The Fall of X era has forced every mutant into hiding, but every mutant is also an X-Men. That’s meaningful since the new era of X-Men meant the team was chosen, and voted on as if they were elected politicians. Phil Noto joins Gerry Duggan this week as Kate Pryde continues to suss out who is alive and how to gain an advantage against Orchis. With two plots running, X-Men #27 feels like it’s made for Marvel fanatics who care about the finer details.
The two plots include a part of the X-Men connecting with the Fantastic Four and then Kate Pryde snooping around an Orchis prison. They work well together as one is quite dark and dire while the Fantastic Four scene adds a bit of levity and colorful action moments. Together, one can see Fall of X closing the door on some old plots–like Mr. Fantastic holding a grudge about Xavier wiping his memory–while moving things along as Kate takes out Orchis and finds an edge.
The issue opens with Shadowkat finding out a key ally is alive, which comes with a nice check-in on our cover boy Cyclops. The prison has some truly dastardly measures in place to ensure Cyclops will never escape. One can imagine Orchis understands how important he is to the X-Men if he’s under so much protection. This scene opens up with Kate a bit, who has been on a kill mission and is not quite herself. Between her and Cyclops one can see they’ll both be changed for a while after Fall of X is over.
I love the scale of Juggernaut.
Credit: Marvel
From there, a small contingent heads to the Fantastic Four’s location to gain insight into how Mr. Fantastic can hide the mutant gene. This lets Duggan write Ms. Marvel a bit, who is youthful and endearing. Meanwhile, she plays well off Rasputin IV, who is largely untapped. She has a Drax sort of persona as she barges into problems willing to punch first and ask questions later. This plays well off Thing, who ends up getting beaten down a bunch.
The Fantastic Four scene shows Duggan has a good handle on each of the FF with their characters coming through strong. Their unique personalities are played up well, especially Reed who is calm and concise with his language and approach to a rather violent Rasputin IV. Instead of coming in hot with anger, Reed is patient due to the situation the X-Men are in. If you weren’t a fan of how Reed was handled with the Franklin stuff you’ll feel like there’s some mending going on here.
Noto excels at drawing the bevy of characters in this issue. Juggernaut in particular has a calm careness that’s unmistakable. There’s a sureness in framing that makes a dialogue scene feel dynamic, even if the characters are standing around. Comedic timing is good too, like when Rasputin IV punches Thing similar to the Hulk gag in the first Avengers movie.
This issue continues the story arc’s trend of likely reading best in trade paperback. The plotting is better in this issue, but there’s still a tacked-on scene at the end that sort of floats there untethered from the main plots. Kate’s actions also seem sort of floaty as she enters and exits Orchis locations without much clarity on what she’s going through or what she will do next. Still, this is a time for mutants that feels dangerous and unclear, so that suits the bigger-picture feel of Fall of X.
X-Men #27 is a great example of how the Fall of X era is wrapping up subtle things while progressing the Orchis stranglehold on mutants. Fans of Marvel Comics and their interconnectedness will appreciate the inclusion of the Fantastic Four here.
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