Originally Published: April 27, 2011, on Comicvine.com
The X-Men and Spider-Man wrap up their expedition in the sewers of New York City as they try to stop Dark Beast and his mad experiments on Dr. Curt Connors and the unsuspecting citizens of Manhattan.
The Good
Any story arc with Dark Beast in it is a win for me because he poses a threat on so many levels to the current X-Men. This is also an ideal time to have him re-emerge in the X-Men’s lives since we know he will be a major player in future X-Force issues, even though we don’t know the details on that as of yet.
The banter back and forth between Emma Frost and Spider-Man was also very well written as they are burdened with the task of rescuing the rest of the X-Men after they fall under the spell of Dark Beast’s lizard transformation device.
The Bad
This arc started off so strongly, with a brief spike at the Dark Beast reveal, but has been on a downward slide ever since with this final issue hitting rock bottom. Most of the issue is Emma and Spidey crawling through the sewers trying to regroup and escape from the barely coherent Lizard X-Men. Although the banter was entertaining, it just felt like filler before we got to what was a short and quick resolution with Emma freeing the original Lizard, Curt Connors.
Due to the cramped quarters, you also never really see Wolverine, Spidey, or anyone else with any speed or agility really ramp up and let go in the limited fight scenes. If anything, Spider-Man felt like an unnecessary addition to this entire adventure and was there simply because it is his turf and he’s had experience with the Lizard before and reminded me why I don’t particularly read most Spider-Man comics anymore.
The Verdict
Although the banter was well written, there was far too much of it and made this comic feel like it was dragging two pages in. To sort through all that filler and end on such an anti-climatic resolution on top of it just left me shaking my head.
Spider-Man was nothing but useless aside from acting as foil to Emma and this entire story arc felt like a cheap way of bringing Dark Beast into everyone’s mind before he makes his impact on the Age of Apocalypse storyline with X-Force coming in June. Even if you’ve been reading this arc, I’m tempted to tell you to steer clear and hope for better things next month.
RayCarsilloWrites.com 