Onslaught Revelation Review and SPOILERS

[Su_Whisterfield]

Sorry if this is too early but I have a walk up a Welsh hillside calling me.

This is gonna be a hard write up, it’s complicated.

We start with the preview pages.
The youth of Krakoa are having the same idea, Cruciball. A party to end all parties. Fuelled by Onslaught, of course.
Kurt abducts Pixie, gating her to Mars and Lost, Cortez and Legion. They purge Onslaught from her and we get some backstory.
Lost is indeed a sleeper agent for Orchis, completely unaware of her complicity in seeding Onslaught on Krakoa.
Onslaught is having Charles delete the backups of the infected. It’s then going to trigger mass murder at Cruciball, which people wont be able to be resurrected from.

Datapage. David now has the House of L in its own pocket dimension.

The House of L has some Escheresque, non-euclidian geometry and Kurt and Legion confront the now non-comatose Cortez again there.
Again he gets put through the wringer, with some pretty graphics, again his connection to Lost is stressed.
Meanwhile, Pixie is back on Krakoa freeing mutants with her soul dagger (good use if the character, sensible choice) she frees Loa/DJ/Dazzler/Doctor Nemesis/Blink while the Krakoan’s continue with the build up to their suicidal bacchanalia.
Kurt preaches at Cortez (in a, frankly, irritating way) and Si does a reasonable job of eliciting some sympathy for spoiled rich boy Cortez. But not much.

Meanwhile, at the plot.
Pixie takes out Magneto with her soul dagger, freeing him from Onslaught, brave and smart move, lassie. Charles, who Eric was guarding, makes a run for it, still deleting mutant back ups from Cerebro.

Meanwhile, House of L.
Lost can’t forgive Cortez but she no longer hates him. Which causes a breakdown of the Orchis controls (I think) and light floods out of her.

Krakoa, Dazzler, Dr N and DJ use their unique talents to effect the mood of the partygoers, in a positive rather than negative way. They chivvy everyone through to David’s place on Mars and to his pocket dimension. Where they all party on with the help of Dr N’s narcotics.

Kurt and Legion explain to Cortez that Orchis anchored Onslaught in Lost’s hatred of him. But she no longer hates him, freeing her and him.
Onslaught, in a fit of pique, manifests as a nightmare version of Xavier to destroy the mutants who are defying his desire for murder. Legion sends the Xorn brothers to occupy him while he asks Dust to do her thing and manifest her abilities to connect everyone (it’s mumbo jumbo, but it’s an interesting new use of her abilities which could be used again). The connected mutants defeat Onslaught in several spectacular splash pages (this book does look very good).
Datapage. The Book of the Spark.
And I’m still not much clearer what the spark is apart from positive and encouraging and that everyone is valuable on Krakoa.
We rule us.

Onslaught is defeated.
Lost is herself and whole again.
David has created a pocket universe called the Alter where mutants can learn new skills, grow, be occupied and have a purpose (Gorgon is training them in martial arts, for example. Mercury and Loa share a milkshake. It even looks like Shadow King has a place).

This is all placed as happening a few months ago, we know this because THE BEARD IS BACK!
Ahem. Sorry about that.
Kurt is sporting his face fuzz again and is setting up a group to keep an eye on shit (without the Council’s approval, interestingly) the group will use David’s place as an HQ and called Legionaries.

And end.

Except for a promo for book 2.
We keep the peace.
We keep the law.
We keep the spark.

Looks like the new team with be Beardycrawler, Pixie, Doctor Nemesis, Juggernaut, BLINDFOLD and a guy with a widows peak and a gun I feel I should recognise but I don’t. And the chin of a figure in the background who will be Legion, overseeing it all.

Phew. That was hard work.
Did it all come together? Yes and no.
The art was great, lots of beautiful splash pages and dynamic action.
I still hate preachy Kurt. But I love beardy Kurt.
I’m still rather unsure what the big idea is.
I hope we get more of Lost, now she’s becoming more of a person rather than just a victim.
No matter how you try to make Cortez interesting or sympathetic, he remains a slug.
One hopes Charles will be somewhat humbled by all this. But I doubt it.

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