Oh, another week of Battle of the Atom. After the mess that was last week’s issue, I expected Jason Aaron to rally with a kickass penultimate chapter. What happens as the future X-Men and all of the present X-Men team together after the attack on the Jean Grey School? Is it good?
Wolverine and the X-Men #37 (Marvel Comics)
Jason Aaron is a talented writer. He combines realism, grit and humor to make great comics in almost all of his books. But again, I was disappointed by the way he handled the Battle of the Atom story. This is a story that has a lot to do which its cast of characters, which is quite large. The writers that have done a good job writing tie-ins for BOA have mastered the art of terrific pacing and even attention to all characters. Jason doesn’t maintain that balance and the pacing feels slow and awkward. There are a lot of meaningless scenes in this issue that were just witty dialogue for the sake of witty dialogue.
More on that point: Aaron doesn’t understand how to progress the story either. If this story was a car, it was driving unbearably slow until someone slammed down on the gas pedal. We have to hear the X-Men rattle on and on about what they’re going to do until you want to just rip the comic in half. The suddenly, at a random time they actually decide to go out and face the Brotherhood.
And even when everyone finally comes together in a giant slugfest, it wasn’t that exciting. I was ready for a brawl this size and with these many awesome characters to be just epic. The battle was quite the opposite — a strung out series of weak, cheesy lines of dialogue and ultimately boring action.
And I wasn’t crazy about S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly coming into the story either. They weren’t that major of a factor and they took away from the characters we paid to see. Maria Hill is a strong presence as always and that’s always enjoyable, but again, I didn’t buy Wolverine and the X-Men to listen to Maria Hill complain about mutants.
Hell, is this even Wolverine and the X-Men? Aside from one decent Quentin Quire scene this book has nothing to do with the title team. Come on! I want to see all of the students at the Jean Grey School help with the battle, but no, we only get Wolverine.
The dialogue is weak, which is almost embarrassing for such a high-caliber author as Jason Aaron. People just rattle on and on. Not once in that issue did I even smile after reading a line; everything lacked wit and originality.
2.0
- Quentin Quire scene was decent
- Art was fine
- Pacing, what’s that?
- The story doesn’t progress well
- The dialogue is cringe-worthy
Artistically, this issue wasn’t such a failure. Although some panels weren’t terrific overall I have no beef with the artist.
Is it Good?
No, and it kills me to say that. What started off as such a promising and terrific crossover is slowly deteriorating.
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