I’ll admit it: I haven’t been following the X-books.  I haven’t been following Thor or Iron Man, and I never read Marvel Divas.  Complete unfamiliarity with context didn’t keep me from enjoying Firestar, Cloak and Dagger, or the other Marvel one-shots, but it did get to me this time.

It is possible to celebrate a character’s history without being mired in continuity, but that is not the approach Jim McCann took here.  Instead of reintroducing her, he endlessly calls back to previous incarnations.  Instead of explaining why she is an important character, he explains why she used to hair pink hair.  This is possibly the least new-reader-friendly comic I’ve ever seen.  The dialogue was all right, I guess.

Considering this is a one-time one-shot that has been delayed more than once, I assumed the art would stay more consistent.  There is an abrupt change in the visuals in the middle of the story that made me wonder if I had missed something.  None of the artists involved were bad (or amazing).