The X-Men figure out what to do with the Brood as Jean battles Nightmare in X-Men #21, by writer Gerry Duggan, artist Stefano Caselli, colorist Federico Blee, and letterer Clayton Cowles. Duggan’s terrible writing and characterization strike again, making this issue yet another beautiful-looking dud.

At Knowhere, Monet and Forge bring the Celestial head into the orbit of Jupiter and call for an extraction. Meanwhile, Jean trounces Nightmare rather easily, but not before Nightmare tells her that things are about to get a lot worse. On the X-Men’s ship, Synch and Talon realize all the aliens in the hold are infected by the Brood, and they begin to fight them. Magik, Jean, and Broo answer Forge’s call as Synch uses Polaris’s power to open up the hold to the atmosphere and space the new Brood. The team is reunited and argues about what to do next about the Brood, with Cyclops advocating for genocide. They get a distress call from Kwannon, and the team goes to rescue them, and Jean presents a different solution: her and Broo can retrieve the Brood that are still part of his mindlink. As the X-Men slaughter the Brood, some are saved, and later Jean takes them to Knowhere, where they can start a new life.

Duggan hasn’t been good at all on X-Men, and this issue feels like a microcosm of why. The entire reason Knowhere was brought into this story was as a home for the Brood, and he completely ignored any of the interesting stuff that it seemed meant to build up to. The fight between Jean and Nightmare feels anti-climactic. The fights against the Brood have no emotional impact; they’re just fights. Even Scott calling for genocide has no heart to it. This is just a mess of plot lines all tying together at the end.

And then, because this is a Duggan-written X-Men book, there’s the terrible characterization and humor. Monet being all cool with Forge with not a hint of snarky superiority? That’s not Monet. Duggan doesn’t know who most of these characters are, but the worst is Cyclops. Cyclops, who earlier in the book felt bad about lying to humans about Krakoan resurrection and endangered his country by revealing the secret, is suddenly ready to commit genocide. Duggan can’t even keep the characterization he created consistent in the book. This is a legitimately terrible comic when judged by the writing, with the only bright spot being Jean Grey finally getting to be Jean Grey.

Caselli’s art, luckily, is amazing. Everything looks wonderful, but that’s just polishing a turd. The action scenes look nice, the character acting is better than the script deserves, and the art and colors work together beautifully. It’s just a shame this is a terrible comic.

Duggan hits new lows in X-Men #21. Nothing about his writing works in this comic. The art is great, but it can’t save such a terrible story.

Grade: F