(This review may contain spoilers).
While Madrox (or James) is a character I’ve seen only briefly in one of the X-Men movies before now, I found myself instantly intrigued when I began reading this comic book.
The first comic wasn’t really as interesting as the second set. I found the idea of each of James’ duplicates being different parts of his personality a really intriguing one. There were a couple of quite amusing exchanges, particularly with the Dupe that seems more depressed. I also thought it was interesting to see the way he could absorb the memories of his Dupes… though I got the impression he didn’t really like or care about their safety.
In the first comic, I did have a lot of sympathy for him as a character. Although the artwork is vastly different in tone, I felt it showcased his mental state really well… though I couldn’t tell what his end goal was actually supposed to be. It was good to see him battling against the Fantastic Four and how they had to deal with the new powers, though. (Ben amused me a great deal).
I did think that the second set of comics did a really good job of showing the kind of noir setting. It was a bit sad to see that mutants were almost kept separated in Mutant City, though.
I did find myself getting a bit confused about which version was James and which was a Dupe. There were some times I wasn’t entirely sure why he was duplicating himself… though I thought it was intriguing to see the kind of limitations his mutation placed on him.
I also found many of the other characters interesting, although I was a bit confused about who was who at first. Seeing the rest of them working a case was quite interesting… though I thought it was left on a bit of a cliffhanger. I did also like the hints that the dupes had different emotions to James.
While it was good to see a couple of twists in the second set of comics, I didn’t think those were all hinted at and I didn’t get to know some of the characters well enough to be surprised or shocked by them. I am, however, intrigued enough to read more about this hero in the future.
Ink of Blood 