Wolverine And The X-Men #7 Review

For anyone who has read my few reviews of the X-Men comics know I am a huge fan of the series.  [...]

Wolverine and the X-Men #7

For anyone who has read my few reviews of the X-Men comics know I am a huge fan of the series.  But lately, after the events of Schism, I find myself falling more and more out of love with this franchise.  For both this and Uncanny X-Men, I find myself caring less and less about these characters and, more importantly, the actual story.  Though there are some highlights in both, I can't find the interest as much as I can with the other X-Men title X-Men (which if you haven't read I heavily suggest you do) and the some of the new 52 titles.  And with the wrap up of this arc, I'm hoping maybe they'll start doing a little bit better. The previous issue left us with Kitty being impregnated by Brood, a bounty hunter hunting the passive Broodling Broo, the rest of the team fighting inside Kitty to destroy the nest of Brood, and Wolverine and Quentin flying off to space to win some money for the school.  So, that alone leave us with one large story with various things going on and one B story that is far from interesting. First Kitty and her "pregnancy".  I love Kitty Pryde.  She was the inspiration for Joss Whedon to create Buffy and after Whedon's run of Astonishing X-Men I had even greater respect for her character.  Though I wasn't happy that she chose Wolverine's side in schism, I respect it and hoped that her character have more opportunities to shine like she did in Astonishing.   So I'm a little disappointed with her part in this latest arc with her being impregnated with a Brood virus of sorts.  She basically has to lie there while the rest of the team fights inside her.  Though she has some cool moments while defending Broo, she's pretty much out for the count the rest of story. What is interesting about this storyline is the underlying theme they've been discussing since they first showed Genesis a few issues ago.  Are we simply a slave to our D.N.A.  In Genesis' case, he appears to be an actual clone of the mutant Apocalypse while on the other side we have Broo, a child of the Brood clan who are known for their animalistic and destructive ways.  Both seem to the opposite of the their bloodlines.  Genesis is unsure of himself and is meek while Broo is peaceful and prefers to handle his difference with words rather than violence.  But, at the end of this issue, Broo viciously attacks and defeats the bounty hunter after he hurts Kitty.  So the question is raised: Are we really who we choose to be or will we eventually fall to the basic instincts encoded in our D.N.A.?  Interesting, to say the least and I look forward to this theme continuing. But, while the school battles to save Kitty and defend against the bounty hunter, Quentin and Wolverine have traveled to some Vegas like planet to cheat their way into fortune to save the school.  They're found out and fight their way out of the casino.  As they're about to make their grand escape, the aliens use some strange device that seems to incapacitate them.  Later, it's revealed that they have escaped, without their money, and Quentin is flying.  Wolverine is seen with his legs broken and twisted in impossible ways.  Luckily for them, when they arrive, they'll find their "student" Krakoa has sprouted a tree that lets fall multiple, large diamonds. I was not happy about this story and was happy to see it end.  I'm not a large fan of either Quentin of Wolverine and, though there are some funny lines and happenings (Quentin's psychic shotgun an example) it wasn't enough to really hold my interest.  And this brings up my biggest complaint with both this and Uncanny X-Men. It's hard for me to care about these characters.  What once made the X-Men great was the fact they worked as a close knit group that dealt with problems both in the world and amongst themselves.  But now there are numerous characters and "grand" storylines that have taken away the characters.  They possibly need to look at D.C. and how they're doing things.  I am not talking about rebooting every series but more along the lines of how they're dealing with their stories.  They're small, they're contained and, more importantly, are so heavily character driven it makes you root and care about them and their story.  In a word, they're more intimate than what X-Men are offering right now.  And perhaps that's why the X-Men comics with Storm and Jubilee are so good because they're dealing with the actual characters.  Their problems.  Their worries.  Their conflicts.  I'm hoping it gets better and the scale can get smaller cause if not, I don't see myself holding on much longer. Rating:  D+

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