Extraordinary X-Men #3

By Jeff Lemire, Humberto Ramos, and Edgar Delgado

We’re two issues into Extraordinary X-Men and truth be told, it has been pretty ordinary. Things are definitely different, but nothing is that much more exciting. So far we’ve had two mediocre issues that have been pretty slow out of the gate. As we move on to the pivotal third issue, we can only hope Jeff Lemire spices things up. X-Men fans want action, adventure, and most importantly, answers.

Jeff Lemire has a knack for turning many of the books he touches into fan favorites; this has not been the case with the limited sample we’ve seen so far on Extraordinary X-Men. This issue we get some dialogue between Jean and Logan, which was okay, but it won’t blow you away. The fact that in every issue so far someone has said that Cyclops is dead has become beyond annoying. It is because of this reason any fan should know that Scott is not dead. One of the more interesting things about the first couple of issues was the rebuilding of Magik and Colossus’s relationship. Neither of them appear in this issue, which stinks, and we don’t see Nightcrawler either. Aside from the Logan and Jean stuff, we get the battle of Limbo. Lemire seems to be exploring Iceman’s powers a bit as he unleashes something that he, along with Forge, has been working on. It’s nice to see someone finally doing something with this character. Lemire writes Storm all right, she does utter the cheesy phrase “To me my X-Men.” This was fine when Professor X said it, but we don’t need to hear it every time someone new takes over.

The pencils are handled by Humberto Ramos with colors by Edgar Delgado. Ramos has been pretty decent on this title so far, but this issue was a little messy. For the fight scenes in Limbo, sometimes characters were hard to make out and things ran together. The art for the Logan and Jean scenes is handled very well. Things did not feel rushed at all and everything looked very good. Ramos also gives us a nice looking flashback of Old Man Logan’s timeline as Jean scans his mind. The last panel of the book is really cool looking and drawn very crisply. If Ramos could consistently draw like that, the art would rock. The colors by Edgar Delgado are decent here, but he is also responsible for the confusion in the limbo panels too. His colors seem to flood in together and muddy things up at times. As a whole the art is all right, but there is some room for improvement here.

This series still hasn’t quite found its legs, and, truth be told, it has not been that exciting either. Jeff Lemire better turn out a great issue soon or else fans may flock to Uncanny X-Men. The art has been fine so far, but it would benefit from a little more consistency in some areas. Extraordinary X-Men, so far, has not been that extraordinary.