X-Men #33: Dark Ego

X-Men #33 is the third part of the “Anomaly” storyline. So far, this story has been a mixed bag with high and low points in both the writing and the art, but issue #33 feels like a stronger chapter in this story than the two previous issues. Primarily because this issue focuses on Ben’s character, who has been long overdue for meaningful exploration, especially given that his character’s dark past provides rich ground for a long-term character arc.

Ben visiting Schwarzschild’s black bug room, the personalized telepathic house of horrors created by Cassandra Nova, is the high point of this issue. It’s a creative way for Jed MacKay to dive into both characters’ fears at once while still focusing on the storyline that revolves around the gravity anomaly created by an incapacitated Schwarzschild.

“I gave them everything, and they threw me away.” This line spoken by Schwarzschild is the epitome of the mutant melancholy that became more prominent than ever during the 1982 “God Loves, Man Kills” storyline, which accentuated the psychological pressures on mutants in the Marvel universe. It’s not a reference or a direct callback by MacKay, but it’s one of the first times in MacKay’s run that feels quintessentially X-Men.

Ben punishing Schwarzschild doesn’t feel like payback or redemption; instead, it reads more as misplaced, no matter how understandable his anger is. Similarly, Quentin being the one to point out the rational course of action seems slightly out of character for the way MacKay has portrayed Kid Omega so far in this run, which has been as the irritable loose cannon of the Alaskan X-Men.

Tony S. Daniel and Mark Morales’ telepathy pages were arguably the best part of X-Men #32, and so it’s a delight to see them return in this issue with more pages than their previous showing. These pages lean heavily on Fer Sifuentes-Sujo’s colors, using shaded colors that give each character a distinct hue on the page, which makes them pop out from the dark backgrounds with an almost watery texture.

A scene later in the issue shows both the turmoil inside Ben and the terror of his past being experimented on by 3K in just six issues. The shift in color following each panel’s change in perspective is not only deeply emotional but also able to tell the story of Ben’s internal struggle in just a single page.