Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’d probably ideally give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. While I thought the concept of a new generation of mutants was a really good one, I found it much harder to connect emotionally to this team… even though I had seen Jubilee in other areas of this ‘verse.

Probably the biggest problem I had was with Emma Frost. I couldn’t see her as empathic towards the students and even though there were some intriguing interactions between her and Monet, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Out of the Generation X group, I found Penance to be the most interesting character. It was good to see the others trying to engage with her, but she came across as very much something of a wild creature. I would have liked to see more of her, as there was very little detail about her history… or even really a personality, save for a few glimmers.

While I did enjoy seeing the snarky side of Jubilee, I didn’t really get the feeling she’d grown up very much. I couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be able to do, but I did think Monet seemed to be highly over-powered. I didn’t find her very interesting, though, as she seemed to come across as a typical rich girl.

I did like seeing some of the different other powers. Husk, especially, I would have liked to see a bit more background of what she could do. It was very confusing to see her suddenly able to change her form to be virtually indestructible, though it was good to see that she was affected by the wounds she’d received.

The Christmas story was a bit of a jarring change, particularly since the villain from the previous comics had just vanished. I felt there was a lot of potential during the Christmas story, but I as disappointed to see a lack of acceptance on both the humans’ and the mutants’ sides. Not only did the story come to a conclusion that was anything but satisfactory, but it left a sour taste in my mouth by the end.

I did prefer Banshee to Emma, as I had the impression he really did care about the students.

I felt that the final story could have been a good way of showing how Generation X, or at least some of the members, might have been able to work together. However, although there were conflicts, there was very little in the way of any of the members attempting to work together.

Many of the individual team members were characters I would have liked to see separate. I just couldn’t see them ever being able to work together.

One other good part about this was being able to see a brief interaction between Logan and Jubilee. I enjoyed the father-daughter aspect and it would have been good to see more of the family feels in general.

I don’t think I’d seek out more comics about Generation X, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of those like Penance and Husk in the future.

(I received a free copy of this book, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought the concept of this comic was a really intriguing one. I liked seeing the conflict in the relationship between Kenton and his father, though I would have liked to see more of Kenton’s relationship with his siblings and also with various other members of his people. It was quite hard to care about what happened to them, as it was hard to differentiate between the different characters.

There was a bit of confusion when the Duchess and her entourage had appeared, as the Duchess in particular seemed to be wearing clothes that had a more Earth-feel to them.

I did find the ability of the Sand Masters to be really interesting to see, even though I would have liked to see a bit more of their background. For instance, were the Sand Masters only men? I couldn’t tell if there were any women in the ranks.

Although I was a bit disorientated with the other random plot that cropped up, it didn’t take long to realise how the characters involved related to the others in the main storyline. And I liked meeting Ais, as she seemed to come across as quite a strong person.

It was interesting to see something of the politics in the city and how the other leaders viewed the Sand Masters. While I did think there was a bit too much exposition, especially at the beginning, it was good to see Kenton having to argue for the survival of his people. However, apart from one other survivor, who was suspected of being a traitor, there were very few members of the Sand Masters I was able to get to know. And although there were hints of those with less power being looked down upon, that didn’t really crop up very much.

The artwork was really good and I liked the visual representation of the abilities. I was a bit confused by the history of the tensions between the two different peoples and I would have liked to see a bit of history: shown, instead of just talked about.

Even though there were some problems and I didn’t quite feel this comic lived up to my expectations, it was easy to read and I did enjoy learning about the world and the characters. I felt this was more of an introduction to the world and that there was a lot still to be explored.

In the future, if given the opportunity, I would probably read further issues of this series.