Wolverine And The X-Men #30
The prologue to the Hellfire Saga. For a while now the Hellfire have been plotting, as to what is always the mystery. Now recently it was revealed to be them trying to create their own school. The Hellfire Academy, a school built upon the idea of competing with the Jean Grey school and possibly eliminating the mutants who take shelter there. They aren’t the kind that attacks head on, and that’s something I’ve liked about villains such as themselves. You want something big to be delivered, but have a steady progression towards it. That’s what we are seeing from this prologue that was well executed by Aaron as we get into the real story.
The question about Idie has made the Hellfire Club’s involvement all the more exciting. The biggest complaint about the book would’ve been the fact that her self-pity for being a monster was carried till it became bland, but now we see her embracing it yet again. The most notable occurrences when you love her character is when she gives in to her assumed dark side. Jason Aaron has done well by molding Idie into someone who has slightly moved past being motivated by religion, and now acting out of love. Love for Broo, and it creates another story twist when Quire is trying to fight for Idie at the same time.
It was a great move to bring closure to the science part of bringing Broo’s personality back. Now we know that it will take more than poking and prodding to help him recover who he once was. Something else that we can expect to be influenced by him joining the Hellfire Academy, and by Idie trying to get vengeance for him. I do have to also point out what almost looked like Nightcrawler in the white cloak as Quire poked into the Bamf’s mind. Could they possibly allow us to see Nightcrawler again after so long since his death?
The art was the real standout among many other aspects of this issue. The combined work of Ferry, Larraz, and Espin made this book look clean. When I first picked up this book I was a bit scared about how the interior would look based on the cover. The cover just didn’t grab me and almost made me put it back down, but the interior made you want to read it. This was possibly the best artwork done in this series to date.
