Customer Reviews

Decimation: X-Men - The Day After (House of M)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This add on to the "House of M" story arc was apparently conceived to squeeze a little more money out of that storyline. The collection only looked at the widespread repurcussions of no more mutants for the first couple of issues in the collection. It then wandered into an idiotic Havok/Polaris story that was left hanging. Not worth the investment for the occasional reader but may be useful to the collector.

Taking place after the events of Brian Michael Bendis' surprisingly good House of M mega event, Decimation: X-Men - The Day After follows the X-Men in the aftermath of the global mutant depowerment. What gets focused on the most in the issues collected here include the return of the robotic Sentinels (who are good guys now...) along with the forging of new alliances with some unexpected guests. Later on, Havok and Polaris find themselves on the road back to each other as Havok helps Lorna deal with the loss of her powers. That's pretty much all that goes on in Decimation: X-Men - The Day After, and while there are some nice story quips by the underrated Peter Milligan (X-Statix, Human Target), there's nothing relatively worth seeing here that hasn't been seen before. Salvador Larroca provides his usual solid artwork too, so the overall package isn't so bad. That being said, there are better X-Men stories, and House of M tie-in's, that are more worth your time than the X-Men's decimation day.

First, Decimation- Day After is integral to continuing the X-Men canon following the House of M series. This book begins the first step of many in a whole new direction for the X-Men and mutantkind. Some key characters, both villain and hero, are brought up in Decimation and show their resulting lives from M-Day. While this book is not as riveting or surprising as House of M, it is a necessity to continue the series, especially if you choose to read Son of M (the continuation of Quicksilver), X-Men: The 198, and much of the new Civil War cross-over event. All three of those, by the way, I would recommend. One thing I would criticize heavily about Decimation- Day After, though, is the seemingly abdrupt change in story focus between "The Day After" one-shot (which comprises the first half of the book), and the regular X-Men issues that comprise the second half of the book. There is a sudden switch from focusing on a more global perspective with the Decimation event to instead introducting the Sentinels back into the lives of the X-Men, and then a very absurd and out of place story of Lorna coping with her depowerment and Havok helping her. This, in turn, leads into Blood of Apocalypse, the next storyarc in the X-Men series.

Not everyone loves Peter Milligan's run on X-Men. Personally, I've enjoyed his run for the most part. For example, I loved most of Golgotha (except the last issue) and Bizarre Love Triangle, but didn't like the X-Men/Black Panther issues. Some people don't like his style on this book, and my best guess is that some of his stuff is just too weird. But that's exactly what I love about his stuff. For example, in this book, Gazer out in space talking to that torso thing, that pretty much sums up Peter Milligan (you have to read this book to get what I'm talking about). His run has had a lot of strange things that you would never find in X-Men with anyone else writing (by the way, towards the end when the torso doesn't talk to him anymore, that really creeped me out for some reason). The cliffhanger ending was confusing, but I presume it leads into Milligan's final story arc, Blood of Apocalyse, which I'm looking forward to.

This book starts off good with a lot of action and a look of what happens the next day. But in the end if falls short. There are more questions than answers and the big battle between the x-men and sentinels vs. the Sapiens League felt a little rushed and a lot of details are left out. If you want answers this is not a book for you. I was really enjoying the book and then it end. No conclusion at all.

This is essential. My friend is a huge comic book fan and he had wholes in his story and could not figure out why, then i gave him this book and everything is complete. This is essential readung for after House of M. If you love the X-Men you must read this to see why they are on the sidelines, and this sets up ENDANGERED SPECIES.

ok the X-Men are now some of the last mutants left on earth. Their greatest enemy has returned, Havok and Polaris back together?, and Sentinels are the good guys? Yep the X world has fliped and brought a serious bit of excitement to a series that could have gone the way of the late 80's X-Men books.

Just like the title says no more no less. Lorna's story in the last 2 issues with the green blob don't fit and it's like who comes up with this crap?!!??!?

One thing the creators at Marvel are good at is creating storylines that rock. They've done it over and over. Recently they did the House of M, where Wanda created a world where mutants were accepted, ruled. Of course, like all these alternate timelines, it was fixed, only this time The Scarlett Witch created a world where mutants don't exist. Except they do. But only a small number. This takes place after the event and keeps the story going.