COMIC BOOK REVIEW: X-Men: Red #5 'The Hate Machine Part 5: The Truth'

As global aggression against mutants rises thanks to Nova’s Sentinites, Jean and her team makes moves to “weaponize the truth.”

X-Men: Red #5 “The Hate Machine Part 5: The Truth”
Writer: Tom Taylor
Artist: Mahmud Asrar
Letters: Cory Petit
Cover Artist: Travis Charest
Variants by Travis Charest & Tamra Bonvillain
Colorist: Rain Beredo
Publisher: MARVEL COMICS

What You Need to Know:

Now operating out of Atlantis, with Namor and Storm joining Jean’s cause last issue, Jean’s team prepares to fight for mutant nationalism in the face of Cassandra Nova’s spreading Sentinite sentinels, designed unknowingly by the team by Forge, the mutant technopath.

What You’ll Find Out:

Cassandra Nova continues to spread her mind-controlling Sentinites across the globe, this time focusing in Poland. The Red Team responds to an active shooter situation, wherein a Polish man opened fire and killed a young mutant woman at a protest rally, in response to new anti-mutant legislation in the nation. Jean and Trinary disable the Sentinite in the young shooter’s mind as Gambit arrives to seek answers.

Shortly thereafter, the team disembarks to help protect a mutant exodus from Poland into the Baltic Sea and headed towards the newly established Mutant Nation in Atlantis. Namor arrives in time to argue his sovereign case as Jean unites the minds of the Polish soldiers and the mutant ex-patriots, illustrating the minute difference in rhetoric and disposition between the two sides.

What Just Happened?

Jean’s team is fully assembled (at least for the time being) and the mission is abundantly clear: “We’re going to crush the lies. We’re going to weaponize the truth.” We have read countless stories of anti-mutant legislation before, but this narrative arc is the first time, to my remembrance, that the problem has gone global. Tom Taylor is giving us a unique team of X-Men, far from the status quo, established specifically for the 21^st century and its concerns, politically and socially. The following panel sequence represents the exact reason many of us are reading and loving Red month in and month out, and I shall let it speak for itself.

Rating: 8/10
Final Thought: This issue marks Mahmud Asrar’s last issue with the series, yielding way for the absolutely electric Carmen Carnero. Watch for the sharpest book in the X-Universe to leap into the stratosphere next month.