Necrosha

While we are at the onset of the biggest X-Men event since the turn of the Millennium, we felt it best to recap and give our takes of what has occurred in the most recent semi-major event in the X-Universe: Necrosha.

The story behind Necrosha is a long and twisted one. It begins over a thousand years ago near the height of the Roman Empire. Here existed an excellent soldier named Eliphas (who we now know as Eli Bard). He would then go on to marry one of the most powerful women in Rome, however she betrayed his love and drove him into the arms of the treacherous Selene. Selene is a mutant vampire that feeds off of the souls of people in order to live. Eliphas was coerced into working for Selene, in an attempt to capture all the souls of the people who lived in Rome so that Selene could become a God. Unfortunately, Eli failed Selene, who in turn cursed him.


Flash forward to the near present. Selene was once part of the illustrious Hellfire Club, however as the club disbanded and the members continued to fail Selene's expectations, Selene set off to form a new crew. Eli Bard had become exposed to Bastion's techno-organic virus and as a result had a new way of accomplishing Selene's dream. To accomplish this feat Selene embraced Wither, Senyaka, Blink, and Mortis as a part of her new gang.

Necrosha truly launches off as Selene's gang appear on the shores of Utopia and the undead quickly followed. The X-teams were initially attacked on two fronts. The New Mutants were initially attacked by Cypher, who's mission was to kill Amara. However, Warlock returned at the opportune moment to cleanse Cypher of the alien virus running through him. The Hellions then arrived to reclaim Cypher for Selene but were unable to do so. On the other side of the Island the dead continued to rise and attacked the X-Men head on.

During the middle of the attack two important things happened. First, the revived Destiny appeared before Blindfold and informed her that the battle would bring them to Muir Island. As a result, Cyclops sent Psylocke, Magneto, Rogue, Husk, Colossus, Trance, Nightcrawler, and Blindfold to Muir Island, effectively taking them out of the battle. At Muir Island, the group is then attacked by Blindfold who has become possessed by Proteus, who then possessed almost the entire group. While Rogue, with Psylocke's powers, systematically released her teammates from Proteus' hold, Magneto ripped Proteus out of Blindfold's body through some nifty electron manipulation.

Back on Utopia Warpath was kidnapped by Selene's gang in order to retrieve her soul blade. Previously in the X-Force series Warpath had acquired the knife, which Eli Bard had lost. On Genosha Selene had Eli Bard raise all of the dead mutants in an attempt to absorb their souls and allow her to ascend. While it turned out that not all mutants came back with their powers, there was still enough energy for Selene. Upon reacquiring her blade, Selene kills Eli Bard and completes her ascension ritual. The X-Force land on Utopia, mission: kill Selene. Warpath's resurrected brother breaks free of Selene's manipulations long enough to teach Warpath how to kill Selene. Warpath passes on this information, which involves caking themselves with dirt, to his team and proceeds to drive Selene's own blade into her newly ascended body, killing the new god.

Arnab's Take: ****
I thought that this was a pretty good crossover event. There's a couple of specific moments that I want to mention before doing an overall review.
• I thought that it was great how Cypher, with the aid of Warlock, was able to overcome his alien virus. Also, I think the way his powers work is pretty damn awesome.
• I found the subtle build up to Necrosha was done well. The Sword, Selene, Eli, all appearing over a time really set up Necrosha well.
• I just love when these writers have Rogue absorb a bunch of people's powers all at once. It's a great use of her powers and it makes for some wicked cool artwork.

Overall I found Necrosha to be a decent crossover event. It definitely made waiting for Second Coming much more enjoyable. I personally loved the artwork throughout the entire story. I thought the different artists really did well in working to the writer's strengths. Likewise, I enjoyed the writing as well, although there were certain continuity issues due to release dates and what not. I think the biggest issue I have is that the final issue felt rushed. No, it just felt off. I mean, here we have Selene, a vampire-like goddess and there we have a bunch of mutants covered in dirt and a sword. Apparently all powerful just doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Selene reaching this pinnacle of power and just being able to be snuffed out by a simple blade, I don't know, it just felt off. That being said Necrosha was a fairly good read and did well to highlight certain members of the X-Team's powers.

Matt's Take: ***
It should be said first that I loved the art in the X-Force arc of Necrosha. It was dark and rough and half the time I had no idea who the hell anyone was or what the hell was going on, but I found it fit the tone of the series. Overall, though, I found the series to be rather...lacking. I'm not sure it helped to be placed opposite Blackest Night and concurrent with Nation X (itself a weak series), but even at that I found the storylines to lack any real emotional punch. I struggle to remember exactly what happened, and I found the ending to be confusingly sudden. Kind of like they shoehorned it in between Dark Reign and Second Coming. I think I enjoyed it while it was going on, but now that I'm looking back it just feels weak and I'm not sure I can muster much of a recommendation to read it.