Review by Frank Plowright
Beyond a knowledge of who the X-Men are, there’s little need to bother about previous continuity in a volume that stands alone in having the X-Men meet Ghost Rider and the Fantastic Four. If that’s important, though, there was no involvement from Victor Gischler in previous collection First to Last, but he is involved in War Machines, which follows, and here he picks up from With Great Power.
Ghost Rider is only around for the opening chapter, which is an extremely well worked clash of superheroes with demons, which hasn’t always been the greatest of creative successes in the X-Men’s run. Gischler, though, serves up a compact horror with secrets disclosed, and a viable team-up leading to a surprise dropped at the end. Will Conrad’s art sells both the people and the demons in clean, clear pages.
Involvement with the Fantastic Four is a longer affair in an alternate dimension, and complicated by them working with Doctor Doom at the time. Gischler includes a nice scene of Wolverine commenting on this only for the Thing to highlight Magneto’s presence. Of all the obscure Marvel series one might expect Gischler to link into, Skull the Slayer would probably be near the bottom of anyone’s guess list, yet there’s where he heads via a clever nod to the pasts of both Cyclops and Magneto.
Skull occupies a world mixing primitive jungle, aliens, dinosaurs and futuristic cities, pretty well dream environmental conditions offering creative possibilities and variety for an imaginative artist, and Jorge Molina certainly meets that description. He delivers page after page of stimulating art over three chapters, and you’ll barely notice the difference when Mirco Pierfederici steps in with equally accomplished art.
Gischler must have been one of the few readers who remembers Skull and his world fondly, and makes sense of the random elements thrown together by the writers of the 1970s. That’s along with some fine clashing character interactions with a cast selected for their egotistical personalities. For once Emma Frost isn’t the most arrogant and unpleasant person in the room. Magneto seems a wasted presence for a long time, but eventually proves pivotal in what’s a thoroughly enjoyable and pleasingly different X-Men adventure.
