First things first: I’ve only read, like, two dozen comics in my life, so don’t read this review, basically.
I think this succeeds in its writing. Its greatest strength is the pacing; I was surprised how fast it went by. Emma is established in her element quickly and with enough detail to feel tangible, and we got some endearing character moments from Emma and the X-Men. The X-Men aren’t there for very long, but each member makes an impression. I think the X-Men breaking into the Hellfire Club to rescue a fellow mutant is a good inciting incident, and the comic leaves off with a good hook for what could come next. There was a stroke or two of ham-fisted social commentary, which is something that, as a leftist, I don’t want to complain about, but it did take me out of it a bit.
My main problem here is the art. I’ll try to be fair and say that maybe my problem is just the character design or art direction decided upon for this run, but I’m not feeling this. If this were a story exploring some cosmic place where the ideas of the locations and characters were more important than the art’s fidelity, I’d say the art would be serviceable. The problem is that this is an Emma Frost book, so the art has to look really good, because Emma has to look really good. That’s my biggest problem here. A big facet of Emma Frost is that she’s so hot that everyone in the room can’t take their eyes off her, and while there aren’t dudes literally drooling, this book still feels structured to convey that aura, and the art just can’t sell that. I’m not a fan of the orange skin and dull purple lipstick; her eyes are too small; she kinda has duck lips? Her curves aren’t accentuated that well—it just doesn’t do it for me. And that’s a problem when that is a pillar of the myth of Emma Frost. And, like, look at the cover: they’re clearly targeting greasy sex perverts like me, and what I’m seeing just isn’t sexy enough. I came here to male gaze, dammit.
Yeah, “The writing is good, but I can’t fap to it,” is a silly summary, but it’s like if Jennifer’s Body had someone average-looking rather than Megan Fox. The piece kinda needs that to work, not just for fanservice, but artistically, to avoid the cognitive dissonance. With that dissonance, it is somewhat of a nonstarter, even though I overall enjoyed it.
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