ICYMI! X-Men #23: Welcome the Iron Sentinel

Duggan and Cassara are back this month, and they’re dragging us inch by inch to the upcoming Hellfire Gala, and the next era for the X-Men dubbed the “Fall of X!” Will it live up to its hype?

There’s also a growing rift between Cyclops and Jean that stems back to the “Lord of the Brood” storyline, where Jean erred on the side of not annihilating the entire race of the Brood, while Cyclops wanted to commit an act of genocide against them, and while it’s an interesting perspective for Cyclops to have, considering mutants have had to deal with genocidal events since House of M, so seeing Scott having to deal with this can lend itself to some gravitas to his character that we’re not used to seeing from him.

Duggan’s been planting the seeds to this new era through his work here, as well as his Invincible Iron Man book, where we finally see the work he’s been doing by bringing Feilong into Tony’s world, taking over his company, and then using his tech to make this new era of “Stark Sentinels” to curb the mutant menace. Duggan’s cultivation of Orchis has had various effects, but having an organization that’s supposedly been working this hard to become a thorn in the mutants’ sides, has unfortunately had not enough screen time in this book, thanks to having a structured narrative developing this next step seems like it’s both underdeveloped, yet decompressed to the point that interest has begun to falter. 

We’re two years into the new book, and Feilong’s still a veritable blank slate. He hates the mutants because they terraformed Mars, denying him his dream. It’s clear why he hates them. Okay, so let’s build from that. The man altered his genetic makeup to survive on the planet, as well as giving him powers. How is he any different than the mutants? It’s weird after sixty years Marvel still hasn’t come up with a compelling narrative to distinguish between the two. Yeah, discrimination is something that  happens for no discernible reason, but at this point you would think that there would be at least one discernible reason. 

The best part of the issue was the part dealing with Mother Righteous and Doctor Stasis, and their whole exchange. It’s even weirder when you think about it, because Mother is a clone of Sinister, but also of Sinister’s deceased wife. It’s almost like it’s an updated Ms. Sinister from Mike Carey’s X-Men Legacy run, but also worlds apart from the character named Claudine, and it’s making me interested in catching up on Legion of X, to see exactly who and what she is. 

Joshua Cassara’s art here varies from good to bland, which I’m kinda disappointed with, after his stellar work on the last issue. The scenes featuring Righteous and Stasis being the biggest highlight. When Righteous kicks Stasis right in the slats, I literally laughed out loud. It was just so unexpected, and really gave the exchange a lighthearted aside that could have set the tone. Where the art lost me was when the team came face to face with the Stark Sentinel for the first time. It was just rather muddy, and difficult to follow, which detracted from the overall flow of the story, and just left an unsatisfying impression.