Age of Apocalypse #14 Review

The problem with the X-Termination crossover is the fact that it's a crossover in the first place. As the story kicked off in the opening issue, most of the impetus and dramatic weight centered on the Age of Apocalypse characters, with the casts of X-Treme X-Men and Astonishing X-Men merely along for the ride. That flaw has been addressed somewhat as the crossover has progressed and the characters split up, but this is still a storyline with about twice as many protagonists as it can make any real use of.

That said, David Lapham works in a lot of strong character moments in this issue. The previous chapter offered the deaths of both Graydon Creed and Sabretooth among the AoA cast. More sacrifices are made this week, and fans of AoA and X-Treme X-Men will be hit in the gut. Let it not be said that this crossover has no payoff for either series. Lapham also succeeds with more subtle material, such as the interaction between Nightcrawler and Jean Grey. The Astonishing cast doesn't have the same effect. They feel relatively divorced from the conflict, and they're more or less safe from lasting harm throughout the story. At the very least, X-Termination would have worked better solely as a crossover between AoA and X-Treme.

Another problem that X-Termination has yet to address is the generic villains. The three reality-devouring monsters have no names, no personalities, and no dialogue. They're simply MacGuffins designed to run various X-Men through the gauntlet. And as mentioned, that results in some nice dramatic material, but I still wish the villains had a bit more flair to them.

This issue has two pencillers. Andre Araujo handles the scenes set in the 616 universe, while Renato Arlem lends his usual touch to the AoA universe. It's good that the story allows for such a logical separation of content, but the two artists are so completely stylistically different that the constant shifts are still jarring. Araujo's style is attractive in its own kooky way, but not necessarily dark enough to suit the tone of this story.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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