Age of Apocalypse #2

By Fabian Nicieza, Gerardo Sandoval and David Curiel

For the most part, the Secret Wars tie in books have been very good. Age of Apocalypse was probably the most anticipated from the X-Men family because it’s had such a cult following for so long. As we get the second issue, we can only hope Fabain Nicieza can keep up his wonderful writing and continue to make this an excellent series.

There is a good chance you grew up reading X-Men comics in the 90’s. They were definitely over saturated between shirts, tv shows and toys. Fabian Nicieza was definitely a driving force in the X-books and has a talent for writing many of these characters. We get another good issue of Age of Apocalypse this week. Nicieza’s experience with these characters really shows in this issue as he writes many of the characters wonderfully. The tension is there between Wolverine and Cyclops, and even though we have only seen glimpses of it so far, Nicieza is slowly building to it. It’s these little nods that Nicieza plants throughout the story that makes us feel comfortable. This is a different story, but there are many elements that make us feel right at home. The battle between the E.M.F. and the X-Men takes up much of the issue, but Nicieza also adds some interesting elements so we’re not just left with an all action issue. Magneto takes a prisoner, the E.M.F. get double crossed, and Jean runs into an old friend. All of these dangling plots will most likely make the wait for the next issue a little harder.

The pencils this issue were handled by Gerardo Sandoval with colors by David Curiel. The art is solid, but Sandoval Exaggerated many characters bodies in this issue. Characters muscles are ridiculous at times and they have a tiny head in comparison. There are some good panels though, and Sandoval does some interesting things with his framing. There is a panel where Cyclops gets attacked psychically and we get a glimpse of several moments of his past. Sandoval uses some psychic waves as a border to break up his different visions. Sandoval also gives us a pretty cool scene with cannonball as he goes from attacker to attackers. Our eyes follow him from victim to victim and it’s very well done. The colors by David Curiel are excellent. They are very bright and come off as very 90’s, which absolutely works for this book. He really captures the color palette of the original Age of Apocalypse.

This has been an extremely fun series so far. Fabian Nicieza hasn’t missed a beat with any of these characters and can honestly do no wrong. The art had a few problems, mostly with over exaggerated body parts, but overall it’s good. The story is really starting to get moving this issue and we are getting glimpses of things to come. Age of Apocalypse is the best it’s been since the 90’s!