Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Alberto Foche
Colorist: Sunny Gho
Cover Artist: David Aja
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Mutants are moving up in the world with different members of the X-Men doing their part to help advance Krakoa’s success. That includes Angel and Monet aka Penance as they form X-Corporation, or X-Corp, to secure their business ventures in the world. Now, X-Corp #1 shows what these duo have cooked up.
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Review:
First impressions, this book has way too much setup and not enough storytelling. The comic is trying really hard to sell you on X-Corp without really showing you what the team will be doing. It’s safe to say X-Corp is securing Krakoa’s business side of things, but it doesn’t paint a clear picture of what that will entail for the series, cause this is promoted as an ongoing series.
The comic introduces you to the two lead characters and CXOs of X-Corp, Warren Worthington III aka Angel, and Monet St. Croix. Monet is the hot-blooded, ambitious go-getter always on the move while Angel is cool, ethical, and level-headed and handles the business meetings. Their dynamic is played somewhat well as they bounce off each other and it clearly makes for a good source of conflict and personal drama going forward. However, it also shows why Monet probably shouldn’t be in charge of X-Corp.
She’s greedy, impatient, lacks charisma, and her dynamic with Penance makes her an unstable leader for X-Corp. Plus, she doesn’t make the best decisions in this comic to put it mildly, as you’ll see near the end of it. For this comic, Angel and Monet have two respective roles: Monet is recruiting the rest of their board of directors as part of the main cast, while Angel is having an important business meeting.
The thing is nothing exciting happens in this book until the very end, and even then, the X-Corp team aren’t exactly heroic despite how the comic views the team’s actions. So far, the team consists of Trinary from the controversial X-Men: Red series, and Jamie Madrox aka Multiple Man. Trinary doesn’t make sense as part of the board, but she does make sense as head of cyber-security. Madrox is probably the best character in this issue. He’s sincere, has a likable personality, and the comic repeatedly puts his powers to use.
While Monet is recruiting the team, Angel is having a meeting with one of Charles Xavier’s previous business partners set up earlier in the House of X/Powers of X series. The man was in charge of one of the pharmaceutical companies Professor X used to get Krakoa up and running. But there’s more to the meeting than expected and things go south but not in any entertaining way.
A problem throughout this comic book is its focus on business jargon and other details that are more likely to confuse people. Not only that, it inadvertently shows that maybe, just maybe, X-Corp won’t be an ethical company just because mutants are in charge. This is obvious with Monet’s influence and another detail brought up later in the comic about one of their key operations. I’m still curious what the series will end up being, but, despite what the comic says, this was not the perfect launch for X-Corp.
Final Thoughts:
X-Corp #1 feels like Part 1 of a TV pilot. The art and colors are solid, but it has too much setup and business jargon and not enough interesting storytelling. It does a good job establishing the team, who will likely be the main draw for this series, but not what X-Corp is actually going to be doing. This wasn’t a strong first issue, so we’ll see what the second issue brings.