Comic Review - X-Infernus 1-4

Title/Storyline
X-Infernus 1-4

What the Hell

Publish Date/Year
2009
Creative Team
CB Cebulski & Giuseppe Camuncoli
Publisher
Marvel

Story

It starts off with Colossus (he’s now making noise only after being dead and revived) throwing a fit over why the X-Men never made any real attempt to rescue his little sister Illyana, whom he affectionately calls “Snowflake”. Illyana, in her human form, was a member of the original New Mutants (the original Young X-Men team back in the 80’s). Over time, she began to appear more demonic as her powers became stronger. In her demonic form, she is known as Darkchilde. However, this little “Snowflake” is the Lord (or Lady if you would call her that) of Limbo – after having wrested control over the demon Belasco but sans her Soulsword & Bloodstone Amulet and she is raising hell (pardon the pun) looking for those items high and low in her bid to reclaim her soul.

Meanwhile, Nightcrawler (Kurt) is giving training to the youngest members of the X-Men. One of whom is also a tele-porter but magic-based – Pixie. She had had an unpleasant trip to Limbo where the Young X-Men helped Magik/ Darkchilde defeat Belasco but at the cost of a slice of her soul which is in Darkchilde’s possession. In the same instance when a slice of her soul was taken, she had also been bestowed with a Soul Dagger. When she unintentionally summons it, she also brought out the Soulsword. Darkchilde is immediately drawn to it and comes to the X-Men HQ. She seizes the Soulsword and reverts to her more human form, but soon flees once she sees her brother – Colossus, not wanting to let him see her in her half demonic form, she flees back to limbo. He soon gets a team (and of course, Wolvie is in there) to retrieve her from Limbo.

Somewhere in the Netherworlds, Belasco’s daughter – Witchfire, had called for a round-table of demons including the likes of Mephisto, his son Blackheart, Dormammu & even Hela. Demanding to replace Belasco at the round-table as she was in the process of completing an artifact that could summon the “elder gods” but Darkchilde is in her way as Limbo’s ruler and seizes Limbo in her absence. As Magik returns and find Limbo now no longer hers and is soon defeated. Of course, with the X-Men in hot pursuit, you know how this will end.

Art
The work here is very weak. Looks a lot like a cross between Jim Calafiore’s work from the first Exiles series and Steve Leialoha. I’m just comparing the kind of quality that DC is providing for their USD 3.99 books (eg: Flash: Rebirth, Blackest Night, etc). Marvel needs to buck up in terms of delivering good value for their readers’ hard earned $$$.

I would have to say that the covers are great though. Kudos to David Finch!

Additional Comments
This Mini Series is basically a lot of weak fluff which doesn’t really do much to the X-Men Mythos except bring Magik back to the mainstream so that she could be part of the New Mutants revival. Not a very good read and definitely not worth the cover price of USD3.99 a pop.

Another beef I have is why these so called “elder gods” always seem to simply be brainless giant squid-like monsters (just go watch the 1st Hellboy movie if you need a visual aid) that could be summoned and defeated with the greatest of ease. So why do super powerful beings like Mephisto & Dormammu tremble at the mention of these dumb creatures?

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X-Infernus