X-Men #32: The Mutants Are All Right

X-Men #32 is part two of the multi-issue Anomaly storyline. As such, the issue’s basic goal is to up the stakes from issue #31 and set up an interesting conclusion for #33 while doing as much character work as possible.

So what about the characters? Magneto is at the forefront of this particular issue alongside his drug dealer. Beast, who gives the master of magnetism D-X (a drug to temporarily restore his mutant powers) while splitting the team between the Department H gunships and an unconscious Schwarzschild.

Magneto uses his temporarily returned Mutant powers to hold the gunships at bay, primarily to prevent them from crashing into the gravity anomaly created by Schwarzschild, and revels in doing so. This scene is the highest point of the issue, full of cinematic artwork consisting of two splash pages and three pages each divided into four panels broken up across the issue’s second half. The scene works really well, showing off Magento’s power, but also reminds readers what they’ve been missing.

Assigned to break through the psychic defenses of Schwarzschild, Kid Omega continues to be the most anti-mutant mutant there is, forcibly commandeering Ben’s mind, albeit with good intentions. This does lead to an interesting telepathic sequence between them, where both of them go into Schwarzschild’s mind to try and stop the gravity anomalies. The whole sequence uses a unique art style that creatively uses colored captions as dialogue instead of standard bubbles.

Finally, both Xorn and Animalia, two of the current X-Men’s coolest designs, each do something that actually furthers the plot in this issue rather than just stand around. They go with Beast to one of the downed Department H ships, where we see a really good moment. Where Beast’s rhetoric fails, Animalia’s humanity comes out and bridges the gap between Mutant and Human. At the same time Xorn’s role as a mutant healer becomes more than just an aesthetic as his healing the people on the gunship delivers on Animalia’s moment in the issue.

Tony S. Daniel’s and Mark Morales’s art is action-packed with a lot of impressive pages and a number of borderless panels that repeatedly flick back and forth between two characters to show the two sides of each scene. The characters also have a lot of detail to them, and their movements feel more dynamic than the previous issue, with a lot of thought given to camera angles and spacing. Each character is used as the focal point of each panel, taking up the majority of the artwork or overlapping across two or more panels to accentuate the turning point of a scene in time for a page turn.

Fer Sifuentes-Sujo’s colors bring out the strengths of the artwork. Giving a lot of texture to the individual characters, whether it is Beast’s blue fur or Schwarzschild’s metallic suit. The special effects are also a highlight, which is important for an issue featuring a temporarily re-powered Magneto. Kid Omega’s telepathic effects, the energy blasts of the Department H gunships, and Magneto’s spiraling magnetic abilities all shine on the page.