X-Men #28: Smash ‘n’ Grab

The Fall of X continues in X-Men #28, meeting criticisms regarding the last issues somewhat plodding pace by filling this whole book with plot until its narrative can barely hold anymore. Like always, Duggan manages to sneak in just enough true artistry to allow characters to have moments of thematic depth and intrigue, but it still gets buried under the weight of ‘things happening’ and ‘plot progression’ that will tickle its target audience greatly. For those invested in the entire mutant catalogue, this title’s devotion as of late to fostering enough plot to keep the line in check creatively will be, and continue to be, enough to please.

However, it’s a damn shame that’s all it gets to be when the newly minted Fall of  the House of X mini-series, as well as the other X-Men titled books get to have more of an artistically formed narrative than this issue does. It’s homework that’s just mentally stimulating enough through the character work done with Sunfire, as well as Kitty’s continual dark spiral, to remain engaging. But outside of those two things, the issue feels like a big and dumb history text that we have the luxury of reading as it plays out.

Things and developments continue to just happen that could’ve happened if themes and truly narrative driven storytelling was behind the well of what was being created for this title and event. Duggan’s work, as well as Cassara’s, is masterful in every way and them being able to maintain such a feat of spine work for the line is impressive, but you can tell that them being on maintenance duty is a waste not just of their talent, but of the ideas in this issue. It’s all well-made, but it just lacks ingenuity and reason.

It’s all interesting, sure, and Cassara’s art is sweeping in its grace, especially when Marie Garcia’s color guide its illustrative dance throughout the book. This is a quality book. The writing is solid, but I can’t help but find myself asking for a narrative in this book to be focused, emotionally impactful, and precise. We have an X-Men team in this title right now that isn’t being explored as a team or as characters when they absolutely should be. What character exploration that is being done is almost in spite of the book’s actual goes, something I’m glad to see happening.