If you’re not a wearing a bat on your chest, guns, guts, glory and half-blind luck can only take you so far in the vigilante game. Our favorite one eyed-crusader X finds out how he measures up to real powerhouses in “X” #21. With a dynamite cover to kick it all off, shock, awe, lots of lethal killing machines and a tank escalate things page by page in this issue with some jaw-dropping spectacular ultra-violence for all to see.
WRITTEN BY: Duane Swierczynski
ART BY: Eric Nguyen
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: 14 January 2015
Reviewed by: Your Friendly Neighborhood Brady
Twitter: @mrbradysteele
Awhile back, our bad boy anti-hero X got a royal whipping from an out-of-town visitor called the Archon. Up until then, our gun-loving, sword-wielding “savior” of Arcadia had only battled corruption, self-mutilated freaks and psychopaths. This month, we find out how he measures up to real, super-human power. It’s taken some time for this to finally happen. Thanks to Dark Horse’s Project Black Sky, there is more of a shared universe for the heroes to interact in. Personally, it was a treat to see how writer Duane Swierczynski introduces actual super powered foils for X to interact with.
Having never ever played nicely with others, you can guess how X meeting powerful beings goes down.
What makes it all so much fun to read and see are artist Eric Nguyen’s pages. Warehouse of thugs and weapons for sale: check. Silent killer skulking around with a sword offing said thugs: check. Our would-be “good guy” taking out the scoundrels in extravagant, gruesome fashion: check. Nguyen knows how throw down a mighty violent party and does so with gusto in this chapter.
The hero with no name versus the Archon will no doubt be a major focus as this storyline continues. What also will no doubt happen is readers will see how our mere mortal copes with not being the most dangerous guy in the room. Swierczynski and Nguyen have been slowly building up to a moment like this so I’m in to see how it all affects our one-eyed bandit.