Once again, this turns into a great little noir story. We have all the classic elements of noir — the bad girl who can’t see her way out, the weak-willed scion, the crime lords — plural — who manipulate everyone. The girl at the middle of it all who everyone wants and no-one understands. This is like Laura or The Big Sleep, it’s like the meandering muddy darkness of The Long Goodbye. Everybody knows the score, yet nobody’s wise.

You don’t need to know anything about the X-Men to enjoy the X Men. The X Men aren’t superheroes in a noir world — they don’t have powers, as far as we can tell. Rogue is a mimic, but not a supernatural one. The X Men are noir characters in a noir world — they are corrupt, they are cold, they are cynical. And some of these characters — we don’t know which ones, yet, will turn out to have hearts of gold. That’s the way the genre works.

This is a great, great book if you like noir.