This is one of my favorite X-Men series, but I wasn’t really excited for this issue.
The cover didn’t really look that interesting, and Bachalo is back on the art. So, there wasn’t much to really be excited about. I wasn’t really excited to see the new villains who were shown on the cover either.
This issues about an 11 year old kid named Max who is pure evil. He takes over the whole Hellfire Club, and has other evil kids to help him take over the Hellfire Club.
One of the reasons I read Wolverine and the X-men in the first place is to see my favorite X-men characters every issue. So, it was a little weird that the only X-men that showed up in this issue have nothing to do with the series. The Phoenix Five make an appearance in this issue. These characters are far from main characters for Wolverine and the X-men. Wolverine created his school to get away from Cyclops. So, it was weird to see them in this issue. If they wanted Max have a conflict with the X-Men it should have been someone from the Jean Grey Institute. They forced the Avengers vs. X-Men tie-in in this issue by putting the Phoenix Five in this issue.
Even though I didn’t love this issue I didn’t think it was bad either. Max’s origin story was told in this issue and on some levels it was interesting. Max took over the Hellfire Club at 11 years old and killed his own father. This showed how pure evil this character could be. He may become an interesting villain in the future if written right.
As I mentioned in my cover portion of this review I am not a big fan of Bachalo’s art. He has a very abstract style, and I don’t think it fits this series that well. I don’t think I will ever get use to his art.
So, even though I had a couple of problems with this issue Max seems like he can be an interesting villain. So, if you want to see what type of character he is this is a good issue to pick up. But if you wanted to see your favorite X-men characters than I would skip this issue because they are not in this issue at all.
