New X-Men #39

New X-Men #39
Skottie Young is extremely versatile. However, as far as his work on this title, which has been all action and no respite for this and last issues, I think that the style he's chosen is horribly mismatched.
Sure, it's cute and all, but it doesn't work well for action sequences. For dialogue sequences where no crazy shit is going on it's perfect, but not for this.

It seems that this title is once again devolving into a death fest. People seem to be dying left and right, either at the hands of Belasco, or at the hands of Magik. It's weird, I thought she was a hero!

I have no idea who half of these kids are supposed to be. Have we ever seem them before? And why don't we even get little caption boxes telling us who they are? Perhaps it's the art, but I really don't recognize them.

The art in this book isn't half as bad as Bachalo's work on X-Men, but it's still difficult to read.

Fortunately, the action sequences don't really make much of a difference. In fact, they could probably be omitted entirely and merely referenced in dialogue and the story would work just as well. Not that I like where the story seems to be going, but at least it's competent. A very low OKAY.

[Edit: On further rumination, it pisses me off that this issue is EXACTLY the same as last issue, yet nothing happens. And with the supposed "death" of X-23, it's patently obvious that none of these "deaths" are going to stick, which robs the story of any dramatic tension whatsoever, not that there was that much to begin with. New rating: CRAP.]