Writer: Al Ewing
Artists: Stefano Caselli & Jacopo Camagni
Color Artist: Federico Blee
Cover Artists: Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
It’s all coming to a head: the battle between the martian Brotherhood of Arakko led by Storm against Vulcan and the agents of Abigail Brand. While Storm faces off against Vulcan on Mars, Cable and his team deal with allies of Abigail Brand as she tries to manipulate cosmic civilizations to her liking. See where the chips fall for Storm and Brand in X-Men Red #10.
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Review:
For a while now, Al Ewing has tried, he’s tried really hard in this series to sell how big of a threat Vulcan is, or rather could be and he tried to do so again in the last few issues by having him take down Ewing’s favorite punching bags, the Shi’ar Imperial Guard. But now he’s facing off against Storm again, for the second time. How will this battle go? Who will come out the winner and determine the direction of the mutants of Arakko? The victor is no surprise to anyone who’s read this series. Storm.
That’s a spoiler, but Al Ewing has no one to blame but himself for this. This review will have spoilers here and there tackling the events with Vulcan and Brand, with a big one at the end for the SPOILERS section, so don’t worry. But let’s start with the “big fight” between Storm and Vulcan. The conclusion of this battle was predetermined not by the nature of superhero comics or anything like that, no, it was determined by how badly Al Ewing wrote and underutilized Vulcan. See, Vulcan is a very powerful omega-level mutant who’s mentally unstable and prone to rash and destructive behavior, right? But every time Al Ewing tries to build up Vulcan as a big threat he keeps undercutting him each time. Vulcan’s lost every fight or encounter he’s had in this series, which is three times. Ewing has him strike out three times and even Stefano Caselli’s art in the last two issues or this one couldn’t make this reviewer get even remotely invested in this battle.
What’s worse is that Storm doesn’t feel like a compelling character in this issue or in the entire series. She’s never really challenged, she never faces any conflicting personal or moral problems when interacting with the warrior culture of Arakko and trying to be their representative to others. And when it comes to the fights she’s in, the only thing guaranteed is that she will look and do something cool but they all feel hollow since there’s no stakes to anything she’s part of. Not when she first fought Vulcan and the Progenitors, not when she faced the forces of the Eternal Uranos, and certainly not here where she’s facing Vulcan for the second time and still wins. The only thing Al Ewing wants to do with her is have her constantly tell people that she’s not a queen and Arakko is not a place for rulers, and rinse and repeat.
Then there’s Commander Brand. Where to start. Well, let’s start with the fact that her entire plot is stopped in a way that undermines her intelligence and ruthlessly pragmatic nature since any other day she should’ve seen it coming. Don’t worry, she doesn’t die, but when she’s caught red-handed she does get away. And to top it all off, we don’t even see what happens to her when she does because she’s not exactly in the clear either but it doesn’t leave much to go on as to what her fate might be. So, hopefully there is another issue that will expand on this more and show what happens to her next and actually show how her betrayal impacts the mutant leaderships of both Krakoa and Arakko.
SPOILERS:
Then there’s the big reveal at the very end of the comic. The reveal is just what the character Orbis Stellaris looks like inside his sphere and it turns out that Orbis Stellaris is actually a clone of Nathan Essex, aka Mr. Sinister, but this one has a black Ace of Spades on his forehead instead of a red diamond. Now, you could be like me and facepalmed your own forehead when you saw that, or you’re excited to see what the X-office does with this reveal next since we’ve got the Sins of Sinister event coming up this year. I’m sure this reveal as well as that of the identity of Dr. Stasis and what’s going down with Mr. Sinister in Immortal X-Men will converge together for that event, so readers interested in that should expect some payoff to this reveal.
Final Thoughts:
X-Men Red #10 concludes the storyline with the treacherous Abigail Brand and her plots for the cosmos, but the comic is sadly underwhelming. Despite the artwork by Stefano Caselli and Federico Blee’s colors, the fight between Storm and Vulcan isn’t that great. It doesn’t help that previous issues have done the legwork to undercut Vulcan as a genuinely threatening villain and real challenge to Storm. As a result, there’s no stakes or investment to this fight which has a foregone conclusion before it even starts. The story with Abigail Brand wraps up a little too quickly and her fate is left too uncertain, so hopefully another story will expand on what happens to her next.