Comics
Review: “X” #14
The “Better Off Dead” arc continues into part 2 this week. After promising to never fail his beloved Arcadia again X is thirsty for vengeance. He’s got his signature suit back and with a short stop at an abandoned police station he’s got his arsenal back. Now all he needs to deal with are Carmine Tango, Gamble, Deathwish, the police, Leigh’s brainwashing, and the mysterious new gang in town. X sure has his work cut out for him.
WRITTEN BY:Duane Swierczynski
ART BY: Robert Atkins
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: June 11, 2014
Reviewed By: Torbin Chimners
After being introduced at the end of the last issue the new gang in Arcadia take centre stage this month. That being said we learn very little about who they are and what they want. On the surface they seem like your general Aryan-master-race assholes you’d expect to see in a city like Arcadia. We do however get one little tease, with potentially far reaching implications, about their motivations.
Meanwhile Leigh and Ruidoso’s stories take a back seat, especially the latter who only gets a page with some pointless exposition. Leigh continues to act very cool and collected for someone who was just brutally brainwashed. You’d think, at the very least, there would be some kind of change in her personality or tone but she seems to be completely herself except for the fact that she hates X now. This is honestly a bummer. I’ve been really looking forward to the repercussions of her horrific trauma at the hands of Tango, but I don’t see that coming to light until after this arc.
Robert Atkins’ rough and gritty pencils continue to adequately capture X’s world but I still find myself missing Eric Nguyen’s excessive splotchy blood and line heavy handed shadows. There was something really unique about it that I think fit X’s world better. Atkins feels a bit tamer, like comparing the gritty, almost unpolished cinematography of Hellraiser to something more straight-forward and plain like The Conjuring. Both have merits but I believe that X should have the filthiest of the filth, grime in every crevasse, downright nasty art.
This week is a slower paced issue that continues to set the stage for a grand finale. Whether that finale is satisfying or not remains to be seen, but I’m hopefully this is just a momentarily lull for X and won’t be the norm going forward. X #14 isn’t in itself all that exciting but the little threads it’s laying down for the future are promising.
Torbin Chimners AKA Torin Chambers is a rad dude from the nineties who does film stuff or something. Thomas the Tank Engine is his favorite transformer. Find him on Twitter@Vulgar_Rhombus
The supernatural world of Korean folk horror movie Exhuma grows larger with the arrival of prequel spinoff webtoon Maengjong this weekend, Variety reports today.
Naver Webtoon debuts Maengjong on May 30.
The series hails from Haemuri (Olgami) and will trace the high school origins of how shaman duo Hwarim and Bonggil, played by Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun in the 2024 film, came together to face occultish threats.
The story is set to begin when “Hwarim, who has been concealing her identity following a childhood encounter with a snake spirit called Jin, crosses paths with Bonggil at their school.”
Variety notes that Exhuma director Jang Jae-hyun participated in the project’s early concept stage.
“We are presenting ‘Maengjong,’ a new series capturing the appeal of the horror-occult genre, ahead of the full summer season,” said Lee Jeong-geun, Naver Webtoon’s Korea webtoon content leader. “With the high school story of Hwarim and Bonggil, who left a strong impression in the film ‘Exhuma,’ enhanced by Haemuri’s characteristic tense direction, we expect it will be a welcome work for genre fans.”
“It is meaningful that the spin-off story of ‘Exhuma,’ loved by many audiences, expands by meeting the new grammar of webtoon,” said Lee Hyeon-jeong, managing director of the film business division at Showbox, which distributed the film. “We hope it will be a fresh experience for both film fans and webtoon readers.”
Exhuma was a breakout hit in 2024, becoming the first Korean occult film to surpass 10 million ticket buyers and the country’s highest-grossing film of the year. I wrote in my review that “the intricately woven Exhuma delivers one of the year’s biggest surprises in horror so far.”
The bond between Hwarim and Bonggil was one of the film’s highlights, making this prequel webtoon a must for fans.
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