Resurrection of Magneto #1: Spoilers & Review

[Malachi]

I am not a regular reader of Red so I will tackle this issue with an outsider perspective.

We start the issue with Ororo having a vague dream about Magneto. We get some nice text from Ewing with a moment to humanize her. Sadly it kind of falls on deaf ears for me since I keep asking myself: who is Craig? Which is ok if it wasn’t for the fact that he seems very uninteresting, average Joe.

Ororo decided to deal with the dream and visits Adam Brashear, my old favorite. Now I have never liked Ewings take on Adam, I salute his willingness to use him but I don’t like him under Ewings pen. Enough so that I gave up on it after just two issues back when he first used him.

Adam is written as nonchalant in a borderline sociopathic way, to detached from the risks and ramifications of his work.
We also get Galactus mother or sister. A character so moronic I want to scrub her from my memory, not even Ewing can make her work, I mean we must all agree on this right? Probably not… still I very much dislike her. A bad idea.

We get some background from Storm about these makeshift flowers and Adam opens up a portal to the waiting room. Ororo knows the risk, the nature of what she is doing, and enters before he can evaluate if it’s safe.

In the waiting room Ororo runs into Tarn… this is the first time I read about him. He seems like a fleshshaper.

Tarn taunts Ororo but she sees through the limitations the rules of the place puts on Tarn. I think this is a standard but elegant solution that works well for magic.

Storm uses a big lightning bolt but the bolt is more symbolic. It’s probably partly magic due to the nature of the confrontation too. Still I get that Ororo uses lightning often but in Red, I only picked up the final issue, and this. 3 times she uses a bolt..it gets a bit repetitive.

Storm meets her ancestor Ashake, who I do know from the Gambit mini and the old tarot mini with Magik and Dani. She guides Ororo towards the next step.

We get a piece of dialogue I hope is meant to reveal something else about five being a magic number. So are 3 and 7. Many numbers are.

Ororo even have 3 wishes. She gets to meet dominions next and they find her fascinating… nice Claremont callback with his women always being special enough that the villains are fascinated with them.

She used another bolt of lightning and then is sent/wished to the broken city where Magneto is tormented.

We end with a page of a mageneto crawling through a sewer with lava instead of water and the names of mutants covering the walls. His eyes are gone and there is blood. He is in his white uniform. It’s ripe with symbolism.

Review: I didn’t really feel this issue. I get that there is excellent craft put into it. The art is stellar.

I just needed more attachment to characters, themes and story constructs that Ewing likes to use. Without that I just felt like a tourist. Stopping to take a picture of something cool and then moving on.

[MythicalChicken]

I am not a regular reader of Red so I will tackle this issue with an outsider perspective.

We start the issue with Ororo having a vague dream about Magneto. We get some nice text from Ewing with a moment to humanize her. Sadly it kind of falls on deaf ears for me since I keep asking myself: who is Craig? Which is ok if it wasn’t for the fact that he seems very uninteresting, average Joe.

Ororo decided to deal with the dream and visits Adam Brashear, my old favorite. Now I have never liked Ewings take on Adam, I salute his willingness to use him but I don’t like him under Ewings pen. Enough so that I gave up on it after just two issues back when he first used him.

Adam is written as nonchalant in a borderline sociopathic way, to detached from the risks and ramifications of his work.
We also get Galactus mother or sister. A character so moronic I want to scrub her from my memory, not even Ewing can make her work, I mean we must all agree on this right? Probably not… still I very much dislike her. A bad idea.

We get some background from Storm about these makeshift flowers and Adam opens up a portal to the waiting room. Ororo knows the risk, the nature of what she is doing, and enters before he can evaluate if it’s safe.

In the waiting room Ororo runs into Tarn… this is the first time I read about him. He seems like a fleshshaper.

Tarn taunts Ororo but she sees through the limitations the rules of the place puts on Tarn. I think this is a standard but elegant solution that works well for magic.

Storm uses a big lightning bolt but the bolt is more symbolic. It’s probably partly magic due to the nature of the confrontation too. Still I get that Ororo uses lightning often but in Red, I only picked up the final issue, and this. 3 times she uses a bolt..it gets a bit repetitive.

