X-Men #17
Forge finds something quite unexpected in the Vault in X-Men #17, by writer Gerry Duggan, artist Joshua Cassara, colorist GURU-eFX, and letterer Clayton Cowles. This issue would be the book’s usual abysmal except for an interesting idea that barely buoys it out of the trash heap.
Jean calls Synch to the Vault, and then the book flashes back. Forge and Caliban argue as Forge leaves Wolverine behind, and then they’re attacked by Serafina, who the X-Men saved waaaay back in X-Men (Vol. 5) #1. She injures Forge badly and speaks to Caliban when Forge blacks out before the two mutants retreat back to where Wolverine is. As Forge starts to fade again, wires pop out of the wall and hit him. In his mind, he’s met by Darwin, who explains that he became code in the Vault’s system. Serafina breaks in and interrogates Caliban and Forge, then lets them and Wolverine go. In the present, Synch and Wolverine are reunited. Back at Krakoa, Forge tells the actual Caliban a story.
Gerry Duggan is a terrible X-Men writer, but he sometimes has an okay idea. This issue contains one of the first ones in a long time, and it’s about how Darwin survived. That said, it’s entirely possible this was Hickman’s idea because Duggan has not shown that he’s clever enough to come up with this, and Hickman almost certainly had a plan for how the Vault storyline ended. Regardless of who came up with it, it’s still pretty good. That’s the only nice part of this chapter.
As far as the rest of the book goes, the same complaints. Duggan’s captions are so dumb as to insult the audience, his dialogue is not good, it feels like he forgets what happened between scripts, and it’s just so hard to care about anything. He spent his first twelve issues destroying the relationship between Synch and Wolverine, and then he gives it back to readers? Is there any reason to believe this is going to be good? Well, since it’s Duggan, no.
Cassara and GURU-eFX have felt off since they came on this book, and this chapter is more of the same. There’s a great splash page of what Forge wants Krakoa to be in the future, but other than that, the art isn’t good. A big problem is the way it’s colored. On X-Force, GURU-eFX gave Cassara’s pencils a painterly palette. Here, he colors the pencils flat, and it just doesn’t look very appealing. This is usually an excellent art team, but on X-Men, it feels like neither of them is trying as hard as they have on other comics.
X-Men #17 is like digging through sewage to get a lunch box. There’s lunch, but everything stinks. Duggan is his usual terrible throughout the issue. Cassara and GURU-eFX aren’t up to their usual stellar, which is just plain weird. This book continues to be abysmal, but that’s not even surprising anymore.
