Wolverine and the X-Men was an excellent series that started well and then began to taper off from about Volume 5 onwards. Volume 7 is easily the worst addition to the title yet with an extended look at the Hellfire Academy.
Earlier in the series, Broo was nearly killed and has regressed from a hyper-intelligent boy to a savage, thoughtless creature. Idie has followed him to the Hellfire Academy to find out who nearly killed her friend and Quentin Quire has tagged along - though he has mixed feelings about being the hero.
Most of this book is non-story. Villains inscrutably becoming teachers instructing psychotic kids to become stereotypical Marvel villains. Ho-hum. Hello, plot? Where were you? I was reading other books at the same time as this because I could only manage an issue a day before putting the book down - it was so dull. Nothing happens for the most part and then we get the big dumb predictable superhero fight at the end.
And why the hell was Idie - a 14 year old girl - drawn in a S&M outfit? What was Aaron/Nick Bradshaw/Marvel thinking - that was breathtakingly distasteful! I went from being passively bored to actively disliking the book after that.
I suppose there were some things I liked though they were mostly little. Nick Bradshaw’s art was easily the best part of the book - if it weren’t for him I don’t think I’d have made it through. Iliked the ice transformer that Bobby conjures up, the Snot boy, and some of Quentin’s quips here and there. But basically there’s not enough here to make Volume 7 stand up to the quality of the earlier books.
I think there’s one more volume after this before it’s all over but it was the right move for Jason Aaron to leave the title - this book proves, more than anything, that he’s run out of ideas.
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 7
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