X-23 #6
Matthew David Clarke
Recap
Laura and Gabby are undercover at a high school, tracking down another scientist. Gabby (A.K.A. Roberta) takes an immediate dislike to a pink clad classmate and is vindicated when she finds that the school science club are their likely targets. X-23 breaks into their lab and confirms her suspicions before triggering a fire alarm.
Suki and her giant pink robot confront Gabby at the science fair. Gabby gets globbed but is rescued by Laura and a basketball.
X-23 leaps onto the robot’s shoulders and proceeds to dice its circuity brains. Gabby escapes the glob and returns the favour.
With the robot disabled and the high school villain globbed, they leave the school because: 1) it’s a comic book and 2) superheroes don’t do clean up or paperwork.
Review
At first I thought they’d handed me the wrong dossier. I chose to review X-23 before West Coast Avengers, and what I got was X-23 DOING West Coast Avengers. Granted it’s funnier, but it’s going for a similar zany humour and includes glob based action. To be honest I was a little disappointed. I know the first arc was pretty heavy and maybe they felt comic relief was the way to go but this feels like a bit of a drop off.
Even so there are a few laughs and the characters are well drawn. It’s entertaining to see Laura venting her rage as a gym teacher and Gabby having to deal with petty high school snarking.
It’s not the most visually spectacular issue early on but there are some nice details. Gabby’s internal monologue appears on scraps of yellow note paper and I loved the All-New Wolverine references in Chris O’Halloran’s recurring use blue and yellow.
There’s even one page where the pink of Suki and her robot appears to be taking over but as Gabby looks for Laura, there are the school colors, blue and yellow.
When Laura appears the pink backgrounds are gone, replaced with the Wolverine theme.
Final Thoughts
After a great first arc this is a slightly disappointing comic relief issue, albeit with some very clever coloring. I fully expect this series to get back on track in the next instalment.
X-23 #6: Gabby Potter and the Scientist’s Glob
- Writing - 8/108/10
- Storyline - 7.5/107.5/10
- Art - 8.75/108.8/10
- Color - 9.5/109.5/10
- Cover Art - 8.5/108.5/10
