Dark Horse has been bringing back a few dormant properties in the past year to critical acclaim, and the anti-hero X is next on the list. Can Swierczynski and Nguyen bring X back into the spotlight as DeConnick and Noto did for Ghost?
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Illustrated by Eric NguyenThe enigmatic vigilante X has shattered Arcadia’s criminal triumvirate, the Three Pigs, and fixed his eye on an even tougher target. But with the police department AND the crime establishment teamed up against him, muckraking blogger Leigh Ferguson may be X’s only ally! The brutal story of Dark Horse’s bloodiest hero begins anew!
* Swierczynski and Nguyen relaunch the classic Dark Horse vigilante!
* X is the letter of the law!
Duane Swierczynski is a writer who sometimes struggles to stand out in the comics crowd (not to besmirch his novels), and the new volume of “X” doesn’t exactly light off a signal flare. The comic isn’t written poorly: the dialogue reads well, the comic is pretty balanced in terms of pacing, and the plot is enjoyable enough. At the same time, the comic isn’t great: the dialogue isn’t exciting or witty, the pace doesn’t grab the reader, and the plot isn’t particularly unique. At this point, the general comic reading populace has had its fill of dark, gritty anti-heroes — in order to make such a character stand out anymore, the writer needs to blow the socks off his or her readers. Swierczynski tries to do this with his take on X, but like our smart mouthed muckraker, we only ask “A lock? Really?” As remarked earlier though, Swierczynski does a fine job, it’s just that he doesn’t do enough to interest readers beyond those to whom anti-heroes like X are bread and butter.
The art by Eric Nguyen is well suited for the tone, and one of the book’s highlights. Nguyen’s art has a hard edge that fits a brutal vigilante thriller like this one, but Nguyen avoids the common pitfall of many similarly “scratchy” artists of allowing this harsh look to affect his characters’ expressions, save for a few situations. There are a few instances where it is difficult to tell whether Nguyen has taken anatomical liberties deliberately or if the figure work is simply sloppy in a handful of panels; it is worth noting that these panels tend to be “motion” panels, so it may very well be with the purpose of conveying movement. Whatever the intent, these moments aren’t so much bad as they are momentarily distracting, and will most likely fade from the reader’s mind by the time they close the issue. The action isn’t always smooth as butter, such as the slightly stiff dramatic entrance of our title character, but most pages flow very well. Nguyen brings a particularly punchy quality to the book’s visuals, emphasizing the visceral tone without relying on Avatar-esque heavy gore; the two-panel sequence where X… gets a guy to lend him a hand is a great example of this, as Nguyen makes an emphatic difference in posture between the fist and second panel to cause abrupt impact. If “X” is your kind of vigilante, Eric Nguyen is your kind of artist.
Like a few of Dark Horse’s recent series, the new volume of “X” was first serialized as a three-parter in their anthology series “Dark Horse Presents,” with the excerpts from “Presents” being collected in an “X” #0. Some series have dealt with this more gracefully than others — the prelude stories to “The Massive,” for example, each focused on an individual member of the Kapital’s crew. These stories add an extra layer to the series, but aren’t strictly necessary. Like most, though, “X” #1 is essentially “X” #2, as the first arc began in those excerpts collected as “X” #0, which is essentially “X” #1. Confused yet? In Swierczynski’s defense, attempts are made to make readers feel comfortable whether they read #0 or not, throwing in a good amount of expositional dialogue that manages to avoid being clunky, but it still feels like the reader is coming into a movie a few minutes late. It would be foolish to say that every single #1 should be accessible to new readers, and it makes sense that Dark Horse doesn’t want their #1s to be reprints, but when it isn’t a direct continuation of a previous series, then it shouldn’t be too much to ask that everything start at #1.
If violent anti-heroes are your thing, this new volume of “X” will probably be to your liking. Like many of Duane Swierczynski’s comics, though, its appeal fails to transcend genre. Swierczynski is a solid writer, capable of building technically sound stories, but very often these comics end up being good, but not good enough to recommend. Eric Nguyen gives the comic a much needed pick-me-up, though it isn’t without faults, but in the end you are left with a read that is entertaining while read, but quickly forgotten. And, if my review-inappropriate editorializing didn’t make it clear, the issue almost entirely fails as a #1.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Good, but nothing remarkable.
