Marvel Knights: X-Men: Haunted by Brahm Revel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The art here is the saving grace. Without it, I think this is a 1-star book.
At the end of the story, the author thanks Marvel for letting him into the Big Leagues so to speak, and then says he’s going back to the minors…I think if fate is kind, he’ll land on the DL and retire from baseball altogether…please.
Rachel Gray has a dream about a mutant being murdered…cue road trip to West Virginia/Kentucky Coal land. Banjos start a twanging. (West Virginia, the only state my American father ever told me to keep my head down and out of sight of the windows when we drove through..)
Wolverine, Kitty and Rogue go investigate…but if they’re running a school, why do you send the headmaster AND the #2 (Kitty)? Isn’t that a bad idea?
Also, don’t you send the person who had the vision (because it wasn’t a dream, it was real, says Beast).
Anyhoo, hillbilly central: 1 Mutant dead/murdered. Survivalists hopped up on drugs trade them for guns with a local biker gang, all deals brokered by the Sheriff. Of course, he also happens to be the uncle of one of the other mutants…who uses her powers to help him because he’s such a winner…
The powers are re-DICK-you-lose. Mutant one: is pretty much Obi Wan Kenobi, and can Jedi Mind trick you into believing whatever she wants.
The other: can manifest anyone’s memories into living breathing reality, so that your past can come back to kill you.
so somehow, out of nowhere, podunk nowhere ends up housing not 1, but 2 Omega Level crazy powerful mutants…RIGHT. And they don’t even know about each other…they’re just both hillbilly white trash chicks, who are only linked by the fact that both their moms killed themselves due to their daughters’ weirdness.
Super fun so far eh?
Well the powers get unleashed against the X peeps, yet only Rogue and Wolverine seem affected negatively. They fight their past (Brotherhood of Mutants, Carol Danvers, etc. and Logan and Rogue talk shit about how bad each other was in the past, and how they’re no good.
Meanwhile, Kitty has her past visit her, and of course, it’s Prof X. He’s manifested as real, and leads his students to victory.
What do we learn? 1 – The X-Men are stupid.
2 – Wolverine is one dimensional and angry…and stupid.
3- Rogue is powerful…and stupid.
4 – apparently Kitty has not a single negative memory at all.
5- each of them takes a long time to realize they can just remember other X-Men to help them fight…and so Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus show up manifested from the past and fight the baddies (who are the Bikers and Cult members of course).
Then the young muties must befriend and trust each other to stop the madness…
Something something something…my brain hurts more than if I drank a whole bottle of Bourbon last night.
Get this review and more at:
Shallow Readers 
I actually really, really liked this story. I thought there was a lot of great character work. Rogue got the best of the character stuff, but Kitty got some nice subtle stuff – the fact that her memories brought Xavier shows her optimism, no matter what she’s gone through. I don’t like Wolverine, and I consider him a jackass, so I liked what Revel did with him, too.
And, of course, the art was gorgeous. Just fantastic art.
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Glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was subtle at all, I thought it was a hack job. If you don’t like Wolverine then I can see how you’d enjoy this book. He’s written as a complete moron, which shows how little the writer knows about character. Agreed the art is the saving grace of the book.
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I’ve only read the Marvel Knights Spider-Man, but I hated it so much that I haven’t bothered with the rest. Doesn’t sound like this is much better.
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Hulk was OK but no, I won’t be going out of my way to find any other titles in the series.
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