X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong #5

X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong #5
Oh my god, that was so unbelievably AWFUL. Even the front cover, on which Marc Silvestri does an homage to, of all people, Greg Land???? How poor is that decision? If I were in the office when that illustration came in, I'd start laughing hysterically!
Although Top Cow's house art style is okay, for the most part, their artists apparently don't have any concept as to what Cyclops' optic beams are supposed to be or look like. They do NOT have tendrils of red gooey manga stuff emanating from them. Sure, it may make it more interesting, but it also is completely untrue to all previous characterisations of his powers.
They also seem oblivious to how to portray action sequences. Case in point: at one point, Kitty Pryde says "Wait. Listen. It's quiet. They've...stopped." Yet there is no indication that it was noisy before that. Perhaps the artists are so wrapped up in their own little universes, that they don't realize that comics are a visual art form. If it's supposed to be loud, we have no means of knowing, unless you tell us!!! Many artists are dynamic enough to convey sound without blatantly adding onomatopoeia to the page. Kirkham, Regla, and Starr are not. And they obviously think waaay too highly of themselves.
This entire issue makes nearly no sense, from John Sublime's disembodied orating from multiple monitor screens, to Kitty Pryde phasing herself through the cuckoos to disrupt the nanomachines in their bloodstream, to the last three surviving cuckoos imprisoning the Phoenix entity in their hearts, which they turn diamond so that it can't escape! Does any of that make sense? No! Not in the least! And then, get this - they say that since their hearts are permanently diamond, they'll never be able to feel again! Ummm - you feel with your brain! When people say that the heart is the seat of emotion, they're speaking metaphorically, not scientifically! Personally, if their hearts were locked in diamond form, I'd be more concerned about their ability to pump blood to the rest of their body, but perhaps that's just me. An absolutely ridiculously ASS ending to an absolutely godAWFUL series.
The trade should have caution tape strung around it warning purchasers of reading such AWFUL CRAP.

[This post has been reprinted over at Sequart.]