Extrordinary X-Men #9

By Jeff Lemire, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba and Edgar Delgado

There really isn’t too much you can say about Extraordinary X-Men. Many fans consider this series to be a disappointment, and it would be hard not to see why. The talent on this series should be getting better results than what we’ve seen so far, but for one reason or another, they just aren’t. As Apocalypse Wars continue, we get a glimpse into how things shaped up in the year the young mutants were left in the future. This may seem exciting to some, but probably not to everyone.

Jeff Lemire’s stint in X-Men lore has been a rough one. Extraordinary X-Men has not been the flagship book in the line, in fact, it’s been one of the worst. Messy plots, mischaracterizations of cast members and a continual focus on the death of Cyclops with still no explanation why, are a few of the problems. Each issue is a new chance to bring the X-fans around though, and this issue focuses on how the younger X-Men spent their year in the future. Lemire does a decent job of making these younger characters fun in this story. Glob and Anole pretty much steal the issue with their dialogue and little arc. Seeing the team jump from place to place is fun because Lemire has them travel to some some fairly creative worlds. One of the annoying things this issue is that there is continued talk about how mutants are weak and Inhumans are superior. We get it, Marvel, you don’t own the movie rights to the X-Men, but please don’t bash them every chance you get. This was brought up a couple of times and just gets more frustrating every time. While it wasn’t terrible to see some of Grant Morrison’s creations getting some action, no one buys this book for Glob or Ernst. The fact that the main team wasn’t in this book until the last two pages is a drawback. This wasn’t a terrible issue, it’s actually one of the better chapters of Extraordinary X-Men.

The pencils this issue are handled by Humberto Ramos with inks by Victor Olazaba and colors by Edgar Delgado. As is pretty much par for the course on any Ramos book, there is going to be exaggerations in character bodies; this issue no different. With that out of the way, we can move onto some of the good things that Ramos does. When the younger X-Men enter the doorway, Ramos does an awesome job of showing us several different self-contained universes. This is a large page that is very detailed in many of the smaller units. Ramos also does a good job as the mutants travel through these different worlds. Each one has it’s own style and Ramos gives us an original feel to each of these places. There are still panels where Ramos seems to slack on some details. As the young X-Men fight the mole people, Anole barely has a face. It’s not the closest panel to draw, but you can add a little more detail. The colors by Edgar Delgado are pretty decent here. Delgado is responsible for making all of Ramos’ worlds come to life, and he does. We get worlds that have bright greens and others that are dark and dank. Delgado’s colors really work well in this issue.

This was a pretty solid issue, but it wasn’t without it’s problems. The story was engaging and for the most part the art was better. Hopefully this can be a turning point for a series that definitely needs it.