For anyone who might not be familiar with the term “power creep” is the idea that a new addition to an old idea is more powerful and more useful than the old stuff, rendering the old stuff less interesting. It’s a term that’s normally applied to games, but I like to apply it to stories and other things as well.
Case in point, remember when the X-Men were just a collection of super heroes that were a thinly veiled allegory for racism? Well, in today’s comic one of them is traveling to the source of all magic and fooling around with the very fabric of reality itself.
Yeah, power creep.
Written by Al EwingCover by: Stefano Caselli and Jesus Aburtov
Illustrated by Luciano Vecchio
Colored by David Curiel
Lettered by VC’s Joe Sabino
LIFEDEATH!
On Krakoa, resurrection from the dead was as easy as completing a circuit – but Krakoa fell. The time of easy miracles is over, and only the hard roads are left. Now it falls to Storm – as the epic conclusion to the Krakoan age looms – to bring their oldest enemy home to fight against the FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X…but after all he did, and all that was done to him, can Magneto bear to return?
Say what you want about it, but “Resurrection of Magneto” #1 lives up to the title in the most obvious way possible. One of the hallmarks of the Krakoa Age was that none of the X-Men could actually die. Instead, their minds and spirits would be backed up in a secret room on Krakoa and downloaded into new bodies when the old ones perished. As long as nothing interfered with the process, it meant that all mutant residents of Krakoa were functionally immortal, thus dealing with the problem of deaths in comics once and for all.
Naturally, nothing good can last and mutant resurrection is dead. Sadly, Magneto was killed after the process was interfered with, so he’s actually dead right? Nope! It turns out that Storm has a way to get him back and has to journey to the Marvel version of the afterlife to get him back.
“Resurrection of Magneto” #1 is written by long time comic scribe Al Ewing, who crafts a story that is both incredibly complicated and deceptively simple at the same time. The idea of a hero traveling to the afterlife in order to save a friend or loved one from death is a tale as old as storytelling itself, and Ewing delivers a story that is both modern and classic at the same time. This is a story set on the grandest stage of all, where mutants stand face to face with gods and the very nature of life itself, yet at its core it’s just Ororo trying her best to save a dead friend. Amid the world crumbling around them, Ewing does a great job of focusing on the small story here, and it’s both appropriate and pleasant to see something simple enough for readers to latch onto amid the grand and epic chaos of the rest of the story. And believe me, there is a LOT of chaos.
LIke most books created during the end of the Krakoa Age, “Resurrection of Magneto” #1 is going to be a bit difficult to follow since it’s dealing with so much baggage and recent history that if you haven’t been keeping up you’re probably going to feel a bit lost. While this story does its best to mitigate the problems and does have plenty of things for readers of all types to enjoy, it’s still something to be aware of and knowledge of previous stories would probably be a good idea. It’s certainly an understandable problem, Marvel understands that you can’t make everything easy to understand for brand new readers with a book like this, but the story also suffers a bit from the script.Ewing is a great writer, but he does tend to get a little bit too verbose in this script and while they were annoying at times, this is one of the places where the famous Hickman exposition pages would have been welcome.
Continued belowThe artwork for “Resurrection of Magneto” #1 is provided by Luciano Vecchio, and it has the same positives and negatives as almost every X-Men book over the past couple of years. The style is familiar, delivering a solid looking book with the realistic style and muted color scheme that we’ve seen so often it’s getting kind of boring. Since the style is so well known, the art of the book lives or dies by what it shows and “Resurrection of Magneto” #1 certainly delivers. Since Storm is traveling to the mutant afterlife it stands to reason that she would be dealing with creatures and beings of near cosmic power and scope. The book certainly has all of that on display and when it calls for a fight scene, Storm’s full power is on display and it is properly epic. This version of the afterlife evokes the Judeo-Christian version of Heaven and Hell, which presents its own set of unique challenges. On one hand, there’s the white fluffy clouds and clear skies of paradise supplemented with the fiery pits and rivers of lava in damnation and the book certainly shows that. On the other hand, the book shows most of the “creatures” of both sides in their true forms: weird, terrifying, and beyond mortal comprehension. It’s an easy book to get lost in, but it does a good enough job of guiding the reader along.
“Resurrection of Magneto” #1 suffers from the same problems that all books like this suffer from and isn’t really for new readers or people who haven’t been keeping up with the X-Men for the past couple of years. With that being said, for all the grand and terrifying ideas on display, it’s still just a book about a hero saving someone else, which is a great thing to latch onto amid the chaos and grand ideas on display.
Final Verdict: 8.8- Amid the chaos and terror of the mutants dying off and the Biblical level of power on display here, this is a surprisingly personal and private tale of a mutant trying to save her friend.
