ICYMI: Tomb Of Apocalypse #2: A Mutant Spelunking We Will Go

Jubilee, now joined by Rictor and Shatterstar, continues to venture deeper into Apocalypse’s Tomb in search of what he left behind. As they solve puzzles and evade Hydra mercenaries, Jubilee reluctantly starts to better understand Apocalypse’s new fixation on her. Which is anything but good.

While the titular tomb is the backdrop of this series, its pretty much “Jubilee and friends go tomb raiding”. This isn’t a bad thing however as it gives the perineal sidekick of the X-Men to gain the spotlight (pun intended) for the first time in a long while. The action-adventure vibe keeps things from getting too dark, but even with these advantages the story itself is still pretty so-so.

Ashley Allen still has a good voice for Jubilee. In fact, she sounds better here than in the opening issue, as a lot of those rougher edges have been smoothed out from issue one. Wolverine is as grumpy as ever, Shatterstar is kind of just there to be Rictor’s boyfriend, but it’s Rictor who gets the most characterization outside of Jubilee and for the most part it’s fairly dull. Most of his character is informed from the things he experienced both during the Krakoan Era, and the recent Heir of Apocalypse mini. This creates a solid throughline but the end result makes Rictor come off less as a man who was betrayed by Apocalypse and seeks retribution, and more of a jilted ex-lover wondering where it all went wrong. He drones on about being abandoned by Apocalypse and highlights the despots’ odd fixation on Jubilee. The big man himself makes some sporadic appearances but he’s mostly window dressing here.

Domenico Carbone’s art is very fluid, but at times its kind of hard to follow one event to another due to the uneven paneling. There were also some points where it appeared some minor corners were cut because of the low number of pages. The tomb has a couple of interesting visual flairs but a couple lighting and coloring choices hide it a bit. The flashy depictions of the mutants abilities remain fun though.