Storm meets her ancestor Ashake, who I do know from the Gambit mini and the old tarot mini with Magik and Dani. She guides Ororo towards the next step.

We get a piece of dialogue I hope is meant to reveal something else about five being a magic number. So are 3 and 7. Many numbers are.

Ororo even have 3 wishes. She gets to meet dominions next and they find her fascinating… nice Claremont callback with his women always being special enough that the villains are fascinated with them.

She used another bolt of lightning and then is sent/wished to the broken city where Magneto is tormented.

We end with a page of a mageneto crawling through a sewer with lava instead of water and the names of mutants covering the walls. His eyes are gone and there is blood. He is in his white uniform. It’s ripe with symbolism.

Review: I didn’t really feel this issue. I get that there is excellent craft put into it. The art is stellar.

I just needed more attachment to characters, themes and story constructs that Ewing likes to use. Without that I just felt like a tourist. Stopping to take a picture of something cool and then moving on.

I'm sorry you feel that way because the Storm thread was having a revival in their thread for good reason. I think it heavily relies on reading x-men red, if not also sword (I didn't read sword), in which case it's incredible and one of the best storm stories since the lifedeaths (the ultimate solo story story).

It touches on how many variations we've seen of the Ororo-Mags relationship, callbacks to key things in her character that were forgotten (how important Japan is to her development, the touch of magic), codas to story elements from Red. She looked gorgeous and even had a "wow" feat or two. Her attacking with lightning is so cliche that I'm impressed if a shot of one elicits a kewl! reaction from me.

Otherwise, the art was lovely, and makes much more sense if you know anything about numerology and tarot, as they factor in quite heavily into the theme (symbols having power, as storm and magneto are symbols unto themselves).

[king of hybrids]

On the bright side, it occurs that if the X-Men can weaken Enigma just enough; the other Dominions will swarm him like piranhas and tear him apart

[Uncanny X-Man]

I thought this was a magnificent first issue. Pretty much all of SWORD and X-Men Red have been amazing but I think this blew almost everything else out of the water. It was THAT good. I mean just take the first couple of pages, how much of Ororo's character is Ewing able to capture in just a few captions?

And as we continue through the story, it's hard not to be in awe at how Ewing is able to link up to a complex tapestry of continuity, horizontally with the Defenders and vertically with the Gambit mini and Ashake. This really reads and feels like the true Storm, the one Chris Claremont used to write and that pretty much nobody else has been able to come even close before. And I just cannot wait to see what Ewing has in store for Magneto from the next issue.

Luciano Vecchio also deserves a lot of accolades, he really delved into a superhero-y style for this while also keeping his character work very strong. People who expect his usual cartoony art are in for quite a treat.

I do understand Malachi when they say you really need to know your characters and continuity to fully appreciate this but that's serial comics I guess.

[davetvs]

I thought this was a magnificent first issue. Pretty much all of SWORD and X-Men Red have been amazing but I think this blew almost everything else out of the water. It was THAT good. I mean just take the first couple of pages, how much of Ororo's character is Ewing able to capture in just a few captions?

And as we continue through the story, it's hard not to be in awe at how Ewing is able to link up to a complex tapestry of continuity, horizontally with the Defenders and vertically with the Gambit mini and Ashake. This really reads and feels like the true Storm, the one Chris Claremont used to write and that pretty much nobody else has been able to come even close before. And I just cannot wait to see what Ewing has in store for Magneto from the next issue.

Luciano Vecchio also deserves a lot of accolades, he really delved into a superhero-y style for this while also keeping his character work very strong. People who expect his usual cartoony art are in for quite a treat.

I do understand Malachi when they say you really need to know your characters and continuity to fully appreciate this but that's serial comics I guess.

I completely agree. I've said this before, but at this point Ewing is arguably Storm's best writer. Certainly her best writer since Claremont. This issue is a complete feat and makes me wish we could get Ewing doing deep dives like this on all of the principal X-Men.

[JB]

It is indeed a wonderful continuation of Ororo's arc since relocating to Arakko in SWORD. The slow build of her magical abilities from her time with Wanda to what we saw in Storm in the Brotherhood, to her very magical essence bringing Kaorak to life to now this. I particularly loved the creation of the Waiting Gateway from the new island.

