The main story in Dark X-Men lives up to it's namesake by being very dark but at the same time very X-Men. Violent and taking no prisoners with a brilliant combination of atmospheric line art and coloring that elevate the excellent script and deliver a disturbing but thoroughly enthralling opener that tells you more than enough to hook you in while keeping it dark and mysterious while the second part allows the creative team to be more tongue in cheek but still additive to the overall story. Read Full Review

Dire times call for an out-of-the-box all-new all-different type of X-team, as ‘Dark X-Men' #1 brings this shadowy team together to push back as the Fall Of X continues. An emotional, humorous, gorgeously dark series is a welcome addition to a line of titles that is actually doing some inspired work as the Mutants of Marvel face some of their hardest times. Read Full Review

Dark X-Men #1 is a lot of fun. Action. Humor. It's exactly what you'd expect going into it and has me excited to read more. Read Full Review

Both artists deliver awesome imagery throughout the issue. I love that the darker tone of the story has led to a darker art style and how that style serves the characters and the story. Read Full Review

The delicate balance between the supernatural and the social is really, really difficult to maintain. Foxe and company run the risk of leaning a bit more in the direction of the supernatural with the opening issue, but this IS Dark X-Men, so its totally understandable. The challenge moving forward is going to lie in making certain that theres enough of an X-component to the series to keep it grounded in the appeal that has worked so well for these characters over the decades. Its not easy. The past few decades are littered with forgettable X-titles. Read Full Review

Very rarely do I go into a comic having an idea of what I would like and it over delivers. I didn't think Madelyne Pryor was the right choice to head the Dark X-Men, but after the first seven pages, I was happily wrong. Read Full Review

This free-fo-all coupled with the almost eerie characters involved in the team, make Dark X-Men #1 quite unique in its form and design for this Fall of X Event. Additionally, fans should be prepared for the story to take a bit of time before it picks up. The excitement and action will come along with a few answers left hanging out there since the Hellfire Gala. Readers will just need to be patient as Dark X-Men #1 begins to take shape. Read Full Review

Even if the reader doesn't recognize or appreciate the issue's subtext, this is an enjoyable superhero book for anyone attracted to the darker side of the genre. Read Full Review

In the end, Dark X-Men #1 is likely to appeal to fans of the darker X-Men comics of the 1990s. The detailed, visceral artwork is a throwback to that era, and the main story is as light on characterization as it is heavy on bloodshed. Thankfully, it's not all doom and gloom though it sets the stage for some dark days ahead. Read Full Review

Dark X-Men #1 has a ton of promise but introduces too many characters for the page count it has been given. Read Full Review

Dark X-Men #1 is a lovely introduction and an appreciated flashback about the goings on at the Limbo embassy. Jean Grey is dead, and now Madelyne Pryor is stepping up as the new X-Men's heart... of darkness. Blood, demons, and drama are here because when the the going gets dark, it seems the X-Men will get even darker. Read Full Review

Am intrigued, but have some miXed feelings, initially. Gonna let it stew for a while, to see if that helps settle my thoughts.

I'll start this by saying that I think this series has potential. While the cast isn't my personal favorite, I do think it's an interesting one. However, we don't really get to see all that much of them here. As KittyNone stated in their review, the backup was the best part of this story and it's probably what I'll remember the most from this issue. That's not to say everything else wasn't good, because, as you can tell by my rating, I enjoyed the issue as a whole. I just hope that, with Issue 2, we get more on the rest of the characters involved in this book.

Don’t like this lineup (particularly comic trash Azazel) but it exceeded expectations.

An fun premise and a solid take on Madelyne Pryor, but doesn't particularly have anything to say about the rest of the cast, and the backup was substantially more memorable than the main story. I think I'd rather see Foxe do a Limbo Embassy comic shorn of the burden of a grimdark crossover, but I'm interested enough to stick around for #2

When solicitations came out for the first wave of Fall of X titles, the premise, lineup, and initial artwork for Dark X-Men immediately grabbed my attention. Honestly, they had me hooked at the mention of Madelyne Pryor. The series finally debuted this week with DARK X-MEN #1 from Steve Foxe and Jonas Scharf. While the first issue showed promise, it felt like the potential for the series wasn’t fully realized yet.

For those unfamiliar with the series’ setup, Madelyne Pryor’s role as Limbo Ambassador has given her a front row seat to anti-mutant demonstrations and vitriol. As such, she’s grown tired of “the humans” and decides it’s time for a new team of X-Men. made up of mutants who have sought asylum at the Limbo Embassy, to protect other mutants who remain on the run or in hiding from Orchis — and she plans to help them by any means necessary.

Foxe does an interesting job creating a level of complexity for Madelyne that has been sorely lacking in previous story arcs for the characters. Her motivations for forming a new team and having lax rules on what they do in battle are explained and you can understand her thought process. Her interactions with Havok are also great — in one scene she burns the sheets as she gets out of bed to don her classic outfit while Havok cries ”those were Egyptian cotton sheets!” Throughout their scenes together, Havok comes across as a doormat and it’s hilarious. Poor Havok (but not really). There’s even a tongue in cheek backup story from Foxe that details the work Havok took on to get the Limbo Embassy up and running, including interviewing mutant asylum seekers. I’m not sure if we’ll get these type of flashbacks in future issues but it was a fun treat here.

I wish Foxe would have spent a bit more time with the rest of the characters that make up the Dark X-Men team as they kind of just show-up together as a team during the issue’s main conflict. Characters such as Emplate, Zero, and Azazel haven’t had a lot of visibility during the Krakoan Era and it would have been nice to get a little bit more story for them. It was also weird to find Gambit, Archangel, and Maggot randomly working together without any explanation on how the trio got together. As much as I love what Foxe did with Madelyne, I’m hoping the rest of the team gets more visibility in future issues. There’s one full page showing various niche mutants around the Limbo Embassy and I just wanted to know more about their lives!

Scharf and colorist Frank Martin put the dark in DARK X-MEN #1 with their approach to the main story’s art (the backup Havok story also had colors by Martin but Nelson Dániel was on art duties). The duo utilized a lot of heavy lines and dark shadows throughout the issue and it made it hard to grasp what was happening in certain panels where characters seemed lost in the darkness. In panels that weren’t so heavy on the shading, Martin’s colors were a highlight including panels highlighting Azazel’s teleportation, Gambit’s kinetic energy, and Madelyne’s powers. Scharf’s design for the Mercy Crown, a demon Cerebro that Madelyne had hidden away, was awesome.

Clayton Cowles also deserves a ton of credit for the book’s lettering work. There are so many sound effects done in interesting ways that feel organic and naturally blend into the scenery. It’s all very effective throughout the major action sequences.

Overall DARK X-MEN #1 had some highs and some lows, though Foxe and team appear to have ample opportunities on where and how they take this story. There are several plot points and character introductions, outside of the main team, that are left dangling by the end of the book which have me intrigued to see how they unfold. Also, Madelyne Pryor.

Rating: 6.5/10 more