twists or turns are coming.  The stuff with Cyclops and even the stuff with Kade isn’t as bad as all that since everything they’ve done up to this point might end up being incredibly interesting and thought provoking as the story unfolds.  The real problem with this issue is that it’s kind of dull, just like the previous one.  Despite being two issues into this supposedly big event I’m still bored and I still don’t really care what happens next.  If I wasn’t reviewing these comics for this blog I might have seriously considered giving up on the book after this issue just to save a bit of cash, because so far there’s nothing here making me think this is a worthwhile miniseries.

I’ll be nice and give X-Men: Schism #2 3 Adorable Pandas out of 5.

Pros

-Sadly nothing, really

Cons

-Story still kind of boring

-Kade Kilgore keeps becoming more and more ridiculous an enemy

-The art was not for me

-Cyclops is a dick

Despite my complaints of being bored with the previous two issues the next one should involve a clash between (arguably) five of the most powerful mutants on Earth (Emma Frost, Colossus, Namor, Iceman, Magneto) and Kade and the Daycare of Doom Hellfire Club, so the action may finally begin.  That hit shelves this Wednesday so hopefully I can review it before too long after that.

Dude seriously!  When do they stop talking and start shooting each other?