She's endured being challenged by the Arakkii until they were comfortable with her, the Uranos attack, Vulcan, Brand, then the most recent Genesis War while learning about the Hellfire Gala at the same time. She finally has a little time to rest and it's beautiful that she's in the arms of Craig of NASA. Many Arakkii were lost in the Uranos attack and the Genesis War but he not only survived, he kept Loolo and Kobb safe. It warms my heart that they're like a little family.

Getting a good look at the Waiting Room was very interesting. I was surprised to learn that mutants that were waiting simply decided to stop waiting and moved on. Storm encountering Tarn first was perfect. He has not changed. LOL.



The walk and talk with Ashake, magic-maker of Egypt. Stunning.

Then this beautiful page highlighting her evolving relationship with Magneto. Perfect.



The encounter with the Dominion!

"Mutant. Leader. Queen. Omega. Goddess. So many layers that I have discovered in myself, each one waiting beneath the next... but what am I at the core? What am I allowed to be?"



Using the same tarot card imagery as was used at the beginning of the issue with Magneto was brilliant.

[Malachi]

I thought this was a magnificent first issue. Pretty much all of SWORD and X-Men Red have been amazing but I think this blew almost everything else out of the water. It was THAT good. I mean just take the first couple of pages, how much of Ororo's character is Ewing able to capture in just a few captions?

And as we continue through the story, it's hard not to be in awe at how Ewing is able to link up to a complex tapestry of continuity, horizontally with the Defenders and vertically with the Gambit mini and Ashake. This really reads and feels like the true Storm, the one Chris Claremont used to write and that pretty much nobody else has been able to come even close before. And I just cannot wait to see what Ewing has in store for Magneto from the next issue.

Luciano Vecchio also deserves a lot of accolades, he really delved into a superhero-y style for this while also keeping his character work very strong. People who expect his usual cartoony art are in for quite a treat.

I do understand Malachi when they say you really need to know your characters and continuity to fully appreciate this but that's serial comics I guess.

Ewing builds his own little mini continuity from different titles. I knew this going in but I wanted to give it a chance. Doubt I will pick up more issues.

[gonnagiveittoya]

The Waiting Room being empty because the souls in it moved on is I think all but final proof that Resurrection Protocol is going away permanently

[BlkGldBlu]

On the bright side, it occurs that if the X-Men can weaken Enigma just enough; the other Dominions will swarm him like piranhas and tear him apart

I was really shocked and excited too see Enigma , I wasn't expecting his appearance. Made the issue all the more enjoyable.

[Sunny]

The art in this is amazing, loved seeing Ashake and her convo with Ororo. Tarn - enough said lol. Ororo's journey was put together magnificently by Ewing. Just knowing her journey from SWORD, through Red and now this.

Finding out the souls left the waiting room was unexpected though. I want to know where they are now.

Definitely rate this 1000/10.

[Uncanny X-Man]

The Waiting Room being empty because the souls in it moved on is I think all but final proof that Resurrection Protocol is going away permanently

Yeah that's what I thought as well. Ewing elegantly closed this loophole and now I'm kind of expecting Hope to bite the dust, bonding with the Phoenix Force one last time before putting an end to Enigma, resurrection and herself.

[Nicoclaws]

The Waiting Room being empty because the souls in it moved on is I think all but final proof that Resurrection Protocol is going away permanently

That's a bit sad. Not only for the RP, but also for the whole unused concept of the Waiting Room. To think they sacrificed X-factor for this...

[Frontier]

If this is the peak of Al Ewing with X-Men and his take on Storm (and Magneto), at least they're all going out on a high note.

[The Regent]

This issue was absolutely incredible! It felt like I was reading some world class fictional novel on the afterlife as opposed to a comic book.

I think Ewing out did even himself with the balance of all these supernatural conceptual metaphors and the HEART was not lost in the midst. We got to see Storm's vulnerability, her interacting with Ashake, Tarn and Enigma in a meaningful... educational way.

[SugarMan]

This is just the first issue of 4, but it was EPIC! This is what BIG story-telling should be. Threads from current and past storylines are being pulled in, so it feels natural, not just a big story for the sake of a big story. All of this while giving us a sense of mystery! I have no idea how this story is going to turn out, and that's a good thing. We're being taken along for the journey into the unknown along with Ororo.