One of my main complaints about Latour on "Winter Soldier" is that he may have been writing in English but everything sounded like a bad translation from another language. I hate to say that I feel like history is repeating itself. From Evan's bizarre report about what makes one special to Edan Younge's incoherent ramblings about Quentin's possible future, I spent most of this issue confused.
First, we've got the convoluted plot. On the face of it, the plot is actually pretty simple: Younge and John are both members of the Askani clan and they've come to the past either to kill Evan before he becomes Apocalypse or to train Quentin so that he's ready to stop Apocalypse. The problem is that the details are more problematic. For example, Younge makes no sense. One one hand, he tells Quentin that he has been "neutered by the comforts of those whose time passed them by decades ago." On the other hand, he laments that they only teach him violence. Is he comfortable or is he violent? Which one is the problem? Also, I still have no idea what connection the company that they've founded has to do with anything, particularly the Phoenix. All we know is that they seemingly hacked everyone's iPhones in an attempt to attract the X-Men. Why not just attack Evan?
But, the real problem is the scripting. For example, Evan's report on individuality is clearly supposed to have some deeper meaning, but, despite my degree in French literature, I can't for the life of me understand what it is. Wolverine's sub-conscious uses his healing factor to...create his hairstyle? I think that he's saying that their subconsciouses all guide their powers, making them, according to Storm, far more similar than they believed. But, isn't that a pretty benign observation? OK, their sub-consciouses guide their powers. Does that mean anything interesting? Doesn't our subconscious guide everything that we do? It's not exactly actionable information. Moreover, I have no idea what it has to do with Storm's ability to shake off Faithful John's mind control, which is when the story gets told.
In other words, I'm worried about where we're going on a Latour-penned book again.
** (two of five stars)
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