X-Men (2010) #6

“Curse of the Mutants” conclusion by Victor Gischler and artist Paco Medina.  The final battle between Xarus and his forces against the X-Men and their bizarre ally Dracula.  The true King of vampires faces his treacherous son while the heroic mutants make their way into Xarus’ lair.

The fight between father and son ends with Dracula defeating Xarus as expected, and with the X-Men breaking through the hordes of vampires; no surprise here.  The only question mark for me was how the awkward situation with Blade was going to play out, and we get an answer: Cyclops does the jackass thing he’s been doing lately.

Also as expected, the X-Men rescue Jubilee who stays in her vampire state.  Since Marvel had already told us for the past couple of months through its solicits what was going to happen to her, her fate was not news to anybody.

This is the disappointing final chapter of a disappointing inaugural arc for the new mutant title.  This is not 1991’s X-Men #1-6 which took the X-Men to the stratosphere; this is another outlet for the Wolverine/Emma Frost/Cyclops overexposure strategy that Marvel has imposed for the last several years crossed with a poor attempt at exploiting the “Twilight” craze that has invaded pop culture; six issues and several tie-ins of no consequence where the X-Men are not the stars.

Once again Marvel made Wolverine the central character of yet another series with the White Queen and Cyclops being the only other characters who got significant roles.  Storm should have had the spotlight being that she is the one with a direct connection to Dracula; sadly, the only attention she received was in the Storm/Gambit one-shot, and even there Logan, Scott, and Emma stole screen time.  This could have been published as a Wolverine title with a little bubble on the side “guest starring the X-Men”.

"How bad is it?  That bad!"

Remember that badly thought teaser that came out a few months ago? “How bad is it?  That Bad!  X-Men: Curse of the Mutants”.  Oh boy, how true that turned out to be.  The only salvageable thing was Paco Medina’s art, which was very clean and neat; but also the best example that you may have the best artist in the world, if the story is bad, then the whole thing sucks.

Overall, “Curse of the mutants” is a predictable, poorly planned story that shows how low the bar has dropped for a franchise that used to be the most important and most revenue generating for Marvel.  For those of you who decide to continue collecting the series, expect to see more Wolverine/Emma/Cyclops and guest Spider Man in the next arc.  As far as I am concerned, I am dropping this title.