New Mutants #22

New Mutants #22

Marvel Comics 2019

Written by Vita Ayala

Illustrated by Rod Reis

Lettered by VC’s Travis Lanham

SHADOW KING SHOWDOWN!

He’s been skirting the line…skulking around the Wild Hunt…and now he’s simply gone too far. On Krakoa, where the dead walk among the living and the unforgivable has been forgiven, the NEW MUTANTS now battle an old foe…the psychic entity known as the Shadow King!

This is what is inherently wrong with the forces that be on Krakoa. Shadow King should never have found his way to the Island, been resurrected and whatnot. Don’t get me wrong seeing the team go up against their oldest and most dangerous foe is thrilling after all he’s caused them the most damage and fear over the teams existence. It just never should’ve happened again and let alone him being able to use a group of younger mutants to draw his most hated foes to him in the manner in which we see. Meanwhile, where's Doug during all this? He’s my favourite member of the team and unless he’s resurrecting Bird Boy or gathering Magma, Bobby and Empath his absence is glaring to me. Meanwhile the younger kids apologising to Gabby is a great thing to see and seeing her own fears about her existence just makes what happened hit that much harder.

I am absolutely loving the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to bring their ever changing and evolving personalities to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more we want to see.

I greatly appreciate the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. How we see the layers open up new avenues to be explored while exploring those avenues already opened is extremely well done in how they add depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

Can I just say that how Rod is channeling his inner Sienkiewicz is mindbogglingly brilliant to see. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work that we see is truly astonishing to witness. The utilisation of the page layouts is phenomenal and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. While I wish we’d see more backgrounds being utilised, still the composition within the panels more than makes up for this as we still see how they enhance and expand the moments. We also see how the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is brought to life. The creativity and imagination that’s on display is beyond fabulous. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show a brilliant eye for how colour works. From the patterns in the Shadow Kings jacket to the gradation effects we see throughout and even the black and white show a masterful eye for colour.

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There’s a reason this remains the only X book that I really like and follow, X-Factor was cancelled, and it goes far beyond the cast of characters I grew up with. The writing is spectacular and the characterisation is bloody amazing then add in these brilliant interiors and you have the best of the best of the X titles.