Egyptian-themed villains of the week from some other world, imaginatively named Otherworld, want to destroy our world, or something, for Definitely Not Arbitrary Reasons. Alien tarot cards mean ten X-Men have to get ten magic swords to fight the baddies with. Get ready for monumental boredom as the X-books go from bad to worst!
This edition collects the first half of the egregiously unnecessarily 22-part storyline, X (Ten) of Swords, and I’m glad it stopped when it did because I could just about manage this much garbage - I won’t be back to read the final half. I’ve read enough to say that X of Bores is my pick for crappiest comic of the year.
As mammoth as this book is, it still doesn’t manage to complete the setup - by the end of this volume, only 8 of the 10 swords have been found! It’s such a ploddingly-paced, dreary, broad storyline. Various X-Men go to get various magic swords - it’s an extensive fetch quest and it’s never interesting. Whatever hurdles they encounter, they overcome it in an issue because they have to, to get to the next part of the story. Predictable, tedious storytelling.
Then they go and stand with the sword on a special circle on Krakoa, which is amazingly dumb. Magik’s the first one there - so she has to stand on that circle for who knows how long, waiting for the other 9 to get their swords and stand on the circle? Why can’t she just go about her life until all 10 swords are found and then the ten go to the circle to stand? It’s so unimaginative and simplistic, like something a child would come up with.
The baddies are equally unimaginative and simplistic with dull goals and motivations. None of the characters who went to get magic swords were compelling - it was just filler so that Marvel could sell fanboys 22 issues each rather than a more reasonable 12 or so (though I don’t think this feeble storyline even warrants that many).
X of Swords, Volume 1: Creation is the latest low of the current X-line. Only fanboy apologists could find anything here worthwhile - nobody else would even be vaguely entertained by this rubbish sub-computer game plot.
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