X-Men Forever 2 #s 11-16: The Series Finale

Writer: Chris Claremont; Pencils: Rodney Buchemi, Robert Atkins, Andy Smith & Ramon Rosanas; Inks: Greg Adams, Rick Ketchum, Sandu Florea, Cory Hamscher & Ramon Rosanas; Covers: Tom Grummett & Cory Hamscher

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

The second year of X-Men Forever comes to an early end, as Marvel has canceled the title with issue #16. From what I've heard, the reasons were low sales and a desire by new corporate owners Disney not to create confusion among readers by having a book set in an alternate timeline. Okay, sales I can understand, but I'm not sure how that second reasoning jibes with the continued existence of the Marvel's Ultimate Comics line of books.

In any case, from the pacing of the previous ten issues, it appears that writer Chris Claremont had been planning out his stories with the expectation that he would have another full 24 issue biweekly run. With X-Men Forever 2 cut short by eight issues, how does he do at bringing closure to the book? Surprisingly, given the short notice and lack of space, Claremont succeeds remarkably well.

The major focus of X-Men Forever 2 #s 11-16 are devoted to explaining the origins of the psychotic Perfect Storm and the adolescent Li'l Ro, and how each of them is connected to the true Storm, Ororo Munroe. It also has the X-Men attempting to liberate the nation of Wakanda, which Perfect Storm took over. She previously accomplished this coup by secretly using the Black Panther's longtime foe Killmonger to murder T'Challa and the rest of the Wakandan royal family, and then killing her erstwhile ally to keep her own image clean.

A mysterious armored figure calling himself the Ghost Panther, seemingly the spirit of the slain T'Challa, has surfaced on the island of Genosha. The Ghost Panther is attempting to keep peace between the human and mutant populations in the aftermath of that nation's civil war (chronicled back during the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover). The once-enslaved mutates are now free. But, much like the Reconstruction-era South, the long-ingrained racism of Genosha's culture remains. Numerous disgruntled members of the fallen regime's paramilitary Magistrates, echoing the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, have banded together and allied themselves with the anti-mutant Consortium, whose forces have been bedeviling the X-Men of late.

In the previous story arc, the Consortium captured Li'l Ro. Issue #11 opens with Ro being shipped off to Perfect Storm in Wakanda, a peace offering by the Consortium to their former operative. The exchange is intercepted by Ghost Panther, who brings Li'l Ro to Genosha. Perfect, who was already planning to invade Genosha, sees this as the ideal excuse take action. She dispatches her forces to Genosha to recapture Ro.

The majority of issue #13 is given over to detailing the origins of Li'l Ro and Perfect Storm. Claremont's explanation is a very complicated one. It involves a number of previously unseen events having taken place amidst the "X-Tinction Agenda." But re-reading "I of the Storm" a couple of times, it appears that everything does make sense. The plotting may be rather tangled, but as far as I can see there are no loose threads or gaping holes.

The next two issues of X-Men Forever 2 have the X-Men and their allies infiltrating Wakanda, hoping to bring an end to Perfect Storm's reign before she can invade Genosha. Into the mix are thrown the Avengers, once again facing the X-Men. Perfect has the ideal sympathy card to play, portraying herself as the grieving widow of their former teammate the Black Panther who is attempting to thwart an unprovoked attack by a group of outlaws.

I was genuinely surprised to see yet another X-Man fall in battle. Yes, X-Men Forever is set in an alternate timeline. Yes, Claremont has already killed Wolverine, Beast, Black Panther, and Iron Man. Even so, subconsciously I am so used to seeing characters escape intact from even the most brutal superhero battles that it was a genuine shock when this character died in combat. Especially as Claremont has the rest of the team react with very palpable grief and anger.

The method of Perfect Storm's final defeat in issue #15 is marvelously plotted by Claremont, in that it utilizes both foreshadowing and irony. It appears there is at least one more example of "Chekov's gun" present, as Perfect's computer files discovered in #14 are used by the X-Men two issues hence to prove their innocence to the Avengers. The entire narrative demonstrates that Claremont knows how to construct a sound literary work that, though fantastical, is not plagued by plot holes or major lapses in logic.

Too often when I have read a comic book, or watched an action movie, the story ends pretty much with the defeat of the villain, followed by the heroes riding off into the sunset. That type of conclusion usually annoys me to a certain degree, because I want to know what happens next. Yes, the bad guy's diabolical scheme is defeated and exposed. But what is the fallout of all that? What events are set in motion, what decisions are made, when the truth finally comes out? How has the conflict affected the heroes on a personal level?

One quality of Claremont's writing I enjoy is that after a major storyline he will often take at least one issue to address these types of questions. X-Men Forever 2 #16 serves as an epilogue to the preceding five issues. In "Shall We Rise Again?" Claremont lets the dust settle, delves into the fallout of recent events, and examines what our protagonists intend to do next. Here is where Claremont's strengths in characterization come to the fore, as we see the very real reactions of the cast.

Shadowcat, who has long been close to the real Storm, must deal with the fantastic developments concerning Li'l Ro and Perfect Storm, as well as her continued uncertainty over her own personal identity. Mystique, long the self-serving manipulator, is now back in the lives of Nightcrawler and Rogue, and has taken on the role of concerned parent. Cyclops and Jean Grey are looking at what has gone before and what still lies ahead for them to do.

