Written by: Cullen Bunn
Art by: Jorge Molina, Matteo Buffgani, & Matt Milla
Published by: Marvel
The pitch for X-Men: Blue, I imagine, went something like this:
“Witty teens! Fun adventures! Banter! Relationship drama! X-Men!”
That sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? A light-hearted, fun, character focused X-Men book? Hell yeah, I’m down for that.
Instead, we got… well, we got whatever the hell this is. Cullen Bunn definitely went for the whole “witty teen banter” thing, and it absolutely fell flat. I don’t think there’s a single line in this entire issue that comes across as natural. Nobody–not even superheroes–converse like the characters in this book do. Every other sentence tries to be a forced joke and fails. It’s bland, and I wanted to stop reading a few pages in.
Actually, calling them characters is generous. They aren’t written like people; instead, they feel like caricatures. If this was my first exposure to them, I would have absolutely no reason to care. And honestly, in the context of this issue, I really don’t give a shit about any of them. And I wish I did, because last week’s X-Men Gold #1 was really strong.
Also, I think I’ve discovered the new worst way to write exposition. For years, I’ve been convinced it was through internal monologues and annoying third-person narrators, droning on and on and on. But nope, turns out it was characters stiltedly discussing things that have happened to them in the past. It feels robotic.
Actually, if the twist is that the time traveling young X-Men are all robots, this book would make a lot more sense.
Artistically, it’s fine. It looks like a superhero book. While the art is perfectly acceptable (it could even be described as good) it doesn’t do much for me. There’s nothing particularly interesting going on, and the writing certainly doesn’t help. In a book with better writing, I think I would have liked the art more. The fact that the two don’t really complement one another brings it down.
X-Men Blue #1 is not a good comic book. In fact, it’s bad, almost to the point of being unreadable. I feel bad for anyone who’s already paid for this book, because… jeez. You got ripped off. Sorry buddy.
