writer: Cullen Bunn / artist: Gabriel Hernandez Walta / Marvel Comics
After a pretty triumphant return to form for this book in the previous issue when Magneto basically told S.H.I.E.L.D. to watch the throne, he has settled back on Genosha, an island that holds about as much significance to him as any other place imaginable. He is setting up a sanctuary for mutants here, again, with the hope of keeping them safe from perpetrators and anti-mutant sentiments. So what’s the next logical conflict to happen? MURDER MYSTERY! This is actually a pretty cool start the arc as a group of mutants who are on the island but don’t trust Magneto enough to be in the compound, are slaughtered. Bunn has used Magneto’s background of being in a concentration camp heavily (sometimes ad nauseum to be honest) and he brings back the symbolism in big ways again.
What runs parralell with the main plot are flashbacks to the X-Force days and what may have been Wolverine leading the team that ultimately killed Apocalypse. It’s hard to tell how this is tied into the mystery of who brutally killed the mutant refugees or not, but it’s all a very well set up.
Walta as usual does a good job of drawing the gritty and almost underground world that Magneto presides over. The structure is rigid and unflinching, which fits perfect for Bunn’s storytelling.
Magneto opens a new arc with a mystery to solve and danger feeling pretty close to (new) home for Magneto and his fellow mutants. The last couple of issues have been really well done and I think that’s prime to continue.
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