...Review: X-Men #26...

Review: X-Men #26 “The Burning World: Conclusion

This issue of X-Men feels like it’s playing a huge game of catch-up, getting all the women out of their problems, getting them out of the underground monster den, and getting the fight against Krakoa, Part Two over with as super-quick as possible.

And, a lot of that is because Secret Wars is coming faster now, and if I understood this correctly, every Marvel comic was told to hurry up and finish their current story arcs before Secret Wars, which shows here.

(Not that I’m really a fan of the Dragonball Z approach to comics, but “The Burning World” could have used one more issue.)

Yet—for all of the rushedness of the story—Wilson’s writing is so amazingly good because, instead of trying to do the super-quick-but-satisfying showdown with the Big Not-So-Bad, Wilson turned this issue into a meditation about loss and brokenness, pain and new beginnings.


Wilson made this issue about family.




And, I can’t find fault in that because this iteration of X-Men has always had a strong Found Family element to it—possibly even stronger than the default level of other X-Men series—and part of what’s been killing X-Men since the beginning were the team squabbling over hierarchies and the chains of command that you beat people with more often than X-Men has been about their team being a team and taking care of each other.

This issue primarily focuses the story through Rachel—mostly because of Rachel’s ability to pull impressions from the past if they’re strong enough and because who’s going to understand overwhelming rage and pain quite like a displaced mutant from a future dystopia where she was turned into an agent of oppression?—and it’s through Rachel’s voice that Wilson continues her extended mediation upon team work and trust and reliance upon others—much like she did in the last issue through M.

Which is important since each character gets to the same place via many different streets.

Interestingly, Lanham’s coloring is what really pushes Wilson’s thesis forward—although, omg, the full-page spreads are gorgeous like whoa (Krakoa has never looked so cool,)—with Lanham’s almost stubborn reliance on using “dust” colors for the vast majority of the issue to illustrate not only the barrenness of the area around them but also to illustrate the barrenness that comes from producing the weapons of war.

And, that the weapons themselves will one day fight back.

Yet it’s the bursts of color—the little moments when Psylock saves Jubilee and Rachel, Storm rescues herself (about freakin’ time, y’all), and Gambit takes a pot-shot at Krakoa—are some of the prettiest of the issue.

(I’m still liking the more gestural faces, but that’s me.)

Unsurprisingly, in all the overrushedness, there is also a meditation about endings and what we value when more permanent endings arrive.

And, this is an ending because Secret Wars is upon us, so this will be the last that we’ll see of this particular incarnation of X-Men for a while probably, which is sad for completely other reasons.

So—we’re left with Jubilee having taken a little, harmless chunk of Krakoa, Part Two back to their Krakoa at the Jean Grey School with the hopes that Krakoa, Part Two—should there be a spark of sentience in his remains—will learn and become better.

Like Krakoa.

(Tell me Krakoa isn’t the cutest little rock monster. *gibbers happily*)

---> therainbowhub