Written by: Cullen Bunn
Art by: Javier Fernandez
Publisher: Marvel
For a few years, Cullen Bunn was a really hit or miss writer. He would write something really bad, and then something that was absolutely outstanding, making it hard to believe it was the same writer. But in the past year os so, Bunn has produced nothing but quality comics. I mean, one would expect this type of consistency from an Eisner award winning writer. Regardless, everything he’s done for a while now has been great. And at the head of the pack is Magneto, one of his Marvel books. Magneto has easily been one of the best books coming out of Marvel ever since the launch of All New Marvel Now earlier this year, completely divorcing Magneto of any team for the first time in a long, long while.
Much to my personal surprise, this has benefited the character immensely. It has given Bunn the opportunity to completely dissect the character, and analyze all of his subtle nuances. Despite Magneto being an A-list character, this book doesn’t deal with large scale conflicts, or the superheroics typical of an X-Men book. Sure, that may be in part because Magneto isn’t a superhero, but he isn’t exactly getting up to villainous, world domination schemes in this book either. Rather, he’s going on a crusade to help mutants wherever and whenever he can. As we saw in the previous issue, his methods may not be the most pacifistic in nature, but Magneto never was one to shy away from a little bit of violence here and there.
This eighth issue of the series picks up only a few hours after Magneto’s departure from the Mutant fights in Madripoor, as the SHIELD agents on his trail begin to pick up his scent. Nevertheless, Magneto is still at least one step ahead of SHIELD. Even as they track him, he shows up at a warehouse producing the Mutant synthesis drug, in order to continue his quest to put down the entire operation. What this leads to is a great (albeit brief) conversation between Magneto and the head of the plant, in which Bunn gives some great characterization to Magneto. Between this scene and Magneto’s inner monologue, Bunn proves that he has an innate understanding of who the character is, down to his very core.
My biggest gripe with this issue is the panels that are (presumably) flashbacks. I understand the purpose that they’re supposed to play, but as a storytelling mechanism, they do fall flat. They definitely look cool, the combination of Javier Fernandez’ art and the red and white color schemes is great. Other than that, however, they simply fail to contribute much to the issue other than detract from page space that could potentially be utilized by Bunn to continue his plot.
All in all: Magneto has been awesome since the start, and it seems to get better with each issue, and this is not exception. Bunn nails the character, and Fernandez’ art complements the writing perfectly. The plot is strong as well, and plot progression and character development inform and supplement one another, rather than take the other’s place.
