X-Men #4
Nightmare comes a-calling at the Treehouse in X-Men #4 by writer Gerry Duggan, artist Javier Pina, colorist Erick Arciniega, and letterer Clayton Cowles. X-Men story-wise has been pretty weak ever since Duggan took over, and while this issue has great art, the story falls flat.
The main gist of the story is that since Doctor Strange is dead, Nightmare goes to New York to wreak some havoc and stumbles upon the Treehouse. He messes with Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine’s dreams. Jean Grey is able to trap him in her mind and shows him how powerless in comparison, forcing him to leave. Meanwhile, Feilong goes to Mars and exposes himself to cosmic radiation.
It’s hard to know where to start with why this issue is mediocre. Well, not that hard, because it’s not the art. Pina’s art is great. Arciniega colors things a bit dark, but it works for a book about nightmares. Pina does a great job of capturing the horrific scenes that Nightmare uses against the X-Men, as well as the ones that Jean Grey uses against him. Even though it’s not the usual art team, X-Men still looks great, and the art buoys what would otherwise be such a bad comic.
Duggan has some big shoes to fill on X-Men, and so far, he’s mostly proven unable to do so. While he has his moments, this issue is not at all one of them. To begin, Nightmare is a cosmic being who has imprisoned Eternity. Jean Grey is powerful, but unless she’s manifesting the Phoenix Force, she’s not messing with Nightmare even in her own mind. Speaking of the Phoenix Force, apparently, Duggan doesn’t even know his X-Men history because Jean was never Dark Phoenix. That was retconned away when she was found at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. In reality, Nightmare using that against her should have been met with her remarking about how she actually mastered the Phoenix, as shown in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men. These are rookie mistakes. Duggan should know better. The editors should know better. Hickman certainly does, but he probably doesn’t look over the scripts and trusts the editors.
This is barely even an entertaining comic. Duggan keeps stringing along the subplot with Urich trying to find proof of the X-Men’s resurrection, but it’s easy to guess that it will probably be revealed to the public at the end of this first story arc. If he stretches it out any longer, it’s going to hurt the book because so far, nothing in it is interesting. Feilong journeys to Arakko and, to be ready for it, exposes himself to cosmic rays. That’s the level of imagination readers have to deal with in this book; a man is exposing himself to cosmic rays to get ready to land on a planet full of powerful mutants. It’s so cliche for a character in a Marvel comic to expose themselves to cosmic radiation, using ruby quartz to intensify it, to get powers. It feels like a bad joke from when Duggan was writing Deadpool, but no, this is the flagship X-Men book. Editors read this comic and let it get published.
X-Men #4 is one of the worst X-Men books of the Krakoa era, if not the worst. The only thing that saves it is the art by Pina and Arciniega. Duggan makes so many mistakes it’s almost like he’s never actually read X-Men comics before. If this is what the supposed flagship of the franchise is, it’s in trouble.