By Brian Wood, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Clay Man, Barry Kitson, Kris Anka, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-592-5
Since its revival in 1975 Marvel’s Mutant franchise has always strongly featured powerful and often controversial female characters, so when the fourth volume of the adjectiveless X-Men launched it was no real surprise to see that the leading line-up comprised exclusively women warriors.
This second collected chronicle, scripted by Brian Wood, re-presenting issues #7-12 (from November 2013 to March 2014) takes the conceit a stage further by introducing an all-girl gang of baddies to the mix…
The eponymous triptych ‘Muertas’ – lavishly illustrated by Terry & Rachel Dodson and Barry Kitson, Scott Hanna, Karl Kesel & Terry Pallot – commences the sinister suspense as Colombian cartel princess Ana Cortes assumes her recently deceased dad’s tenuous position at the head of the bloody table and, to consolidate her position, invites underworld tech-facilitator Reiko to implant nanites and memory downloads that will body-modify the ambitious teenager.
Her first mistake is allowing her body to become the physical host of carnage-crazed mutant-hating cyber-assassin Yuriko Oyama AKA Lady Deathstrike…
At the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, vampire mutant Jubilation Lee is happily hearing how her official adoption of mystery baby Shogo is proceeding apace when multi-powered and recently resurrected wonder woman Monet St. Croix returns to the fold, looking for a place to rest and recuperate…
As the former Generation X team-mates verbally spar upstairs, down deep in the bowels of the school bestial scientist Hank McCoy is assessing the changes in former cop Karima Shapandar: a human friend previously infected with Omega Sentinel systems and transformed into the ultimate mutant eradicator. Apparently her lethal state was more or less cured during a horrifying battle against an ancient and malevolently sentient meteor-borne infection… Arkea.
When the Earth was still brand new and cooling, a pair of siblings manifested. They were immensely powerful and hated each other from the very start. They clashed and the male kicked his defeated sister loose into the cosmos while he stayed here…
Billions of years later, John Sublime – current body of the victorious sentient bacterial life form – fought the X-Men. In various forms he had continuously survived on Earth since life began but was no friend to the subspecies Homo Superior.
Then one momentous day he surrendered himself to his enemies at the Jean Grey School in the light of an urgently manifesting mutual threat…
Sublime abides by possessing biological organisms, and he came to warn the heroes that his sister – who performs the same trick with technology and electricity as well as meat – has returned to the planet, hungry for revenge on him and wanting to control everything else in existence…
Possessing humans and mutants alike, Arkea determined to supersede life on Earth, but her possession, upgrading and alteration of suitable organic-vehicles led to a cataclysmic confrontation (see X-Men: Primer) and she was declared destroyed – but for so many beings in the Marvel Universe, Death is neither fatal nor final…
Back in the now Lady Deathstrike makes her move, sending an army of cartel soldiers to steal the Omega Sentinel from the X-School, but has to change her plans on the fly when Monet and the now merely-mortal Karima drive off her army of gun-toting thugs.
Forced to regroup and reassess, Ana/Yuriko opts to recruit her own super-powered gang and begins by hiring manic multiple personality mutant assassin Typhoid Mary who goes on a daring reconnaissance mission which nets Deathstrike all the files on Arkea and even a living sample of the inimical electronic nemesis.
Ana foolishly considers the specimen as the ultimate body upgrade and even the formidable Sublime cannot convince her otherwise, but after a brief battle the sample proves to be dead. Sadly during the skirmish Yuriko learned that the Arkea hive consciousness may still be alive in other meteoric shards…
By the time Monet tracks him down, Deathstrike and Typhoid are in Norway seeking to extract a promising fallen star where they uncovered the prison of Amora the Enchantress; stripped of her Asgardian magic and locked in a force bubble by the Mighty Thor.
Seduced by the promise of her powers fully restored by the thing in the meteorite, Amora enlists in Ana’s army, a vengeful association she calls The Sisterhood…
With the world facing imminent destruction from a new Arkea assault, Storm, Psylocke, Rachel Grey (the alternate Earth daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey dubbed Marvel Girl) and Jubilee call on Israeli mutant hero and Mossad agent Sabra who, along with mystery superman Gabriel Shepherd, track Deathstrike and new Arkea to Dubai.
Before the team can strike, however, Monet streaks in, displaying all her terrifying power, but is too late. Arkea has possessed technician Reiko and begun augmenting the others… not for their benefit, but her own…
Extending her control across the planet, Arkea activates an army of broken, abandoned Sentinels, sending them marching across the Pacific sea floor to attack America…
The crisis grows in the second trilogy ‘Ghosts’ (art by Kris Anka & Clay Man) as, fleeing Monet’s blockbusting attack, Arkea drags her increasingly scared acolytes across the world, intent on augmenting the ranks of the Sisterhood by resurrecting two of the most lethal women ever to have faced the X-Men.
As Jubilee leads a squad of older students from the School to Catalina Island to intercept the Sentinels, in New York Arkea/Reiko uses Amora’s restored Asgardian magic to reanimate the immortal life-leeching horror Selene and Ana realises the full gravity of what she has unleashed…
As a too-late act of redemption, the repentant Cortes summons the X-Men to the Sisterhood’s location, but by the time the resurgent heroes arrive Arkea has excised Ana and similarly revived the hellish Red Queen Madelyne Pryor…
Sadly for the cocksure bacterial conqueror, her ungrateful revenants are more than happy to trade a threat to human existence in exchange for their own immediate survival, but as the X-Men spectacularly end the threat of Arkea again, more than one triumphantly weary woman warrior is forced to wonder if they the traded a greater evil for exigent salvation…
Fast-paced, action-packed and stuffed with engaging soap opera riffs, this bombastic extremely enjoyable collection is merely a prelude to greater Fights ‘n’ Tights traumas to come but is at least amply augmented by a lovely cover-and-variants gallery by the Dodsons, John Cassaday, David Marquez & Gerard.
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.