Marvel Heroes (UK Magazine) #7 (Story 2)

Background

The backup story for this issue is an X-Men tale entitled "A Future Darkly", written by Mitchel Scanlon.

Story 'A Future Darkly'

This is a truncated X-Men tale which imitates a sort of "Days of Future Past" scenario, as per Uncanny X-Men #141. The X-Men are battling Sentinel robots, and fight their way to the Sentinel's control center in an effort to destroy the entire Sentinel network. There they meet the Sentinel's leader... Professor X! He claims he has seen the light, and the Sentinels were right after all.

But Emma Frost (one of the X-Men it seems) is not fooled. She realizes this must be a trick, a fake reality created by the evil mutant Mastermind. Indeed it is a plot created by Magneto to cause the X-Men to lose faith in Professor X and to join him in his battle against humanity. Naturally, it has failed. Magneto angrily departs. The X-Men hope to build a better shared future with mankind. Yay for mankind and mutants.

General Comments

In contrast to the lightweight Ant-Man tale, this X-Men story goes large, but collapses under its own weight. It would take a true master to do justice to so many characters and such a massive story in only seven pages. Sadly, this attempt just doesn't carry it off.

I can see what the writer is trying to do here, but the tale needs to rattle along so fast just to cover the ground, that really all sense of depth or pacing is lost.

Overall Rating

Close, but no cigar. Two webs.