X-Men #19: Countdown To Z.E.R.O.

After the tumultuous storyline that ended with the last issue, Jed MacKay and Netho Diaz give us a little side story featuring Doug Ramsey, his wife Bei, and his soulmate, Warlock. The story focuses on Doug, and what he’s been doing since his coronation as Apocalypse’s heir, Revelation! And evidently married life isn’t as easy as they make it out on the telly! Plus there’s a brand new anti-mutant terrorist organization springing out of the offices of O.N.E., Z.E.R.O.!!!! So let’s jump into the review, shall we?

The story starts with Doug dreaming about his transformation into Revelation, showing a sort of swirling pool, before his fist breaches the waves of the lake triumphant, and then he wakes up. With Doug having something to do with this winter’s crossover, it’d make sense to start seeing him pop up in other X-books, building him up into a legitimate threat. It leads me to wonder what Doug and Bei’s relationship is, what their thoughts are on it, how it affects them, etc.Doug finally getting this kind of attention and development in a long time coming, and MacKay seems like the perfect writer to begin this next storyline.

Jed really excels with the social interaction between Doug, Bei, and Warlock, giving them this very whimsical and funny dynamic. Whether it’s the bickering towards the couple, or Warlock’s love for Doug. He really knows what makes these characters work. What doesn’t work was this new terrorist organization Z.E.R.O. I get that they’re supposed to be “evil”, but they feel like the Friends Of Humanity from the 90’s X-Men animated series, as well as the 3K task force lead by Wyre in the last storyline. Maybe MacKay will change my mind in the upcoming issues.

Netho Diaz is on art duties here, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been a fan of his since seeing his covers for MacKay’s Black Cat series a couple years ago. He’s really blossomed as an artist, and you can see it in this issue. Heck, you can see it compared to his other fill-in work on the earlier X-titles during the From The Ashes series.Whether it’s the fight scenes between Z.E.R.O., or the playful banter between the family, it just clicks. His style here gives that same type of feeling I got when reading the iRysn Stegman issues from this run. Netho’s style evokes Stegman’s, while maintaining his own. I hope this means we’ll see Netho on an X-book full time after his fill-in here.