X-Men #194

Script: Mike Carey
Pencils: Humberto Ramos
Inks: Carlos Cuevas
Colors: Edgar Delgado



The X-Men squad under Rogue’s command finally track down the people responsible for experimenting upon new team members, Lady Mastermind and Omega Sentinel. Unfortunately the whole thing might just be an elaborate trap. Meanwhile the rest of Rogue’s team prepare their recently captured ship, The Conquistador, to serve as a base of operations away from the X-Mansion.

It takes something really special to get me interested in a comic book with an X in the title. Most of the time I find the X-Men family of comics to be extremely boring and a waste of time. Sometimes I’ll find a gem in the crowd, titles such as Astonishing X-Men, X-Factor or X-Statix. And occasionally I’ll run across something like Mike Carey’s current run on X-Men which falls somewhere in the middle. It’s not the yawn fest that most X-titles are. Neither does it have that special something that sets it apart as something I really want to read.

The first part of “Primary Infection” is heavily connected to the previous story arc which I never finished reading. Perhaps that would explain my lack of interest in this issue. While the story does pique my curiosity somewhat I don’t find myself caring about any one of the members of this current incarnation of
X-Men. None of them stand out as particularly unique or interesting and some of them are downright annoying (i.e. Lady Mastermind). The only character I could see myself wanting to read about, the villainous Sabretooth, is nowhere to be found in this issue. Even the story’s main villain, Pandemic, a man with (surprise, surprise) a past connection to the X-Men, leaves me cold.

One thing that did interest me about this particular issue was the debut of Humberto Ramos as penciller, filling in for Chris Bachalo. Usually I’m a big fan of Ramos’ work and I thought he might pump some life into the title. Again I was let down. Whether he was a last minute replacement for Bachalo and was given limited time to draw the issue or found himself uninspired by the material his work comes off as rushed, sloppy and a little unfinished in most places. Perhaps it was the inker’s fault, I don’t know. I just know that I was disappointed in the end result.

While Carey’s take on the X-Men is better than most I have read recently it doesn’t really stand out all that much. It’s good but not great. In the end it’s still just the X-Men and the X-Men alone aren’t enough to make me pick up a book on a regular basis.
 

Special thanks go out to Jeremy Shorr, owner of Titan Comics for allowing us to use his advance preview books for review purposes.

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