X-MEN #16: It’s Going Down in Alaska!

It’s a rumble in the Alaskan snow jungle! Our intrepid adjectiveless team find themselves face to face with a team who are claiming themselves to be the X-Men as they try to diffuse the 30 foot mutant child kaiju situation! Jed Mackay once again smartly loops us all the way back to the very first issue of the series as these so called 3X-Men take the team head on! This is a really fun issue which aside from Hank casually passing insults about Magneto’s familial relations and boosting Magneto’s failing power with D-X drug, to marvelous effect, is really a giant punch up giving Netho Diaz a chance to really shine on art. MacKay keeps the dialogue tight and snappy, everyone’s trading quips as they attempt to beat the snot out of each other.

Mackay puts genuine effort into making each of the characters in the issue feel like their own genuine personality, instead of a throwaway cardboard cutout bit player. There are jokes about collecting severed arms, and even a Glob Herman moment with Beast. it’s just a flawlessly executed piece of X-Action that lands every line perfect in my opinion as the two teams fight each other to a stand still and ends with quite possibly the coolest double splash page cliffhanger of the entire new era.

Netho Diaz has over the last two or so years just leveled up from and great artist to an absolutely incredible one and this particular issue it comes through on every single page. Every page is a visual delight lifted to another level by inkers Sean Parsons, JP Mayer and Livesay and then brought to life in gorgeous screaming bold color by Fer Sifuentes-Sujo. There is so much dynamism packed into this single issue it positively vibrates at you off each page. If someone asked me to pick one comic to give to someone to show them how cool the current era is, as it stands right now having read every single team issue to date and 99% of the solos, this is the book I would put in that persons hands. It works as a continuation and works as a really cool stand alone chapter. The issue moves at a breakneck pace and there’s so much going on page after page but nothing from the art team feels rushed in even a single panel as Diaz and co get to play with movement and relative scale. It’s big bold and bombastic but never loses that tight story thread. Clayton Cowles is in flawless form to round off a stellar issue from the art team.