Wait And See

“Wait and See”
Giant Size X-Men: Magneto
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Ramón Pérez
Color art by David Curiel

It’s been a bit difficult to find the appropriate level of expectation for the Giant Size X-Men issues. Each of the three published so far has felt less substantial than any of the regular issues of X-Men written by Jonathan Hickman, and have done more to gesture in the direction of future stories than deliver something more satisfying in the moment. The comics have all delivered in terms of serving as showcases for talented artists, and with this Magneto issue the Canadian illustrator Ramón Pérez– mostly known for his indie and web comics – gets to show off his considerable craft on a very mainstream title. Hickman’s primary interest here seems to be in letting the artist flex, and in laying in plot details for later on. The former is a great idea when working as a writer in a visual medium, the latter goal is fine in the abstract but in the case of this issue it mostly just undermines a story that presents itself as a quiet character study. 

The plot of the issue is basically that Emma Frost has asked Magneto to acquire an island for her, and he accomplishes that with the help of her profoundly arrogant ex Namor, the mutant monarch of the seas. At the end of the issue we see Magneto assemble a tower with a Sentinel head built into the side for Frost, and well, that’s that. We’ll find out what Emma is going to do with this island some other time. It looks cool, so there’s that. There’s some bits of deep sea adventure in the middle of the story with Namor, but in narrative terms that’s what happens in 30 pages.

The meat of the story is mostly in observing Magneto at this moment of his life. He’s typically a character defined by his unrelenting ideology and antagonistic relationship with humans, but in this issue we see him rather contented by the founding of Krakoa and his station as one of the fledgling mutant nation’s leaders. Magneto has been a steady presence in Hickman’s story thus far, but his most memorable scenes have involved him making grand and unapologetically arrogant speeches to human leaders. This facet of Magneto is not on display in this issue. Instead we him willing to wait patiently for Namor among a bunch of puffins on a small island, and dining with Emma Frost, a woman he clearly recognizes as both a peer and a friend. The latter is notable – even though these characters have a good amount of history as colleagues, it’s actually pretty rare to see Magneto engage with someone besides Charles Xavier or Rogue as either a respected friend or confidant. His tendency is to be alone, and to project a superior aloofness.

Magneto, Emma Frost, and Namor are all characters with major superiority complexes and a flippant contempt for humans. In contrasting today’s Magneto with two characters he has so much in common with, we see how much he’s changed in the recent past. His rage has subsided upon the realization of his lifelong dream of a mutant nation, we see him as magnanimous and respectful - not just of Emma and Namor, but of the human man living on the island. The entire story is him doing a favor for Emma, whereas Magneto’s role since the start of House of X has largely involved him sending other mutants out to do his bidding. I get the sense that in the long run of Hickman’s story, this will be understood as a glimpse of Magneto at a good moment in his life. This state cannot last for him, and that’s his tragedy. 

The matter of Emma’s island tower is intriguing but makes the issue feel unresolved and incomplete, and since the issue ends on an inert “that’s it?” moment it undermines the understated character development that was the actual focus of the issue. It may have landed better if the issue ended on another quiet Magneto moment, or if Perez’s last page didn’t feel like such an abrupt ending. But I think Hickman is more to blame here – whereas the previous Giant Size issues have advanced an ongoing mystery with Cypher and presented a cliffhanger with Storm, both of which are tied to macro plots introduced in House of X/Powers of X, it’s hard to get a sense of how significant this story development is when all Emma says in the end is that she intends to…invite people to this island. Uh, sure? I trust Hickman enough to pay off on this in some way, but this could just as well be an entire issue about Emma Frost needing a place to hold off-site meetings. 

Unlike the other issues of Giant Size X-Men, this one was not conceived with the artist in mind. The issue was originally meant to be drawn by Ben Oliver, and Ramón Pérez stepped in when Oliver had to bow out of the commitment. He did a good job with it, particularly in drawing the most uneventful pages where it’s really just Magneto hanging out on an island and looking off into the distance. He presents Magneto as a powerful but unknowable figure, but also someone with an obvious soulful interiority. His ability to convey this is crucial to the successes of this issue, since Hickman really went “show, not tell” in this story.