The X-Blog

X Necrosha: The Gathering

Somewhat of a prequel to the Necrosha one shot, The Gathering gives you the back story on Selene’s inner circle and how each one became a work member of her group. The one shot is beautifully drawn and most of the plots are well thought out, though a few of them are a bit weak. However, for the most part, I was entertained by this one shot and I’m glad that we are going to get a multidimensional view of these characters. However, I’m still wondering how some of the people who are under Selene’s liege army are even there, not to mention I’m highly disappointed with Wither.

The first story is Selene’s death-knight in shining armor’s, Wither. Back way before M Day, I loved this character and the depth he added to the teenybopper run of Academy X/New Mutants. As the story arch became more mature, the characters themselves began to grow up and myself as a teen reader, going through many of the things these kids were going through, found parallels among these mutants and they quickly became my new favorites. So watching Wither stray from his path and wind up just a lackey of Selene initially irked me, but with this story I think that I can support Wither’s choice, or more so Marvel’s choice of making him do this. I have a feeling he is going to turn on Selene and sacrifice himself for the X-Men, but then again this might just be my childhood wanting one of my favorite characters to redeem himself.

Anywho, his story is essential how Selene found him (as an old poor woman who took him in) and how she seduced him into giving into the urges that are caused by his powers of life energy absorption. She essential tricks him, and knowing Selene there are probably a lot of mind games and black magic assisting her conversion of Wither, but nonetheless he falls in love with her and seemingly becomes one of her most trusted servants.

The story with Lois London is one of the stories in this issue that somewhat confuses me. First off, this is a throwback if I’ve ever seen one. Good ol’ Dazzler’s lesser known sister who killed cats with her zapping powers now seems to be thrown into the fray of mainstream mutants–only one thing, why is she playing for the dark side? This question is answered rather vaguely, though we can probably guess that Selene has used some sort of witchery or mind game to twist Lois’s already damaged mind into believing that she is a bringer of death. While I generally agreed with the storyline, the part that bothered me the most was her hatred towards her sister, Dazzler, when Dazzler had promised that she would do all in her power to help her sister live a normal life. Lois is just a ungreatful bitch. I mean, her powers are kickass (for the most part), and she could be just as famous and loved as her sister if she didn’t go work for alchy daddy and go into hiding. Oh well, poo on her.

My favorite story in this issue however was Clarice Ferguson’s (AKA Blink) story. Here we have to mostly forgotten about teleporter being ripped out of a rift in the dimension by Selene and essentially being placed back into this world again. While Blink is easily seduced, Selene does a fantastic job at coming across as the only person who cares about her, and Clarice in her fragile state, agrees to assist Selene. Also, the art in this story is fantastic–I loved the whole fragmented panels used to symbolize Clarice’s untrained teleportation.

Senyaka’s story is pointless and slightly disturbing, but he is sorta a thug so it doesn’t really matter. He essentially just agrees to work for Selene and instantly calls her queen. Whipped I say (oh I’m so punny).

As for another Eli Bard story, it essentially recaps everything we already knew about the character and tells it even more cryptically. It’s written pretty clearly that Wither and him are going to have a good ol’fashion duel for Selene’s love. That should be interesting.

Rating: 3.5/5 nice art, alright story, a little rushed