Tomb of Apocalypse #1 Is the Jubilee Miniseries We All Wanted (Review)

The X-Men are having something of a cultural moment right now, thanks to Marvel Studios. Avengers: Doomsday will be the last appearance of the FoX-Men, Jean Grey made her first MCU appearance in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the first X-Men movie’s release date has been announced, with casting underway. X-Men ’97 has been holding the line of new MCU X-adventures, with the second season just ending. This season focused on the rise of Apocalypse, one of the X-Men’s greatest villains, a character who really hasn’t been doing much in the comics Marvel Universe since he made Doug Ramsey his heir Revelation, leading to the disastrous “Age of Revelation”.

Synergy with X-Men ’97 has been a huge part of the X-books since Tom Brevoort started editing the line, so now we’re getting an Apocalypse story. Tomb of Apocalypse #1 is the beginning of the next phase of Apocalypse’s life, from the team of Ashley Allen, a rising star in the X-office, and artist Domenico Carbone. It’s a pretty standard X-story, but it gives us older fans something that we’ve wanted for a long time – a Jubilee miniseries.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Pros	Cons
Allen does a fantastic job with Jubilee	The book does a really bad job at laying out who the villains are
Carbone’s art has a cool Pepe Larraz feel to it	The set-up of the main plot is very clunky
It’s nice to see Marvel moving away from Revelation and bringing back Apocalypse

Allen Nails Jubilee But Otherwise Gives a Standard X-Men Story

Ashley Allen has become a hot name in the X-office. She’s written Magik, Moonstar, and Magik and Colossus, doing a fantastic job with the female heroes of the X-Men. Allen’s strength as a writer comes from her work with the characters; she’s shown that she understands the characters she writes and that has helped her series shine more than they otherwise would have. As far as it goes, Allen is merely good at setting up plots and taking them to exciting places. For my money, her books have all been pretty simple; they’re fine stories, but they aren’t anything you’re going to write home about. Tomb of Apocalypse is basically Allen to a tee.

I love the way she digs into Jubilee. Jubilee is a character who was once a superstar and has since fallen far from where she once was. Fans figured that with her playing such a big role in X-Men ’97, she’d get a bigger push in the comics, which didn’t happen. Tomb of Apocalypse feels like a stealth Jubes miniseries; she’s the point of view character and even though Wolverine shows up in the book, she keeps the spotlight the whole time. The story itself is pretty standard; there’s nothing really bad about it but nothing really special either. The problem comes with how it’s set up. Allen doesn’t do a good job of organically growing the plot, depending on exposition to set it up instead of letting the story lay it out. You don’t even know who the villains are until the characters tell you (which is also somewhat a failure of the art). It can be a rather clunky book at times. If you’re a Jubilee fan, you’re going to love this book and if you’re not, you’ll still like it.

Carbone’s Art Matches the Writing – Cool In Some Places and Not That Cool in Others

One of the funniest things about this book is the way the art and the writing match, but not in the way you think. I don’t want to call it uneven, because that’s negative and the art isn’t bad, but it’s also the best word I could probably use. Now, yes, Allen works beautifully with Carbone. Carbone has basically been Alessando Cappuccio’s fill-in artist, working on both the Moon Knight books and Ultimate Wolverine with the other artist, and he brings the skill he brought tot hose books to this one. His style has a lot of Pepe Larraz in it, which is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because every panel looks great but bad because you’re often reminded of the work of a better artist. Again, this isn’t to say the art is bad; it’s pretty great, all told. It just has a definite feel that works for and against it.

The panels have some good detail to them, the page layouts do a fantastic job of helping the pace along, and the action scenes can be pretty exciting. I don’t think Carbone draws a very good Apocalypse, but I hope it’s just because it’s a hologram; it’s one of the smallest versions of the villain that I’ve ever seen and it just never looks right. The colors by Fer Sifuentes-Sujo helpsmake the art pop; one of the reasons I think I’m so reminded of Larraz is because of the colors. The action scenes look good, but they seem a little busy at times. Finally, I don’t know who Carbone was drawing when he drew this book, but it wasn’t Hydra, who are supposed to be the villains of the piece. I don’t know why the editors let him make the most non-descript version of Hydra ever, but they did and it’s a problem.

Tomb of Apocalypse #1 is a good example of X-Men ’97 synergy, starring two characters who have played a big role in the show. I’ve been yelling about giving Jubilee more attention for a while now and this book is giving me the Jubilee action I want. Allen was, strangely enough, both the best choice to write this book and also not the best. She brings the character stuff with Jubilee but cloaks it in what is a standard tomb-raiding story. Carbone’s art is good, but the fact that it’s so reminiscent of Pepe Larraz hurts it because it’s not on that level. This is a flawed book, but it’s still worth a read.

Tomb of Apocalypse #1 is on sale now.

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