X-Men #19: Opening the Vault

The intro I wrote was a little bit of misdirection, as I don’t intend to write any spoilers beyond saying that the story takes place over centuries (without seeming rushed) and it is told from Synch’s perspective. I will say, also, that it’s fitting (and perhaps unsurprising) that Synch is the character who gains development from this story. He’s a heritage character who can receive development without the audience getting too up in arms about it. He died well over twenty years ago. It’s good that he’s developed. He has some catching up to do. And if that’s the case for a character, sticking them in a vault and letting them age is the way to do it.

What I’m saying is that this story is good for Synch as a character. And it’s a fun book to read. The pacing is top notch. The story progresses in lurching fits and starts — an effect that really drives home the whole we’ve-been-doing-this-forever shtick. If this were any other book, being written for any other purpose, it would be an insult to say that this creative team made twenty-two pages feel like a century. Hickman, Asrar and Gho made this work. The requisite (for Hickman) data pages fill us in and drive the story forward without ever feeling like an info dump — and believe me, that’s a relief — but the real emotional weight of the story comes down to Asrar’s likework. His penciling is precise and soulful, all at once, allowing these characters to say more with a look than they manage with whole blocks of dialogue. There’s a panel with Synch and Laura, just a headshot, really, just a look, that does more for them, as characters, than any (and every) word they speak. 

This story is powerful is what I’m saying. If this were any other Hickman book, I’d comment on the fact that in a cast weighted two-men-to-one-woman, the one woman gets hardly any dialogue, but Darwin doesn’t get to say a word, either, so I think that the writer manages to scrape past an accusation of misogyny. 

So, to recap: for this story, Hickman provided tight, effective scripting; Gho lent the panels creepily appropriate colors, and Asrar’s likework absolutely store the show. This is a fantastic piece of work.