Shadow and Flame with Magik

Story and Art Brahm Revel

Color Artist Cristiane Peter

Letterer & Production VC’s Joe Sabino

Haunted Part Five of Five

The final issue of the miniseries and I’m already missing it.

Issue opens where the last one ended.  Kitty remembers Xavier and now he is there with her and Krystal.  She notices he is standing.  He responds with how she always remembers him at his best.  It is a testament to Kitty’s pureness of heart and why he never worried with leaving in the X-Men in her name.  And with this, Revel has won a special place in my heart.  Kitty is the true torch bearer of Xavier’s dream.

Kitty quickly updates him with what has happen.  She isn’t happy with how much Rogue and Wolverine have screwed up this mission.

Meanwhile, Darla is still sending every villain the X-Men have dealt with after Rogue and Wolverine.  Wolverine apologizes for the truly horrible things he said to Rogue.

Kitty and Xavier are trying to convince Krystal to help.

At this point in the issue, Revel has gotten to draw Juggernaut, Sauron, and a slew of Sentinels.

Darla makes a giant speech about how she is going to destroy this town.  Old Man Cook finally listens to what she is saying and can’t believe that she isn’t there to usher in a new era for mutants.  An era of mutants leading humans into the right path.  She tells him to shut up and whoever told him that was lying to him.  This rocks his world and he stabbers off.

There is an ad for Awesome Con, that looks like a fun time but the graphic reminds me of the WWE’s American Bash PPV logo and now I can’t stop seeing it.

Krystal agrees to turn the biker gang into Kitty and Xavier’s new army.  With this page, Revel starts to really play with page layouts and I really like it.  In this two page spread we get fourteen panels of varying shapes and sizes and it is awesome.

Xavier starts trying to figure out what really happen and Krystal finally explains how she put a thought in Darla’s head and then put a thought in Wolverine’s head so that they would take each other out.  Then it really escalated from there, because, you know, the X-Men.

Rogue and Wolverine are fighting memories.  Wolverine quips about how he doesn’t remember Inferno wasn’t as bad as this.  Which makes the demons that much stronger now that he is remembering them as they are.  So fascinating how Darla’s powers work and how it all depends on who she projects them on and how that person deals with it.  She can start the process but it really depends on what the person does or has done to really make things interesting.

Krystal is a fine character but Darla is the breakout new find (of last year) but I’m hoping she gets used again after this.  I also hope Revel gets another X-Mini.

Kitty, Xavier, Krystal and the biker gang finally get to Rogue and Wolverine.  This is the first time Kitty has been with these two in over two issues.

With Xavier being there, Rogue realizes something that she should have done before.  I’m also ashamed that I hadn’t had this thought before either.  Revel really ends the issue getting to draw everyone he could ever want to draw.  As Rogue’s big bright idea?  To remember her teammates.  Of course, she doesn’t remember modern day lousy Storm, no, she goes for awesome 80s Mohawk Storm.  Wolverine catches on quick and remembers Nightcrawler.  Colossus somehow shows up and Kitty (along with me) not that thrilled with his inclusion.

Revel still opts to have a fastball special but with Rogue throwing Wolverine as he shows Colossus is fighting Juggernaut.

Cook sees Krystal, realizes she is the one who told him about the bright mutant future and confronts her.

We get another fun two page spread with great use of panels, there is a great sense of kinetic energy.

For some reason, the Limbo demons start fighting the Cook relatives.  I believe it is to show that Darla is losing control as she clearly is.  She tires to give herself some more drugs but it isn’t making her focus any better.  Krystal sees this and realizes she needs to set right with what once went wrong.  Krystal asks Kitty to clear a path to where Darla is.

Before Krystal can start her path, Cook hits her with a stick.  She yells at him to snap out of it.  She sees the memory of her uncle.  Cook sees him too, confesses to killing him.  This makes Krystal feel conflicted as he was a horrible man but also, he’s family.  She tells Cook to kill the memory of her uncle and he does.

Krystal gets to have a nice moment with Darla.  Krystal could be a teacher at the Jean Grey School, she can use her powers to help aid mutants.  She has Darla picture in her mind, a light switch and to have Darla flip her switch and turn off her power.

We get Krystal’s back story, her mother and her had a less than ideal relationship.  Then one day, in a middle of one of their heated arguments, she shouted at her mother that she wished her mother was dead.  Later in the day, her mother took her own life.

Darla finally gets to turn her power off.  All the villains and newly arrived heroes start fading away.  Even her dog, Buster fades away and her reaction to that is a little heartbreaking.

Wolverine gets one final nice moment with Kurt.

Wolverine and Darla have a quick forgiveness session.

Issue ends with a swarm of media arriving to the small town.  Krystal uses her powers to tell them it was an issue with the mine and everything is fine now.

Kitty tells Krystal that the X-Men will help rebuild the town as it has been ruined.

There is an afterword by Revel that is pretty nice.  I really do hope he gets a second chance at Marvel and I really should look into reading his independent work, like Guerillas – which I will also help him plug! plug!

. . .

I called Hastings last night, they informed me that zero copies of Ultimate Spider-Man 200 came in so I won’t be reviewing that comic.  So frustrating, as I did special ordered it.