Release Date: September 11th, 2013
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Written By: Duane Swierczynski
Art By: Tony Parker Guest Artist
Price: 2.99
Review:
If you’re just jumping onto X you get a decent recap of the previous issues but it doesn’t do the vigilante story justice in my opinion. It’s hard to read and sometimes hard to look at with the graphically detailed death and destruction. With that being said it’s an amazing book. X is reality. It’s what would happen if a man put on a cape and a mask and went out to fight crime. It’s gritty and hardcore and some of the most visceral images in comic books today. X catches hell trying to stop crime. Unlike the fantasy heroes though, he eliminates it at its source with extreme prejudice. There are no criminals gift wrapped in webbing hanging on a light post in front of the local precinct. There aren’t any mob bosses tied up in high tensile steel braided cord as a Bat symbol shines in the sky. There are dead scumbags and that’s it. X only targets the big dogs of the criminal underworld but he leaves plenty of small fries in his wake, crippled, dismembered, dead, etc.
In this issue we see the vacuum of the dead boss of fictional Arcadia attempt to fill itself with some entrepreneurial assassins with some strange but inventive covers. X anticipates this of course and sends Leigh to serve them their warning papers since he’s held up with a broken body from last issue. As expected, the criminals chase the bait down and straight into a sniper trap. I’m glad they’re dead. Really. They seemed too silly to me and didn’t feel like they fit in in this hyper realistic city of crime and corruption. X and Leigh’s strange relationship is getting tested as Leigh has to deal with the reality that she was used as a tool for X to slaughter the three killers instead of serving a warning. The cliché team up between the two is turning into something better for the book instead of furthering the intrepid reporter/vigilante partnering. She’s also not a good partner whatsoever so there’s that too. I really dig the feel this book has. It reminds me a lot of Dick Tracy with a modern twist to it.
The guest artist is a different take on the characters and it’s much more stylized, unique, and quirky art than the past gritty feel the book had. It looks great it’s just not what I’m used to in this series. It’s not really a complaint but it feels more like a comic book rather than the transported feel the book had with the regular artist. I guess it fits the silliness of the new assassins but the book feels more cartoon-ish. The small details make the art soar and I could really get into it if it was anything other than the hard-hitting, disgustingly real world of X and Arcadia.
All in all, this book isn’t for casual readers nor is it for superhero lovers. It’s real and gross and shows the reality of our world and what really happens when one person goes against corruption and crime on the level X fights it. Being a comic book, it has to have over the top characters like a pig-faced crime boss, murdering tax collectors, and assassins that dress like soccer moms, but it doesn’t take away from the reality of the cesspool that is Arcadia. X is like Punisher meets Dick Tracy without the restrictions of Marvel or DC.