X-Men #29: Doom’s Doorway…

The Fall of X continues to soldier on, and the not so Merry Mutants choose to head to Latveria to recruit the aid of Doctor Doom’s mutant subjects, and as is to be expected, they fight. We see Doctor Doom created his own Cerebro, and actually telepathically spoke to Xavier as he was addressing the world of the creation of Krakoa, with the aid of Magneto and Moira X, and Kitty continues down her dark path. Can she be saved? Joining Gerry Duggan is Joshua Cassara on art duties on this issue. So let’s get on with it…

Duggan’s X-Men has had some high peaks and low valleys, especially with crossover issues that interrupted the flow of Duggan’s story, and the rotating artists, really hurt the second years narrative. Luckily we’ve seen an upward tick in quality across the line with the Fall of X, and Duggan’s X-Men being one of the better that I’ve read. Unfortunately this issue didn’t really grab my attention like the last few issues have. Shadowkat’s arc being the most engaging, trying to recruit the Latverian strikeforce this far into the arc seems kind of pointless, and it doesn’t hit those emotional cues for the arc. 

Ms. Marvel’s addition to the group, and the snails pace to reveal her mutant gifts is also kind of dragging the narrative of the book. Mix that with some.generic mutants, it makes for a rather bland issue. Doom’s motivation with dealing with ORCHIS has a lot of potential, but the landings this run has been lukewarm for the most part. I’m hoping we get more of the X-Men that performs more like the first year on this volume, with Pepe Larraz and Javier Pina. Thr stories fit the second year were serviceable, but nothing really stood out as the yes factor. 

Joshua Cassara’s the series artist for year three,and his work has been fairly hit or miss. Last month’s as well as this months issues look great. I especially enjoy the fight between Firestar and the Juggernaut, as well as Kitty’s performance here, but not everything was a hit. Doom’s D-Men look fairly generic, but my favorite part was Cassara’s depiction of some of the characters really reminded me of Dustin Weaver’s style, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to an artist.