Extraordinary X-Men #12

Writer: Jeff Lemire
Penciller: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Víctor Olazaba
Color Artists: Edgar Delgado & Dono Sánchez-Almara
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Publisher: Marvel

Apocalypse Wars is over! I feel like Tom Hanks at the end of Cast Away, I just want to spend some time at remote rural crossroads and figure out what to do now. That's not to say that this event was entirely awful. Sure, All-New focused on Evan Sabahnur (still the worst name!!) and All-New Beast, who are maybe the two least interesting characters in that book for me, but Extraordinary was quite good! Sometimes! Extraordinary X-Men #9 is the best X-team comic that there's been in a while. I also appreciate that each title was self-contained but I think it's undeniable that this ended up being too long. I think my fatigue stems from how each of the last 3 issues of Extraordinary have mainly been a long protracted fight between the X-Men and the Horsemen. We had some good times, Apocalypse Wars, but it's time to move on.

Humberto Ramos does Humberto Ramos things in this comic book. He does that thing where he draws a character intensely sneering with their whole upper body intensely tilted to one side (something like this but with Magik instead of MJ). And he does that other thing where everyone's bodies look like they are made out of rubber bands. That's not to say the book is poorly drawn, but it's not for me. Humberto Ramos, everybody. Even though the book is a bit too loaded sometimes, the rest of the art team are alright, but Joe Caramagna's lettering has been a real problem on this title.

Caramagna has been on approximately 50% of the books you've read in the last 15 years and for good reason, usually his lettering is on point but his work on this series has been just out of hand. For example here's a full page panel of Magik striking Colossus, which should be a powerful visual, but approximately one third of the page is taken by lettering, completely undermining the impact of that beat. There's an axiom that says that letterers should never call attention to their work, and I definitely don't buy that. I like when letterers do something unique but there's definitely a limit to how garish lettering can be before it starts detracting from the rest of the book and Caramagna goes completely overboard here.

Lemire's work on team books is really maligned (even though Plutona was great, have you guys read Plutona? It's great) and the plotting on some Extraordinary X-Men issues has been haphazard, but his writing just keeps this going. I want to know what happens to Colossus, I want Sapna and Magik to not kill each other. I want to see more of Anole and Glob. There's enough interesting things going on that I'm still here for this.

Despite sub-par art and lettering, the ending of Apocalypse Wars was satisfying. Even though the issue is really lacking on some areas, Lemire finishes this event with an intriguing set-up for the future of this series.