Magneto #4 Review
Publisher: Marvel
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Javier Fernandez
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Cover: Declan Shalvey
Letters: Corey Petit
“You’d think you’d be more prepared in case I showed up…and not covered yourselves in metal armor.”
Wow. I just had to get that out of the way before the review. Wow.
Ok, now I can start. First off, Cullen Bunn’s storytelling usually isn’t my style, too dark. Well he’s found the perfect place for his talents. This story could easily be a MAX title. It’s brutal, intense, suspenseful and not for the same crowd that would get a kick out of the New Warriors or Nova. This is the dark underbelly of Marvel, where the Wild Things are and the villains dwell – and man is it good.
Post Phoenix saga, Magneto’s powers are broken, he’s massively depowered. He’s also been following Scott Summers as his heir apparent protector of mutant kind. It was as if the world no longer needed Magneto. His greatest achievement was Genosha, a mutant utopia. It was destroyed in a genocide of mutantkind. His own daughter depowered most of mutantkind. X-Force has been more successful at stopping threats to mutants than his Brotherhood ever was. Magneto is a failure to his own cause.
Cullen, following in the style of the new X-Men movies, proves there is still a place and a need for Magneto. This is Magneto at his raw core. He’s hunting the enemies of his people and putting them down before anyone knows they are a threat. He uses his power subtly and effectively. He’s not dropping ballparks on the White House, he’s driving paperclips along peoples veins. Magneto may not be a force of nature anymore, but his relentless pursuit of his enemies makes him a force to be feared.
This could have been a gory Punisher story, but Magneto thinks. He plans. He spares some, and avoids collateral damage. He is not single minded, but he is fearless and knows how to make people fear him when that is what’s needed. Javier creates the mood with his tense art, great pacing and great surprise reveals. Magneto is without costume most of the time, is bald, and showing his age. This takes away iconic imagery, forcing the story to feel grounded in more realistic world then the tights and clevage of his X-Men tales. There’s no purple and red, just gray and black. Javier does great backgrounds and understands camera shots. It makes his style cinematic. Jordie keeps the colors limited, further enforcing this isn’t the four colored heroic world, this is the grey and red tones of vigilante justice.
Each issue we see all sides of Eric Lensher’s impact on the world. Those that fear him, those that respect him, those that hate him, and we see Eric at his darkest face off against things so dark that his actions could be argued as heroic. We also see Eric the humbled, and Eric the bold. We see so many sides of Eric, that we can believe he’s done all of the insane things of his 60 years in comics and has returned to his roots when he hunted Nazis. There are so many ways this comic could be a one note blood fest, and instead it’s a western where the lawless lawman is all that stands in the way of chaos. This is the Rashomon of capes and cowls.
5/5
Scott is a contributing writer for Drunk On Comics. You can follow him on Twitter at @ScottABachmann.
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Javier Fernandez
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Cover: Declan Shalvey
Letters: Corey Petit