One thing that seemed incongruous is the "final" fate of Perfect Storm. Considering all of the blood on her hands, as well as just how dangerous a being she is, I do not think that imprisonment is adequate to punish her or prevent her committing future crimes. Yes, I realize that it would have been out-of-character for the X-Men to just stand back and let Sabretooth kill her in cold blood. At the same time, even the characters admit that her continued existence presents them with problems, and that they're going to have to be hyper-vigilant concerning what they do with her.

I was also surprised that Sabretooth, finally given the opportunity to gain his long-awaited revenge on Perfect Storm for the death of Wolverine, stood down when ordered to by the X-Men. That was very unlike him. The only rational I can think of for Sabretooth's behavior is that he didn't think it worthwhile to have to fight both the X-Men and Avengers in order to get to Perfect, and decided to wait for a better time when he could kill her without any interference.

In any case, the lack of a concrete resolution to the situation with Perfect Storm was only major failing in Claremont's otherwise strong writing.

Obviously, there are a number of plotlines that are left unresolved. Given the choice of rushing things to a premature conclusion, or leaving them open for the possibility of resolving them at some indeterminate point in the future, Claremont opted for the later. I have seen a lot of abruptly canceled comic book series where writers attempted to cram the resolution of all of their subplots into the final issue, and the results were almost always disappointing. I much prefer what Claremont did here, leaving things open, but establishing a tone of at least partial closure.

Don't get me wrong. There is a lot left unresolved: mutant burnout, Mister Sinister's plans for Cyclops' son, the Consortium's alliance with Clan Yakuza and the Hand, the corruption of Illyana Rasputin into Black Magik, the fate of the evil Wolverine clone, and probably a few more that I can't recall at this moment. It is very frustrating, not being able to see where Claremont was going to go with some of these. I only hope that at some point Marvel will publish a miniseries or special that will enable him to wrap up at least a couple of these storylines.

In terms of the artwork, these last six issues of X-Men Forever 2 were a bit inconsistent. Four pencillers in half a dozen issues resulted in some rather abrupt style changes. That's not to say that any of the artists were bad, merely that this interrupted the flow of the story somewhat. Also, it would have been nice if the semi-regular team of Tom Grummett & Cory Hamscher could have been part of the final story arc. Marvel reassigned them to other projects such as the Chaos War: Dead Avengers miniseries. At least they were able to contribute the covers.

I guess Rodney Buchemi & Greg Adams can be considered the second "semi-regular" art team, having worked on two previous X-Men Forever arcs. It was nice to see them back on issue #s 11-12, turning in quality work. They drew a very dramatic rendition of Ghost Panther.

Issue #13 was mostly a series of flashbacks, so the change in style wasn't as jolting as it could have been, as one could make the case that having a different artist helped it stand out that these were past events we were seeing. Robert Atkins did some nice work illustrating the origins of Li'l '˜Ro and Perfect Storm. His style is similar to Sean Chen's work. The coloring by Wilfredo Quintana was also very effective in #13. He gave the flashbacks a purple tinge to distinguish them from the present-day framing sequence.

Andy Smith penciled #s 14 & 15. He was paired up with regular series inker Cory Hamscher, and the two of them worked very well together. The battle between the X-Men and the Avengers was highly dramatic. The death scene in #15 packed a real emotional punch, with Smith & Hamscher's art driving home the sudden tragedy and shock of the moment. I really liked Smith's renditions of the Avengers, especially Captain America. I hope he has an opportunity to draw them again.

My only real criticism was that Smith uses a two-page spread in #14 to introduce the Avengers. That left me muttering "The book is getting canceled in a couple of issues, and this is just taking up space that could have been used to advance the plot!" Of course, it's more than likely that, as with Claremont's pacing out of the plots, Smith laid out the penciling of issue #14 before he knew the series was coming to an end. In any case, a double page splash would not have been a problem if the series had not been canceled. However, there is one splash page in #15 that was laid out vertically, yet the lettering is horizontal, which made it look awkward. I'm not sure why that was done.

That aside, the art by Smith & Hamscher is very good, probably the strongest out of these six issues. I'd have been happy it if they could also have drawn the final issue. Instead, the artist on #16 is Ramon Rosanas. His work reminds me somewhat of both Paul Smith and early Cary Nord. Rosanas' art for #16 is pretty good. At first I found it a bit underwhelming, at least compared to the previous two issues by Smith & Hamscher. After further consideration, though, I have to admit that the low-key approach by Rosanas was perhaps more appropriate for this character-driven final issue.

Looking back on X-Men Forever, the series as a whole was very good. After some lackluster, uneven work in the last decade or so, readers could have been forgiven for perceiving Claremont as having already peaked as a creator, and possibly even being in decline. To be honest, I myself was disappointed by his recent New Mutants Forever miniseries, which he worked on contemporaneously. Yet on X-Men Forever itself, Claremont was doing writing of a high caliber. Aside from a few missteps here and there, the series was a solid, entertaining read from the first issue until the final one. It was actually one of the few ongoing titles being published by Marvel that I looked forward to picking up each new issue.

As I said before, hopefully Marvel will afford Claremont the opportunity to revisit the universe of X-Men Forever somewhere down the road and enable him to bring a greater deal of closure to the stories of the last year and a half.