Secret X-Men #1 Review: A Secret Not Worth Keeping

Whom do you call when allies of the mutant nation of Krakoa require clandestine assistance? You call the almost X-Men. That’s Secret X-Men, from Tini Howard, Francesco Mobili, Jesus Aburtov, and Clayton Cowles. It seems that the losing nominees of the first X-Men vote spent the rest of the Hellfire Gala drunkenly commiserating and came up with the half-joking idea that they should form another X-Men team. When Sunspot’s blustering about being the X-Men’s leader gets him into a sticky situation with Deathbird, the deadly aunt of the Shi’ar Majestrix Xandra, he calls their collective bluff by assembling them into an ad hoc team on a secret mission.

Getting the nine losers of the X-Men vote together could require a contrived premise seeing as they don’t share many personal bonds, but using Sunspot’s compulsive crowing to justify the assemblage is a stroke of genius. Bobby is the person who leaves mess in the way others shed skin cells. It’s believable that his braggadocio in pursuit of romantic gratification might eventually land him in a hole deep enough that it requires an entire team of X-Men to dig him out of it.

Now, if only the issue could have maintained that fun, freewheeling tone as the assembled runners up—Sunspot, Cannonball, Banshee, Forge, Boom-Boom, Armor, Tempo, Marrow, and Strong Guy—blast off into space in pursuit of their missing empress. Instead, Howard seems unable to commit to crafting either an over-the-top adventure or a straight espionage tale, resulting in something that falls into a dull space between as the crowded cast jockey for the spotlight while navigating a convoluted and uninteresting conspiracy.

The art team falls into similar territory. Mobili’s art is grounded in a way that’s neither particularly expressive nor particularly atmospheric, and Aburtov’s colors, while technically strong, are evocative of nothing in particular.

While the issue’s “cold open” is stellar—this being where Sunspot steps in it, punctuated by a splash page within which Mobili draws Deathbird with a perfect “if looks could kill” expression of disdain—the script hits trouble immediately after the credits page. Howard has embroiled the Secret X-Men in a double conspiracy. Deathbird has recruited the X-Men for a task, but the Imperial Guard also contacts the X-Men to find Deathbird. But since Deathbird’s instructions amounted to nothing more than “come find me,” the two missions don’t conflict with each other at all. The result is two different, redundant scenes of the X-Men having their mission explained to them, neither of which is particularly exciting and one of which leads to not much of anything by the end of this issue.

It’s mainly a problem since the point of the issue is to showcase these characters, and Howard puts a valiant effort toward giving each of them something interesting to say or do. Some characters fare better than others. Much of the issue focuses on Cannonball and Sunspot’s familiar friendship, and Strong Guy comes out looking like the biggest winner. But others like Forge and Armor are relegated to the functional dialog that pushes the plot forward, and some like Boom-Boom only get to reaffirm their familiar archetypal characterizations. It’s simply not the successful B-list X-Men showcase it could have been.

The issue nearly falls apart towards the end when Howard injects some artificial interpersonal conflict into the mix. Upon making landfall, the same team that functioned perfectly well together on their journey suddenly begin sniping at each other in random fits of pettiness. It culminates in a barely coherent 9-panel grid that suggests growing physical and emotional distance between the characters only for them to appear shoulder-to-shoulder on the page turn. It’s one of the more baffling sequences I’ve seen, and things only get further muddled once they meet their goals. Deathbird explains that this was all some training exercise or test of worth, which might be clever if the extents she went to weren’t so simultaneously ridiculous and foolhardy. There also may be hints that her precognitive assistants are manipulating Xandra, but it’s challenging to figure out how suspicious readers are supposed to be, exactly. Having followed Howard’s Excalibur, she sometimes struggles with communicating those beats effectively in her scripts, and Mobili’s straight-faced artwork isn’t doing much to nudge readers in any particular direction.

There are some clever moments here, but for an issue that seemed primed for hijinks, it’s surprisingly forgettable. If the Secret X-Men wanted to prove why they’re deserving of more attention, I’m not sure that this issue achieves that. Mostly, they each come off suitable for filling gaps on a roster, but it’s difficult to imagine Secret X-Men #1 inspiring anyone to demand more stories with these characters. Oddly, Secret X-Men, the comic feels much like Secret X-Men, the team: hastily thrown together, almost as if on a dare, in the wake of the more memorable Hellfire Gala, but not serving any apparent purpose.

Published by Marvel Comics

On February 9, 2022

Written by Tini Howard

Art by Francesco Mobili

Colors by Jesus Aburtov

Letters by Clayton Crain

Cover by Leinil Francis Yu & Sonny Gho