I only picked this one up due to the Odd-Man-Out on the beautifully illustrated Terry Dodson cover, so of course this was a disappoinment to me.

But not really.

I haven’t been following this new X-Men title or the whole Vampire storyline that’s been offshooting various one-shots & a Namor series, so being blissfully unware of what has been happening in THIS X-Men book (continuinty?  Seriously, what’s the point other than neither Fraction nor Gillen has any interest in telling this story of starting this book in the 1st place?) did not keep me from enjoying this quick read.  The total lack of characterazation of this cast made it very evident from the jump that the goal here was to set up the scenario that brought this team to New York to meet up a certain threat under the sewers (hint:  there’s a reason Bachalo is drawing this story;  you’ve been warned) & team up with my personal hero who apperance in any book will sell to me: Spider-Man.  I’m not even going to ask what Gambit’s back on the team for, since 1.  I should have already been reading for that and 2.  That’s how happy I am that he’s just back (even if he’s lost the accent in the process).

Bachalo’s art is love-it-or-hate-it (with me being on the love side);  the only problem being that so much of it bleeds together at 1st glance that most of the time I have a hard time telling if I’m looking at a 2 pg spread that needs to be read across or if certain panels are connected to to the panel on the other page or……well, the lesson is you should just read the story and figure out later if you made a wrong turn somewhere.  God forbid that it be the artist’s responsiblity (*or to be fair in this case, the colorist*) to make such things more abudnelty clear.

I’ll be back next issue.  Y’know.  For Spidey.  After that, we’ll see……