Writer: Ed Brisson, Kelly Thompson, Matthew Rosenberg / Artist: Yildiray Cinar/ Marvel
“Disassembled” Part VI
Spoilers? Mos def. Proceed with Caution
The X-Men are a disorganized, reactionary mess of a team these days. While the veterans chase one anomaly after the other, always a few steps behind the Horseman of Salvation, the X-students have joined forces with Legion to confront Nate Grey themselves. Chances are, the students skipped any classes they had on negotiation or diplomacy because bringing a schizophrenic omega level mutant to meet self-deified mutant hippie savior Nate Grey, who has somehow become the mutant embodiment of “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski and David Koresh – does not compute… Issue six of the “Disassembled” storyline finds the divisions both within and amongst the mutants reaching the boiling point.
In the previous issue, Psylocke decided that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, so she might as well unleash Archangel because at least he is not brainwashed like Angel. Enraged and stubborn, he refuses to rejoin Magneto’s Horseman, but does not disagree to lead the X-Men to Nate Grey’s refuge. In this case, a little semantics with a man haunted by the spirit of the Horseman of Death goes a long way. He leads them to Quadra Island in British Columbia where X-Man has created his own temple built from pieces of pyramids, holy places, and apparently the top of the White House. Jean Grey tries to reason with him as her timeline de facto mother, but X-Man does not care. He is the science lab offspring of Cyclops and Jean Grey in the Age of Apocalypse timeline, so sentiment does not exist in his vocabulary. He only wants one thing – to save the world from itself before he dies. If the X-Men get in his way, so be it.
Following their own orders, the X-students arrive with Legion at the height of the encounter with Nate Grey. They want to listen, and not to fight, but they forgot about Legion. With barely a warning, Legion strikes out at the man to banish him back into his proper reality. He may have overshot though because as the fabric of time resets, the X-students find both themselves and their environment much darker and dangerous than they remembered. Armor, Pixie, Rockslide, Glob, and Pixie are probably not going to pass those finals now. New additions from X-Men Red, Gentle and Trinary, are noticeably absent from the current arc, but hopefully, they return to keep the mutant melanin count high.
“Disassembled” continues to improve as it moves along, trimming the fat and hopefully the X-Men rosters pushes toward conclusion. The writing trio has done a great job at juggling the 20+ character voices in the storyline, maintaining the personality and uniqueness of each. While the initial issues dragged from convoluted setup, this issue features a much more focused balance of characterization and action. Visually, this issue also features some of the best splash pages and two page spreads in the series thus far from rotating artist Yildiray Cinar. After the Extermination mini-series finally series finally sent the X-teens back to the past, and revealed the return of Cyclops under the care of “Kid Cable,” the new wave of mutant stories foreshadows a return to marquee storytelling.
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