Why have there been so many Jean Grey books from Marvel these past couple years - is she anyone’s favourite X-character?! So following on from the unremarkable Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey, X-Men Red (red because Jean’s got red hair?) is an X-Men team book headed up by Jean. And it’s as boring as most of the X-Men books we’ve been getting lately!
Jean’s no longer bonded with the Phoenix Force but she’s still OP AF (probably why, despite Marvel’s efforts to make her their mutant Jedi, she remains uninteresting). She also thinks mutants should have their own nation. Because Genosha and Utopia both worked so well? Her team is Nightcrawler, Namor, Laura Kinney/Wolverine, Gabby/Honey Badger, Gambit, and a couple newbs: Nezhno, a Wakandan Hulk, and Trinary, an Indian technopath. Together they gots to defeat Cassandra Nova who’s back baddying it up once more because she’s a baddy! Zzz…
Why is there so much hate in the world right now? Sentinites! Tiny Sentinels infecting human brains to hate mutants. Why? And what are Cassandra Nova’s plans? Dunno. What do Jean and co. do in the meantime? Easily defeat the threats and have the obligatory fight with a Sentinel. None of it is really compelling to read - it’s simply X-Men by the numbers.
Some of Gabby’s dialogue is amusing - this feels a lot like one of Tom Taylor’s All-New Wolverine books - and it’s not badly written, it just isn’t very engaging. The overly political tone doesn’t make it any more appealing either. And the only thing I noticed about Mahmud Asrar’s art is how quickly Nightcrawler’s able to grow a beard. He’s clean-shaven for most of the book and then in the last ish or two he grows a full-on, trimmed and stylish beard - dude’s got a new designer mutant power apparently!
Red, Blue, Gold - whatever colour X-title book it is, none of them are worth reading, unfortunately. It might be the Sentinites talking but I thought The Hate Machine was more like The Snore Machine!
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