Cassara is back and he seems in many ways a better fit for the title. If not that Duggans styles suits Cassara better then Noto, but at least we get some gorgeous action art to droole on. The art masks the cringe factor Duggan often brings with his "Big swing"-philosophy to writing, that means that when he misses it's hard for us to miss it.
From the Preview pages we get Shaw sending in Shinobi. Then between those pages we get the reavers dropping down(from a hellicopter) on Madripoor to bust a bar were Callisto is hiding out. Last time I saw her was in Dark and then she was on a boat with Maggot outside of Madripoor. Seems she went back to dry land, no clue about him. The Reavers beat her down and crucify her, which if my memory serves me right, is a callback to them crucifying Logan in the outback era. We also get that preview page with Emma putting on silver lipstick. Logan and his ambush on the Orchis goons ends in a viloent dismemberment for them, like we all guessed it would. Cassara is killing it here, pun intended.
Kitty takes on the Reavers and she somehow manages to slice through two people's torsos with one katana... She got superstrength now?
She frees Callisto and then Shinob enters the fray. He says Shaw has a boat coming in. A boat full of Devo.
Devo has had better days. He looks as menacing as a man propped up on bionetics would do. When the X-men port in he simply opens up his own wort to the negative zone to get rid of them. It's all Richard tech he consificated when Richards went missing. I'm sure it's a big plot in FF comics but it really makes no sense why Richards, after all these years, would let Damage Control tkae his tech and then let Orchis take it from them.
It's only Synch and his borrowed TK from Jean that is keeping the X-men from being sucked into the NZ. Jean might be dead but her powers aren't. Kamala has an idea. Time to call Unca Doom. Emma manages to convince him and he deploys his X-men. Which in this case means: Slag, Volta and Nerium. At least two of those have their powers linked with Latveria. I thought Nerium was like Meggan that her powers only worked on her home soil. I was wrong.
Volta throws her javelin through Devo and that's the end of that fight. Easy solution.
Slag gets to highfive with Kamala(see he isn't that bad and Kamala is so friendly and great...).
Logan fawns over Volta and wants her to jon them and she declines, which he takes as just the first step to her joining. There are some problematic undertones here...
Nimord has killed Alia and is pinning Scott to a wall, on the moon. But he chooses to spare Scott's life so Scott can tremble before their masterplan. Like other villians through the X-men history he will regret it. There should really be a support group for these losers.
The masterplan is that Sentinel City is rising. Machines played humans against mutants and now they are making their play. To be "Part of god" as Nimrod says. So Dominion is my thought aobut that quote. The reveal is beatifully drawn but it falls a bit flat, this isn't new information. It's like ending the issue with a cliffhanger that is actually the recap page.
Review: Good enough issue. There is a sense of energy as we move along, finally, and that works for it. It's still a little bit humdrum and patchwork feeling over it as we move from scene to scene as not much of it feels that important, a factor that only is heightened by the lack of time devoted to each of these scenes. Devo is a prime example, he is taken down with one throw. Still the beatiful art elevates it. Great lines, great ink, great color.
7/10.