X-Men #5 Review

Writer: Jonathan Hickman / Artist: R. B. Silva / Marvel Comics Serafina and the Children of the Vault! I haven’t seen your asses since you were hunting down Sabertooth forever ago. X-Men #5 sets up the next arc focusing on The Vault, where time moves rapidly to spur “human adaptation along technological lines”. Let’s pretend that sentence makes sense and roll with it. With no ability to see what’s going on in the fortress sporting a deactivated got-damned Master Mold at the entrance, the X-Men needs a team of durable mutants to investigate and report. I’m all the way psyched for the upcoming issues as the team consists of X-23, Darwin, and Synch. The last one I’m not familiar with but he essentially has Hope’s power of copying the abilities of nearby mutants. X-23 is an interesting choice. I’m always a little annoyed when they but characters in multiple books. I remember seeing Wolverine in like 3 X-Men books and 2 Avengers books at the same time. Laura is in Fallen Angels and there are so many X-People to grab I would’ve liked to explore someone new and underutilized. Hell, what’s Hope up to these days? But, whatever; throw these mutants in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber/ Tron World and see what happens. One of my favorite X-Men books of all time was the Astonishing X-Men from 2004 where Armor is introduced. It’s cool seeing her climbing the ranks as an established, high-level X-Man. To be honest, I still don’t have a good grip on this newest iteration of the X-Men, and that’s probably the truest in this title. I’m content coasting through the books but there’s one thing that irritates me. Resurrection technology? Really? These are comics, and no one stays dead but will at least pretend like death is a real threat. Ok, I’m done whining. On to praise. R. B. Silva is a beast. The inside of the Vault is gorgeously haunting. And the way to my heart is a well-drawn Cyclops with a glowing visor. The plot of this book has me curious, and the art has me giddy. Can’t wait to see what the equivalent of 537 years has done to our protagonists. 8 “Techno-Lolitas” out of 10 Reading X-Men? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here. Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!