Cover art to DARK X-MEN: THE BEGINNING #1 by Jae Lee
Everything else in the Marvel U is dark these days, so why not have a Dark X-Men too? Following the Skrull invasion, Norman Osborn worked out a deal with the X-Men: he would leave them alone if they would police the rogue mutant population. But being Norman Osborn, he has a contingency plan in place. That would be the Dark X-Men.
Norman assembles his team of dastardly fellows and no-goodniks by speaking in riddles and offering them exactly what they want. He’s looking for people he can control but he may be in over his head.
I liked the way Osborn was portrayed. He’s a self-serving sleazebag and master manipulator who will use whatever underhanded tactics and trickery it takes to get what he wants. Dark Beast was pretty cool too, even though I’ve always hated that character – and with him on the team one is forced to remember the classic Aretha Franklin song from the ‘80s, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” Is Norman playing Beast or vice-versa?
I enjoyed Jesse Delperdang’s pencils on the Mimic story, though he definitely needs some assistance when drawing the Hulk. But the rest of it looked good. I’ve never heard of the guy before, but I look forward to seeing more of his work. Or her, if Jesse should turn out to be a girl in this situation.
Any one of these three stories could have been tacked on to the end of an issue of Dark Avengers and been used as an excuse for that dollar price hike. They all felt like back-up stories. Like a book of total afterthoughts: not terrible stories, but not good enough to warrant their own book or even a chapter of an anthology book.
Cover art to DARK X-MEN: THE BEGINNING #1 by Jae Lee
It’s a total time waster and space filler designed to take your money with the ever-hypnotic “X” on the title. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read far worse books in my day; but this one just felt like the cheapest of cheap stunts, which actually kind of pissed me off.
Had any one of these stories been used as a Dark Avengers (or similar title) back up feature, I’d probably be complimenting Marvel for giving fans more for their money. As it is, this felt like highway robbery.