In X-Men #27, writer Gerry Duggan and artist Phil Noto bring the Fantastic Four into the Fall of X.
We reviewed the book on the Stack podcast. But in the interest of highlighting more about the title, here’s a summary of the conversation with our thoughts. And if you prefer the longer audio version, that’s below as well!
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X-Men #27 Review:
The latest issue of Marvel’s X-Men is balancing two storylines. In the first, the team heads to the Fantastic Four to get help with the whole Orchis problem. In the second, Shadowkat breaks into Orchis and finds Juggernaut, as well as Cyclops.
On the latter, host Justin Tyler was glad the storyline was finally getting back to Cyclops after “being off the board for so long… I’m glad we got back here.” He also enjoyed how “diabolical” Orchis is being by tying the fates of Juggernaut and Cyclops together. And having Shadowkat as “the everywhere character who is really driving the action forward is fun.”
That said, he questioned the current X-Men team, which includes characters like Synch and Rasputin. “I still don’t know the X-Men team,” Tyler said. “The way they work… I still want a mission statement for them.”
Alex Zalben agreed, noting that though there’s “fun stuff” with the Fantastic Four arc, like introducing “a Harry Potter flying car instead of [the X-Men’s] Blackbird,” it also “feels like a lot of logistics.” Specifically, this is picking up on the X-Men/Fantastic Four comic from 2020 which pitted the teams against each other. Consequently, this issue, which was “repairing the rift… felt like moving the chess pieces around the board.”
Getting to the core of the issue, Zalben continued that, “I want bigger moves from X-Men the book in the middle of Fall of X… I want that to be the thing that’s leading everything, and that’s not quite what we’re getting here.”
Tyler agreed and added that since we know next year things are going to start wrapping up, it’s surprising we’re still in the “table-setting phase.” He finished up saying that with Shadowkat, it feels like she’s running around “delivering the mail… It’s just like doing the news.”
X-Men #27 (2021) Official Synopsis:
SOMETHING CAUGHT YOUR EYE? When Cyclops joined this iteration of the X-Men, his pitch was simple – “I am the X-Men.” If this is so, the enemies of X-Men seem to have this fight all sewn up.
