X-Men: Gold #2 Review - Marvel Monday

X-Men: Gold #2 Review

Writer: Marc Guggenheim

Art Team: Ardian Syaf, Jay Leisten, & Frank Martin

Marvel Comics

Release Date: April 26, 217

Cover Price: $3.99

X-Men: Fools Gold

X-Men: Gold’s introductory issue familiarized us to the team that we will be dealing with, while inundating them with a set of problems both old (like the X-Men being singled out for their differences/encountering the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) and new alike (for example being strapped with an $18 million dollar tax bill).   With a bi-weekly release schedule priced at $3.99 per issue, I’ll openly admit, based on its first impression, X-Men: Gold isn’t really inspiring me to commit to $8 a month to its content just yet. So let’s see what issue two has in store for us X fans … hopefully Guggenheim and company can change my mind going forward … let’s find out.

To the titles credit at least there has been plenty of action so far, and we get more of that here to start the issue off, as we continue to check in on the fight that started between the ‘All-New’ Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the X-Men: Gold team last issue. Most of the first act features the two teams going back and forth, before Old Man Logan catches the worst of it all, as he's lit ablaze by former friend turned enemy, and new member of the BoEM, Amara. Nightcrawler attempts to get Logan to safety, only leading the pair into further trouble, running in to Mesmero, who dispatches Nightcrawler and kidnaps Logan before S.H.I.E.L.D arrives to contain the situation. 

As the story moves on we jump around to a few different locations as we’re filled in the various subplots in the title. In the S.H.I.E.L.D. Heilcarrier Captain America, seemingly pre-Hydra reveal, discusses with new Gold team leader Kitty Pryde the current state of events, while highlighting a topical political situation, concerning the X-Men. This is where the title losses me because it seems that a lot of the plot thus far is revolving around a new deportation agenda being pushed against mutants, while last issue addressed possible tax issues for the team. These are not plots of interest to me for a book attempting to reignite faith and interest in a popular line of books, this feels more like Im watching the evening god damn news and I hate it, so I hope we move past this quickly.  

The issue begins its conclusion as the rest of the team continues its attempts to find Old Man Logan, after locating Nightcrawler who they discover in an ally, possibly after a long night of drinking, while also trying to determine the reason for Amara flipping sides. The group suspects Mesmero, and therefore ‘mind control’, behind her sudden change of heart, never once considering other reasons.  Meanwhile Logan, kidnapped by the Brotherhood, reminds us, and all X-Men villains, that despite his advancement in age and stature lately he is still not to be trifled with, taking down the Brotherhood single handedly, before finally alerting the X-Men to his wareabouts as our issue concludes. 

This was a very quick read, with only one real surprise in the issue, the introduction of yet another villain for our team to deal with somewhere down the line. However were not provided much information on that at this point, other than a brief one page glimpse of him taking down a mutant, so we’ll have to wait and see where that takes us. However the rest of the book just feels like a safe, run of the mill, X-Men title. The characters in this issue feel like you could replace them with any of the other team members, throughout the X-Men’s long storied history, and you wouldn’t miss a beat story wise, which only highlights the titles ‘generic-ness’ further.  After two issues I feel like my opinion to people interested in the series would be to just wait out this latest X-Men relaunch and check back in after Marvel: Legacy begins because this has a ‘same old, same old’ flavor to it after two issues already.

Bits & Pieces

While the art is decent enough to appreciate for what it is, the X-Men in action, the story is just too random, scattered, and even worse treading into uninteresting territory for my tastes.  There are no bombastic X-Men: Gold team adventures to be found here, just poorly done politics, and a 'been there done that' feeling.

5.5/10