Should be a crime that Gene Ha’s talents were wasted on this

It is 2019. I am reading a comic in which Wonder Woman has been brainwashed into being a housewife.

It is 2021. I am reading a comic in which Wonder Woman has been brainwashed into being a housewife.

It is 2024. I am reading a comic in which Wonder Woman has been brainwashed into being a housewife.

The latest installment of Fall of the House of X had all the makings of a thrilling pentultimate issue, but unfortunately it prioritized quantity over quality. The issue felt like a rushed sprint from one set piece to the next, leaving key moments underdeveloped and lacking the emotional resonance they deserved.

One of the big missteps was the handling of Apocalypse's story. To save a dying Krakoa, he begins a new version of the Crucible, which had the potential to be a powerful and poignant moment acting as an homage to the early days of this era. Instead, it was weighed down with too much dialogue and underwhelming art. Similarly, the utterly consequential deal between Xavier & Nimrod was relegated to a data page. A total cop-out & disservice to the severity that one conversation will have on years of storytelling.

As touched upon briefly, the issue fell short in the art department for me. It failed to bring the action panels to life, leaving them feeling static & removed from the intensity of what the script was trying to imply. At worst, we didn't even get to see the full scope of certain scenes which were either handled via the aforementioned data page, or off-page. If this were a movie or tv show, I'd be saying they had to be mindful of budget but I'm not sure why they made the decision to limit the visuals in a comic book.

Overall, Fall of the House of X #4 was a let down for me. With better attention to pacing & a focus on quality over quantity, this could have been an emotionally powerful chapter in the final days of Krakoa. Instead, it feels like Xavier is getting the Daenerys Targaryen treatment. You can understand how they'd become an ultimate villain, but the writing fails to justify their turns & instead speeds to a finale. more

To me this felt very rushed and by-the-numbers. It feels like Duggan is just phoning it in now with how he's closing off his plot points. Also, the X-Men now seem very bloodthirsty. I know they decided that extreme measures were necessary (which I think is out of character), but they just went from "No Killing" to "Kill everything you see even if you don't have to". They don't even show any remorse or difficulty in doing so.

I feel bad for Kieron Gillen. His side of the Fall of X seems to be well written and well thought out. Unfortunately, it has to be paired with this. more

The story's nothing special, but god damn could Russ Heath draw. That splash of the explosion made me do a little gasp

Robinson's youthful inability to edit caused the explosive beginning of this arc to be followed by a series of ambling digressions and whims that turn the pacing to sludge

Snejbjerg struggled with the drab outer space plot, but with Grand Guignol now I see why I had such fond memories of his work on this book

To start with the good, Evely's art is exquisite as ever, all elegant swirling, every panel bristling with motion.

But I've kind of reached my limit with King's Strong Female Characters, who are all the same character over and over. Helen is a vivacious, reckless, masculine young woman, a girl who is Not Like The Other Girls, who says naughty words and smokes cigarettes and defiantly drinks wine from the jagged necks of broken bottles because she's too rugged and self-destructive to use a corkscrew I guess. And naturally, she is perceived only from an awestruck distance and exhibits no identifiable inner life, a woman who's all aesthetic and no feeling.

What I'm saying is, she's just King & Evely's Supergirl but with red hair. If you've read one Tom King Strong Female Character, you've read them all. more

Ah how I do not miss the continuity-obsessed days when anyone thought it would be a good idea to run a year-and-a-half long story that climaxes with a wanky retcon of a Z-list space hero who ran for a few months in Adventure Comics in 1980