By Kieron Gillen, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Carlos Pacheco, Ibraim Roberson, Cam Smith, Dan Green & Nathan Lee (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5226-2
Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise so even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particularly well-crafted jumping-on tome.
At this juncture, the evolutionary offshoot dubbed Homo Superior was at its lowest ebb. This followed the House of M and Decimation storylines wherein Wanda Maximoff (former Avenger Scarlet Witch, ravaged by madness and wracked by her own chaotic reality-warping power) reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals with three simple words…
Whilst the majority of Earth’s mutants were rendered human, the freakish few remaining accepted an earnest offer to relocate to San Francisco: reconciled to self-imposed exile on Utopia Island in the Bay. Gathered in a defensive enclave and led and defended by the X-Men, they still found that trouble was always happy to follow them…
Although they were invited by the forward-thinking Mayor and generally welcomed by most of the easygoing residents of the city, tensions grew as leader Cyclops ran the colony in an ever more draconian and militaristic manner.
His relationship with war-weary second-in-command Wolverine was slowly, inexorably deteriorating as they squabbled over methods and ideology for the imperilled X-nation, each interpreting the idealistic, Cooperative Co-existence dream of Professor Charles Xavier in increasingly different ways…
This sleek, slim compilation – written throughout by Kieron Gillen – re-presents Uncanny X-Men #534.1 and Uncanny X-Men #535-539 (cover-dated June to August 2011) and details the fate of young veteran Kitty Pryde who, at the time of this tome, was trapped in an intangible state and unable to communicate or interact with her fellows.
This was especially painful for her as she had just rekindled an intimate relationship with her childhood sweetheart Piotr Rasputin, the steely giant known as Colossus.
First, however, PR guru and supreme spin doctor Kate Kildare has a new, almost impossible brief.
Infamous outlaw mutant terrorist Magneto is now an X-Man living on Utopia and she has the unenviable task of “selling†him as a reformed and benevolent character to the watching, distrustful world…
Fortunately for everybody concerned, a splinter group of Advanced Idea Mechanics has picked this very moment to blackmail San Francisco’s business community with an “Earthquake machineâ€, so the Mayor asks the mutant refugees for a big favour…
Illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Cam Smith, Dan Green & Nathan Lee, this bright and breezy caper offers plenty of thrills and a few clever surprises whilst restating the mutant paradigm for new and old fans alike.
The main body of this compelling compilation concerns the 4-part ‘Breaking Point‘ – limned by Terry & Rachel Dodson – which sees the war-loving aliens from The Breakworld come to Earth.
Their last clash with the X-Men resulted in Kitty’s present impermanent state and only concluded after Colossus crushed their brutal leader Powerlord Kruun in personal combat. Now months later, a vast colony ship warps into human space, claiming to carry refugees fleeing the collapse of their unique social order and meekly seeking sanctuary…
Their planetary civil war occurred because Piotr, after maiming Kruun, refused to stay and rule over Breakworld…
With the sarcastic assistance of Abigail Brand, Director of the Sentient World Observation & Response Department, the asylum-seeking newcomers are transferred from The Peak (Earth’s orbital defence outpost) to Utopia and seem to be genuinely attempting to assimilate.
Unfortunately, proud, shamed Kruun soon surrenders to a momentary weakness of will and attacks his despised benefactors. Within minutes the supreme soldier has overcome the X-Men, gravely wounded Colossus and even found a way to harm Pryde in her untouchable state…
Watching Rasputin bleed out, Kitty flees seeking aid and, while the ever-vigilant Wolverine tackles the resurgent Powerlord, strikes a shocking deal with Kruun’s adored and tragic paramour Haleena…
Despite all the grim portents, this gripping thriller surprises with a relatively happy ending all round, before artist Ibraim Roberson closes out the collection with the gritty fable ‘Losing Hope’.
The X-enclave was ecstatic when Cyclops’ daughter Hope was born. As the first new mutant since Decimation she was heralded as a Messiah – before being snatched away and reared in the far future by her half-brother Nathan Summers AKA doomsday warrior Cable.
She returned soon after as a rather rebellious teenager to lead a small gang of other Homo Superior newborns. She also had a dangerously valuable gift: she could kickstart mutant powers…
Here the dour, dutiful, fun-loathing lass is convinced by BFFs Transonic and Oya to go shopping on the mainland, only to be abducted by former X-foe Crimson Commando. When the brutal WWII super-soldier lost his mutant abilities during Decimation, his long years and numerous surgical augmentations began to agonisingly catch up to him. He expects Hope to reactivate his X-Gene and won’t take no for an answer…
Although he was prepared for Wolverine to track and fight him, the Commando utterly underestimated Hope’s stubborn resistance to torture and ruthless manner in dealing with threats…
Graced with a beautiful covers-&-variants gallery by Pacheco, the Dodsons, Simone Bianchi, Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgardo & Dave Johnson, Breaking Point is exciting, enthralling and exceptionally entertaining: a stirring, supremely sensuous sublimely illustrated slice of mutant mayhem that is another stunning example of Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy for fans and dabblers to marvel at.
© 2011 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.